5 years sure goes by fast - now it's time for a change, and change is good.

Alright, enough cliches.

It is with sincere regret that I announce that I am no longer with the MacBU. My last day was Monday.

In my 5 (well, 4.9) years at the MacBU at Microsoft, I helped ship a whole lot of products:

• Microsoft Entourage 2001 for Mac

• Microsoft Entourage X for Mac

• MSN for Mac

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac

• Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac

• PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004.

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 SP 2 for Mac (coming this year!)

I joined the MacBU right out of college, as a die hard Mac fan. At first I was skeptical, figuring that the MacBU was part of some secret Microsoft ploy to keep Apple down by... uh... producing bad software. Of course, a lot of those feelings were after the infamous Word 6.0 days, so looking back that is understandable - and to this day there are still many Microsoft employees who are apologetic about the Word 6.0 fiasco. In fact, it is because of the Word 6.0 experience that the MacBU was created! But enough trivia for today.

Going back to my point, after joining the MacBU and having been here for 5 years, it is quite obvious that there is no development team more passionate and more dedicated to the Mac OS X platform outside of Apple. These are people who truly want to produce great software for the Mac, and do it with a fraction of the resources of Office for Windows . I am exceptionally proud of the products we have shipped to date, and I have no doubts that the products will continue to rock. As an example of Microsoft's continued commitment to meeting the business needs of Mac customers, check out Entourage 2004 SP 2 ships later this year. That was the last thing I worked on before leaving, and I know it's going delight Mac customers in Exchange environments.

Looking back at those 5 years, there sure were lots of ups and downs. One major up was the fact that I never had to buy any Macs after graduating because the MacBU made sure I had some great machines. One major down was getting Mac OS X 10.0.0 - wow remember those days? And all those posts on the various rumor sites speculating that it was because Apple had left in debugging code? I must say, Tiger is pretty darn impressive - and just imagine if that's what they had shipped all the way back then (heck, or even Panther!). Through the various WWDCs and MacWorld Expos that I attended (2 San Jose WWDCs, 2 San Francisco WWDCs, 6 MacWorld SF's, 2 MacWorld NY's) I made a lot of great friends in the Mac community - Apple and elsewhere. And the level of customer interaction that the MacBU afforded me enabled to meet many of you at demos across the nation.

Without a doubt, it's been a great 5 years.

So... why now? What's going on? Why am I leaving, and where am I going?

Today is my first day at my new job as a Program Manager at MSN Search on the MSN Search Toolbar. At Microsoft, changing jobs is actually a fairly frequent event - so this isn't exactly the first time someone has done something like this before. That said, a lot of people do associate me with Entourage - especially if you knew the volume of Entourage support questions I get in my inbox! [BTW, a great resource for Entourage-related questions is the EntourageTalk mailing list: Entourage-Talk-On@lists.letterrip.com]. After 5 years, I thought I'd try something new, something different - and something that's still in Silicon Valley. The folks at MSN Search Toolbar have the same level of commitment and excitement  that I expect, and so I'm going to give this a try. Fear not for the fate of Entourage and the MacBU - I am sure that innovative, compelling, quality products will continue to ship. And if not, I'll be sure to let my roommate know -- he's a Program Manager on Entourage. :)