Hello everyone, I am back and excited to share with you a great story about one of our interns who has returned to intern at Microsoft for the second year in a row. Emily will tell you what’s it like to be an SDET and a PM, and will share her experiences as a returning intern on campus. We are all very proud to have her back on campus! 

Emily, please start by telling us a bit about yourself.

Well, I am an incoming senior in Math/Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. I love the outdoors (hiking, cycling, kayaking), music (violin, piano), computers, and shopping. I may not appear to be the typical “techie nerd,” but one of the great things about Microsoft is how diverse it is. There are so many great people with such a variety of interests, that it’s easy to find someone who shares your passion.

Please tell us about your first contact with Microsoft.

My first contact with Microsoft recruiting was at the Engineering Career Fair at UCLA in the winter of 2006. The guys and girls at the booth seemed very friendly, so I decided to talk to one of the employees (who was actually a recent UCLA graduate, as well as a Microsoft employee). I had done some background research about positions available for interns, and Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) seemed up my alley.

Note to potential interviewees: do your background research! The guy I talked to seemed very impressed that I had taken the time to learn about what the positions are, what Microsoft is looking for, etc. After a mini interview at the fair itself, I had an on campus interview. A week or two after my on-campus, I got an email informing me that Microsoft wanted to fly me out to interview in Redmond!

Can you share some of your experiences about the dreaded Microsoft Interview?

The fly-back interview was very intense, but was also exciting and interesting (the accommodations, food allowance, and rental car weren’t bad either). I went through about 6 hours worth of interviews, filled with everything from coding/technical questions to talking about previous leadership/management experience.

My best interview advice, as cliché as it may sound, is to be yourself. It’s easy to want to project the image that you think Microsoft expects, but in reality, there is such a diverse group of people here, that no predefined mold exists.

I had a great time in some of my interviews when I really got into conversations with my interviewers. Sharing my passions, and learning some of theirs, was not only useful in convincing them to give me a shot at an internship, but also for me to realize that this was the group I wanted to work in.

How was your journey from LA to Seattle?

A few months later, I was up in Redmond. A California native with a love for sunshine and warm weather, I was slightly concerned about what I’d heard about this rainy city up north. Luckily my first summer was filled with sun, and I realized that all of the rain was actually quite useful for keeping everything green. I’m back again this summer for Internship Take 2, and even though the weather hasn’t been perfect, we’ve had our fair share of beautiful days.

 Tell us about your first internship at Microsoft.

My first summer at Microsoft, I worked as an SDET for the AdCenter team, doing performance testing for an ad management platform. Performance testing is challenging but fun, because the job of the perf tester is to break things really badly!

Even though I enjoyed testing, I decided to try out a new role for my second summer. Towards the end of my internship, I went through a round of interviews for a program management position in the same group. The interviews were less focused on technical aspects (since the team I’d been working with already knew my technical skills), and more on creativity, ingenuity, product design, and management skills.

What are you doing this summer at Microsoft?

This summer, I ended up working in the same group, but this time in the PM role. I’ve been working on integrating new advertising technologies and managing existing types of online advertising in an ad management platform. The PM role at Microsoft is great. It’s very challenging and diverse, and gives you a great focus on the customer and business perspective, in addition to technical issues. I’ve worked on everything from programming demo applications, writing performance and functional specifications, to integrating possible business collaborations.

How do you feel about the level of support and guidance you receive here as an intern? Have you leveraged the mentoring program?

The mentoring at Microsoft is phenomenal. My mentors both summers went out of their way to make sure that not only did I amass new technical skills and experiences, but also to really make me feel like part of a team. Throughout the summers I had their support, whether I was struggling in my test analysis or trying to come up with new ideas for my feature. My entire summer, I was never treated like just an intern.

This summer, my mentor even arranged for me to meet with one of her own mentors, another very high-powered woman at Microsoft who had some great advice on negotiation and leadership.

What is the highlight of the intern program for you?

