Over the past 2 weeks, I've been speaking on the Microsoft TechEd tour in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. One of the best parts of traveling around the world with Microsoft's technical leaders is learning about the way Microsoft runs its business from the managers who actually run it. I was privileged to hang out with Casey Jacobs, group operations manager of Microsoft.com. Casey and I discussed how Microsoft.com runs, and I have to admit that the operation's technical efficiency blew me away. On the day Casey and I met, I happened to be working on a presentation about Windows SharePoint Services beta 2. When Casey saw that I was working on this presentation, he mentioned that Microsoft.com had just started using SharePoint beta 2 for searches and explained that when Microsoft.com begins to use a new Microsoft product, its systems engineers and DBAs work directly with the product's development team. Those engineers and administrators relay information about the new product's performance, functionality, and operational bugs to the product team. They also help the product team by running proposed bug fixes. Such partnerships between operations and product teams has helped Microsoft raise the quality of Windows, SQL Server, IIS, Microsoft Media Server (MMS), and now SharePoint products.