Wednesday, April 20, 2005

I recently accepted a new job and have resigned my post as Director, Platform Evangelism at Microsoft after almost 8 years with the company. I am joining Skype and the family and I will be moving to the UK. I have taken a position on the product and services team at Skype. I have decided that Microsoft and I need to go our separate ways and it is time to move to new pastures.

Microsoft lost me for many reasons, Skype gained me for many reasons. I will let you draw your own conclusions rather than disparage my Microsoft colleagues or over hype my new colleagues and company. I don't believe in writing diatribes and manifestos when moving on from a job so I will spare you the soapboxing. Microsoft has its challenges, we all know what they are, they are more than apparent these days. Skype has its opportunties we all know what they are, who wouldn't like to see the communication and collaboration technologies in their lives get much much smarter and cheaper?

I decided to swap problem sets from one that I am not passionate about any more to one that I AM deeply passionate about. I just couldn't go on being an evangelist for a gospel that I don't believe I can sing. I am returning to focus on what I enjoy most, building amazing things that make people happy, change lives, and make money. In this case Skype was a better place for me to do this and one that shares my core values and beliefs in how the future of both software and business will unfold.

I ... am very excited to be in a cross platform company. The internet is and has been the new platform since 1997 when it became aparent that the most exciting things in software that were changing how we used computers were all cross platform, simple, elegant, fast, and complimented our basic human need to communicate and collaborate with others.