Keynote speakers

Bob Kelly

Corporate Vice President, Infrastructure Server Marketing

A 10-year Microsoft Corp. veteran, Bob Kelly was promoted to the position of corporate vice president, Infrastructure Server Marketing in August 2007. He leads a team comprising more than 180 members, which resides in the Server and Tools Business (STB) organization. In this role, Kelly focuses on Microsoft's overall infrastructure strategy worldwide in conjunction with the development, sales and evangelism teams. The infrastructure server marketing organization includes the marketing teams for Microsoft Management Solutions, Security and Access, Identity and Access, Windows Server, Windows Server Solutions and Solution Accelerators.

Kelly began his career at Microsoft with the Windows NT Server 3.51 marketing team, where he focused primarily on competitive marketing. He then transitioned to team lead and then to group manager of Windows NT Server and Windows 2000 Server marketing. Following the launch of Windows 2000 Server, Kelly helped form the company's U.S. subsidiary. During that time, he managed the Infrastructure Server marketing team (Microsoft Windows, Exchange Server, Systems Management Server (SMS), Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server), Operations Manager (MOM), and Application Center), as well as the information technology professional and business value marketing teams.

Kelly then returned to serve as the general manager of the Windows Server Product Management team in March 2002. In this capacity, he oversaw the full array of marketing functions including business management, product planning, the Windows Server 2003 launch, public relations, analyst relations and competitive marketing strategy. Most recently, Kelly served as the general manager of infrastructure server marketing organization.

Kelly earned his master's degree and doctorate in English literature from the University of Dallas.

Steve Riley

Steve Riley is a Senior Security Strategist in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group in Redmond, Washington, USA. Steve specializes in network and host security, communication protocols, network design, and information security policies and process. His customers include various ISPs and ASPs around the United States, as well as traditional enterprise IT customers, for whom he has conducted security assessments and risk analyses, deployed technologies for prevention and detection, and designed highly-available network architectures. Steve is a frequent and popular speaker at conferences worldwide, often appearing Asia one week and Europe the next. When not evangelizing the benefits of Microsoft security technology, he spends time with customers to better understand the security pain they face and show how some of that pain can be eliminated. Having been born with an Ethernet cable attached to his belly button, Steve grew up in networking and telecommunications; the simple telephone still provides endless hours of exploratory joy. Besides lurking in the Internet's dark alleys and secret passages, he enjoys mountain biking, clubbing and the occasional rave, freely sharing his opinions about the intersection of technology and culture, and hanging with his family and friends in the centre of the universe otherwise known as Seattle, Washington.

Jason Zander

Jason Zander is the General Manager of the Visual Studio team in the Developer Division at Microsoft Corporation. As GM, Jason’s team responsibilities include the core VS IDE platform, C++, C#, VB, Javascript, the DLR (with IronRuby and IronPython), Mobile (Visual Studio for Devices and the .NET Compact Framework), Phoenix, Office Tools (VSTO/VSTA), Popfly, and several groups doing some advanced work we aren't yet talking about.

As one of the original developers of the CLR, Jason’s primary technical area of contributions include file formats, metadata, compilers, debugging/profiling, and integration of the system into key Microsoft products such as Windows and SQL Server. Before becoming GM of Visual Studio Jason was the GM for the .NET Framework team. Jason also held several roles on the CLR team including Product Unit Manager and Development Manager. Prior to working on the CLR, Jason worked on the Repository and SourceSafe products and before that on the first two versions of ODBC. Before joining Microsoft in 1992, Jason worked at IBM on Distributed SQL and SQL/400 at the Rochester lab. Jason holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from MSU. In his spare time, Jason enjoys playing with his three children and making furniture in his shop. Jason's blog can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz.

Jeff Alexander

Jeff Alexander started at Microsoft in August 1987 as a Support Professional focusing on operating systems and desktop applications for Enterprise Customers.

Since then, Jeff spent 6 years in Microsoft's internal IT team as a datacentre manager; one of his biggest projects being a server consolidation of the Sydney site to Singapore.

He now channels his passion for infrastructure and management technologies as an IT Professional Evangelist - promoting and enabling the community of IT Professionals through mediums such as TechNet events, blogging, the TechNet website, User Groups, MVPs, and online webcasts.

Anthony Borton

Anthony Borton is a VSTS consultant and trainer based in Brisbane. He is a Microsoft Team System MVP and runs the Queensland VSTS Users Group.

