News

Former Microsoft Exec Joins BizNet Engineering Team

A former senior group program manager for Microsoft Office Business Applications has joined Dallas-based BizNet Software, a provider of a real-time financial reporting and analysis solutions that integrate with Microsoft Excel. Demetrius Austin was appointed as BizNet's director of software engineering, according to a BizNet statement released yesterday.

Austin was part of the FRx team working to deliver the Integration Designer and Management Reporter solutions for Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007. FRx Software Corporation is a Microsoft company. He also worked on a project to integrate Dynamics AX with those applications.

Austin is the second Microsoft FRx team member to join BizNet this year. In March, Chris Scherpenseel, former president of FRx, joined BizNet as part of its strategic business advisory council.

Austin will implement "best practices in product development, testing and support" at BizNet, according to the company's statement. He will work on BizExcelerator, BizNet's flagship product, which provides real-time links to databases for producing Excel spread-sheet reports.

"[I] wanted to be a part of the development of an international software company and BizExcelerator has the supporting architecture to scale and perform across multiple markets," Austin explained, in a prepared statement.

In his 20-year career, Austin has served in numerous roles including software developer/engineer, senior technical consultant, and director of software engineering for business reporting and analytics domains. He joined Microsoft in 2002.

Since 2005, he has been a proponent of the Scrum software development methodology and, according to a Scrum Alliance bio, "improved on already highly successful delivery of products/solutions with 200-plus data integration components and software applications released into the market place."

About the Author

Herb Torrens is an award-winning freelance writer based in Southern California. He managed the MCSP program for a leading computer telephony integrator for more than five years and has worked with numerous solution providers including HP/Compaq, Nortel, and Microsoft in all forms of media.

Featured