Microsoft loses another relatively well known techie… this time from security
Jesper Johansson – Senior Security Strategist is going to Amazon.com…
http://blogs.technet.com/jesper_johansson/archive/2006/07/28/443888.aspx
This guy has truly had a lot to do with Microsoft’s overall security message the last 5 years. I haven’t agreed with everything he has said but overall he is a quite good and quite technical. He has a ton of content both internal and external to Microsoft. His theories on password policy are definitely all must read even if you may not agree with all of it. Also the current Technet Magazine that just got delivered in the last week here has a great article on the LM Compatibility Levels that I was reading yesterday when I first heard that Jesper was leaving Microsoft.
When most people think of Microsoft and security, they think of Jesper (the guy with strong security opinions), they think of Steve Riley (the surfer dude who seems crazy and has even stronger opinions), they think of Aaron Margosis (the LUA king), they think of Michael Howard (the security book writing guy – you BETTER know who this is), they think of David LeBlanc (one of the smartest Security folks Michael Howard knows). They are the most visible security content producers out of Microsoft[1]. Sad to see Microsoft lose one of these guys.
  joe
[1] There are some amazingly technical security folks in the wings at MSFT that you have never heard of and probably never will hear of. I was only lucky enough to meet them at a special Security MVP Summit a couple of years ago and get to see posts from many of them on an MVP/MSFT only security listserv. To say that some of those people are technically brilliant is putting them down as they are far beyond that.
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David LeBlanc came back 🙂
I just got Jesper and Steve’s book — Protect Your Windows Network: From Perimeter Data.
It got great reviews on Amazon so I’m looking forward to reading it.
It’s cool that you get to meet all these smart guys on the inside. I’ve always liked Jesper ever since I watched his ACL show
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/technet/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=101
I’ve watched that one a few times because Jesper takes the subject of ACL’s to another level.
His comments about the CISSP exam were great too.
I hope Jasper’s stock options were able to be cashed out after 5 years at Microsoft.
Alun: Yes, this is good. I recall how bummed many were when he left for the small VC funded startup. Obviously it didn’t work out for him and he came back to the mothership. I think a move to a large org though probably wouldn’t be as likely to be canceled out. Could be wrong though.
Mike: Certainly I feel lucky for meeting a lot of the people who help make MSFT do incredible things. As for the stock options, I am unsure, I have heard a lot of grumbling from several MSFT folks that their options are upside down or “under water”. This isn’t good for a company which a lot of people would join because of the idea they may someday be a millionaire and could only possibly do it with stock as the salaries appear to be subpar from everytime I have looked into it. I think the days of people becoming millionairs from MSFT stock are long gone.
The salaries are better than they were – although I wasn’t on the way to becoming a millionaire while I was there, I took the job without thinking that the shares were anything worth considering as part of the overall remuneration. The health insurance was worth more, IMHO.
I took a _significant_ pay cut on leaving MS, and while I hope to increase my pay in due time, I’m far happier out of there – I have more time for my own family, and I’m at a company where they are willing to teach me any time I don’t understand how they do business.
Alun: Wow that sucks that you took a cut when leaving MSFT, that, from what I generally gather is pretty unusual. You either did exceptionally well at your negotiations with MSFT or exceptionally poorly at the company you joined. 🙂
I realize and concur that departures like this are eye-opening to say the least. Of similar concern are various departures from the AD team to other groups within the company…time will tell whether that is good or bad.
Hi everybody!
Can the open source software movement defeat (or severely cripple) Microsoft in the marketplace? Thank you 🙂