Mike Clark
Mike Clark currently manages the development team for the Microsoft Synchronization Framework being developed in Microsoft's Data and Storage Platform Division. Mike joined this project several years ago when it began as an incubation effort targeted at rationalizing the many different synchronization mechanisms that exist in Microsoft (and externally). Mike and his team have designed the framework to support handling many of the hard problems that exist in synchronization all the way from the basics such as accurate conflict detection, to data moving around in an arbitrary topology. The team has delivered version 1 which is being integrated into a number of Microsoft products as well as getting a fair amount of external interest and adoption. Mike and his team are now working on new enhancements for the next version that will continue to lower the barriers to creating great synchronization solutions.
Before Harmonica, Mike worked in Indigo where he focused on developing components for distributed transaction coordination. There, Mike worked on enhancements to Microsoft's distributed transaction architecture, including MSDTC and how it utilizes the Kernel Transaction Manager available in Windows Vista. Mike was also responsible for delivering the framework for transaction support for the .Net Developer Platform version 2.0, System.Transactions. At Microsoft, prior to working in Indigo, Mike worked in Windows Networking, building an infrastructure for streaming audio and video over networks for real time communication scenarios. Mike began his career at Microsoft working in Developer Support, debugging the code of our developer community building products on the Win32 SDK, MFC and OLE.
While Mike originally started at Microsoft in 1994, he took a 4 year hiatus while his wife went to graduate school in Utah. During that time he spent time on a number of things including robotics projects, consulting, and software for managing rental properties. Mike graduated from the University of Utah in 1994 with bachelor's degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics.
Mike and his wife have two young daughters. Mike's hobbies include playing guitar and tinkering with all forms of electro-mechanical stuff, and one day he intends to have more time for golf again.