Who the heck is Michael Sanford?
As a first post, I think it would be appropriate to provide some background on who I am.
About Me
My name is Michael Sanford. If your familiar with Microsoft lingo, I am a MCP, MCSE, and MCSD. I am also a second year MVP with a specialty in Windows Installer (a part of the Windows Server – SDK). Currently I am an unemployed programming junkie. Why am I unemployed? Well – that’s a good question with a long answer. I’ll surely provide more info on this later!
I’ve been a developer for about 10 years, and have worked for some great companies like RDA Consultants, Andersen Consulting (now called Accenture), CMD Group and more…
About 3 years ago I left my job (Software Development Manager) at CMD Group to embark on an amazing journey. I had a vision of creating an Installation Authoring tool that would compete with Wise and InstallShield. I had a lot of idealistic visions of how to do a better job of implementing the tool, and supporting customers. ActiveInstall 1.0 was released in 2001 after more than 18 months of heads-down design development 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Users really liked what I was doing with ActiveInstall and it received some great reviews. Unfortunately, such a long development cycle had depleted all the capital I had available and left me with a really exciting product, but no money to market it with. None the less, I did what I could and was prepared to stick with my grass-roots marketing efforts for as long as it took to make my baby a huge success.
After having been approached twice by other companies interested in acquiring the product, I was approached by Eric Shapiro, CEO of Zero G Software. Eric really impressed me with his visions and easily convinced me that this was the right move for my product. In November of last year, ActiveInstall was acquired by Zero G Software and is now sold by Zero G under the name “InstallAnywhere.NET”.
About My Family
I have the tremendous fortune of having an incredible family that I often wonder if I really deserve:
Amanda – My amazing wife who puts up with an unbelievable amount of crap from me. Amanda is an accomplished artist who creates amazing lampwork. Lampwork is a form of art where one takes rods of colored glass and forms them into glass beads or other designs and shapes. She runs a website called FlameOfMind. Please take a moment and check out her amazing work.
Miranda – My oldest daughter. Miranda is 7 years old and is a brilliant 2nd grader. She loves Pokemon and creating books.
Payton – My son. Need I say more? ;-) Actually Payton is such a reflection of myself, it is really scary! He is 5 years old and just started Kindergarten last week. He came home on his second day of school with a note from his teacher saying he would not stop talking during his classes. Go figure…
Gabriella – My 4 year old daughter. If you don’t have kids, or think you don’t want kids, an afternoon with Gabi is guaranteed to change your mind. She is the sweetest, cutest and funniest little kid I’ve ever seen. (I’m not biased or anything…)