Robert Duffner has taken over the role of senior director of Platform and Open Source Software strategy at Microsoft. Sam Ramji held that role for awhile until relinquishing it to Duffner. Ramji has moved up to take a broader role in Microsoft's overall approach to open source.

Now Duffner leads the team that drives marketing communications and community outreach across a diverse set of audiences that include IT professionals, developers, government and academia. He also oversees Port25, the primary communication channel for the open source community at Microsoft.

According to his bio, prior to joining Microsoft, Duffner was the lead executive responsible for establishing and executing IBM's open source software business development strategy and the emerging markets investment.  Indeed, Duffner's team held the distinction of introducing IBM’s first-ever open source based product support offering (WebSphere Application Server Community Edition and Apache Geronimo) from the IBM Software Group.  He has also held senior positions at BEA Systems, Vignette and PeopleSoft, with over 16 years experience in the enterprise software industry, Microsoft said.

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