Hi.  My name is Peter Schenk.  I'm a Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation.  I'm a member of the Windows Technology Adoption Program (TAP) Team which is primarily focused on customers participating as "early adopters" of Windows Server and in some cases Windows Client.  Besides simply being an early adopter, our customers become full-fledged partners with Microsoft and provide valuable feedback and direction that our product groups rely on during the development cycle.

Currently, I am co-leading the program design and execution for "Longhorn" which is Microsoft's next major Server and Client operating system release.   We hope to have the planning completed within a week or so and at that time will begin our customer recruiting process.  I've been to Asia a couple of times to try and expand the customer base for our TAP programs which are mostly North American customers and I believe that we'll get some much needed coverage in Japan, Hong Kong and India.  I'm very excited about Longhorn and the value that it will deliver to our customers.  This will be a long voyage - probably around two years total when all is said and done.  I plan on giving you the general audience a play-by-play account of what it's like to be in the fray of the Windows development process with a heavy emphsis placed on the customer perspective.  I hope you find my blog interesting if not entertaining especially when I use it as a medium to vent frustrations from time to time. :-)

Prior to co-leading the Longhorn TAP effort, I was primarily responsible for developing a permanent place for our Small and Medium sized customers (SMB's) within the TAP framework.  For two years I have worked with Value Added Resellers (VAR's) and their respective customer bases.  It was quite the eye-opening experience.  From the product group perspective, we didn't have any experience with our SMB customers or the ecosystem.  We've made a lot progress in addressing the unique needs of our SMB's and VAR's in this time and will continue engage heavily with them in the future.

Prior to joining the TAP team, I was focused on competitive strategies and co-designed technology that facilitates migrations from the Linux/Apache platform to the Windows/IIS platform. I was recently co-awarded patents for this technology and am a frequent speaker at TechEd and MTB conferences.