One of the great things about the intern program here at Microsoft is how many other interns you get to interact with. Microsoft has some great events for the interns. We did a sailing excursion out of Seattle, a hiking trip to Mt. Rainier, and even a tech talk with Jay Allard, where all of the interns were given a Zune!

And even beyond the “Microsoft planned” events, there are tons of ways to meet new people. I’d made some great friendships that have extended two summers now. We’ve done everything from road trips to Vancouver, hiking all over the Pacific Northwest, kayaking, to exploring Seattle tourist attractions and nightlife. They even threw me a surprise party for my 21st birthday this summer!

Any last words of wisdom to our readers out there?

All in all, I’ve had two amazing summers. My first piece of advice is for all potential Microsoft interns, do the internship! Seek out interviews, contact your recruiters, and accept your offers! You will have a great summer, that I can promise you. Beyond that, once you’re here, strive to go beyond expectations, and don’t be afraid to fail!

Thanks, Emily! 

- Priya

Drum roll, please… the wait is over and after an intense week of competition, the winners of the 2007 Imagine Cup are announced..

The winners are Thailand’s 3KC Returns/Project LiveBook team.  The team members are:
 Prachaya Phaisanwiphatpong, Vasan Chienmaneetaweesin, Jatupon Sukkasem, and Pathompol Saeng-Uraiporn.

During my time in International staffing, when I was travelling around the globe to hire great talent from Microsoft, I had the opportunity to meet multiple participants and winners of the various Imagine Cups.  I was always intrigued by their great minds and impressed by their passion for technology. Many of these participants and winners have successfully landed jobs within Microsoft, apart from creating these great solutions in partnership with us.

This year the imagine cup was in South Korea – Seoul from Aug 5-10. Once again, we invited young programmers and artists around the world to rise to the Imagine Cup challenge. The theme for this year's Imagine Cup was “Enable a world where technology enables better education for all”. I personally think it was a very well thought-out and appropriate theme, as it gave the students a chance to reflect on the current situation of education model and system in their own countries and geographies.  Also, it gave them a unique opportunity to create solutions with the help of technology, to solve these issues which will have a huge impact.

Here are some tidbits about this year’s 2007 Imagine Cup:

• More than 100,000 students from 100 countries entered the competition with 112 teams in total
• 344 finalist from all over the world went to the worldwide finals in Seoul
• VP of the Developer Division, S. Somasegar and Joe Wilson, MS director of Academic Initiatives, served as Microsoft hosts for the event 

Check out these videos of the Imagine Cup at channel 9.

At Microsoft, we constantly try to drive towards our mission “to enable people around the globe to realize their full potential”, through our commitment to education, and driving innovation. The Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student developer competition.  The competition challenges students to imagine a better world enabled by their own talent and also to contribute directly to the future of technology, software and computing by applying their passion, innovation and technical skills to create solutions that might change the world!

Next year, France will proudly host Imagine Cup 2008 in Paris. The theme will be “Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.”

If you have what it takes.. check out the Imagine Cup website – http://www.imaginecup.com/.

- Priya

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I have been pretty busy with my new job. Yes, I have been meaning to post this for a while.

I recently changed my job and moved from my role as an International staffing consultant into an HR business partner role in the Sales, Marketing  and Services group at Microsoft. People often talk about stretch assignments, opportunity to grow, and diverse experience - I have been lucky to get all this here at Microsoft.

My career at Microsoft began with a campus interview and internship offer to join the human resource group at Microsoft. I found this place to be intense, the people to be fun and extremely smart, and immediately knew that this was the right place for me. So, after my internship ended, when they offered me a full time role, there was no doubt in my mind that I would join Microsoft.

My first job at Microsoft was that of an International staffing consultant where I had the opportunity to hire talent from the Middle East, South Africa, India and Pakistan. Every day on this job was a learning experience, and gave me immense satisfaction on multiple fronts.

