Meet Steve Mantle

Meet Steve Mantle, born an
Australian, later moved to the USA. As Industry Solution Manager for
Communications Sector Telco sell-to (selling Microsoft solutions to
telecommunications companies) team, Steve is responsible for the Telco Digital
Marketing and Telco Server/Datacenter Solutions.

How did you end up at
Microsoft?

My career has spanned IT,
systems engineering and business development...leading me to design and build out
FTTX/triple play networks for telcos, universities and military bases.
 Living just 2 miles from Microsoft's Redmond campus made it almost
impossible to not have a number of friends that work for Microsoft.  And
as such, a friend told me that I should look at a division of Microsoft called
Communications Sector. I found out that Comm Sector focused on pairing
Microsoft offerings with the service provider channel.  That got me thinking
about all of the interesting B2B & B2C offerings that could result from
these partnerships, and I was really compelled to land at Microsoft.  A
few interviews later (yes, the interview process at Microsoft fully lived up to
its reputation!), and I landed in good ol' Comm Sector.

What's become of that initial
interest you had in Comm Sector, almost 4 years ago?

I truly believe that the
possibilities are unlimited at Microsoft.  We are uniquely equipped to
partner with service providers and help them move up the stack.  We've got
a great set of consumer offerings with Mediaroom, Xbox (especially with Xbox Kinect!!), Windows Phone 7, Zune, Bing, MSN, Windows Live,
Windows Home Server, and Windows 7; on the SMB side we have cloud
offerings through Business Productivity
Online Suite (BPOS) with cloud-based mail, calendaring, intranet, web
conferencing and unified communications...and oodles of applications being built
on the Windows Azure
platform.  The beauty of software and services is that all of these
offerings have APIs that enable service providers and developers to extend and
tie together these offerings in combination with their brand - ultimately
enabling rich, multi-screen experiences for their customers.  It's really
quite impressive when you start to think about all of the things you can do
with these components when combined with the strength of service providers.

There are certainly plenty of
things going on in Comm Sector. Can you tell us a little more about where
you're focusing these days?

A strategic area of focus for us
this year is Digital Marketing.  Microsoft is uniquely positioned to offer
Digital Marketing solutions to service providers for three key reasons:  

1) We understand the challenges
facing digital marketers - as Microsoft itself is one of the biggest
marketers/advertisers in the world

2) We own an advertising/media
network with amazing reach - Microsoft
Advertising (think Bing, Facebook, MSN, millions of mobile devices, ...) and

3) We have the software to power
websites, devices, and deliver rich media - with deep business intelligence
capabilities enabling marketers to not only measure the effectiveness of their
campaigns - but tweak them in real-time based on changing marketplace
dynamics. 

We have some fantastic digital
marketing success stories with some of the largest service providers and media and
entertainment companies in the world. Stay tuned to this space for case studies
and more details on our digital marketing solutions.

Sounds like you have a lot on
your plate! What do you do outside of that thrilling world?

I spend as much time as I can
with my wife and two little girls and take advantage of the outdoors and beauty
of the Pacific Northwest.  I'm truly fortunate to live in such a beautiful
corner of the world and enjoy hiking, mountain biking, downhill skiing (Stevens
Pass, Summit at Snoqualmie, and Whistler are my nearby favorites) and an
occasional backpacking getaway. I'm looking forward to four days backpacking at
Mount Rainier next month.