New Beginnings

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Friday was my last day on the XML team at Microsoft. On Monday I start work as a Program Manager on MSN Communication Services Platform team. This team is responsible for the server side implementation of several aspects of MSN including MSN Messenger, some of Hotmail and MSN Groups.

My immediate responsibilities will involve working on the back end of MSN Spaces which is a hosted blogging service in the same vein as Blogger, LiveJournal and TypePad. The site is currently in beta for the Japanese audience.

This means I'll no longer be responsible for the XML Developer Center on MSDN which now will be managed by Irwin Dolobowsky. My work-related blog will shortly no longer appear on that page. However I will continue to write the Extreme XML column on a bi-monthly basis. Arpan Desai is the contact person for the aspects of the XML programming model in the .NET Framework I was responsible for, specifically the System.Xml.XPath namespace, System.Xml.Schema namespace and the System.Xml.XmlNode hierarchy.

If you are curious as to why I decided to make this move, some of the thinking behind my decision can be gleaned from my weblog post Social Software is the Platform of the Future. 

Update: This move does not change my status as the project lead on RSS Bandit.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    Awesome, Dare! Congratulations on the increased scope in social computing.
  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    Wow! The XML MVPs will miss ya.
  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    Congrats- I'm glad to see someone who has been active in this space for a long time moving into this kind of role.
  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    Congrats Dare!

    So does this mean you're the person to look for about increasing MSN Messenger contacts from 150 contacts to something much higher?

    It is an issue Scoble posted about on his blog (http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/08/27.html#a8166) a few months ago.
  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    Good Luck, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with for all us users :)
  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2004
    William,
    The folks who'd be responsible for that are on my team and I'm sure they've gotten that feedback a lot already. I'll be sure to add my voice to those asking for a higher limit.
  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2004
    Greetings Dare,
    All the changes represent new challenges!
    Very good luck!
  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2004
    Good Luck, Dare !

    Thanks for bringing us those lovely XML Namespaces and those aspects of the XML programming model in the .NET Framework. Really enjoyed your work and blog.