Congratulations, we are pleased that you have been chosen to represent your company and the partner community in your area of focus. On behalf of Microsoft, I would like to thank you for taking the time to be part of this effort and the upcoming event.

The Partner Advisory Councils are part of Microsoft Executive Engagement Groups efforts to enable and facilitate Microsoft and our partner to work together from early stages. Your Microsoft field representative believes that you are a senior sales/marketing/solutions executive with your organization and will be able to devote the time and energy to leverage this council, to provide input to Microsoft, and also for you to get an early and deeper look at Microsoft’s directional strategy.

We are very excited about this opportunity to work together and share our plans with you and hear your feedback as part of this council.

Thank you for your continuing support and we look forward to seeing you at the event.

DS Benbow
Partner Strategy

Opening Keynote by Microsoft GM, General Manager of Application Platform Marketing, Jonathan Perera.

We have incredible keynotes by senior Microsoft executives, starting with a special opening keynote by Microsoft GM, Jonathan Perera. We’ll have hot new sessions that bring together diverse topics, from application composition to Software+Services, SQL, SharePoint & Silverlight to Biz Talk, Dev Tools, and everything in between!

You will also be able to participate in all sessions and provide Microsoft feedback on Go-to-market strategies, competition, programs and services as well as products. Please note your feedback is critical to this unique partnership.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Steven Martin
Director, Connected Systems Product Management
Microsoft Corp.

Steven Martin is Director of Product Management at Microsoft Corp. In this role, Martin oversees the daily operations of Microsoft’s middleware platform which include the .NET framework, BizTalk Server and interoperability standards. Martin is responsible for product management in key enterprise computing areas such as business process management, service oriented architecture, business-to-business integration and enterprise application integration. Martin is also charged with integrating feedback from customers, industry partners and analysts into the development process, ensuring that Microsoft’s technology meets the real-world businesses needs of enterprise customers.

Before joining Microsoft, Martin served as Director at Netscape Communications Corp. He previously worked for Cyclone Commerce Inc., where he helped define and promote the EDI/XML B2B Interchange product. Before joining Cyclone Commerce, Martin founded Stonehenge Group Inc., a company specializing in technology consulting and the resale of electronic data interchange software.

Martin is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology.

Nick Abbott
Director, APP Plat Marketing
Microsoft Corp.

Nick Abbott started work at Microsoft as the Developer Tools Product Manager in Sydney Australia in 2000. Nick was responsible for Sales and Marketing of Developer Tools in the Australian Market, as well as evangelism and academic efforts across those tools. In 2003 Nick moved to Redmond and led the Business Development and Partner team for Visual Studio. After the launch of VS2005/SQL2005 and BTS 2006, Nick moved into the central Application Platform team. In his current role as the Director of Application Platform Marketing Nick works closely with Microsoft’s customers, partner and field build campaign and partner marketing strategy for the Application Platform products.

Tom Michel
Director Oracle Compete Strategy
Microsoft Corp.

Tom Michel is a Director within the Application Platform Group at Microsoft Corporation. He has responsibility for the company’s overall Oracle compete strategy and has been with Microsoft for three years. Tom has previous experience in product marketing and management and has worked extensively with sales organizations during stints at PeopleSoft, Accenture, and start-ups in the Bay Area.

John deVadoss
Senior Director, Technical Strategy
Microsoft Corp.

John deVadoss is Senior Director of Technical Strategy in the Application Platform and Developer division at Microsoft.

He has over 15 years of experience in the software industry; he has been at Microsoft for over 9 years, all of it in the enterprise space – as a consultant, as a program manager in the distributed applications platform division, as an architect working with some of Microsoft’s key partners, director of architecture strategy and most recently leading technical strategy for the application platform. Prior to Microsoft he spent many years as a technology consultant in the financial services industry in Silicon Valley.

His areas of interest are broadly in distributed application architectures, data and metadata, systems management and currently on edge architectures (both services and access), but most of all in creating business value from technology investments.