Microsoft’s 50th Anniversary and my personal and professional journey with Microsoft
Microsoft is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, and it would be good to reflect on my journey with Microsoft and tech life, which I have been blessed to be part of since the 1980s. Interestingly, I ended up in tech life almost accidentally. When I was approved to study at the Hanken School of Economics (Swedish School of Economics) in Helsinki, I majored in accounting. I was supposed to become a CPA. Little did I know that my studies would take me to software applications, and my master's thesis was to compare three major Finnish and three Swedish enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. I was hired by the second largest ERP company in Finland, and that is when I got to work with Microsoft-related technologies.
I continued my studies in technology and completed my doctorate in Information Systems Science at the School of Business at Aalto University (Helsinki, Finland). My dissertation was about software platforms and is unbelievably still very relevant to my findings even though it was published in 2004. The topic was "Evaluation of a Product Platform Strategy for Analytical Application Software."
Technology took over my life very early. I learned how to program first with PAL, Borland's programming language for the Paradox database. Then I moved over to ObjectPAL, which was the first step to understanding objects, attributes, etc. I understood what object-oriented programming truly meant (inheritance, polymorphism, etc.) when I learned Object Pascal, which was part of the Delphi RAD development environment. I had some colleagues laughing at me as I carried 1000-page programming manuals with me on my vacation trips. Thank god my wife Rita Salonen was OK with my passion. I really never was a person lying in the sun at the beach anyway. I much rather sank in the world of technology.
Back to Microsoft. I have led development teams building solutions on Microsoft platforms, been CEO and Chairman of the Board of Microsoft partners building solutions for international markets, and educated thousands of people in envisioning solutions on the Microsoft platform. This includes hundreds of companies participating in my webinars, seminars, and events, where I have evangelised building technologies on the Microsoft platform.
I got even closer to Microsoft because I became associated with the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP), first as the President of the local Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter and then eventually as the president of the global board. There are many people that I have to thank for my association with the IAMCP. It was Donna Hegdahl from The Transsynergy Group who got me involved in the local chapter and Per Werngren from Idenxt who mentored me to the global IAMCP, where we opened chapters in different parts of the world such as Finland, France, India, etc. Working with Microsoft executives as part of my leadership role within IAMCP helped me to navigate the organization and then eventually become a vendor delivering key strategy sessions for Microsoft account teams and what is called now Global Partner Solutions (GPS).
For the past 17 years, I have facilitated 200+ envision/business design workshops, including software pricing/packaging and strategic Go-To-Market workshops, for Microsoft's global ISVs as a vendor. This has included brand names that all of you know, and I can't believe that I have been able to do that. There was a day when I dreamed of moving to the US and working with technology, and my dreams became true.
Recently, I joined Sage, a global $3B leading financial software company, as a director of global alliances for Microsoft and Amazon. This allows me to continue working with Microsoft, applying my understanding and passion for ecosystems, and working with channel partners from ISVs, VARs, MSPs, and enterprises. I am returning to my beginnings, as I started my career working for a financial solutions/ERP software company in Finland. I am now back, working with a similar company but on a global scale.
So, the question is: What kind of impact has Microsoft had on me, my family, and my career? It is profound. It has fed my family and the companies in which I have worked in leadership roles. The Microsoft ecosystem is significant and hard to comprehend if you are not working in the technology field. There are hundreds of thousands of Microsoft partners that rely on Microsoft on a daily basis. I have spent my entire technology career with Microsoft technology, and this road continues today. I am also extremely grateful that I have been able to consistently "find" ways to be of value to Microsoft as a vendor and as a partner. In life, you must listen to the signs of where the market is going and always stay on top of things. That is why I decided, as a young student, that I will stay a continuous learner and don't want to become stale in whatever it is that I do.
For the past two years, I have focused especially on AI and how AI will impact software pricing and packaging. I have written numerous articles on this and presented to ISVs how they should price these SaaS and Agentic AI solutions.
I am incredibly grateful that I have been able to be part of this 50-year journey with Microsoft. I was a teenager when Microsoft was founded, so I have seen its evolution throughout the years. The journey continues, and I am excited to see how the ecosystems will evolve and how I can contribute to them.
Yours,
Dr. Petri I. Salonen
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