Starting a new chapter

  • Article

When I originally accepted a job with Microsoft, just over 14 years ago, I chose the company because of the sheer number of different roles that were available – lots of opportunities for new challenges.  That has taken me through roles that included consulting, development, program management, product marketing, and product management.

Starting this week, I have changed roles again, moving from Windows commercial product marketing (which covered the product marketing and product management roles above) to the Windows & Devices Group (WDG), the group that creates Windows, as a principal program manager on the modern deployment team that works on Windows AutoPilot, MDM management, subscription activation, and related technologies.

While that will likely change the typical makeup of my day quite a bit, there will certainly be areas that won’t change:  You’ll still see me blogging (something that wasn’t in my previous job description either), participating in events (talking about modern deployment and management – someone else can talk about Windows as a service), working with customers, MVPs and partners, working with various product groups to address enterprise concerns, etc.  And I’ve been contemplating some new things, e.g. podcasts, videos, and that sort of thing.  So I’m definitely not going to disappear.

The last five years in Windows commercial marketing were a lot of fun, filled with plenty of successes and a fair number of failures too.  Now I’m looking forward to the path ahead.

As always, feel free to reach out to me via e-mail (mniehaus@microsoft.com), Twitter (@mniehaus), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mniehaus/).  And keep deploying Smile  Now, back to work…

 

p.s. If you send me a LinkedIn request, introduce yourself, describe how you know me, explain what you do, etc. -- one downside of having a "director of marketing" title (my old job) is that you get lots of requests from people who want to sell you things.  So if I don't recognize you and just see a generic connection request, I'm likely to ignore the request.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2018
    Congratulations!! I hope that you enjoy the new adventure as much as the last.
    • Anonymous
      February 09, 2018
      Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2018
    Congratulations Michael, and many thanks for your work over the years. You have been, and will continue to be an absolute rock star in the Windows world!
  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2018
    Congrats on the new expanded role. I look forward to your continued technical communications and further insight. I'm most interested in how Microsoft will consider the Public Sector's needs as it relates to WaaS. Perhaps more hybrid or on-prem parallel WaaS solutions (ie Device health, Upgrade readiness, Defender console). And please bring back DisableOSupgrade reg key for those of us that don't want LTSB, but CBB/SAC is to fast! =)
  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2018
    Congrats Michael ! Wish you all the Best and lot of Success :-)
  • Anonymous
    February 11, 2018
    Congrats Michael, and great to see you moving into that area. We have 90% done with our Windows 10 deployment (2500 machines) and are now looking at what modern management and AutoPilot can do for us moving forward.
  • Anonymous
    February 11, 2018
    Congrats :D