Acknowledgments
I didn’t write this book alone, although I claim all responsibility for any inaccuracies or outright mistakes. It started as an idea that I discussed with John Osborn, an executive acquisitions editor at O’Reilly, at TechEd 2004 in San Diego. John was immediately receptive, and his encouragement and involvement throughout the process is greatly appreciated. My thanks to Robbie Allen for taking the book proposal, getting it approved, providing guidance, and being the technical editor for this book.
Brian MacDonald, what can I say? You naturally speak the way I wish I could write. I can’t thank you enough for helping me to gain a small amount of skill in translating disjointed thoughts into coherent sentences, then into paragraphs and eventually into chapters. You showed me the path.
The idea for this book started at a Microsoft Management Summit (2003, I think) where I was able to meet and talk to some incredibly talented people from the MOM product team at Microsoft. Thanks to Ashvin Sanghvi, Shawn Bice, Vlad Joanovic, and Brian Wren. A little later on, I ran into Baelson Duque, MOM Program Manager, who has to be the hardest-working guy at Microsoft. Baelson volunteered to be the sole technical contact on the MOM team. Why he signed on for battle in the trenches, I’ll never know, but he was available for endless questions via all modes of communication that have been created, and the book is immeasurably better for his involvement. Thank you, Baelson!
Thanks to the ...