The fact that we were bringing world class talent from around the globe to work here on global Microsoft products, and that I had an opportunity to make an impact by hiring those people, was a significant contribution in my mind. I got to travel many many places, and meet some amazing and very talented people.

The most rewarding piece for me has been seeing some of the people we hired now in Redmond. Every time I go to a cafeteria for lunch, someone comes by to greet me and says, “Priya do you remember me, you interviewed me in Istanbul?”, and of course I do!

After 10 international trips and more than a year in this job, it was time for me to move on and do something different, so I decided to support the Sales, Marketing and Services team, as an HR Business Partner.

You may be wondering: what is an HR Business partner?  Well, it is what some companies call “HR Generalist”. However, here we work real close with businesses and clients to support them on business decisions and coach them on strategic initiatives apart from taking “care of the business and the employees” on all matters including benefits, compensation, career related, etc.

With the staggering number of H1b visa applications this year and the whole lottery thing, our team has had its own challenges in hiring international talent for Redmond-based positions.  I know for some of you, the wait has been too long. I just want to tell you that we are watching and listening and working diligently to come up with solutions to ensure that we as a company still continue to hire the best regardless of geographical boundaries.

With this, I would like to introduce a new guest blogger to the blog..Anne Cheng. Anne has taken over my role and is an amazing person. She has a great background and a passion for international recruiting. Anne will keep you posted on what is happening with the International recruiting team, where are we going next, updates, etc. And of course, she will love to answer any questions and read your comments.  She will be posting her intro very soon, so make sure you check back and read it!

But wait, this is not my last post. I will still continue to blog and be here to listen to your feedback, comments and answer any questions you have. So, it is not yet “Adios” time.

I would love to know what is on the mind of readers. What do you want to know? Let us know the topics that interest you, so that my blogs are less about me and more about my readers' choice.

More later..

-Priya

Again, after a long pause, just when you started to wonder where I went, I am back with some exciting stuff to share.

If you're looking for a perfect time and opportunity to apply at Microsoft and wished you could attend one of our career fairs no matter where in the world you are located, here's some fun news.  You can meet us virtually next week!

We're participating in a worldwide virtual career fair in Second Life from May 15th through 17th.  Second Life is a very cool, wildly popular virtual world, and we'll be meeting and interviewing candidates during the job fair on "TMP Island", so named because of the career fair hosts, TMP Worldwide. 

You should come check it out!

So what is Second Life?  It’s a place where virtual world meets reality in an online 3D virtual world that has grown exponentially since it’s opening four years ago.  It has over six million registered users and is one of the fastest growing online communities, with an average of over 25,000 users online (referred to as avatars) and in the virtual world at any given time.

If you don’t have a Second Life account, you can sign up here.  During this virtual career fair you'll be able to chat/IM with recruiters in private, so you can ask all of the burning questions you've been thinking about, you can share your thoughts, feedback and ideas with us and meet with other candidates from around the world. 

And though this is a virtual world, you could potentially interview with us for a REAL job...pretty cool. 

So here's the opportunity - attending the career fair is absolutely free, and all you need is a computer with Internet.  Pretty simple.  Come check it out!  And tell us what you think.

Do you like having this kind of tech savvy user experience while job hunting?  Do you think it's nice to avoid travel and skip business cards, printed resumes, interview suits, etc?

A few last words of wisdom: The first step in the process is to sign up and create a Second Life account.  Once you've submitted your resume, a Microsoft recruiter will take a look and if you seem to be qualified for one of our jobs, will send you an invitation to join us on the Island at the career fair. 

Interested?  Move quickly since the deadline to submit resumes is Monday, May 14th!

If you try it out, definitely fill us in about your experience and share your thoughts with the other readers.  Or just tell us what you think about this opportunity - good, bad, other?  And who knows...the one with best story might even win a prize from me!

Cheers, and Happy Job Hunting!

- Priya

PS: Who's going to take Jenna to dinner?  I'd request dinner at the top of the Space Needle, if I were you...

