Reality Check

My Last Day at Microsoft - On to New Adventures in SF!

Today is my last day at Microsoft.

It's truly been an amazing ride. I joined Microsoft in 2008 to lead the Web Platform & Standards team...  and what an experience it has been. Looking back at what we accomplished, we really built a strong foundation for so many things at Microsoft. We built the Microsoft Web Platform, our first web platform that allowed for a one-click installation of all the web development products at Microsoft. We created and launched the Windows Web Application Gallery which included community applications such as DotNetNuke, Drupal, and more for developers wanting to jump-start their web experience. We furthered the relationship and got more internal support for PHP (huge win!). I got to work with the Open Source team on building Microsoft's first open source foundation, CodePlex (now Outercurve). I worked with brilliant teams to help launch BizSpark and WebsiteSpark. I got to lead efforts around the web keynotes at MIX. Oh - and I spent my first of many all-nighters driving launches with amazing engineering teams. You don't know how to truly launch a product until you're taking calls until 3 and 4am in the morning in order to go out the door with a new product at 6am that same day :)

But all rides must come to an end.

I received and accepted an offer last week to work at Juniper Networks as their Director of Community Evangelism. It was a role that was too good to pass up. Looking back at what I truly have passion for, it's really forging that new road - doing things that are brand new, creating that path, pushing the norm, and getting companies on board to move in new directions. Not only is Juniper a stellar and very impressive company, but the role is something I had only dreamed about. After ten years working in the developer community space, I now have the opportunity to really craft and build the vision, the infrastructure, and deliver on building out a brand new space for developers to connect, develop, and learn more about the products and solutions that we offer. Oh, and there's much more coming that I can talk about later in January after I start.

In addition, I get to work with a super smart team to drive this. During the interview process I was just blown away by the folks I met - so much passion, drive, and vision for the solutions and the product. I looked at a variety of roles in different industries, but this job really impressed me. I thought I'd be lucky to get the job. Then I got it - and accepted that day :)

Oh - and there's more! After almost 3 years in Seattle, I made the decision that it's time for me to be home - or what I now consider home - back in the San Francisco Bay Area. My boyfriend and I will be moving back down at the end of December and residing in Marin. Before I moved, I really took the Bay Area for granted. This opportunity at Juniper has allowed me to head back there. It will be GREAT seeing the old crew again and hitting up all the new tech and networking events. I've really missed them!

But back to Microsoft...

Microsoft has a stellar team and I have no doubt in my mind that they'll continue to move in the right direction around their web strategy. I'd like to thank so many people there for inspiring and educating me - those people who are still there, and a few of those that have recently left - - Brian Goldfarb, Guillaume Roques, Brad Becker, Zubair Murtaza, Steven Sklepowich, Michael Bach, Mark Brown, Laurence Moroney, Sheila Gulati (who hired me!), Janie Schwark, Adam Seligman, Eddie Amos, Dan'l Lewin, Matt Thompson, Neil Leslie, Turi Windsteen, Sam Ramji, Robert Duffner, Peter Galli, Grace Francisco, Eric King, James Senior, Daryll McDade, Brandon Watson, Michael Joffe, David Lowe, Scott Guthrie, Bill Staples, Mai-lan Tomsen-Bukovic, Cyra Richardson, Crystal Hoyer, Emilio-Salvador Prieto, Mitra Azizirad, Walid Abu-Hadba, Anil Reddy, Julia Tubino, Karl Noakes, Chris Wilson, Bradley Millington, and many, many more.

What a ride it's been - and I can't wait to start my next adventure!

In the meantime, you can reach me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @lcooney (I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty about that 14 hour drive we're embarking on shortly!).

Happy Holidays!

/LC

 

**Update: for some reason hyperlinks aren't working on Typepad, please see www.microsoft.com/web and www.juniper.net for correct links**

 

jQuery and Microsoft: The Q&A

Now that the news has hit the blogosphere, I'm seeing lots of questions out there about the jQuery/MSFT announcement.

