The man behind Google +

Google Plus the axe which is seen to be looming over Facebook which may or may not slice through Facebook’s 500 million active users(Facebook Statistics). Well lets keep that debate for another day as we enjoy the growth of Google Plus, and as promised in the title, I will introduce you to the guy behind Google Plus [You can read our take on it here ]

Well my friend gave me a big hint of his nationality by emphasizing,”Check this out dude, see the amount of emphasis on Relation”, which other country produces people who hold together all their relatives like a perpetual Fevicol advertisement. Well let me cut the suspense and it is…

Vic Gundotra (born June 14, 1968), in India is Senior Vice-President of Social for Google and was previously a general manager at Microsoft. He is now 43 and is the claimed to Google’s Social Czar.(Check his very own Google + page here)

In 1991, Vic Gundotra, a 21-year-old programmer at Microsoft’s Washington, DC, office, showed some of his demos to Steve Ballmer, then Microsoft’s head of sales (and now CEO). Soon after, Gundotra was moved to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA.

In 1999, Gundotra also wrote the code for the network software that underlies .Net- which crystallized “Web services” for Ballmer and Bill gates/ The code sparked Microsoft’s next PC operating system, Longhorn (due in 2005) will be driven by ,Net. Gundotra is a born proselytizer for technology: he uses a tablet PC to take notes during church.

Platform Evangelism : Gundotra joined Microsoft in 1991 and eventually became General Manager of Platform Evangelism (for those who don’t know what it is,like me,Platform evangelism (also called Developer Relations or Developer and Platform Evangelism) is the application of technology evangelism to a multi-sided platform. It seeks to accelerate the growth of a platform’s commercial ecosystem of complementary goods, created by independent (third-party) developers, as a means to the end of maximizing the platform’s market share).

An funny example of the same would be the highly profitable online business of making iPAD cases for iPAD’s. In short he would go out an ensure developer communities to write programs that build on top of Microsoft’s desktop software and online services

His duties included promoting Microsoft’s APIs and platforms to independent developers and helping to develop a strategy for Windows Live online services to compete with Google’s web-based software applications.

Gundotra worked hard to promote Windows Live and MSN through blogs, online video, and other Web-based tools to present a friendlier face.

Google has gone onto gradually dominated the market where Windows Live and MSN are present.

In 2003 Vic was recognized by MIT Technology Review as a “Young Innovator under 35” for his work in sparking Microsoft’s change from Win32 to the .NET programming model.

On June 29th 2006, it was reported that ”Mr. Gundotra has resigned from Microsoft and entered into an agreement with Google,” Google spokesman Steve Langdon wrote in an emailed statement. “He will not be a Google employee for one year and intends to spend that time on philanthropic pursuits. We are uncertain what precise role he will play when he begins working for Google, but he has a broad range of skills and experience which we believe will be valuable to Google.”

Gundotra joined Google in June 2007, after taking a one-year delay working on charitable endeavors due to a Microsoft employee non-compete agreement.

His responsibilities as Vice-President of Engineering include Google’s mobile phone applications, and its developer efforts, including

• OpenSocial – OpenSocial defines a common API for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps
• Google Gadgets
• Google Gears  - A Firefox and Internet Explorer extension that allows to navigate on compatible websites offline and synchronize when going back online

and the more than 40 product APIs Google exposes. It was reported on Gigaom that he is considered to be Google’s Social Czar.

Google had looked externally to get in that spice which was elusive in its Social endeavors, and it may have found the right person to infuse the right ingredients.

As reported on Gigaom a recruiting letter in May that year that described the “Head of Social” role as such:

This is a new and very strategic position, as Google knows it is late on this front and is appropriately humble about it. In Google’s view, conceptually, there are two ways to tackle social, each impacting who may be successful in this senior post:

1) building an innovative offering specifically in this area; or

2) developing the capability and integrating social into Google’s existing portfolio.

Gundotra has had an increasingly public profile, with on-stage presences at the company’s recent Android, real-time search, and Google Buzz announcements in the last year, as well as interviewing Conan O’Brien when the comedian visited Google this spring (the video of that chat has nearly 900,000 views).

“He entered Google when battle waged between Google and Microsoft, and now leads the siege on Facebook.”

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Links : Finance

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