After running one of the more successful Silicon Valley acquisitions by Microsoft for several years, Tellme Networks founder and GM Mike McCue (pictured here) will be leaving the company at the end of June.

As part of the transition, Zig Serafin, who has been running a lot of the speech technology efforts for the software giant at its Redmond, Wash., HQ, is taking over the voice services subsidiary and all the other related units.

They will be made into a single, yet-unnamed, team with about 400 employees in total.

McCue and Serafin are now meeting with Tellme staff at its Mountain View, Calif., HQ about the changeover.

“It was time to move on, after a long and really successful time at a big company,” said McCue, in an interview with BoomTown two weeks ago. “Voice technology is an area that I think Microsoft is committed to excelling in and the new configuration will help ensure that.”

Serafin (pictured here), a 10-year Microsoft veteran, said as much in another interview yesterday. “This is an opportunity to bring together the group to allow it to innovate across Microsoft,” he said. “We really want to advance this user interface for computing.”

Serafin said he would be spending four days a week in Silicon Valley, as part of that effort, using Tellme as the center of a “whole new speech center of excellence.”

Microsoft (MSFT) has long been aiming at differentiating itself from the popular iPhone from Apple (AAPL), which has revolutionized the mobile market via its innovative touch and movement technology, by drilling down on making speech recognition technology a popular consumer application.

It bought Tellme in 2007 for $800 million as part of that effort. Competitors in the space include Google (GOOG) and Nuance.

For example, Tellme recently announced “one-button” voice access for Windows-enabled mobile phones, as well as some new technologies to improve call automation for customer service centers.

McCue has been a pioneer in the use of speech in the mobile arena, founding Tellme in 1999. Previous to Tellme, he was VP of technology at Netscape, the once-dominant browser company.

McCue said he will be taking some time off after he leaves Tellme and then plans on working on another start-up and advising companies.

Below is a picture from a 1999 board meeting at Tellme, when it was private. It includes McCue, as well as former Netscape execs Peter Currie and Mike Homer (click on image to make it larger).

And, below that, are two video interviews I did with McCue in March of last year.

One is a tour of the Tellme HQ and another is a longer chat with McCue–whom I once called the “Patty Hearst of Silicon Valley” for being so dang sunny in an Associated Press story about what life was like after a takeover by the software giant, in the midst of Microsoft’s failed attempt to buy Yahoo (YHOO).

In it, I noted that he displayed “the cheeriness of someone with acute Stockholm syndrome and $800 million in Microsoft money.”

Tellme HQ Tour:

McCue Talks About Mobile Devices:

Back in the heyday, Peter Currie was the money man to see in Silicon Valley.

As CFO of Netscape Communications, he led the start-up into history, as the first great Internet rocket ship, when it went public on Aug. 9, 1995.

With the first consumer-friendly browser software, which made the Web easily understandable to the masses, Netscape was at the red-hot center of the nascent digital revolution.

“Wall Street went bonkers,” said one news reporter about the IPO, and the craziness did not stop for quite a while.

Rising to insane levels, the stock was ground zero of the Internet gold rush too, despite the fact that it had no profits to speak of.

But it did have a 23-year-old co-founder and tech wunderkind in Marc Andreessen, and a growth trajectory that was astounding.

If you think it sounds somewhat similar to Facebook today–where Currie will now help out as temporary financial adviser after the social-networking site parted ways with its CFO, Gideon Yu, yesterday, following mutual disagreements and announced a search for a replacement–you are correct.

In that job, the 53-year-old Currie will be helping Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, 24, navigate–albeit temporarily–through some stormy economics seas on a journey that will hopefully end in an initial public offering.

The search for a new CFO will also involve Currie, obviously, and will be conducted by Jim Citrin of Spencer Stuart.

But until a new CFO is in place, Facebook’s quest still entails sorting out a substantive advertising monetization strategy while also keeping up its speedy growth rates and managing the high costs that mount with its popularity.

That certainly was Netscape’s major challenge, which it never met successfully and which was made worse by intense attacks from Microsoft (MSFT) on Netscape’s core browser business.

That eventually led to the antitrust trial against the software giant, even as Netscape saw its star fall dramatically.

It was sold to AOL in 1998 for $4 billion, a shadow of its bubble valuation, and is now more of a footnote than an ongoing tech product (although the now-popular Mozilla browser is a direct descendant of Netscape).