He has been involved in training for over 15 years, and is the Microsoft Technical Readiness Instructor for Visual Studio Team System 2008, and Windows Server 2008: Developer and Architect.

Andrew Coates

Andrew Coates is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft. He speaks regularly to a variety of developers and application architects on Microsoft's development tools and integration techniques.

Prior to Microsoft, Andrew was an independent consultant, developer and mentor specialising in database applications, Office business applications and Geographic Information Systems.

Paul Conroy

Based in Sydney, Paul Conroy is a Technology Specialist for Identity & Access Management. His focus is around technical expertise on solutions based around Microsoft Rights Management Services (RMS) and Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) for Australia and New Zealand. These solutions help customers drive towards regulatory compliance, improved security and an overall reduction in IT costs. Paul has worked in the identity, access and security space for 7 years and was formerly with VeriSign working in a Solutions Architect role; firstly in Canberra and most recently in Sydney. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and also has a Masters of Science Degree in Computing from the University of Technology Sydney. His most recent experience has been in helping Australian enterprise and Federal Government customers implement smart card, digital certificate and security solutions. He has also worked in Taiwan and mainland China for 2 years.

Phil Duff

While completing degrees in Computing and Accountancy, Philip was inspired by the idea that future software would quickly enable business and allow people to realise their full potential (Windows NT launch event, Melbourne, 1993).

Since then, Philip has worked with end user systems in large retailers, insurance companies, hospitals and banks, and has held technical leadership roles in some of the largest desktop deployments in Australia.

As part of Microsoft, Philip helps customers change their business using Windows Server 2008.

Ron Dunn

Ron Dunn, SQL Server Technology Specialist, is a database professional with over 25 years experience in the design, development, management and usage of relational database technology. His experience covers both OLTP and OLAP applications, with a long history of bridging the gap between Information Workers and their data.

Dave Glover

Dave Glover has worked for Microsoft for 14 years, mostly in our Developer Platform Group. The first 10 years was spent with Microsoft UK and he transferred to Microsoft Australia in 2004.

He has worked in various roles, including people management, and across a broad spectrum of infrastructure and developer technologies with a variety of customers and partners.

Rocky Heckman

By day, Rocky Heckman is a Senior Security Technologist with the global ACE Security Services team at Microsoft. By night, he becomes a CISSP, MSCD that does PhD research into secure Software Development.

You may have seen him presenting at TechEd, Microsoft Security Summits and Security Work Shops, like Security Camp Oz 2007 where he was the executive sponsor.

It's important to note that Rocky's views do not reflect those of his family, Microsoft or its partners.

Lee Hickin

Lee is a Security Technology Specialist within the Incubation Sales team at Microsoft. With 14 years experience in the IT industry, prior to Joining Microsoft, Lee spent 5 years at RSA Security as a Senior Consultant on Identity management and Authentication Services - prior to that, Lee spent 8 years in a variety of roles at IBM and Tivoli - mainly focused on the implementation and design of Tivoli Systems Management technology. Lee's time is spent working closely with both customers and partners around the development, design and delivery of Security solutions. Lee covers a wide variety of topics from network design, definition of security best practices and the implementation of secure technology & policy solutions to meet the increasing demand for online and remote access business capabilities. Lee holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification and is a regular presenter at Microsoft and industry events

Tamas Horvath

Tamas Horvath is a Senior Technology Specialist for systems management technologies at Microsoft Australia. Tamas has a national role based in Sydney helping Microsoft's enterprise customers implement desktop management and server operations solutions with the Microsoft System Center product family. Tamas has more than 8 years of experience at Microsoft - prior to moving to Australia in 2003 he worked in Europe in a similar systems management specialist role and also as a product manager for Windows 2000 at Microsoft Hungary. Before joining Microsoft in 1999 Tamas was a consultant and trainer for Windows NT 4.0, Exchange and SMS technologies. He is an MCSE and holds a Masters Degree in Computer Sciences.

David Lean

David Lean (Principal Technology Specialist - Database & Line of Business Applications) is Microsoft Australia's foremost technical expert on SQL Server. As a member of the SQL Server Insiders group, he works very closely with the SQL Server Development team helping with feature planning and being a voice for Australian customers.

His career spans about 17 years at Microsoft, where he's performed a variety of technical roles - Consulting (SQL Perf Tuning, Troubleshooting, App Design), Education, Technical Pre-Sales, S/W Development. During that time, most of his focus has been on SQL Server.

