That shouldn't be too much of a challenge for Zhang, who is used to taking on daunting tasks. He joined the company late in 1998 and built Microsoft's research lab in China from scratch into an organisation of more than 500 people.
But in taking on the role as head of development for Windows CE and Windows Mobile, Zhang must help turn a comparatively tiny and still unprofitable unit into something worthy of Redmond's attention.
Zhang's challenge is not only a technical one. Mobile phone makers and others have been hesitant to let Microsoft onto their devices, fearing a repeat of what transpired in the PC market. The company's latest tactic: allowing device makers to revise the Windows CE source code without having to share it with competitors -- or Microsoft. ZDNet Australia sister site CNET News.com recently spoke with Zhang about smart phones' future.
Q: There were problems getting the first release of Microsoft's Smartphone to market. What are some of the things Microsoft learnt, and what are you doing to address those issues?
A: In the smart phone or connected device, you have to work very closely with operators -- especially for the converged device. It doesn't mean the previous model had any problems, but this is a new industry that operators, OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ourselves -- we all learn things.
To be frank, there were some quality issues -- things that in the handheld world or the embedded-computing world might have been acceptable. But in the carrier world, they might generate an unacceptable number of support calls.
We spent a tremendous amount of engineering resources in the last few months to make quality and stability the highest priority. A device -- especially one that has a complex operating system with multithreading and multitasking and that has to work with a new type of network with which the operator does not have a lot of experience -- does require multiple iterations. In the meantime, we do have to put more emphasis on testing and on quality.
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