It’s been quite a while since I made my last posting – things have been a bit hectic as we move ahead on various fronts on our R&D efforts here in China. A New Year is always a good time to take stock of achievements past as well as gear up for the challenges that lie in the year ahead. And of course to make some resolutions! So let me do all of those briefly here.
As I look back on my last few months in China, it is amazing to think of all the things we have accomplished. It seems like only yesterday that I moved here, family and all (it was actually Aug 1st). In the few short months since, we have made a lot of progress in establishing the presence of the SQL Server China R&D team. We have clearly articulated who we are (our identity), what we seek to accomplish (our mission), why we are here in China, and our path forward – how we intend to achieve that mission. We have connected with a huge number of people – customers, partners, students, faculty, people from our industry – all our different constituencies who take an interest in our being here. We have made a lot of progress in building our R&D team, hiring some of the very best talent in the Asia-Pacific region interested in working in the Data Platform space. We have continued to execute successfully on our product delivery commitments on a number of different technology fronts. At the same time, we have been growing our knowledge and skill-set, individually and as a team, ramping up to take on even greater challenges in the future. And finally, we’ve had some great fun doing all this!
The path ahead is challenging, but exciting at the same time. This coming year shall see the launch of the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008. The SQL Server team, and the China team as part of that larger team, has some hard work ahead of us as we push to get this product out the door. It is important to keep in mind that what awaits us is the reward of shipping a terrific product, with features customers cannot wait to get their hands on, with the high quality that they have a right to expect. Initial customer reaction to the CTPs we have been shipping the last few months has been very positive indeed and we cannot wait to see the impact this release shall have on the market. And of course, once we ship, we get to turn around and do it all over again – indeed, initial planning efforts for the subsequent (as yet un-named) release of SQL Server are already under-way. And what is especially exciting for us in the China team is that as we build up our capability, we get to play an even greater part in that next release, and in other future releases. Some parts of our China team are currently working on our deliverables into the next version of Windows, and they are already getting a taste of what it means to own a product or component end-end and deliver a new version to hundreds of millions of customers world-wide. It is not an easy task, especially in the case of a platform product like ours – but then that is what makes it exciting and challenging.
So, looking forward, I see an exciting and important year ahead of us as we ship SQL Server 2008, continue to build up our China team, ramp up our skills, and get ready to play a much bigger role in building the next release of our product. As I look at the quality of the team we are building, the breadth of technology we are working on, and the strength of our vision and our long term commitment to this team, I have no doubt that we are moving ever closer to our goal of building the premier data platform R&D lab in Asia-Pacific.
Every new year should come with some resolutions and this year is no exception J. While I, like most people, have some resolutions on the personal side that shall remain private, one resolution seems appropriate to share here – to be more regular with this blog!
Here’s to a Happy and Healthy New Year – 新年快乐!
