Cha-Cha-Changes

At Microsoft, the only constant is change...

It's been a wild ride as the C# Product Manager, but I'm officially changing jobs and to become the Lead Product Manager for the Visual Studio Express product line. Leaving C# was a hard decision, especially because IMNSHO, the C# team is one of the best teams in the company and with C# 3.0 the future of C# is bright (LINQ == LOVE)! So why switch jobs? Well that's simple, Visual Studio Express is a great product and with dedicated product management resources, we can really take it to the next level! Before my new job was created, Visual Studio Express didn't have any dedicated Product Management headcount. Instead it was something that Brian Keller and I did because we knew Express would be a hit and because we were both passionate about the product. Now, we'll actually have a dedicated team for Visual Studio Express :)  

It's been a wild ride in the close to two years I've been the C# Product Manager. Here are just some of my favorite moments I've blogged about:

The Microsoft's not using Managed Code Myth
One of the biggest challenges in my old job was that customers didn't think Microsoft was using managed code. Well, the truth is that we have a good amount of managed code in the three years that the .NET Framework has been released including operating systems, client tools, Web properties, and Intranet applications. For those of you that refuse to believe, here's an estimate of the lines of managed code in Microsoft applications that I got permission to blog about:

  • Visual Studio 2005: 7.5 million lines
  • SQL Server 2005: 3 million lines
  • BizTalk Server: 2 million lines
  • Visual Studio Team System: 1.7 million lines
  • Windows Presentation Foundation: 900K lines
  • Windows Sharepoint Services: 750K lines
  • Expression Interactive Designer: 250K lines  
  • Sharepoint Portal Server: 200K lines
  • Content Management Server: 100K lines

Most importantly I wanted to thank the members of the C# community including RDs, MVPs, Codewise partners, all six of my blog readers and everyone else I'm forgetting for your help and constructive feedback over the years.

If any of you are interested in becoming a product manager for C#, we are of course hiring :)