In fact, in 2008, Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL dropped its support for the Netscape browser and said it was no longer releasing new versions.

Still, a lot of former Netscape execs now hold other key jobs in the Web space.

Its investor relations exec, Quincy Smith, now heads up the digital arm of CBS (CBS), for example.

And Andreessen has started a number of companies and has transformed himself into an kind of elder statesman of Silicon Valley of late, as well as a newly minted venture investor.

Andreessen, many sources said, was a shadow influence on Zuckerberg’s decisions related to Yu, with whom relations had gotten tense, and to bring in Currie (pictured here).

Currie is certainly a great choice, in terms of the close-knit tech sector’s respect and experience.

Currie is also unusually tall, aggressively avuncular and laid-back, loves Elvis and enjoys pranking reporters like BoomTown. (Case in point: He once tried to spread the rumor that I am short due to a medical condition.)

Now the president of Currie Capital, a private investment firm, he had previously worked at General Atlantic in private equity.

After Netscape, he was a partner and co-founder of the Barksdale Group, an early-stage venture capital firm.

Before Netscape, he was CFO of McCaw Cellular Communications and also worked at Morgan Stanley (MS).

Currie is also board-happy, serving as a director of a variety of tech firms, private and public. They have included CNET Networks, Critical Path, Clearwire (CLWR), Safeco, Ofoto, Tellme Networks and Zantaz, as well as Sun Microsystems (JAVA).

He has an MBA from Stanford University and went to Williams College.

Here is the video interview I did with Currie and others at an event to support his friend and former Netscape exec Mike Homer, who recently died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Currie is at the 2:16-minute mark):

(Image of Netscape IPO T-shirt courtesy of intothefuzz on Flickr.)

His funeral is today at 10:30 a.m. at Saint Raymond Catholic Church in Menlo Park.

A “Friends of Mike Homer” Facebook group page has also been created, with lots of great memories posted on its wall.

In 2007, Homer (pictured here with Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen) was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

A rare, neurodegenerative “prion” disease, which in Homer’s case occurred sporadically rather than via infection (the well-known variant that occurs in animals is called mad cow disease), CJD’s incidence is one case in a million annually, and few survive beyond a year after exhibiting symptoms.

There is no known cure for CJD, and treatments have been few. That might change, given the push that Homer, his family and friends had been making to accelerate the pace of discovery for treatments and a cure by raising many millions of dollars for the cause and pushing for even more aggressive development.

Here is the obituary that the Homer family wrote:

Michael (Mike) J. Homer: February 24, 1958-February 1, 2009

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation at www.cjdfoundation.org.

We all liked Mike. In fact, we all loved the pugnacious, energetic and restlessly entrepreneurial Silicon Valley exec.

Sadly for those who knew him, Mike Homer died today at his home surrounded by family and friends, after a long battle with a severe illness. He was 50.

Homer is survived by his wife, Kristina, and three young children: James, Jack and Lucy.

His funeral is at Saint Raymond’s Catholic Church in Menlo Park on Thursday.

In 2007, Homer was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

A rare, neurodegenerative “prion” disease, which in Homer’s case has occurred sporadically rather than via infection (the well-known variant that occurs in animals is called mad cow disease), CJD’s incidence is one case in a million annually, and few survive beyond a year after exhibiting symptoms.

His illness inspired his family and many friends to find treatments and a cure for the cruel disease, and include the man–Dr. Stanley Prusiner–who won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering prions, infectious agents that are at the heart of CJD.

In late 2006, Homer began suffering from memory problems. Another close friend, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, aided Homer in getting to the right doctors at Stanford University Hospital, where he was diagnosed.

Quickly, via angel investor and close Homer friend Ron Conway, who serves on the board of the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Foundation, Homer’s case was moved to UCSF. The hospital there is the only place in this country that has a major laboratory doing both research and clinical trials on CJD.

Still, there is no known cure for CJD, and treatments have been few. That might change, given the push that Homer, his family and friends had been making to accelerate the pace of discovery for treatments and a cure by raising many millions of dollars for the cause and pushing for even more aggressive development.

