Rob Perry has recently joined the analyst relations team at Microsoft where he explains Microsoft’s collaborative platform to the vast array of industry analysts who think they have some right to know what’s going on at Microsoft. Below, Rob gives his perspective on having crossed over to the other side.

"It took more than a month in Redmond before my boss asked ‘has anyone ever suggested you look like Bill Gates.’ I had made it through the interview process (the "loop"), orientation, and countless introductions as new to the IWPMG team (Microsoft takes acronyms to a new level and even provides an online glossary to help employees cope) without this comparison being made. The richer Bill has gotten the more people suggest this similarity. I once tried claiming I was Bill Gates when a dignified graying woman traveling on the same flight said "look we have Bill Gates traveling with us." But, she wasn’t buying it since Bill and Melinda had just been on TV from the Sydney Olympics.

Since starting in January, I’ve encountered Bill (I am 4 inches taller and don’t think I look that much like him!) and Steve Ballmer. Steveb, as he’s called (wonder what happened to Stevea?), plays basketball many mornings at ProSports Club near campus (MS pays for memberships) and I nearly collided with him on the way in. It was 5:30AM and Steve seemed to have been up for some time while my eyes were just beginning to recognize light from dark.

I join a large list of former Loti now at Microsoft. Jim Bernardo organizes a monthly breakfast and every once in a while I see someone that I’m sure I know from Lotus. I dropped Jim Manzi a note telling him of my move and got a ‘sorry to hear you’ve gone to the dark side, but say hi to Ray for me’ reply. After competing with Microsoft for so long, even considering joining the company caused great angst. First, I had to cut the "Developed briefing materials on Microsoft monopolistic practices presented to the DOJ and FTC" bullet from my resume. However, being conflicted about the idea seemed to help through the interviews and I got an offer within days of being in Redmond.

After 3 months, I can say Microsoft is a very interesting company. It does many things exceptionally well, starting with recruiting. The process was well managed, and once the hiring team decided they want you, they quickly switch from evaluation to selling the Microsoft opportunity. Other companies seem to keep the "why should we hire you" attitude right up to the end, but Microsoft starts working on "how do we make this the best job of your career" as soon as they figure out you’re potentially a keeper. And if you’re curious, I was not asked why a manhole cover is round or to calculate the total playing area of all the major league baseball parks. But how would you explain a database to an 8 year old?

Lotus was a great experience, which explains why I stayed 12 years. I started on Halloween of 1983 as the company was concluding the first year of Lotus 1-2-3 with $53.8 million in sales. It’s hard to believe that Lotus was bigger than Microsoft then, that 1-2-3 had just made Multiplan (one of the few extant boxes is in the Microsoft museum) irrelevant despite Microsoft breaking it with DOS 2.0 (legend has it "DOS ain’t done, till 1-2-3 won’t run" was an internal mantra), and steveb was making $75K a year and visiting Lotus as Microsoft’s partner relations manager.

Of course, I still think 1-2-3 (DOS versions of course) is about the best PC product ever. And it’s strange to think that I first started using Notes while it was in beta and now nearly 20 years later, IBM is still trying to reinvent it in Java on WebSphere while Microsoft is turning collaboration into a set of broadly available platform services. Personally, I think Microsoft will win which is one reason I joined. Overall, it’s exciting to be part of the Office 12 (2007 Microsoft Office System) launch, with 400 million users one of the biggest things in software right now, and Microsoft is a welcome change from the ‘slowly going out of business’ software companies I’ve been at for the last 10 years! "

April 10, 2006