| Martin Andrew Taylor | |
|---|---|
| Born | Virginia, United States |
| Residence | United States |
| Alma mater | George Mason University |
| Occupation | President, Vista Consulting Group |
| Website | |
| Staff Bio at vistaequitypartners.com | |
Martin Andrew Taylor is currently an Operating Principal at Vista Equity Partners,[1] as well as the President of Vista Consulting Group. Taylor was the former senior executive Corporate Vice President of Windows Live and MSN at Microsoft.[2] Martin Taylor also worked closely with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer and was Ballmer’s Chief of Staff for many years.[3] Taylor is currently the President of Vista Consulting Group.[1]
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Martin attended George Mason University as an Economics major in Fairfax, VA.[4]
Martin Taylor joined Microsoft in 1993. One of his first assignments involved helping an executive from Redmond, WA with a sales presentation. The executive was Steve Ballmer, a vice president at the time, and the presentation was a disaster. The software vendors at the presentation were not interested in the new operations system, Windows NT, in which Ballmer and Taylor were pitching, but instead wanted to gripe about problems their problems with Microsoft. The 23 year old Taylor took the lead, and instead of continuing the presentation, decided to take note of every problem that was stated during the meeting. Taylor spent the next few months following up on the complaints and figured out how to solve the problems, consistently impressing executives at Microsoft.[4]
Over the course of the next few years, Taylor moved through the company, at one point selling its products to Wall Street firms and later heading its Caribbean subsidiary.[5] During this period, Taylor worked closely on several occasions with Steve Ballmer. In 2002, Taylor was hired as Ballmer’s Chief of Staff.[6] Later, he was named the Director of Business Strategy and is credited as one of the major players who contributed to the reorganization of Microsoft into seven business groups.[4]
In 2003, Microsoft realized one of their biggest competitors had become the Linux operating system as well as other open-sourced software. In order to combat the new open sourced frontier, now Chief Executive Steve Ballmer put together an 18-person strategy group to face their new competition.[4] By this time, Taylor had Ballmer so impressed, that he hired Taylor as the head of the team to steer Microsoft's David-and-Goliath battle against Linux.[7]
Taylor spent the next several years doing research on the differences and similarities between the Linux and Windows operating systems as well helping redevelop Windows software to better compete with Linux. Taylor and Microsoft then used this research to start a marketing campaign called “Get the Facts”.[8] The campaign mainly focused on the cost of ownership,[9] but later included security, reliability, and interoperability. The campaign was said to have contributed to a shift in the Windows-Linux debate toward business questions and away from philosophical arguments about whether software should be freely shared.[4]
In March 2006, Martin Taylor was hired as the corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN marketing. With his team, Taylor oversaw the creation of Windows Live Messenger (formally MSN Messenger) and the testing of over 20 new Windows Live services.[10] In June 2006, just few months after the first official announcement of Windows Live and only days before the release of Windows Live Messenger 8.0, Martin Taylor announced his departure from Microsoft.[11]
In December 2006, Martin Taylor joined Vista Equity Partners.[1] He is currently responsible for driving the transformation and operational improvements of the firm's portfolio companies. Taylor sits on or participates in the boards of all Vista portfolio companies.[2]