At an event in Palo Alto in 2007 for those interested in helping beat CJD–organized by Conway and well-known Silicon Valley exec and Homer mentor Bill Campbell, with Homer in attendance–he was in fine form, greeting well-wishers with a laugh and sassy attitude, especially given the dire situation and obvious difficulties with speech and movement.

As I wrote then:

Such fighting spirit was typical of Homer, whom I met when I was doing my first book on the rise of America Online more than a decade ago, when he was an executive at the then-high-flying Netscape.

He had also, like many, put in time at Apple and was known throughout the industry for his hard-charging and straightforward style. He needed it in the later days of Netscape, when he arduously tried to shift the company’s focus from a browser-software business besieged by Microsoft to a portal business.

Despite his sometimes tough demeanor, Homer was always willing–unlike so many others–to debate his business in an all-out-on-the-table manner I found refreshing compared to the sometimes earnest and smooth spin of most dot-com entrepreneurs.

Most of all, even when you disagreed over an issue, he always left such arguments at work and was ready with his quick laugh or a razor-sharp quip no matter what.

Recently, before his illness, Homer had been investing in and mentoring a series of start-ups. But he had also been focusing a lot on philanthropy and, most of all, his family and, especially, his three small children.”

My deep condolences go out to them and, really, everyone who had the privilege of knowing Mike.

More about his career and memories of Mike to come. But until then, here’s the video that was shot at the 2007 Palo Alto event called “The Fight for Mike,” which is introduced by Campbell:

Last year, BoomTown wrote about the struggle of Homer, the longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur (pictured here; I met him in the mid-1990s, when he was an exec at Netscape).

Unfortunately, Homer continues to suffer from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), for which he is under treatment at the University of California at San Francisco.

“The Fight for Mike” has raised $7 million for CJD at UCSF, where Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner–who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering the prion protein that causes CJD–is working on a major project aimed at defeating neurodegenerative diseases.

Now comes a unique collaboration between YouTube and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, organized by two well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Ron Conway and Bill Campbell, with the help of YouTube Co-Founder Chad Hurley.

Conway and Campbell, along with the Homer family, have led the efforts to help find a cure for Homer.

Naturally, given Homer’s background, a digital initiative was inevitable.

Thus, the new project is the kick-off of the Memory and Aging Center’s “Defeat Dementia” campaign at UCSF, which is trying to use the Web and other digital technologies to help find new ways to get information out about public health issues.

Along with CJD, the YouTube effort will also focus on Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s, ALS and Alzheimer’s and try to engage the public and the medical community in a search for the causes and cures of these debilitating neurodegenerative conditions.

On the channel: videos of clinical-researchers and physicians discussing characteristics of the diseases; personal stories of patients and family members; and videos featuring advice and coping strategies from health-care professionals.

There is also now a Defeat Dementia Facebook group on the topic, and UCSF also has a partnership with Veodia.

Here is a video I did with Conway this week about the effort:

Friends and colleagues of the well-known tech veteran came together to learn about his severe illness–he was recently diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The hour-long event included speeches by close Homer friends and tech luminaries, Bill Campbell and Ron Conway, information about CJD from doctors at the University of California at San Francisco, where Homer is being treated, and questions from the audience of hundreds.

A rare, neurodegenerative prion disease, which in Homer’s case has occurred sporadically rather than via infection (the well-known variant that occurs in animals is called mad cow disease), CJD’s incidence is one case in a million annually. Few survive beyond a year after exhibiting symptoms, and there is no known cure for CJD.

The hospital at UCSF is the only place in this country that has a major laboratory doing both research and clinical trials. And Homer, his family and friends are making a big push to accelerate the pace of discovery for treatments and a cure, by raising money for the cause and pushing for even more aggressive development.

For those who want to help, there are several ways, including via donation to the Homer Family Foundation’s Program for Brain Disease Research (P.O. Box 10195, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); the Homer Family Fund for Brain Research at the Harris myCFO Foundation (P.O. Box 10196, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); or the UCSF Foundation, specifically to the “Fight for Mike Fund” or generally for neurodegenerative disease research and treatment.

Here is the long video, which–even at almost 60 minutes–is well worth it:

They include: the CJD Alliance and the CJD Support Network in the United Kingdom; CJD Voice; and CJD Aware!. There are many other such groups, all using the Web to trade the latest information about this tragic illness.

