Yes it's true, I'm working for Microsoft

Where to start?

Those of you who have ever worked with Delphi probably recognize me and finding me here might be quite a surprise. I'll be posting more later on how and why I'm here.

For those of you who are not from the Borland community, most of you will not recognize my name and you might be tempted to just classify me as just another hire. So for this first post I won't concentrate on background, accomplishments, or why I'm here. Instead, let me tell you what I do at Microsoft.

What is my position?

My official title is Regional .NET Developer Advisor for the MEA (Middle East and Africa) region. This position is more commonly known as Developer Platform Evangelist or Developer Evangelist. However since my region covers the Middle East, we felt that the word evangelist may not be interpreted properly in all cultures especially by immigration officers who may have limited English and associate evangelists with missionaries and television evanglists. Thus, the word advisor.

I work in the MEA headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey. Our region covers 85 countries and includes all of the Middle East, All of Africa, and a few other places such as Tahiti, two European Union countries of Cyprus and Malta, Turkey, and Pakistan.

What do I do?

It's hard to describe in a few words what my position includes, but I'm responsible for growing the .NET community and .NET adoption. This includes supporting the Developer Evangelists in each of the Microsoft country offices, user groups, MVP's, speaking at conferences, and so forth.

While my region is MEA and this will be my focus, don't let that scare you away from the blog. I'll be posting lots of .NET related content that is not specific to any region.