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David Vaskevitch's career as visionary software architect, business innovator and author spans more than 30 years.
As senior vice president, chief technical officer for Business Platform at Microsoft Corp., Vaskevitch reports to Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates and works with him to develop a focused and unified strategy and architecture for future Microsoft platforms.
Prior to this role, Vaskevitch was senior vice president of the Business Applications Division, responsible for driving Microsoft's entry into the small- and medium-size business software market through the creation of new software that changes the way businesses operate. As a central part of that strategy, Vaskevitch championed the acquisition of Great Plains Software Inc. in December 2000.
Vaskevitch joined Microsoft in 1986 as its first director of U.S. marketing, and applied business planning and market research techniques to revamp distribution, sales and broad-based channel marketing strategies. His four-year tenure in that position culminated in the launch of the popular Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system and Microsoft Office products.
Vaskevitch went from U.S. marketing to propose and found Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) to help enterprise customers transition their businesses to client/server computing. He served as chief technologist at MCS for two years.
In 1993 Vaskevitch became general manager of enterprise computing, undertaking the broad mission of defining an enterprise architecture and a 10-year road map for Microsoft and its enterprise partners. Vaskevitch built the teams that developed Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Transaction Services (MTS), AppCenter Server and Microsoft .NET Platform and drove the evolution of Microsoft's COM+ and Windows DNA initiatives. Vaskevitch served as the chief architect for Microsoft from 1998 to 1999, while driving the definition and release of the first iteration of Windows DNA, before moving to the helm of the new Microsoft Business Applications Division.
Before joining Microsoft, Vaskevitch started up the software division of 3Com Corp., planning and building the business for EtherMail and other software products.
Vaskevitch began his career as a young entrepreneur, launching business planning and software ventures before the age of 30. The first, PlanDesign, was a Toronto-based strategic planning consultancy advising Canada's largest corporations on business processes and change management (later known as business process re-engineering). The second, Standard Software, was one of the earliest venture-capital-funded software companies in North America. Vaskevitch designed and marketed its TP monitoring product to Fortune 500 companies.
Vaskevitch is the author of Client/Server Strategies: A Survival Guide for Corporate Re-engineers, published in 1993 by IDG Books Worldwide. The book explains client/server computing to general audiences, demystifying the technical, business and cultural forces driving the distributed computing trend.
Vaskevitch holds bachelors of science degrees in math, computer science and philosophy, and a masters degree in computer science from the University of Toronto. While at the university in the 1970s, he invented a typewriter-terminal-based communications messaging network that predated PC-based e-mail systems by a decade.
Outside of his work life, Vaskevitch is an accomplished digital photographer and competitive horseman, and enjoys spending time with his son and two daughters. | 