Nokia World is known for its big name speakers and Joe Belfiore makes this year no exception.
The tech world is waiting to see the new products. But it will also be looking forward to hearing what the leading lights have to say at The Excel Centre in London. So we’re expecting a packed audience for Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, Windows Phone Program at Microsoft.
In 1990, Belfiore graduated from Stanford University with a degree in computer science and began his illustrious 21-year career with Microsoft. Joe’s first position at the company was as an operating system program manager on OS/2. At the time, most PC operating systems were non-graphical and relied on users entering commands into a prompt to get things done. The GUI (graphical user interface) that we’ve all come to recognize, started here.
Some of Joe’s previous projects, at a glance
- OS/2
- Windows NT
- Windows 95
- Internet Explorer 4
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP
Next, Belfiore set his sights on designing the first Windows NT user interface before becoming the lead project manager for the UI for Windows 95 which was a huge success. Within a year or two of its release, this OS became the most successful OS ever produced.
Following the triumph of Windows 95, Joe moved on and acted as group program manager for Internet Explorer 4 and the Windows 2000 UI. He later worked on Windows XP, an OS millions of us still use today.
Belfiore was corporate vice president of Zune Software and Services before moving into the Windows Phone team. Today, Zune is currently used today on PCs, the Web, Xbox and on Windows Phones. This service enables people to stream music, videos and perform software updates on your Windows Phone.
On October 26th at 13:35, Joe will be taking to the stage to talk about Building a different kind of UI. That’s because at Microsoft, Joe has dedicated his career into making everything simpler and easier to use, while being enjoyable to use. Currently, Belfiore and his team are responsible for the Metro UI, the interface we see on all Windows Phones today.
With a history like Joe’s, we’d recommend you take time to listen to what he has to say if you’re attending Nokia World 2011. Otherwise, we’ll have all the updates here in due time.