The product I've been working on for the last year at Microsoft, called Microsoft Connect, is off for final privacy and security audit! Soon, the beta programs for MSN's Messenger and Hotmail and Windows Longhorn will launch at connect.microsoft.com through the web property we've built. We've been on death march for weeks, putting in long evenings and weekends to get the thing out the door by a set date. That is finally over. The three days of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday had me at the office for about 35 hours dealing with final bits and pieces, along with most of our team of about 18 people.
I say about 18 because I'm not actually sure how many of us there are. Our test team is mostly in China and has had so many staff changes I haven't been able to keep up with how many people are on the team. This way of handling testing has many pitfalls and has been the most difficult, frustrating, and ineffective part of our project. The good news, though, is that we also now have a test lead in Redmond who also speaks Chinese and will be here for the next version.
Within a couple weeks, the audits and rollout to production will happen and the shipping of the product will be truly complete. As I'll be on vacation for a bit, my part is done. When I return, I'm on to work for version 1.1, such as the addition of web forums and an Outlook toolbar that lets our internal program administrators send mail through our system directly from Outlook. The toolbar part is especially interesting, since that will be a true innovation to how Microsoft people communicate with customers.
In the meantime, what a relief to be done!
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