The Blue Monster meets Port25: goodness to ensue

Last night I was thinking that Hugh needs to get familiar with Port25, Microsoft’s site where Every Day Is Interoperability Day. Why? Because Hugh is beginning the long zulu walk to Microsoft knowledge and mastery, and Port25 represents Microsoft’s future. Imagine my pleasant surprise this morning when i saw that Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy at Microsoft, is now familiar with Hugh and the Blue Monster campaign, with my blog as a pivot point. This is fantastic. Steve Clayton is surely going to be chuffed when he gets back from holiday and discovers that he is on Bill’s radar, and Hugh now has an in with one of Microsoft’s most important executives. If Hugh wants to know about the practitioner reality, rather than just the CEO rhetoric, of Microsoft’s moves around open and shared source, then Port25 is the place to learn, Bill the guy to watch.

Hugh: I would love to see a version of the Blue Monster drinking from the Port 25 beaker. And if you could get Steve Ballmer to take a few sips as well that would be great. A slogan for Port25: Change Microsoft Or Go Home….

Some recent Port 25 links:
Connecting Office Applications to MySQL and PostgreSQL via ODBC
Windows Media Player Plug-in for Firefox
Happy Birthday to Port 25! Is Microsoft “Getting” Open Source?

disclosure: Microsoft is a client. When Hugh started writing about, and subsequently working with, Microsoft I admit I initially thought hey that’s my bailiwick, why don’t you stick to wine and suits, I already know this stuff, keep teaching me about stuff i don’t know please… But that is just silly. The best thing to do is help Hugh to better understand Microsoft so we can all see better outcomes. My skills and approaches are complementary to Hugh’s. Can I learn something from Hugh about Microsoft? I think so. Gapingvoid is about to get more, not less, interesting for Microsoft watchers.
Microsoft
Port25
“Blue Monster”