Aatish Ramkaran
Technology Solutions Professional, Microsoft |
 | Aatish Ramkaran is a Technology Solutions Professional specializing in Office Client technologies. As a technical specialist, his role involves being able to explain and demonstrate the features and benefits of the Office System as a development platform to customers and partners. He is often found loitering near coffee machines. We believe that he is addicted to caffeine, but he insists that he can "quit any time he wants to". |
Adrian Rupp
Business Intelligence Practice Manager |
 | "I've been in the Business Intelligence business for the last 8 years, starting off as a Cognos consultant, then moving to Accenture where I was very actively involved with the Data Warehouse re-engineering project at EDCON (The biggest Microsoft Platform Data Warehouse in the Southern Hemisphere).
For the last 3 years I have been the Business Intelligence Solutions Specialist / Architect / Team Lead / Project Manager / Pre Sales Consultant / Lecturer at iSolve Business Solutions. this position has afforded me good exposure within the Microsoft Business Intelligence community. I have also worked very closely with Microsoft South Africa and Africa on many engagements, including most recently building Balance Scorecard Dashboard Prototypes in Botswana and Uganda.
Although, in recent years I have focused on the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform, (I am considered by some to be one of the best skills in Multi-Dimensional eXpressions (MDX) (the query language for Analysis Services Cubes) in the country), I have experience in many BI tools, including Cognos, Brio to name but a few, I have endeavored to build my career around Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing regardless of what technology is being used."
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Anand Lakshminarayanan
Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft |
 | "Anand Lakshminarayanan is a Senior Technical Product Manager on the Unified Communications team – focusing on the IT Pro experience of Office Communications Server. His areas of responsibility include deployment, management, migration and hosting scenarios for Office Communication Server.
Anand has employed in Microsoft for more than 6 years. Prior to this position, Anand was a software developer who worked on core infrastructure areas of System Center Operations Manager 2007 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. With a background in delivering management solutions to IT Pros, Anand is excited about transforming the Unified Communications products to better suit the needs of IT Professionals."
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Danie Gordon
Unified Communications and Collaboration Product Solution Manager |
 | Danie is the Unified Communications and Collaboration Product Solution Manager for Microsoft South Africa. He comes from a technical, pre sales and business development background. Danie has many years of experience on convergence, unified communications, enterprise content management, workflow and collaboration. He holds various information systems and industry qualifications, including BCOM, MCSE 2000, NT4. |
Derek Burney,
General Manager SharePoint Platform and Tools, Microsoft |
 | Derek Burney is currently the GM of the SharePoint Platform and Tools group responsible for the development of the Windows SharePoint Services platform and its associated development tools. He joined Microsoft as the GM of FrontPage in 2004, led the transition of FrontPage to SharePoint Designer (SPD), delivered the first release of Expression Web Designer and oversaw the most recent release of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS).
Before joining Microsoft in 2004, Burney served as President & CEO of Corel Corporation, a leading technology company that offers software solutions and services for enterprise customers and consumers. Before his appointment as President & CEO of Corel Corporation in October 2000, he served as Chief Technology Officer and was responsible for overseeing the development of all of the company's software products. In addition to his career at Corel Corporation, he also served as a Vice President and Regional Manager at IMSI.
Burney graduated with Highest Honors from Carleton University with a degree in Computer Science and lives in Sammamish with his wife and 5 children. When he's not at work or playing guitar, he's probably out riding his Harley. |
Faith Manyoro
Business Productivity Solution Specialist, Microsoft |
 | Faith Manyoro is a Business Productivity Solution Specialist at Microsoft SA. Her specialization area of focus includes Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Search and Enterprise Project Management on Microsoft solutions. She has over 8 years consulting and sales experience across various sectors and has very strong industry knowledge of Enterprise Content Management solutions. She has worked for organisations such as FNB, Siemens Business Services and Arivia.kom.
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Martin Coetzer
Technical Consultant, Microsoft |
 | Martin Coetzer is currently engaged as a Technical Consultant with Microsoft Services. He specialises in designing and improving business' Active Directory, Exchange, Unified Communications and Identity Integration requirements. Prior to this, he was part of the Microsoft South Africa Support and Health Services group as a Premier Field Engineer specialising on Exchange. Previously, he worked as a Technical Specialist with a Microsoft Gold Partner and was responsible for the design, deployment and management of the implementation of Active Directory and Exchange at large enterprise companies. Martin has also worked closely with the Exchange Product Group in Redmond on the Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007 Technology Adoption Programs. During his 12 years in the IT Industry he has seen many challenges, many migrations and many late nights. |
Michael O'Donovan
Technical Specialist, Microsoft |
 | Michael is a SharePoint Technical Specialist who has been designing and implementing SharePoint solutions for several years with Microsoft. Coming from a web development background, he has a passion for deep development aspects of the SharePoint platform. During the conference he will be presenting 3 sessions focused on SharePoint development and customisations. |
Moz Hussain
Director of Product Management, Unified Communications Group, Microsoft
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 | "As director for Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, Moz Hussain is responsible for Microsoft's software powered voice initiative. His specific areas of responsibility include defining the business strategy for and evangelizing Office Communications Server 2007 voice and conferencing capabilities, Mobile Communicator 2007, Microsoft RoundTable and end point devices.
