The year that was 2009/1430H

Now that we’re in 2010 (or 1431 according to the Hijra calendar), I thought I’d write about my reflections on the year past.

Professional

• I joined Microsoft, one of my career milestones.
• As a result, my MVP days were over, a privilege that I enjoyed for three consecutive years.
• A few months after I joined Microsoft in Oman, I was given a chance to join Microsoft Qatar – which proved to be a rewarding experience – great team, great country, and fantastic partners!
• We launched awesome products – Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Phone, Exchange Server 2010, OCS 2007 R2, to name a few.
• This blog got rebranded to microsoftNOW. Also got 200 more unique hits per day than last year.
• I got to travel to the US for the first time for MGX – an awesome experience!

Personal 

• My lovely wife and I observed our first anniversary of wedded bliss.
• Our cute little son, Abdullah was born – I became a father!
• I relocated twice in 2009, once from Abu Dhabi (UAE) to Muscat (Oman). Then again to Doha, Qatar.
• It was the only year in my life that I lived in 3 countries.
• It was probably the only year in my life that I traveled to 5 countries.
• Never took a vacation in 2009, but strangely didn’t feel it!
• Got a year older, unarguably one step nearer to the end, thought of ways to get closer to God.

Meanwhile…

• About 4 exabytes (4 billion gigabytes) of unique, new information was produced worldwide last year
• The amount of new technical information increased by 50% last year
• The amount of information that can flow down a wire has increased 6 times, and will continue to do so every year for the next 20 years
• About 372 million searches were done on Google alone
• 133 million babies were born – 247 babies every minute!

Here’s a video that’s worth a ponder:

Shijaz Abdulla is a Partner Technology Advisor at Microsoft, helping their top tier partners build on their Microsoft practice. He is also a trusted advisor to medium enterprise customers in Qatar. He is a blogger, tech enthusiast, and a Microsoft evangelist.

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