About the Author
My name is Blair Neumann and I am the Microsoft Program Manager in charge of update deployment for the Developer Division Customer Product-lifecycle Experience (DD.CPX) team. That's a long way of saying that I am the person in charge of getting product updates (service packs and hotfixes) for Visual Studio and the .NET Framework into distribution channels like Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and the Microsoft Download Center. Okay, that was longer.
I started doing this full-time in August, 2005. I had been the go-to guy in QA for update deployment issues on the same team for about the year and a half previous.
I love the update deployment space. I truly believe that every single update that we deliver helps make the internet a better and safer place.
I grew up about a mile from Microsoft main campus and literally watched it grow. It was always a dream of mine to work here.
Stepping back, I took a bachelor's degree in Psychology before deciding to enter the tech world as the dot-com bubble was still forming. I did product support for Windows 98 the day that it shipped and later helped test Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Millennium Edition. I was away from Microsoft between 2000 and 2003 during which time I helped to develop in-flight email services and went back to school to brush up on my Computer Science fundamentals. I dropped out of CS graduate school in 2003 (in good standing) to join Microsoft full-time. The rest of this history can be found above.
