Welcome from Jean-Paul Gomes: Who I Am and What I Do Around Here

I am Jean-Paul Gomes, a Senior Product Manager  in the Office Business Platform Marketing Group at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA.  I am currently responsible for SharePoint Web Content Management and Internet Business. In my early career, I was working in France on classified next generation civilian supersonic aircrafts in Aerospatiale's engineering department; now part of EADS. It was fascinating to work with those who designed and engineered today's largest commercial jumbo jet (Airbus A380; then code-named A3XX), to experience the inauguration of its $1.5B assembly line in my hometown, Toulouse, to brainstorm about the somewhat disconcerting possibility of carrying the monumental A380 wings from their manufacturing site in Broughton,UK, atop (piggyback) the then world's largest cargo plane (AN225), or yet to play with a Cray One supercomputer to improve the Concorde's aerodynamic performance. Atomistically, everything I was working on seemed to move at the speed of light; holistically though, my project's release cycle felt like an eternity-the plane I was working on could not fly before 2025 as we were stretching the limits of aeronautics. We were planning on using breakthrough composite materials whose fatigue diagnostics and monitoring tools had yet to be developed and whose application for commercial air transportation had yet to be certified.

At the same time, I was also fascinated by the software industry's ability to bring innovation to market in a fraction of that time and that alone was the main driver behind my decision to accept switching careers after Microsoft France approached me to hire me over. There, I started working as a Knowledge Management Marketing Specialist and quickly transitioned to core Product Management-a discipline I had developed interest in during my mid 90's internships at Microsoft. Although in that capacity I had the pleasure to launch Exchange Server 2000, Small Business Server 2000, and BackOffice Server 2000, it is the SharePoint Products & Technologies that I have become the most passionate about, for two main reasons.

First, I have seen SharePoint's first steps-from Tahoe in early 2000 all the way through today's SharePoint Server 2010 Beta1. And, as with anything that one helps grow, it is hard not to develop some form of attachment.

Second, I find it very fulfilling to be working on a technology that helps over 17,000 customers and 4,200 certified partners both drive their businesses and embrace the New World Of Work. It is right around 2005 that things became all the more exciting on two fronts.

On the personal front, I took on June 11^th 2005 my first ever one-way plane ticket to what would become my new home land for at least quite a few years, Redmond, WA, USA. Microsoft Corp. had just hired me over. It has been quite a transformational experience and I have been relishing every minute of it-whether it is the recognition from my Senior Vice President who takes time out of his busy schedule to greet me in person and engage in a personal conversation, whether it is the pride of being part of a company that demonstrates Community Stewardship by giving time, talents, and financial contributions ($87.7M in 2008) to nearly 16,500 nonprofit organizations serving local, national and international communities around the world, or whether it is the noble inspiration from my Senior Leadership Team who strives to avoid organizing major company events on religious observance days-thereby magnifying Microsoft's core values of Diversity and Inclusion. 

On the professional front, I was experiencing firsthand the development of the 2007 release of SharePoint that would bring Business Productivity and the Internet Business to an entirely new level-unifying on a single platform all the core services indispensable to Enterprises to doing "anything" web, inside or outside the firewall. Ever since Web Content Management capabilities made it into SharePoint in 2007, hundreds of global companies-many from the Fortune 500 or Forbes Global 2000-have embraced SharePoint to attract new and larger audiences, develop customer loyalty, and monetize products, services, and content (especially when SharePoint is coupled with FAST Search Technologies). In fact, if you are not using SharePoint today at the workplace, you might have unknowingly already experienced it firsthand on the internet-whether you have treated yourself to something special at Kraft, fulfilled your dream vacation through Hawaiian Airlines, or yet nurtured your passion for automobiles on Ferrari's website. 

But "y'ain't seen nothin' yet", SharePoint 2010's release brings so much actionable innovation to market that some of our customers are even already considering taking their Beta environment to production. But, hey, don't take my word for it; go see for yourself. If you cannot make it to the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas from October 19^th through the 22^nd, you might want to go check out those official sneak peek videos. Expect to see a lot more specifics about the 2010 release after the conference. Stay tuned!