David Thompson

David Thompson is an industry veteran with 30 years of experience in IT. As corporate vice president of Microsoft Online, he is responsible for leading the delivery of Microsoft's business software products as online services, to medium and large enterprises.

By his very nature, he is passionate about working with customers and partners to build great products that help people do their jobs better and more easily. Delivering world-class software products through online services, making them easily and broadly accessible to all businesses, is a fulfillment of that passion.

Thompson joined Microsoft in 1990. He initially led a development group in the Network Business Unit, working on the LAN Manager product. He later moved to the Windows NT team and formed the Networking Group for Windows NT, eventually becoming the general manager of Distributed Systems. He has been responsible for a variety of distributed system technologies, including Active Directory and Windows Security. In April 2000 he became the vice president for the Windows Server Product Group, assuming responsibility for the Windows 2000 Server product line. In all, he led major portions of the development of seven versions of Windows NT and the Windows operating system, including Windows Server 2003. In January 2004 he assumed leadership of the Exchange group, responsible for Exchange products and services through the release of Exchange 2007.

Before coming to Microsoft, Thompson worked for Digital Equipment Corp. on the first VAX Clusters and at Concord Communications as director of software development.

A New Jersey native, he holds bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Cornell University.

He is married, with two grown children. An active outdoorsman, he skis, snowboards, bicycles and hikes.