By Priya Priyadarshini

Yes, it's time to celebrate and I don't think we do it as often as we should.  In the last couple of weeks and months I've received many emails in which I've seen our company recognized for some of the things we do great, so I wanted to share this with you all.  Thought it would be a nice break from talking about interviews and tips and trips...

Fortune recently announced its "2007 100 Best Companies to Work For" list and Microsoft made the list for the 10th consecutive year.  Of the technical companies, only Microsoft and Cisco have been on the list every year since its inception in 1998.

Also, last week Microsoft was recognized by CollegeGrad.com as one of the Top 50 Entry Level Employers.  At Microsoft, we love and value the energy that new college grads bring to the campus and we want to continue to build and develop that pipeline to help generate future leaders.  In the year 2007 alone, we are targeting to hire more than 1000 college grads for entry level positions.

Now these awards are based on a lot of criteria, but I want to focus on one element of MS that deserves more attention....the benefits and perks.  I can’t get over how great they are, so I just need to share!

I was recently having a conversation with a couple of my candidates who had a ton of questions around benefits and perks at Microsoft, and as I started answering their questions, I realized that I myself was getting more and more excited about them.  I just love that I get to answer "Yes we do" to almost all questions asked about whether or not we offer specific benefits...it's a recruiter's dream come true.

Here's a sample conversation I had the other day when offering a job to a great candidate (who, of course, accepted!):

1) Do you provide health coverage?
Yes, we do – In fact we have multiple plans you can choose from.  For example you will have 100% in-network coverage for you and your dependents, there are no deductibles and there's also 100% coverage for almost all prescription drugs.

2) We will soon start thinking about a family, what is Microsoft’s policy around leaves?
Oh, great question, yes we do, we provide eight weeks of paid maternity leave and another four weeks of paid leave for new Moms and Dads.  Also you can take additional unpaid leave if need be.

3) Once I start working art Microsoft, can I get discount on software?
Yes, for sure, you can buy software and games at huge discounts for personal use and for family and friends. 

4) I like to stay fit and workout, does Microsoft provide discounts of health club memberships?
Yes we do, we actually provide free health club memberships for employees at major health clubs like ProClub and discounted memberships for family members.

5) I will have to relocate, does Microsoft assist with that?
Oh no problem, yes we do.  We will take good care of you, we do a great job at relocating people both nationally and internationally.  For example, let me share my story with you.

I relocated here from Minnesota and the Microsoft relocation team had set up everything to ensure a smooth move for me. The movers showed up one morning and packed and shipped everything along with my car.  Then Microsoft paid for my tickets to Seattle, and upon arrival to SeaTac (Seattle Airport) I had a free rental car for 30 days and also keys to a nice, fully furnished temporary housing apartment for the first month when I moved to Seattle.

While my stuff was in a storage (which was also paid by Microsoft btw), and then later when I bought my house, the movers once again showed up and brought all my stuff from the storage space into my new house, and almost set up my entire house for me.  Moving was NOT painful for a change, so there you have it!

Any more questions?

6) Uh...thanks Priya.  No, all this sounds really great, but do you want to share anything else that will be help me make an informed decision as I am weighing my options?

Yes, I actually do as a matter of fact, but I will try to keep the list short...

• As a Microsoft employee it your right to drink as many free drinks as you possibly can - every floor in every Microsoft building has a kitchenette which is packed with free pop, freshly brewed Starbucks coffee, cocoa, juice, milk and more than a dozen types of tea.  So suit yourself.  I personally love the hot cocoa.
• We have a great tuition reimbursement program.
• We have a number of cafeterias on the Redmond campus and the menus can be found online.  They have great-tasting food and tons of healthy choices ranging from organic to vegan.  We also have some great restaurant chains on campus.
• Thanks to Lisa Brummel, our head of HR who rocks, now we have on-site laundry pick up.
• No time for shopping and groceries?  No worries we have you covered, we have free grocery delivery.
• We have Valet parking services in many buildings.
• Every summer there is an annual company picnic at a local farm where there's loads of food and fun - it's awesome. 
• Free therapy for autistic dependents (Proud to say that we are the first company in the nation to recognize this need and provide insurance coverage towards therapy).
• There are free towels on campus after you have taken a shower after a tiring day of work or biking, etc
• Oh and one last thing - You do have the opportunity to make impact on millions on people (literally)

And the list is not even complete here...there's much more, but I will let my readers guess (or ask about) some of the things I've missed!

