By: Ginny Cheng

I received several inquiries from folks that wanted to learn more about the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MacBU) -- which is growing in both the Redmond, WA and our Mountain View, CA office. 

Mick Foley is one of the Development Leads in the CA office and was kind enough to answer some of the most common questions they get about this group. 

For example, a lot of people ask, “Microsoft has a Mac business group?”

Mick:  Depending on when and how you measure it, Microsoft is either the largest or second largest third party vendors for Mac platform (vs. Adobe). People are often surprised that Microsoft has a Mac Business Unit. Ironically, most Mac people are very aware of Microsoft on the Mac: Office is one of the best selling and therefore most common software packages for the Macintosh.

However, many Microsoft employees are completely unaware that we develop and sell software for the Mac. BTW, in addition to Office, we also develop the Mac Messenger IM client and we are currently working on a new version of RDC for Mac – these are both free products that we develop for to meet a need that we see in the Mac market.

What products do you work on within the MacBu?
I am a developer lead on Entourage. Entourage is the Email/Calendar/Contacts/Exchange client that is shipped as part of Mac Office (along with Word, Excel and PowerPoint). While we are not a part of Outlook, we cover many of the same areas and occupy the same “spot” in the suite. The developer lead role involves both coding and management – I spend about 1/2 of my time in each role.

Do you have to have experience with Mac to excel in this group?
Absolutely not! Of the five people who report to me, only one had significant Mac experience before coming to the MacBU. The MacOS continues to change quite rapidly – in the last 6 years Apple has moved to an entirely rewritten OS (Mac OS X), revised 6 times (10.0 to 10.5) and changed processors (PowerPC to Intel) – even people with years of Mac experience are learning new things all the time. We’re looking for people who can learn quickly, solve hard problems, and work well in cross functional (dev, test, product management) teams. Much of our code is written in C++ so experience there helps, but like Mac specific experience we’re more interested in more general problem solving.

Can you tell me about the growth in this group?  Is it like a start-up?
We are definitely in a hiring phase right now. We are about to ship Office 2008 and we are starting to plan for the next version. As we look at the work we want to do and the time that we have to do it, it is clear that we need to expand. In terms of culture, I think that we have a mix of smaller company focus – being on the Mac makes us somewhat different – but large company resources. We are very much a team culture – working at the MacBU is very much about working with others: both with those who share your role and across disciplines.

Do you guys focus on different features in Redmond vs. Mountain View?
The Mac Office suite consists of four products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. Word and Excel (and Messenger!) are developed in Redmond and PowerPoint and Entourage are developed in Silicon Valley. There is a fair amount of shared code that is developed by teams in both locations. In general, we see ourselves as one group, split over two locations – not two groups that happen to ship together.

What’s your vision of the MacBu 5 years from now?
We will certainly still be developing and shipping Mac Office – it’s an important and profitable business for Microsoft. However, I think that the nature and scope of the Office suite will continue to evolve and grow. Personally, I expect that we will be looking at more and more collaborative scenarios to enable teams to work together. I also think that we may be developing and shipping other products that complement the Mac Office scenarios. In terms of the code, I see us continuing to integrate newer Apple and Microsoft technologies to both improve existing functionality and to enable new features to solve new problems.

Do you have any tips for people that end up interviewing for this team?

1. Get a good night’s sleep – come in fresh and ready to think.
   
2. Be prepared for technical problems – we do ask them. However, looking on the Internet for questions and answers won’t help – we avoid asking the ones that are up there, especially the abstract logic questions. Rather, be prepared to discuss and code problems on a whiteboard relating to real code and problems that we have seen in our code.
   
3. If you’re a college student, think about what you are interested in learning from us about where/how/why we work at Microsoft. What position you take after school is a key decision in your life – it will affect where you live, who you are spending time with and what you are doing for many of your waking hours. Make sure that you get the info you need to make the right decision for you.

Lastly, tell us about yourself. How did you end up with Microsoft? 
I’ve been at Microsoft for almost 5 years – I joined when Microsoft acquired a Virtual PC from Connectix (small (~120 people) company). Virtual PC was a virtualization package that enabled Mac users to run Windows software on their Macs. I moved into the dev lead role on Entourage about 2 years ago. In all honesty, I had never really considered coming to Microsoft – I’ve been programming the Mac for many years, so Microsoft was not exactly on my radar. I have to say that I was initially very surprised by the passion for software and customers that I see here at Microsoft. This passion and Microsoft’s dedication to its employees makes it truly one of the great places to work today.

Prior to Microsoft and Connectix, I worked in the game/educational software industry. In my 10 years, I worked for Maixs (now part of Electronic Arts) including work on SimCity and SimCity 2000, Presage (a small game studio) and Lucas Learning (educational software in the Star Wars world...). While working in the game space was often quite fun – the artists and sound people are great – the nature of the gaming business keeps budgets low and schedules insane. Leaving games in 2000 to go to Connectix, I found that the projects are just as interesting, the pay is better and the schedules allow a life outside of work. I think that the most surprising thing for me when I got into non-game software is that features that get cut can return in a future version. For the most part games, even sequels, are complete rewrites so if a feature is cut, it is gone for good.

Thanks, Mick! That was very interesting.

To check out available positions with the MacBU, go to Microsoft.com/careers site. If you’re a college student, contact your school recruiter instead.

 - Ginny