The End of One Journey and the Beginning of Another

I am sitting on the plane on my way to Barcelona and IT Forum where Microsoft Forefront Client Security (FCS) will make its official public beta debut. It’s a long flight which has allowed me to reflect back on the past months in working on FCS as its development lead. I was thinking about what I might want to tell someone about FCS. I was thinking about the extensive anti-malware features; the immediacy of the information on the FCS dashboard; and even the detailed information coming from the security state assessment engine. And the truth is that all of that information (w/screen shots, etc) is well represented out on Microsoft.com.

What isn’t there is anything about the team that built FCS.

As for the team, we are a dedicated group across multiple disciplines; developers, testers, program managers, user education, and other areas. We are located across multiple countries. We have a focused management team supported by great administrative assistants. All combined, we have more than a quarter of a millennium (278 years to be exact) of Microsoft experience! Over these past several months, we have also brought in many great new people to the team. Old and new alike, we have poured our collective experience into the development of FCS.

We are a team that is passionate about security; passionate about our customers; and passionate about making great products. We are also passionate that Microsoft Forefront Client Security is one of those great products. We hope you feel the same way.

Over the next several weeks, there will be more postings about the product and the team. There will certainly be quite a bit more technical info about the product; including tips and tricks, deployment considerations, troubleshooting, etc. There might also be some more personal stuff about the team. Maybe I’ll even post some pictures from my last vacation.

Until then, the team is currently doing a final pass on the build – looking for any last minute issues. The features are all there. The quality is there. The product is all there. All the work of these past months has led to the public beta release of Microsoft Forefront Client Security – a release that the team can be proud of.

We are ready for it to be in our customer’s hands. We are ready for you to tell us what you think. We are ready for your feedback – embarking on a new journey together with our customers.

IT Forum, and the launch, is just around the corner… Hope to see you there.

Best, Joel