ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
ARPAN SHAH (Chapter 1) is the Director of Product Management for Microsoft Projects based in Redmond, Washington, and is a frequent speaker at Microsoft and industry events. Before his current role, Shah led SharePoint Technical Product Management for the SharePoint 2010 and 2007 releases. Before Microsoft, he spent several years in the Internet business industry serving in a variety of product management roles. Shaw holds a bachelor's degree and master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
JIM ADAMS (Chapter 5) is a Senior Program Manager in the Collaboration Services group of Microsoft IT (MSIT), responsible for Microsoft's corporate SharePoint services. Adams joined Microsoft in 2000, and in his 12 years at Microsoft, has worked in many IT roles, including Enterprise Directory Management Program Manager, Infrastructure Engineering General Program Manager, SharePoint Operations Manager, and SharePoint Service Manager. He has worked in the SharePoint space since 2003, deploying and running each version of SharePoint since its first version, SharePoint Team Services, and is currently engaged in development and deployment of MSIT's Office365 cloud services.
NIGEL BRIDPORT (Chapter 32) is a collaboration consultant working for Microsoft Consulting Services in the United Kingdom, where he has been since 1998. His main area of responsibility is enabling customers to realize their business process and requirements on applications from Microsoft. This mainly centers on SharePoint technologies, with which he has been engaged since SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2001. He has worked on a number of large-scale architectures for the likes of the Ministry of Defense United Kingdom, as well as building custom solutions for those systems.
HUGO ESPERANCA (Chapter 24) is a hands-on Microsoft solutions architect, specializing in SharePoint 2007/2010 enterprise solutions, with more than 20 years of experience in analysis, design, and development of object-oriented component-based software applications using formal and agile methodologies. Esperanca has been the technical lead in some high-profile SharePoint implementations, including LTSB Shareview, the first SharePoint Internet site for a financial institution in the United Kingdom. Together with LTSB, some of Esperanca's past clients include Microsoft, NHS, Universal Music Group, CLS, and BAE Systems. More recently, he has been designing and developing software for Collaboris, a company that he created in 2007 together with another business partner. His latest creation is DocRead, a Reading Compliance add-on for SharePoint 2007 and 2010.
CHRIS GIDEON (Chapter 19) attended Missouri State University to study pre-medicine. After discovering that medicine was not the right profession for him, Gideon began training in Microsoft technologies. This eventually led to a job at Microsoft in 1998. He has served in numerous roles at Microsoft, including Support Engineer, Escalation Engineer, Solution Integration Engineer, Software Design Engineer, Program Manager, and architect. Gideon started his career in the areas of Windows NT domains and Active Directory, but began working with SharePoint in 2002. The challenges of SharePoint have proven to be enough to keep his attention. Gideon is currently a SharePoint Premier Field Engineer (PFE) based out of Dallas, Texas.
SAM HASSANI (Chapter 5) has worked as a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE) for five years, specializing in SharePoint, and providing on-site proactive support and consulting services with high-profile EMEA-based customers. One of Hassani's most recent achievements was obtaining the SharePoint 2010 Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) certification in May 2011, the highest level of SharePoint technical training and knowledge validation. During his time as an engineer, he has also written a significant portion of the content used for PFE workshop offerings, and has also been part of the SharePoint Risk Assessment Program (SPRAP) development team. In addition to his day-to-day work, Hassani has presented varying SharePoint sessions at a variety of technical conferences, such as Microsoft TechEd Europe and the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011.
NEIL HODGKINSON (Chapter 16) is a Senior Engineering Service Engineer with Microsoft Office Division engaged as a Senior Escalation resource for Office 365. Starting his IT career as a SQL and ASP developer, Hodgkinson transitioned to SharePoint technologies in 2000, when no one realized what an incredible platform it was to become. Primarily, his role is keeping the Microsoft SharePoint Online platform in good shape, and adhering to the best practice guidance for very large-scale deployments. He is an instructor and content owner for SharePoint Enterprise Search and FAST for SharePoint Search on the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) program. He has spoken at many internal, external, and partner conferences for Microsoft, and is a founding contributor to the Microsoft Field Engineering blog at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield. Hodgkinson hails from Manchester, and outside of work, is a fan of classic rock music and United Kingdom metal bands, but most of all enjoys spending time at home with his wife watching their three young children having fun and living life.
VESA “VESKU” JUVONEN (Chapter 15 and Chapter 18) is a Principal Consultant at Microsoft, focusing on SharePoint technologies. He has been involved in numerous global SharePoint deployments, working as lead architect for infrastructure and customizations. Juvonen has been closely involved in creating global readiness material with SharePoint product groups for field readiness for SharePoint 2010 and for “SharePoint 15” versions. Vesa also works as one of the instructors and content owners in the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) for SharePoint certification program. He achieved his own Master Certification for SharePoint 2007 and for SharePoint 2010.
