In yesterday's press release titled Microsoft Announces New, Expanded Roles for Key Executives, there was great news about someone who is very familiar to many .NET developers/

Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president, .NET Developer Platform. Previously general manager, Guthrie will continue to oversee several development teams responsible for delivering Microsoft Visual Studio developer tools and Microsoft .NET Framework technologies for building client and Web applications.

Additionally, S. Somasegar, who we have looked to for blog posts with some of the most important Microsoft announcements for .NET developers was promoted as well. Soma leaves his Corporate VP role to Scott as he becomes a Sr. Veep.

S. Somasegar, senior vice president, Developer Division. Previously corporate vice president, Somasegar will continue to oversee all developer-related languages, tools and platforms within Microsoft. He also leads Microsoft India Development Center and Microsoft Canada Development Centre

These are huge roles at Microsoft.

Roger Jennings very aptly says about Scott:

Of all the execs whose titles Microsoft bumped up yesterday, not one deserves a promotion more than Scott Guthrie. Scott's enthusiasm for the .NET development platform, as evidenced in his blog and technical presentations, continue to attract programmers of all skill levels to Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5.

Other developer-oriented groups would do well to clone Guthrie's approach to marketing their platforms.