It's with mixed emotions that I announce the end of my purely independent consulting, training, and evangelism and move to an Architects, Design and Product Management sponsored evangelism model with Quest Software. (This doesn't keep me from doing blogging, articles, webinars, whitepapers, books, user groups, and speaking.  The model we've setup is quite flexible and supportive of my evangelism.)

Let me reminisce my last 8 months as I announce the next stage to the master plan.

I left Microsoft at the end of March with a goal to really take SharePoint to the next level and push the global envelope.  It was an incredible year presenting at four global Tech Eds (U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia), three SharePoint Conferences from the main one in Belleuve, WA to the SharePoint Conference in Dubai, UAE and Istanbul, Turkey.  In addition I presented at User Groups from Ohio, Utah, and Hawaii in the U.S. to Jordan, Israel, and a special in Switzerland.  I had a whole week in Vegas teaching with Shane Young at our SharePoint Admin Survival camp, which was a great success.  I'll be back in Las Vegas this week speaking at Connections.

I mentioned that I had been working on a secret tool (ideaMango).  Well that tool was acquired by Quest software.  The arrangement allows me to continue to work on this project as well as other designs.  The part that's very exciting is I get to keep doing the global SharePoint evangelism, blogging, and the cool part... where I see gaps and pain, I can design solutions to address these.

More, Quest is part of the Office/SharePoint TAP (technology adoption program), so getting access to bits and continuing to provide the latest and greatest guidance will continue (following NDA parameters of course).

So the good news is, I have a sponsor to essentially listen to my ideas make them real, and support my evangelism and community efforts.

Quest has taken SharePoint as an enterprise tool very seriously, aquisitions of Proposion (Migration tools for Notes  to SharePoint), Workplace Architects (SharePoint Development Studio), as the primary and premier sponsor at the SharePoint Conference earlier this year.  A recent Reuters Quest Press Release from earlier in the year included a couple of quotes that help sum up the companies commitment to SharePoint...

"The Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference has particular significance for Quest," said David Waugh, vice president of Unified Communications and Collaboration, Quest Software. "For the past two years, we have been building and acquiring products that enable organizations to master their SharePoint Server 2007 environments. Now, for the first time, we are unveiling a complete line of products designed to offer the most comprehensive collection of SharePoint Server 2007 management tools in the market today."

Tom Rizzo, Director of Microsoft Office SharePoint said "Quest has developed an impressive portfolio of SharePoint management and migration products over the past couple of years that enable companies to accelerate their deployment of SharePoint and get more from their SharePoint investments through management, migration and building applications."

They already have a foot in the door around recovery, management, administration, migration, and I plan to help them take these and other IT areas to the next level. From Recovery Manager for SharePoint as well as Quest Litespeed.  Quest is well invested in Backup and Recovery.  Quests SQL tools are very strong.  In the SharePoint area, I believe it's strongest area is in it's migration tools with focus on migration from Notes, Domino, Public Folders and QuickPlace to SharePoint.  SharePoint Administrator as well is a good start, but I think there's a lot of work that can be done in the area of manageability to help administrators.

Some may find this a surprising move, but when you put it all together, Quest is a very solid bet and with the right guidance they can help consolidate and build the tools that business demands.  I'm excited to both see my ideas become reality, and to help customers achieve their goals and find success.

My experience with the SharePoint people within Quest, David Waugh, Doug Davis, and Adam Woodruff amongst others... all have an extremely positive outlook on SharePoint and the Quest SharePoint strategy.  They have had some incredible patience, this has long been developing and I'm happy we've made this journey together.

So what about Australia? This alone simply factors into the plan.  Well, we just found out we're pregnant.  I don't want to make too big of an announcement around that this early in the pregnancy, just in case... *very exciting.*  So we'll probably wait to do any relocation until after the baby is born.  Facebook is likely the best way to follow my progress on this.  You can bet that as soon as I have any type of imaging it will be posted on my profile on FB.  The Quest SLC, UT office is in Lindon only 4 miles from my temporary apt (furnished apartment) in Orem.  So this should make it a seamless transition.  Quest is supportive of my global ambitions and we'll make the move at the right time.