Moz brings to his job a strong background in product strategy development and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Unified Communications Group, Moz led the team behind Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft's online social networking service for consumers and the world's largest blogging service with over 150 million monthly unique visitors.
Moz, who joined Microsoft in August 2003, has also served as corporate strategy manager and business development manager for Windows Live. While in these positions, he helped define Microsoft's strategy for the small and medium sized enterprise market and negotiated partnerships that enabled Microsoft to introduce SMS and voice capabilities in its Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service.
Before joining Microsoft, Moz worked for Accenture, where his projects included helping Cable & Wireless launch digital cable TV services in the United Kingdom, advising Sony Corp on the costs and opportunities of embracing MP3 standards in Japan, and developing the business strategy for wholesale international voice services for Swisscom in Switzerland. He also helped start up and grow BuildOnline, an online hosted collaboration service for the European construction industry.
He holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering from Cambridge University, and also earned a master's in business administration from Harvard Business School.
Moz and his wife have a young son and live in Washington, USA. He enjoys travel, reading and hiking." |
Neil van Wyngaard
Bytes Technology Group, People Solutions |
 | Neil van Wyngaard is an MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MCT, MCTS, MCITP, MCBMSS. Neil's core industry focus is CRM, ERP, EPM and ECM implementations in the enterprise environment. Core technology focus is based on SQL Server, Visual Studio, WSS, MOSS and OCS. |
Nicolas Blank
Operations Director, Credo Technical Services |
 | Nicolas Blank is a Microsoft Infrastructure Architect and Operations Director for Credo Technical Services and specializes in Exchange, Active Directory, architecture, systems management, migration and scripting. Nicolas is a Microsoft MVP for Exchange and spends what spare time he has writing, blogging and talking about Exchange and associated technologies. |
Nishkar Maharaj
Technical Security Specialist, Microsoft |
 | As the Technical Security Specialist for Microsoft South Africa, Nishkar works closely with infrastructure and sales teams advising and architecting on the Microsoft security product suite. With more than 7 years of IT infrastructure experience Nishkar has worked with in numerous customer environments across the financial, commercial, communications and hospitality sectors both nationally and internationally. Nishkar's focuses on the Microsoft Forefront brand of products that range from the network edge to client security. |
Rudy Gopaul
Microsoft Solutions, Dimension Data |
 | Rudy Gopaul has more than 13 years of IT experience, with specific focus on architecting and deploying different messaging platforms, Microsoft and Lotus. He has, however, focused solely on Unified Communications for the last two years, architecting solutions around Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (including Unified Messaging), Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 with integration to other technologies such as video conferencing, telephony and desktop applications. |
Ryan Jamieson
Director, IS Partners |
 | Ryan Jamieson is a director of IS Partners and was previously involved in general systems development at Vircom, focusing specifically on Internet technologies. An engineer by trade, his career spans project management and IT systems-related management consulting. His areas of expertise include Business Intelligence on the Microsoft platform. |
Shivani Inderjee
Technology Specialist, Microsoft |
| Shivani Inderjee is the Business Intelligence Technology Specialist at Microsoft South Africa. She has worked with Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence for the past 7 years on many large scale implementations. Focusing primarily in the Enterprise space, Shivani is also a speaker at many launches, TechDays, and BI events. As one of the founders of the BI SA User Group, she currently focuses her effort in gaining momentum in the community, sharing expertise and evangelizing Microsoft BI. |
Suliman Noor Mahomed
Technology Specialist, Microsoft |
 | Suliman is a Technology Specialist in Unified Communications with Microsoft Corporation. He is focused on driving business productivity through enhanced corporate communications systems in the Enterprise space. Suliman has 13 years experience in communications systems, contact center applications and software development. |
Zlatan Dzinic
Principal Consultant, Business Connexion |
 | "Zlatan is currently a Principal Consultant at Microsoft Competency, Business Connexion in Cape Town. His primary role is System Architect/Technical Lead and he also comes from an extensive C#.NET (and SQL) Development and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) background - MS SharePoint 03/07, Opentext - Livelink, Meridio, K2.NET (and other). His main focus is MS Office System Client Development and Integration, Developing and Architecting Office Business Applications, SharePoint 2007 Enterprise Content Management, including development of Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). He's an active Community speaker as well as Office Business Applications and SharePoint Evangelist." |
