Ron Markezich, Microsoft's Beta Tester General

BetaNews is running a profile and interview of Ron Markezich, a man sometimes referred to as Microsoft's "Ultimate Beta Tester." He beta-tests in The Octagon. Okay, not exactly. Markezich is Microsoft's CIO and head of the IT department, supporting Microsoft's 63,000 employees, but what makes him the ultimate beta tester is that he and his team start using Microsoft's products long before they're ready for release, which is known in the industry as eating one's own dog food.or (apparently) "dog-fooding." Markezich relates the tale of Exchange Server 2000, which was shipped to customers even though it was "not running optimally inside Microsoft," resulting in a support nightmare. "From that day forward," says Markezich, "we said we will not ship a product that we sell to the enterprise until we run our business on it." Unlike your average beta-tester, Markezich has the authority to delay a release if he thinks it doesn't meet internal expectations, so I guess he's the guy to blame if Windows Vista doesn't feel like a finished product when you buy it.

Tags: beta, cio, exchange, interview, microsoft, Ron Markezich, RonMarkezich, windows