Rebooting the Client Platform Blog

7956075-control-alt-delete[1]It’s been a while – almost exactly a year – since I last wrote an entry for the blog. To tell the truth, I reached a point last summer where I felt as if I’d run out of steam: that I’d run out of new or interesting things to say and I needed to take an informal sabbatical year from blogging.

I actually began this blog seven years ago, back in July 2003, when the exciting topics of discussion were SQL Server “Yukon”, Windows XP, C# 2.0 and even COBOL extensions for .NET. It’s been a long ride since then – an international relocation, several promotions and new roles, a plaque filled with “Ship it” awards, and more than enough anecdotes and material for my memoirs one day. A couple of months ago, I celebrated my ten year anniversary with Microsoft, which in a tech company is pretty much “gold watch” tenure!

The last year has actually been one of the busiest years for Microsoft client technologies, between Windows 7, Silverlight 4, Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Phone 7. As well as writing code, running developer labs, creating developer training kits, speaking at conferences, blogging, and helping run conferences like PDC and MIX, my team have increasingly been reinventing themselves as internet TV stars, with shows like Silverlight TV and Inside Windows Phone providing authoritative content and applied lessons on how to take advantage of our newest technologies. It’s an exhausting but exhilarating ride.

Anyway, my sabbatical year has ended, and I’m excited about rebooting this blog and providing some hopefully insightful thoughts around how we plan, build and evangelize Microsoft client technologies. Over the coming blog posts, I’ll talk about HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9, what’s new with Windows, how WPF and Silverlight intersect, and cover some of the most interesting applications and content that people are creating.

It’s nice to be back – thanks for sticking around!