I seem to have done quite a few interviews recently with some fairly senior people from Microsoft Australia and Microsoft corp in Redmond. Because I’m based in Melbourne and have a full-time job I usually can’t hold face-to-face interviews, which is a pity, but the PR guys always do a good job arranging a catch-up over the phone.
Interviewing is always both exciting and unnerving – you know that the other person has loads of interesting information…the trick is to get them to let go of it! And it’s unnerving because you want to ask the right questions and not look like an uninformed pleb.
A couple which I’ve done recently which I particularly enjoyed were with Tony Wilkinson, Business Operations Director at Microsoft Australia, and Bill Hilf, Microsoft’s Director of Platform Strategy.
The chat with Tony was about Microsoft’s marketing counterattack in the seemingly never-ending Mac vs PC war. APC were kind enough to publish the write-up and you can read it here. Needless to say, the fact that I didn’t grill Tony about why Microsoft was clearly the antithesis of baby rabbits and eco-goodness brought the usual ranters out from under their rocks. Oh well – some people just live to snipe at others….it’s all bit sad, to be honest.
Bill Hilf is one seriously busy guy and I was lucky to score some time with him. Windows IT Pro picked up the write-up and you can check it out here. He had a lot of interesting background to offer with regards to the development of Server Foundation. It will be very interesting to see how this particular product goes in the market. There’s definitely a need for it, but the ultra-small section of the small business market is a difficult one to penetrate, simply because of its diversity and spread.
There’s another interview write-up to come, with Jeff Alexander talking about Windows 7 for IT Pros. Expect to see that one online soon.
