Profiles

Becoming Bill Gates' right-hand man

(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-05 10:16

However, Zhang once kept Professor Pickholtz waiting for four hours. He encountered a procession on the way to meet the professor and learned that it was comprised of activists protesting against the US invasion of Panama. The young man joined the parade, because, "they were reasonable in my mind".

Zhang participated in Pickholtz's research projects before he was recommended to GTE Laboratories Inc. Zhang was nominated as the youngest Fellow of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) at the age of 31 because of his achievements in GTE laboratories. IEEE is the world's leading nonprofit professional association for the advancement of technology and has more than 365,000 members in more than 150 countries and regions.

Zhang was the youngest Chinese to join the IEEE. "I was lucky, because I met a good teacher who guided my PhD study to be well organized; I was lucky that I could concentrate on the five years of hard research in GTE without distractions."

But more importantly, Zhang believes that his achievements come from the fast growth of the industry, which wields great potential in the areas of Internet and mobile communications.

Gates, both a colleague and a friend, has influenced him greatly, Zhang said. After joining Microsoft Research Asia as its chief scientist in 1999, he was promoted to the post of chairman in July of 2000.

There had been more than 100 new technologies transferred to core products of Microsoft during the four years before he was promoted as Microsoft's vice-president in 2004. During this time, Zhang established the Microsoft Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Beijing with current ATC chairman Zhang Hongjiang.

In 2004, Zhang was promoted as vice president of Microsoft in Microsoft's US headquarters to take charge of research of mobile communication and global development affairs of its embedded system - an artificial system providing interactive functions for electronic products, such as PDAs, digital TVs, the Internet and elevators. It became more feasible for him to knock on Bill's gate and provided Zhang more chances to get to know him better.

"Besides his exceedingly high IQ, Bill impressed me much on his business acumen," he said. "Bill can be very technical in front of technicians, can be product architectural when talking with product staff and can also be profound when talking on the level of the whole industry. He integrates them cohesively with his unique capability."

As Gates said in Bo'ao Asia Forum this April, more than 60 percent of Microsoft R&D's base will migrate to Asia because of the continent's increasing importance to the company's operation, which is largely grounded in the size of its population.

China, in particular, is rising as one of the most important places in the world. "I feel so good for me to be back here to exert my influence on such a stage and contribute to global technology and better people's lives. I enjoy the role of being the captain of the big ship of Microsoft China R&D Group," Zhang said.

As the fastest growing research base of Microsoft outside the United States, Microsoft China R&D Group plans to recruit 600 new research staffers and more than 110 interns from universities over the next year.