My team pulled together some great Q&A on Friday to discuss the announcement that jQuery is now supported by the Microsoft Developer Platform. Hopefully this helps to answer some of your questions, but feel free to ping me on twitter (laurencooney) or email ([email protected]) if you have any additional questions.

Also, check out the following blogs for more info:

John Resig: http://jquery.com/blog/2008/09/28/jquery-microsoft-nokia/

Scott Guthrie: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/28/jquery-and-microsoft.aspx

Scott Hanselman: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQuerytoshipwithASPNETMVCandVisualStudio.aspx

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Question: What is the announcement around Microsoft’s collaboration with jQuery?

Answer: Microsoft is announcing that it will officially make jQuery a part of the .NET Development platform.

Question: What is jQuery? Where can I find more information on jQuery?

Answer: jQuery is a popular JavaScript library. You can find more information about jQuery on the jQuery website http://jquery.com

Question: Why is Microsoft collaborating with jQuery?

Answer: Microsoft believes in empowering users. We want to make it easier for users to access jQuery because the features offered by jQuery are an excellent complement to the existing rich ASP.NET AJAX Library.  Combined they will provide users with a comprehensive and powerful feature set. jQuery is not a replacement for ASP.NET AJAX. We will continue to work actively on making additions and improvements to ASP.NET AJAX as before.

 

Question: What about other popular script libraries/frameworks are you going to collaborate with?

Answer: Microsoft continues to listen to its users and act based on their requests. If in the future our users tell us that they would like to see other frameworks incorporated as well we will definitely try our best to make that happen.

Question: How are users benefited from this collaboration? How do I take advantage of jQuery for my existing ASP.NET projects?

Answer: Users will be provided a version of jQuery that they can incorporate in their existing or new ASP.NET projects. Users will get the full power of jQuery, combined with rich IntelliSense when creating ASP.NET applications in VisualStudio as well as official Microsoft product support for jQuery when used from an ASP.NET application. jQuery support will also be included in the ASP.NET MVC Beta. Microsoft is currently working on shipping jQuery as a part of the Visual Studio product.

Question: What advantages does this offer for jQuery users that are not using the .NET platform?

Answer: All users will be able to leverage the rich IntelliSense capabilities of Visual Studio when working with jQuery. Microsoft is committed to jQuery and will even be contributing new features and bug fixes based on the needs of the community.

Question: You are including jQuery with the ASP.NET MVC project template, what about Web Forms users?

Answer: Microsoft is fully committed towards our Web Forms users. All our users, not just MVC, will be provided a version of jQuery that they can incorporate in their existing or new projects. When we ship Visual Studio, we will ship jQuery with it and all projects including Web Forms will have easy access to jQuery.

Question: What are the investments Microsoft is making in jQuery?

Answer: In the future Microsoft will provide additional ASP.NET controls, samples and code-snippets that leverage jQuery. Microsoft is committed to jQuery and will even be contributing new features and bug fixes based on the needs of the community.

 

Question: What happens if our ASP.NET applications take a dependency on jQuery and run into issues? How will Microsoft address bugs in jQuery? Who can I contact if I run into problems using jQuery with my ASP.NET app?

Answer: Microsoft is committed to stand behind all its users. If your ASP.NET application takes a dependency on jQuery, and you run in to issues with jQuery, you can take advantage of Microsoft support just as you would with any Microsoft product.

Question: Is there a guarantee that Microsoft will be able to address all bugs/issues with jQuery?

Answer: Microsoft will try it’s best to address all issues faced by our customers but please be advised that Microsoft has to submit these changes to the jQuery development team for approval like all other contributors to jQuery.  Although we expect that most of the changes we make will be approved by the jQuery development team there is no guarantee. The jQuery development team has the final authority on what does/does not go in jQuery.

Question: What happens when an updated version of jQuery is released?

Answer: The location of jQuery in the installation folders will be made well known. All users will need to do is to replace the old version with the new one. 

 

Question: What license is Microsoft offering for jQuery? Are the terms/conditions to use jQuery different when I use the version from Microsoft?

Answer: Microsoft is providing jQuery as-is. The licensing jQuery users are used to will remain, and we'll continue to provide jQuery under the existing MIT License.