Last week, a coterie of major tech players and friends of Homer’s gathered to try to make some progress beating the rare, neurodegenerative prion disease, which in Homer’s case has occurred sporadically rather than via infection (the well-known variant that occurs in animals is called mad cow disease).

CJD’s incidence is one case in a million annually, and few survive beyond a year after exhibiting symptoms.

Homer is being treated at the University of California at San Francisco, where the hospital is the only place in this country that has a major laboratory doing both research and clinical trials.

For those who want to help Homer’s cause, there are several ways, including via donation to the Homer Family Foundation’s Program for Brain Disease Research (P.O. Box 10195, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); the Homer Family Fund for Brain Research at the Harris myCFO Foundation (P.O. Box 10196, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); or the UCSF Foundation, specifically to the “Fight for Mike Fund” or generally for neurodegenerative disease research and treatment.

In an event organized by Homer and his wife, Kristina, as well as close friends and well-known industry players Bill Campbell and Ron Conway, several hundred people crowded into the Palo Alto Sheraton to get a primer course about CJD from doctors at the University of California at San Francisco. (See video below.)

These doctors also happen to be the leading specialists in the world trying to find treatments and a cure for the cruel disease and include the man–Dr. Stanley Prusiner–who won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering “prions,” infectious agents that are at the heart of CJD.

A rare, neurodegenerative prion disease, which in Homer’s case has occurred sporadically rather than via infection (the well-known variant that occurs in animals is called mad cow disease), CJD’s incidence is one case in a million annually, and few survive beyond a year after exhibiting symptoms.

Homer had been suffering from memory problems late last year. Another close friend, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, aided Homer in getting to the right doctors at Stanford University Hospital, where he was diagnosed.

Quickly, via Conway, who serves on the board of the UCSF Medical Foundation, Homer’s case was moved to UCSF, where he is benefitting from the latest research and medications. The hospital is the only place in this country that has a major laboratory doing both research and clinical trials.

The problem is that, right now, there is no known cure for CJD, and treatments have been few. That might change, given the push that Homer, his family and his friends are making to accelerate the pace of discovery for treatments and a cure, by raising money for the cause and pushing for even more aggressive development.

Besides Prusiner, who is consulting on Homer’s case, Drs. Bruce Miller and Michael Geschwind–who are working on a major study about the impact of a promising drug treatment using quinacrine–are also treating him, along with many others at UCSF.

Many were in attendance last night, along with a range of friends, family and scores of people who have worked with Homer over his long years in the tech industry.

The atmosphere was, rather than depressed over the tragic turn of events, very energetic about making quick breakthroughs, at least related to treatments that could slow the progress of Homer’s illness, until a cure can be found.

Homer himself, who struggles with speech and movement, was also in fine form, greeting well-wishers with a laugh and sassy attitude, especially given the dire situation.

Such fighting spirit is typical of Homer, whom I met when I was doing my first book on the rise of America Online more than a decade ago, when he was an executive at the then-high-flying Netscape.

He had also, like many, put in time at Apple and was known throughout the industry for his hard-charging and straightforward style. He needed it in the later days of Netscape, when he arduously tried to shift the company’s focus from a browser-software business besieged by Microsoft to a portal business.

Despite his sometimes tough demeanor, Homer was always willing–unlike so many others–to debate his business in an all-out-on-the-table manner I found refreshing compared to the sometimes earnest and smooth spin of most dot-com entrepreneurs.

Most of all, even when you disagreed over an issue, he always left such arguments at work and was ready with his quick laugh or a razor-sharp quip no matter what.

Recently, before his illness, Homer had been investing in and mentoring a series of start-ups. But he had also been focusing a lot on philanthropy and, most of all, his family and, especially, his three small children.

He talked a lot last night about wanting to be around for his kids. So to make that happen, Homer and others made the first step last night, which was designed to spur the efforts via fundraising and sharp focus on beating CJD.

For those who want to help, there are several ways, including via donation to the Homer Family Foundation’s Program for Brain Disease Research (P.O. Box 10195, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); the Homer Family Fund for Brain Research at the Harris myCFO Foundation (P.O. Box 10196, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303); or the UCSF Foundation, specifically to the “Fight for Mike Fund” or generally for neurodegenerative disease research and treatment.

Here is a video of the event last night, with some messages from friends of Homer’s, who needs all the good wishes he can get right now: