Gianpaolo Carraro takes up reins of Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism division

Sydney – December 2, 2008 – Microsoft today appointed Mr Gianpaolo Carraro as its new lead for Platform & Developer Evangelism (DPE) Group in Australia. As director of DPE, Mr Carraro will be a key ambassador and evangelist for Microsoft’s platform and technology roadmap and will be instrumental in leading the company’s engagement with Australian software developers at a professional, academic and hobbyist level. Additionally, Mr Gianpaolo will oversee Microsoft’s industry development initiatives, which are designed to nurture innovation in Australia and assist in the development and growth of the local IT sector.

Prior to this role, Mr Carraro was a senior director of platform architecture at Microsoft’s U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Mr Carraro succeeds Mr Norbert Haehnel, who has transferred with Microsoft to a new role as Public Sector Education lead in Germany.

“Gianpaolo comes into this role with a wealth of experience and expertise that will enable him to be both an ambassador for Microsoft in Australia as well as a leading contributor in our local IT community,” said Ms Tracey Fellows, managing director, Microsoft Australia.

“Gianpaolo joins us at an important time as we look ahead with enthusiasm and excitement at our future product pipeline and the development of our Software plus Services strategy through offerings such as Windows Azure,” she said.

Gianpaolo has spent the last several years leading a team of senior architects thinking, writing and developing Software + Services and cloud solutions. Gianpaolo also frequently engaged with large corporations as well as global independent software vendors in strategic early adoption initiatives. He is a published author and a frequent speaker at major international IT conferences. You can learn more about him through his blog http://blogs.msdn.com/gianpaolo/.

“Having worked in Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, I’ve been immersed in the development of Microsoft’s Software plus Services strategy and cloud solutions and now I’m looking forward to coming to Australia where there is such an enthusiasm for technology,” said Mr Carraro.

“As an early adopter of technology, Australia has a mature and sophisticated approach to technology and as such I’m looking forward to meeting, and learning from, the local developer community, partners and customers, government agencies and technical communities. I’m also looking forward to engaging with the local venture capital and startup community to help grow the local software economy,” said Mr Carraro.

Gianpaolo is no stranger to Australia, having visited as recently as the ‘Liberation Day’ developer event with Steve Ballmer in Sydney on 6^th November where he was a guest speaker on ‘understanding the cloud platform’.

Prior to Microsoft, Gianpaolo was co-founder and CEO of a Software-as-a-Service startup. He started his career in research as a member of the technical staff team at Bell Laboratories where he was looking for ideas that could be patented or discussed in academic circles.

Gianpaolo will be re-locating to Australia with his family in late January 2009.