I'm back, but I'm not who I used to be

After an 11 year break - I'm coming back to blogging - but I'm not who I used to be.

I started this blog way back in 2005, when I was a SQL Server Evangelist. In 2006 I returned to Enterprise sales and I couldn't the find time to properly share my learnings on this blog.

In 2010 I left Microsoft and followed the foot steps of Donald Farmer to join Qlik. If truth be known, I had begun to lose faith in Microsoft's BI strategy and at the time Qlik was blazing a trail with it's 'Associative' technology in the newly identified data discovery market . This technology made developing very competent analytical dashboards both a breeze and a pleasure.

But, in April last year I was tempted back to work in the Azure team as a Data Solution Architect, to help customers realise the benefits of Azure's Data Services. Of course, it hadn't escaped me that while I had been away Microsoft had released Power BI, which along with its close integration with the amazing advances in Azures data services, was clear evidence Microsoft was back on track with a coherent BI strategy and had become a serious player in the data discovery space.

So, right now I'm planning my first (proper) blog post, in which I will share my first experience with U-SQL in solving a customer's challenge.

Matthew