Just as I wrote the last post I realise I haven't yet given an introduction to some of the newest members of the Microsoft Ireland Developer and Platform Group - and that's well overdue! :)

As you may know, Rob is leaving shortly for maple-covered lands on the other side of the Atlantic and I have moved to working part-time, but since there are so many new technologies coming out from Microsoft HQ (and we need to make sure we can cover them all! :) - we have added not just 2, but another 4 people to the team who you may not yet have had the chance to meet...

Martha Rotter (martharo at microsoft.com) and Ronan Geraghty (ronang at microsoft.com) have joined as developers on the team. Some of you may have already had the pleasure of meeting Martha when she was doing her Silverlight (previously known as WPF/e) tour back in March, she is joining us from the Silverlight and WPF development teams over in Redmond. Some of you also may already know Ronan - he's been working in Irish software companies for the last 10+ years and has built up a wealth of experience in the areas of application networking and integration as well as mobile solutions and digital TV broadcast software. As Rob did before them, Martha and Ronan are your local contacts to help get your .NET questions answered - if you can't find the answers you need on http://msdn.microsoft.com - let us know and we'll do our best to get you the answers you need!

Olive Cannon (olivec at microsoft.com) has also joined the team as the Microsoft Developer Tools Marketing Manager and is the person to help out with all your licensing queries (we know it can get complicated! :) If you need any pointers on how to get the best deals on Visual Studio or any of our development products - Olive is the one to contact. Last but not least, our team will be growing by one more architect at the end of the month... but I think I'll wait till he gets into the office before giving him an introduction.

Internally here, we are all very excited by the new additions to the Developer and Platform Group! :) If you were along on Thursday at the IMTC, you may already have met all three new team members! If not - you certainly will get the chance at some of the upcoming events over the coming months! See you there!