It’s surprising to me as an insider here just how seldom we stop and feel thankful and proud of the wonderful benefits and perks we have.  I, for one, am really thankful - and in case you haven't picked up on it yet - I'm also really proud. 

By Priya Priyadarshini 

My last blog where I introduced all of you to Mona was so well received…THANK YOU for your continued support and keep reading. Hopefully we will be able to incorporate more of such interviews and also provide a platform for you to meet and get to know more wonderful people who are a part of Microsoft.

Today I want to introduce you to a good friend, a great developer, an even better interviewer, and a passionate photographer - Paul David.

Paul was one of the five interviewers who accompanied me on the recent Egypt recruiting trip. Paul has been at Microsoft for over 12 years and has worked on several multi-media and graphics-related products including Internet Explorer and Windows Vista.  He currently manages a development team working on the Windows Presentation Foundation.  Paul lives near Seattle with his wife and two lovely daughters, and together they enjoy reading books and running the local trails.

This is Paul’s story from Egypt, in his own words and images (and all of these incredible images are courtesy of Paul, except for the group shots):

One of the things I like about Microsoft is that we will go anywhere in the world to find the best candidates.  At times, my development team has been composed of more foreign-born engineers than Americans.  I’ve seen first-hand that diversity makes teams stronger. 

I have visited universities all over the U.S., and had done a couple of international trips.  But I’d never been to Egypt, and didn’t know so much about the culture or the talent pool there.  What an experience though!  Ten hours of interviewing each day, riding a camel, several near-death experiences in the Cairo taxicabs, and the opportunity to experience a rich and fascinating culture would have been enough.  On top of all that, we made some great hires!  Watching one of our recruiters swap camels (without dismounting!) the day we visited the Pyramids was icing on the cake.

On these trips we do a full loop, much as we would here on the Microsoft campus, and make a hire/no-hire decision about each interviewee.  It’s intense work, but pretty efficient for identifying the top talent.  Over the course of three to five interviews, we can look at several facets of each candidate, ensuring that each gets a fair chance.  This also gives the candidate a good picture of who we are, and how it is to work at Microsoft.

While in Egypt, we got to do a presentation at the American University in Cairo.  Anne and Priya did a great overview of how candidates can prepare and what we look for in our new hires.  Then we technical interviewers got to talk a little bit about what we do and the different products we’ve worked on.  This was a lot of fun for me – the discussion was free-form, and there were some great questions for us. 

Later in the week, I interviewed several people who attended the talk, and this gave us a chance to have a more detailed discussion about what it’s like to work on products used by people all over the world.   The overall quality of candidates we got to meet with in Egypt was very good.  All were well-prepared and very professional.

Many candidates want to know what to expect during the interview and how best to prepare for it.  The primary thing is to be very comfortable with problem solving, algorithmic design, data structures, and the art of coding.  You’ll also want to be able to talk about the key technical issues and trade-offs from your past projects.  I look for people who are smart, creative, and love to build software.  These attributes have much more long-term value than knowledge of specific technologies, programming languages and methodologies.  A good book for interviewees (and interviewers!) to check out is Programming Interviews Exposed by Mongan and Suojanen.  William Poundstone’s book, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? is interesting, although I see Microsoft moving away from the “puzzle interview” culture described in the book.

