Direct Reports

PM@MS - Doing the "other stuff"

Brian Welcker — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:49:00 GMT

I've spent the last 17 years at Microsoft, the majority of my adult life. For most of those years, I've been in a role called "program manager". Surprisingly, one of the challenges with being a program manager at Microsoft is determining what on earth...(read more)

Changing the Discussion

Brian Welcker — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:18:00 GMT

One of the most impressionable meetings that I have been involved in occurred early in my career at Microsoft. In was 1996 and I was a freshly minted technical evangelist working in Microsoft's Developer Relations group (DRG). DRG was a group tasked with...(read more)

The Vision Thing

Brian Welcker — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:31:00 GMT

Early in my career at Microsoft, I was part of one of the biggest development disasters at Microsoft (no, not Windows Vista), called WinFS. WinFS was an attempt to bring the benefits of schema and relational databases to the Windows file system. I never...(read more)

Why ERP?

Brian Welcker — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Sometimes I'm at a party and someone asks where I work. If the party is in Seattle and I say "Microsoft", the follow up is usually "Which group?" because the person either works there, contracts there, or has a friend in the XBOX of Office team that they...(read more)

I'm back!

Brian Welcker — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 09:00:00 GMT

Hard to believe my last post was over 6 years ago. At the time, I was departing the SQL Server Reporting Services team to join the Microsoft Health Solutions Group. That lasted about a year and a half (I'll tell some of those stories later) and I joined...(read more)

Double Nickels on the Dime (Leaving the Reporting Services Team)

Brian Welcker — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:49:00 GMT

The rumors are true. I will be leaving the Reporting Service team after 7 years and SQL Server after 10 years. Here is the message that I sent to my team: It first dawned on me about 3 months ago that I had been in the same position for close to...(read more)

Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (What's up with Report Builder?)

Brian Welcker — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:33:58 GMT

Hopefully, you have gotten a chance to work with the latest CTP of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services . But if you have, you may be a bit puzzled by the report design options in the CTP. Specifically: Report Builder looks just like it did in SSRS 2005...(read more)

Tribal Thunder (SharePoint White Papers Available)

Brian Welcker — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:29:00 GMT

After many months of working on getting them posted, I'm excited to let you know that two whitepapers on the integration between SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint are now available. SQL Server 2005 Integration with Microsoft SharePoint...(read more)

Everybody (Why Leave IIS?)

Brian Welcker — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:34:03 GMT

If you have gotten a chance to try an early build of SQL Server Reporting 2008 Reporting Services, you know that one of the changes in the product is the removal of the Internet Information Services (IIS) dependency. I have gotten some questions about...(read more)

Younger Than Yesterday (ReportViewer in VS 2008)

Brian Welcker — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:04:53 GMT

As most of you probably know by now, Visual Studio 2008 is now available. What you might not have noticed is a new version of the ReportViewer control and local /embedded report editing experience. Included with VS 2008 are the following new features...(read more)