After working as a product manager in the developer division for the past 4.5 years, I've decided to accept an offer to work in a new position at Microsoft. Starting in March, I will be a product planner working on developer community efforts in a new group within the Windows Live division.
I'll definitely miss the regular interaction with VFP team members and the great Visual FoxPro community. I've also had great experiences working with the WebData XML team on the XML tools story for Visual Studio 2005, doing some community work with the VB team, and helping with content for Channel 9 both in front of and behind the camera. I expect to continue to do interviews and be interviewed for Channel 9 from time to time ongoing since it is such a great site for community efforts and transparency.
The Visual FoxPro Roadmap plans will remain the same. Some of my regular VFP related efforts will be taken over by various members of the VFP team. VS Data program manager Milind Lele, who worked on SP1 for VFP 9.0 and spoke at the Southwest Fox 2005 conference, has been responsible for driving the Sedna project since last year. Milind will also be responsible for SP2 for VFP 9.0 which planned for release 2Q 2007. Alan Griver, group manager for the VS Data team which includes the VFP team, will continue to manage all of the existing plans outlined in the VFP Roadmap. In the next few days, Milind will be posting his first letter on the VFP developer center and continue to post a new monthly with news from the VFP team. Additional related news can be found on the VS Data Team blog. VFP team members will be attending some of the many VFP events this year. I plan to attend the Southwest Fox 2006 conference in Phoenix this October.
I can't say much about my new role just yet. To get an idea of just some of the developer centric things I'll be working on in the Windows Live team, check out the recent 21 minute video by Robert Scoble on Channel 9 interviewing my new manager, Windows Live group product planner Scott Swanson, MSN Messenger APIs. Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting additional news on what the VFP team is working. Later I'll be talking more about my new activities with Windows Live once I get started there.
Ken Levy
Microsoft
http://blogs.msdn.com/klevy