Reading about Microsoft interviews and interview questions on the web may give you a sense of what some interview experiences are like, but be aware that the information is pretty anecdotal and isn’t always very accurate or valuable.  You’re far better off being yourself than trying to memorize answers to specific questions.  You can find lots of useful information on the Microsoft Careers site, including interview preparation tips and background on the different roles at Microsoft.

By Priya Priyadarshini 

I’ve been silent on the blog for a while…I blame it on the fact that I was traveling for almost all of December and then came home only to find that there was no power.  Tough hit on productivity, and the new year has been a busy one thus far!

I’m excited to share some interviews that I’ve done with some of our most recent Dubai and Egypt hires.  Both of these recruiting trips were extremely successful and I’m eager for you to “meet” some of our terrific new hires.  And I’d like to officially and publically thank our people at the Microsoft Dubai regional office and the Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center for their warm hospitality.

My first guest on this mini-series on the “Microsoft Interview Experience” is Mona who graduated from the Faculty of Computer and Information Science Ain Shams University-Cairo in 2005.  She will soon be joining the .Net Dev Team in Redmond as a Software Design Engineer in Test – and we’re looking forward to having her here!  I hope you enjoy "meeting" her as much as we did in Egypt!

Mona, how did you come to know about Microsoft recruiting from Egypt for Redmond-based positions?

While I was in school, I heard and saw that a lot of my peers were applying to Microsoft.  Some of them got accepted, others kept trying.  Initially I had not given it a serious thought, but since last year I seriously began thinking about it.  When I came to know Microsoft was coming in December last year, I began weighing my options, assessing myself and doing some introspection.  I felt like being in Egypt in my current role, I was not really a part of the global world and was missing out on a lot.  I was ready for a bigger challenge. Some of my friends who had already accepted offers with Microsoft encouraged me, so I owe them lots of thanks.

Do you think there is something that sets you apart from your peers?

Mmmm, this is a hard question!  I am a very normal girl, I do not consider myself a genius.  I know there are lots of people out there who could come to Microsoft.  I personally had a great deal of passion around Microsoft and wanted to have a great time in the interviews, no matter what the result would be at the end of the day. I think that was the differentiator for me.

What advice would you like to give to your peers who are applying to Microsoft?

The first step is to do well on the phone interview. The phone interview for me was a mix of HR and technical questions.  In fact it was you, Priya, who conducted my phone interview!  I feel to get ready for the phone interview, you have to ask yourself why are you here, why Microsoft, why not Google, IBM or any other huge company.  Ask yourself “Do you really want to join Microsoft”, and “What is your idea bout Microsoft, working there, how do you imagine yourself there…”

Also, prepare for the technical part of the phone interview.  I believe it reflects a lot on your education and experience.  Take the time to review as many concepts as you can. Think about how things [tools, environments, compilers,...] are working, not just how to use them.  During the phone interview you have to relax as much as you can.  Take your time to think, and justify your answer as much as you can.
 
Can you please talk to me a bit about the actual in-person interview?  Describe how you were feeling, how did the interviews go, and how were the interviewers?

Before the in-person interview I heard about people who spent about a whole year preparing for the interviews, and people who are joining the interviews for the second and third times.  Of course I heard this and I didn't feel relaxed at all!  This is why I set my first goal: to enjoy the interviews, then to get accepted. 

My parents gave me a ride to the Smart Village, where the interviews were, and I reached there so early, about 1:00 PM.  The interviews were supposed to start at 2:00 PM.

I entered the building of the Innovation Center where the interviews were held.  I could hear my heart beat, I was a bit excited and nervous. When I reached the waiting room [all candidates gather in it], I found three other candidates; two were Indians who were both very nice, and there was one other Egyptian from Alexandria, I think.  While I was there, three more Egyptians joined us, two from Cairo, and another from Alexandria.

We were seven candidates, and the expected number was five, so it was a bit unusual.  I was wondering what would happen as there were only five interviewers.  I learned that the reason we had two additional people waiting was because the Indian candidates could not get their visas on time and still the team and the recruiter (Priya again!) were trying to accommodate them on another day.  I really appreciated that as it was a big opportunity that no applicant would like to miss and Microsoft was flexible enough to accommodate that.

