Hello Microsoft Project World!

With the launch of SharePoint 2010 and the end of Microsoft’s Fiscal Year 2010, I was ready to look for my next big challenge! I’ve been on the SharePoint team leading Technical Product Management for many years, and it has been a phenomenal experience! I joined the SharePoint team in 2003 and since then have had the opportunity to meet visionary customers, innovative partners and some of the brightest product managers, engineers & solution specialists.

As I looked for my next big challenge, I looked for a technology that had potential, was focused on delivering productivity solutions (*ideally* related to SharePoint) and that gave me more scope from a product management perspective. The one opportunity that rose above the rest was becoming the leader for the Microsoft Project Product Management team! 

What specifically excites me about Project is the technology, value proposition, partner ecosystem and the vision. For those of you not familiar with Project, Project consists of the Project 2010 client (Standard & Professional) as well as Project Server 2010 (built on top of SharePoint Server 2010). In fact, Project Server 2010 is a SharePoint Service Application!

So while I’m not going very far and staying in the extended family, I do have a new focus and an exciting opportunity! Most importantly, the people I’ve met in the Project world have been inspiring – some old faces & some new faces. These are people who believe in a vision of delivering technology to manage work effectively taking productivity to another level. The opportunities in this space are limitless as everyone needs to manage “projects” to be effective from individuals at home to professionals at work to entire organizations.

I’ll share a lot more later, but now I’m off to Washington DC to participate in the Worldwide Partner Conference next week to meet Project Partners!

Arpan Shah
Director, Project
Microsoft Corporation