SCOTT KLEVEN (Chapter 5) is a Program Manager who has been at Microsoft for three and a half years. Since joining Microsoft, his time has been spent in the SharePoint Online Dedicated business unit, and most recently, in Microsoft IT where he manages the early adoption programs within SharePoint. This includes the planning and coordination for Microsoft's global enterprise platforms from SharePoint 2007 and 2010, the next wave of Office, and SharePoint Online. His responsibilities include managing the upgrade of the enterprise-wide SharePoint utility platforms, release management for the overall pre-release rollout (“Dogfood”) cycle, and new service onboarding. Kleven's background includes ten years of experience as an analyst and project manager within the telecommunications industry.
IAN MORRISH (Chapter 4) has been a key SharePoint expert at Microsoft New Zealand for many years. He has worked for Microsoft New Zealand in pre-sales and consulting roles with enterprise customers for more than ten years. Morrish has a reputation for a deep understanding of SharePoint and Microsoft technologies, as well as a knack for being able to communicate this to a wide range of audiences. He is the author of wssdemo.com, a well-known and respected SharePoint resource. Morrish regularly presents at TechEd and other events on a wide range of SharePoint topics.
PAUL OLENICK (Chapter 11) is a Senior Consultant for Arcovis, where he leads SharePoint and Enterprise Search engagements for large organizations across multiple vertical markets, including legal, life sciences, financial, utilities, retail, non-profit, and more. Olenick has been dedicated exclusively to SharePoint since 2006, and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint since its beta release in 2009. He has helped dozens of clients solve business problems by leveraging SharePoint and Enterprise Search, and shares his experiences with the greater community by speaking at events, contributing to books, and blogging at olenicksharepoint.wordpress.com.
MATT RANLETT (Chapter 28), a SharePoint Server Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as a solution architect and consulting practice lead with Slalom Consulting, and is part of the team committed to helping people succeed by delivering innovative solutions that create business value. Ranlett has been a fixture of the Atlanta .NET developer community for many years. A founding member of the Atlanta Dot Net Regular Guys (www.devcow.com), Ranlett has formed and leads several Atlanta area user groups. Included in his community contributions are organizational efforts around five Atlanta Code Camps, two SharePoint Saturdays, and numerous presentations around the Southeast and Texas. When he's not organizing or presenting at user group-related events, Ranlett writes and edits whitepapers, magazine articles, and books on SharePoint's features and capabilities. He also enjoys spending time with his wife, Kim, son, Parker, and daughter, Darby, all of whom help to keep him sane when not focusing on Microsoft technologies and tools.
NATALYA VOSKRESENSKAYA (Chapter 27) has been working in the field of Information Technology for more than 13 years. With experience in design, architecture, development, and deployment of Web-based applications since early 2000, her main area of concentration had been development of portal solutions. Voskresenskaya delivers enterprise portal applications and business solutions, as well as portal systems architecture, design, implementation, and best practices guidance. She has been involved in SharePoint technologies since the 2003 version. An avid blogger at http://spforsquirrels.blogspot.com/ and writer, Voskresenskaya strives to share her passion for SharePoint and its community, and is often speaking at SharePoint community events, as well as conferences. Besides SharePoint, her interest had been captured by another enterprise-level search technology, FAST Enterprise Search. In 2009, Voskresenskaya co-founded Arcovis LLC, a business solutions consulting company focused on high-quality SharePoint delivery. She was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for the first time in 2008.
SIMON WALKER (Chapter 20) is an enthusiastic SharePoint evangelist and business consultant with more than ten years of experience delivering enterprise architecture solutions based upon Microsoft technologies. He is a Director of Foundation IT, and spends most of his time consulting on strategy, design, information architecture, business alignment, and governance of SharePoint — bridging the gap between the technical and business-related aspects of a SharePoint strategy. Solutions delivered on SharePoint range from 50 to more than 100,000 users on a global basis for a wide range of clients, delivering the business case, benefits, design, information architecture, governance, service models, and business change required to ensure a successful adoption of SharePoint technology. For more information about Walker, see his blog at www.sharepointsimon.net or his LinkedIn profile at http://uk.linkedin.com/in/simonmwalker.
CHRIS WHITEHEAD (Chapter 21) is a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) at Microsoft, working on site with Microsoft's largest enterprise customers around the United Kingdom and Europe. In his role, he provides proactive support and consulting services for all things SharePoint. He completed his Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) for SharePoint 2010 certification in early 2011, and graduates of this program are recognized by Microsoft as the top SharePoint experts in the world. Aside from working directly with customers, Whitehead has developed an array of content that is delivered globally by other PFEs to Microsoft's customers. This includes workshop training material and the tests, along with associated recommendations that are used in the SharePoint Risk Assessment Program (SPRAP) offering delivered by PFEs. More recently, Whitehead has taken on the additional responsibility of EMEA technical lead for the SharePoint PFE team, and works to drive the technical readiness strategy for other team members, along with the strategy for future customer-deliverable content. He has presented at various conferences, including Microsoft TechEd Europe and the Microsoft SharePoint Conference. He has also contributed to the Data Protection Manager (DPM) product group blog, and is a key contributor to his own team's blog at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/fromthefield.