Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has been on a tear recently, from excellent quarterly results to improvement in the distribution of its Windows Vista operating system and Xbox 360 gaming console. Although this tech dinosaur is 30-years-old, it's still having great success in many areas. At the same time, it's facing enormous challenges from upstart competitors that didn't even exist more than a decade ago, like Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Rarely, however, does any credit go to the company's chief financial officer, Chris Liddell. Liddell, a well-versed and extremely articulate professional without a degree in finance (philosophy and engineering, instead) has guided Microsoft through some exciting period in recent years since he took the reigns as CFO in 2005. Remember the billions in Microsoft-initiated shareholder stock buybacks from over a year ago? The huge spending plan in 2006 that was $2 billion over analyst forecasts and that caused a shedding in Microsoft's stock price? How about pushing for more expansions in spending instead of curbing everything to meet quarterly numbers? Liddell has been intimately involved in all of these.

Microsoft, here at the conclusion of 2007, is seemingly hitting on all possible cylinders even in the face of severe challenges to many of its mainstay product offerings. One thing the software giant has going for it is the world's largest private pile of cash that dwarfs Google's pile or any other company's cash hoard. That alone makes for some daring decisions in the future -- ones that will solidify Microsoft's future position or cause the competition to gain a stronger foothold into the company's jugular. Liddell will be holding the main keys regardless of which situation transpires. And he's the right person for the job too.