Gurdeep Singh Pall joined Microsoft in Jan 1990 after completing a Masters degree in Computer Science at the University of Oregon. At Microsoft Gurdeep has worked primarily in the networking area starting with LAN Manager Remote Access Service and then onto Windows NT Networking Group where he co-architected Windows PPP implementation and co authored PPTP - the first and most widely used VPN protocol - which also received PC Magazine's Award for Technical Excellence in 1996. Gurdeep was a co-architect and manager for Steelhead, a Windows NT based Router. Steelhead technology embedded in partners' products also received several industry awards. Gurdeep lead the Windows Networking development team for Windows 2000 and has been the Product Unit Manager and General Manager for the Windows XP Networking area responsible for Network transports, Wireless, Peer to Peer, and Home Networking. Currently Gurdeep is the General Manager of the Real-Time Collaboration Group responsible for strategy and development of Microsoft's next generation RTC products, including Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003 . Gurdeep holds a U.S. Patent and has several pending Patents in the networking and communications area. He has also been active in the Internet Engineering Task Force – contributing towards and authoring widely used standards and informational documents in the areas of PPP, VPNs and data compression.