Who is this guy ?

It’s Bill Hilf, Microsoft General Manager of Platform Strategy.

There was allot of press over the last few weeks about the sudden “vaporization” of Martin Taylor.

I’ve had several questions about what this means as Martin as influential in Microsoft strategy and close to Steve Ballmer.

In actuality, Martin moved out of platform strategy some time ago and Bill’s been “the man”  for a number of months already.

I had several conversations with Martin and he is a very bright guy.

But I’ve had lots of conversations with Bill and he is a REALLY bright guy. (In fact I’ll be on stage with Bill this weekend at the Microsoft Global Technology Exchange.)

Billl led IBM’s Open Source Strategy and was the VP Of Engineering at eToys (Translation knows Microsoft technology and our competitors technology and has actually built stuff in the real world.)

I almost went to work for Bill last year but he really needed me in Redmond and I just wasn’t ready to move yet.

So keep your eye out for Bill. In the wake of Bill’s announcement a few weeks ago we’re all looking to see how Microsoft thought leadership re-aligns.

Look for Bill to be one of the real key contributers.