• The Next Big Thing, Monday, November 16, 2009 3:30 PM

Don Dodge, an "engineering evangelist" just let go by Microsoft, has softly landed at Google, and is taking the opportunity to do a little nose-thumbing. "Thanks Microsoft, I'm going to Google!" Dodge wrote Monday on his blog, The Next Big Thing. At Microsoft, Dodge was the director of business development for the company's Emerging Business Team and acted as the human voice and face of Microsoft when dealing with startups.

At Google, Dodge will assume a similar role, working as development evangelist, particularly focusing on Google Apps. He will be working under Vic Gundotra, another former Microsoft employee who has been with Google for two years as a VP of engineering. "Vic Gundotra at Google was the first one to contact me with an opportunity...90 minutes after the news of the layoff hit," writes Dodge. "That fast decisive action was refreshing, and such a contrast to the slow, secretive, bureaucracy at Microsoft." Ouch.

Read the whole story at The Next Big Thing »