Oliver Bell’s Weblog

Microsoft is a large and complex company, working here is always very different to the way that it is frequently presented in the press.

Externally jokes are sometimes made about how the company moves in an almost borg like fashion, internally we are around seventy thousand individuals with individual styles and individual points of view. Employees discuss, we argue, sometimes we reach consensus, but whatever the mode of the day everybody shares a common passion for technology, for the company and for the industry within which we all operate.

Every now and again friendships form in the midst of the hustle and bustle of day to day activity. Those friends become people you can test ideas with, trust the intellectual value of the response you get back and collaboratively build new strategies, products and methods of customer engagement in partnership with.

One such person for me is a member of our European business by the name of David Rowe. When I first bumped into David he was in a position that involved sharing a best practice project that we had worked on alongside a significant Public Sector customer in the United Kingdom with other customers around the globe, the project was one that I had been involved with while I worked in the United Kingdom prior to my transfer out to the USA.

Given that my role in Redmond at the time was that of Lead Technical Strategist for our Public Sector business I got the opportunity to travel a little with David and join many of the customer presentations and meetings that were set up for him around the world.

Everywhere we went he quickly gained the respect of customers, partners and the local subsidiary teams.

In the down time between meetings we would debate areas of the industry and technology, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing and sometimes almost coming to blows.

Over the years we have embarked on a couple of big projects in partnership, including the Solutions Sharing Network, which was born out of customer conversations in Holland and Sweden, and the Connected Government Framework which is now the basis of Microsoft’s sales and technical strategy in the Public Sector.

During this time I have come to consider David a mentor, his educational background and his experience in the industry has played a significant role in shaping plans, products and strategies that I have been working on.

One of the positive things about a company of seventy thousand individuals is that somebody is always joining, bringing new ideas and fresh ways of thinking about problems, at the same time somebody else is always planning to leave and move on to their next challenge.

Today is David’s last day with the company as he returns back to his home country of Australia and picks up a role there with a well respected local venture capital organization. As an Australian who originally joined us from a VC company several years ago he returning to both his commercial and geographic roots.

So, I just wanted to say thank you,  for the friendship, for the mentor ship and for your innate ability to instill common sense in me on the frequent occasions when it was needed!

Thank you, and the very best of luck to you David!