With 23 years in IT Industry, David was initially a Systems Engineer on 360/370 Architecture Mainframes.

Richard Lees

Richard Lees is a Microsoft world leader in Business Intelligence and Data Mining. He has a unique combination of business strategy and technical skills, and is often called upon as an expert technician who can also bring clarity to business strategy decisions.

For example, Richard worked with ASB Bank to formulate a new business strategy enabling them to exploit their 1TB data warehouse by providing nationwide business intelligence tools to branch staff. He was the technical lead and strategic innovator in this multi-disciplined team, and provided the ASB bank with skills to ensure the continued success of the data warehouse.

Chris Louloudakis

Chris Louloudakis is a Solution Specialist for Identity and Access management, working for Microsoft from the Melbourne office. Chris performs a national role, helping Microsoft's enterprise customers define, develop and deliver their Identity Management strategies.

Chris has almost 20 years experience, and has previously held positions at Novell and Telstra. He's worked in design, pre-sales and operational support roles, and delivered on large scale complex projects.

Andrew McMurray

Andrew McMurray is a Technology Specialist in Management Solutions for Microsoft Australia based in Melbourne. He specialises in the System Center suite of products, and the new Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance.

Prior to Microsoft, Andrew spent many years as a professional trainer and consultant in Microsoft management and infrastructure technologies. He also joined a major Australian telecommunications corporation overseeing the running of an internal hosting network based on Microsoft technology.

Dan Neault

Dan leads SQL Server Product Management and Marketing, which spans research and product planning, competitive strategy, product marketing, field and partner strategies, product packaging, licensing and pricing. Since joining Microsoft in 1995, Dan has held a number of strategic roles including General Manager of Platforms Business Management where he was responsible for business strategy, business development, and a range of strategic services for the Platform and Services Division, and prior to this the Platforms Division. Prior to Microsoft, Dan worked at Boeing as a software engineer, architect, and systems analyst developing defense-related software and hardware simulations, including real-time air-combat engagement models.

Jorke Odolphi

Jorke Odolphi is a Web Platform Architect Evangelist for Microsoft Australia, and works in the technical community of Web Hosting Providers.

Jorke has previously worked with large service providers in a variety of roles specialising in the deployment and management of Microsoft technologies in multi-tenancy situations - particularly with IIS, .NET, SharePoint and other web-based applications.

He loves talking about datacentre optimisation and the ideas of green technology in the datacentre.

Amit Pawar

Amit Pawar is a Technology Solutions Professional specialising in Windows Server technologies. As a technical specialist, his role involves being able to explain and demonstrate the features and benefits of the Windows Server platform as a infrastructure platform to customers and partners. In the past 7 years Amit has worked in a varied roles within Microsoft Australia ranging from Microsoft Consulting Services to Product Support Services.

Shashank Pawar

Shashank Pawar, SQL Server Technology Specialist, is a database professional with over 10 years experience in the support, design, development and usage of SQL Server database technology. His experience covers both OLTP and OLAP applications, with a speciality in high availability, troubleshooting and performance improvement.

Jamie Sharp

Jamie Sharp is a Security Architect with Microsoft. He has over 10 years of IT Security experience and holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) qualification. He advises clients on best practice strategies for mitigating complex security issues, and regularly presents at Microsoft and industry events.

His technical security competencies include: network and host security, communication protocols, network design, information security policy and process, threat and risk assessments, enterprise architecture, and regulatory compliance.

Some major customers include state and federal government departments, financial institutions, and defence.

Mark Souza

Mark Souza is a Director in the Microsoft SQL Server development organisation. He heads up all customer and ISV programs for the Microsoft SQL Server unit, which specialises in implementing the most challenging customer database applications worldwide. His experience focuses on the issues related to the distribution, modelling, design, and performance of data with a distributed computing application.

Mark's twenty five years in the Information Technology business has consisted of database administration, end-user tool management, systems engineering database specialist/lead, client/server architect, Microsoft regional data technology specialist, and SQL Server development customer advisory team.

Nick Ward

Nick Ward is an Application Platform and Development Specialist for Microsoft based in Melbourne. He has significant expertise in the application platform market having been a specialist at database vendors for over a decade. His experience spans selling, building and deploying business intelligence (BI) and operational applications.

Nick has been a regional expert throughout Europe, North America and Asia assisting customers to purchase and implement a wide variety of systems. He has worked with industries including telecommunications, insurance, financial services, health, government and media.