Microsoft UK NTO leaves to spend more time with IT policy

Lobby now while there's still a government, Jerry

By John Lettice • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 3rd June 2009 11:27 GMT

Free whitepaper – Best practices for optimizing performance and availability in virtual infrastructures

Is it something in the air? Microsoft UK national technology officer Jerry Fishenden is jumping ship to spend more time with his family, his doctoral research and UK technology policy.

Fishenden has worked for Microsoft since 1997, and has held the NTO post since 2004, along with being a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. Over the past few years he has had a hand in projecting the human face of Microsoft UK, publicly weighing in to the ID cards debate* and arguing for a better government understanding of privacy, identity and e-government issues.

He says he can't be specific yet about some of what he'll be doing post-Microsoft. He will "continue to provide independent tech policy advice to senior elites and influencers around the political scene, and work on some new projects with former colleagues and other orgs on technology and technology policy".

More immediately, he says he'll be doing tech policy outreach work with the LSE "ahead of the next election". But as he isn't leaving Microsoft until June 17, he might well miss that particular bus.

Jerry's Microsoft blog, which we hope they'll let him keep, can be found here, and some of his research work is over here. ®

* Disclosure: The Register currently has an article from Jerry covering this very area in the works.

Free whitepaper – Service level monitoring and management