This moday I joined Windows One Care team. I joined Microsoft about 4.5 years back and this is my time I have changed jobs myself.

 

I have been doing lots of back-end stuf related to billing, business intelligence...all the stuff that is super important to run a business.. and can provide competitive advantage to a whole set of products. For example, the team I was part of for 3.5 years owns the subscription platform that supports MSNIA, XBox Live, BClentral, and will probably be basis of all paid "Live" software.

 

 Lately I had been caught with the "iPod" fever. NO, I do not have an iPod. iPod just won't do it for me as it does not have FM radio, and the gym I go to (yes, it does happen sometimes :)) has TV audio on FM. So, unless I have FM radio, I can't watch TV. The intriguing thing about iPod is that Apple does not make any of the core technology for iPod. The tiny disk with super capacity came from Hitachi, the touch wheel came from Synaptics, the chip came from Portal Player. Yet, they packaged all these pieces in  new form that users just love it and they have captured huge market share. I want to do something similar.

 

   So, even though fundamentally I am an engineer, I want to be part of the team that will create an experience that user will just love. It is not about technology, it is about making it accessible to all the users.

 

Lucky for me, One Care just went into a limited beta, so I was able to see how users are reacting to One Care concept. I did whole bunch of "searching" on the web, and while some people complained about limited feature set, most people praised the simplicity and ease of use. This is what I hope to learn from my team mates!

 

 A good example is disk defagmentation and disk cleanup. These utilities have been part of Windows XP for ever, but most people never use them. One Care just brings it out in front and just let  people "run tune up".

 

I will be leading the program management effort on the v2 of "Performance Plus" i.e. what do we do beyond disk cleanup and defragmentation that is included in v1. If you have any ideas, send them my way!