There are lots of different tools out there to automate the sales process as well as methodologies.  In most companies, sales teams cobble together several different tools or collections of tools to in the quest to automate tasks and free up their...(read more)

A while back I switched roles at Microsoft and am now covering Sales Force Automation and Customer Service.  Here at Microsoft we are working hard to sell to our customers in a way that provides solutions to common business problems.  In that...(read more)

Last week I had the opportunity to spend some time with Sam Addeo and Webb Armentrout of Manhattan Associates.  You may not know Manhattan Associates, but their software is used by companies large and small to manufacture and distribute both real...(read more)

The US ISV team is holding an Incubation week in the Mountain View MTC.  The event is targeted at startups and students driving awareness around Silverlight, Windows Live and other Next Gen Internet technologies. It has been interesting to follow...(read more)

So in our family we are very sports oriented. Since I have five children we live our lives according to the sport seasons. Right now its football . I've been helping coach my ten year old's team and last year they won the South Puget Sound Super Bowl...(read more)

I don't usually put out posts like this one, but I really want a Tesla. I can't afford one, but I think a silent fast car is the pinnacle of sheek. I do see that GM has a more affordable concept car in the works, but 0-60 is around 6 secs. vs the Tesla...(read more)

Video: Jack Gudenkauf on the BCL and Add-ins Several weeks back I was able to coax Jack into doing an interview on the CLR targeted at ISVs. Jack talks about the BCL team and how they work within the larger Server and Tools business unit. ...(read more)

Way back in 1991 a small company created a new Operating System called BeOS. The timeline is similar to Linux and almost as interesting, but it's a story wrought of high hopes and failure. (Ok, not ultimate failure as it has been newly resurrected as...(read more)

So this week I came across a cool new site. DotNetKicks.com This last week Gavin Joyce open-sourced the code base and I'd like to help drive traffic to the site. Not because he took the code base Open Source. I like the concept. The concept is...(read more)

Yesterday at the Worldwide Partner Conference Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft will be entering the software services space and launched MSCRM Live. The reaction seems to run the gamut from downright surprise to outright consternation even though...(read more)

I run Ubuntu on my main desktop machine at home and I've been watching Mono for quite a while. I was elated when the Microsoft-Novell agreement was put into place this fall because it meant Mono was getting something like an "official stamp of approval...(read more)

Video Interview: Paul Andrew on Workflow Foundation In this interview I caught a few minutes of Paul's time to talk about Workflow Foundation or WF for short. Paul moved to Redmond from down under to take a role on the Evangelism team covering WF and...(read more)

Video: Nat Natarajan on FY08 Global ISV Strategy I was able to grab a few minutes of Nat's time 2 weeks back. In this interview Nat is all business as I ping him about how Microsoft partners with the largest Independent Software Vendors. We talk about...(read more)

I'm throwing this up here since I've been asked several times recently for this very simple recipe. Every Friday night at our home is "movie night" where no one has friends over and we all sit around the television watching a child appropriate movie....(read more)

I have a very busy travel schedule, but I want to fit in short 10 minute videos about the technologies and their owners. Next week I'll be posting a video of an interview with Nat Natarajan talking about our FY08 Goals and Strategies. In March I moved...(read more)

So the last year I've learned what it is like to be bullied. It's not fun, I won't go into particulars, but the base idea is that a group of neighborhood women decided to begin bullying my wife and kids two years back. We've been in and out court quite...(read more)

I was able to sit down with the great Brad Abrams two weeks back. It was a very interesting interview where I mauled the word Microsoft and no I didn't fix it in post editing. Brad provides a quick review of his career and answers some hard ISV focused...(read more)

So I wake up today and my stomach is finally not wrenched in knots. I hate the stomach flu, but it does give you time to realize how good life is when you are not ailing. For most of this week I have felt like wretching, but never quite able to. Sooo...(read more)

So this afternoon I'm looking around for Miguel de Icaza 's email address on the net. Why I didn't just check his blog in the first place, I don't know. I found it by first reading the Mono page on Wikipedia. On the Wikipedia page for Mono, however...(read more)

So recent news has IBM suing Amazon over certain patent infringements. How does this bode for the industry overall? Not very well. If many haven't noticed, IBM has been collecting a war chest of patents in the last 10 years. How as this strategy been...(read more)