I really enjoyed talking to the other candidates.  And by the way, I was the only girl there which made me feel more of a challenge to prove myself!
The interviewers were great and very friendly, and tried to talk with me at the beginning of the interview to make me feel at ease and to calm me down.  They were all so friendly and willing to help and encouraged me to discuss my ideas with them which was great.  I learned a lot from the MS interviews, and in fact the interviews have impacted the way I think about and approach problems now.

Do you have any feedback about the interviewers or the process?

You were great, guys, but just one thing; before the in-person interviews, some materials and links were sent to us to help in preparing for the interviews.  This is great but most of the links sent were about Testing and I think more links about Development would be better.

I think the technical interviews aim at knowing how you think about a brand new problem, so solve lots of puzzles as they help a lot in advancing your way of thinking.  Then focus on basic algorithms and data structures since knowing the basics makes you able to create new ideas using those basics.  You are not required to know every algorithm in the whole world, nobody can, but when you read about an algorithm and get its idea, you can use this idea or a portion of it in solving another problem.

For all our readers who are thinking of applying or who are interviewing with Microsoft in the near future, can you please talk about the technical aspect of the interview?  Do you have any recommended Blogs, Websites, Books etc?

Oh sure, I would love to!  Books I recommend are:

• Introduction to ALGORITHMS by Thomas H. Cormen , Charles E. Leiserson,  Ronald L. ivest, Clifors Stein
• How to Move Mount Fuji  ( I know what you are all thinking…yes, I did read it!)

And I got those links from Hany's blog, they are really great:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Algorithms
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Trees_%28structure%29

Mona, thank you for your time and one last question, are you excited about coming to Redmond?  What was the reaction of your friends, family, co-workers and teachers when they learned that you had an offer from Microsoft?

Everyone was extremely excited.  When I saw the offer email, it was 2:00am in our time and everybody was asleep.  I kept not talking for about five minutes, then I went to wake my parents up to tell them the news.  It was then that I started believing that I had an offer and I kept jumping all over the house.  Everyone was happy, but they were extremely worried about me, thinking that they will miss me and of course I will miss them.  But I kept telling them to forget about everything and think of this offer, it is a dream come true.  All my friends, co-workers, and teachers are very happy for me and proud of me.  I feel I am ready for the challenge and it is only the beginning of more great things to come.

By Priya Priyadarshini 

What is WOW?  No, it is not the World of Warcraft.  Have you visited the Microsoft website lately?

Vista and Office 2007 are all set to launch on Jan 30th worldwide, and in some countries it is already Jan 30th!  We will start the celebrations here in Redmond at 1:35 PM today, Pacific Standard Time (PST).

I feel that “Show us your Wow” is a great early consumer marketing effort initiated by BillG himself.  The marketing campaign/contest is worldwide and is web-based, and it gives you an opportunity to showcase your talent and share your imagination and skills.  The campaign is linked to a Windows Vista program where we are encouraging folks to submit pictures/videos/art of their favorite “Wow” moments.  You can take a look at some of the images people have sent in – or send in your own – by visiting the Show us your Wow site.

So what are you waiting for?  It's time to show YOUR world to the rest of us.  I wanted to call out to my international audience, as this is your chance to share your rich culture and heritage.

The contest has already begun at 12:01 p.m. Pacific Time (“PT”) on January 4, 2007 and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on March 5, 2007.  Each person can submit 10 entries, so go for it!

Ok, so what’s the catch?  I must admit there is one “little” catch. To upload that "Wow," people need to have or obtain a Windows Live ID.  Oh well, that is not a lot when you have the opportunity to win some cool stuff.

BTW, what do you all think of the tagline “Show us your wow”?  I have read that a lot of people do not like the phrase, so if you are one of them, what would your tagline be instead?