Leading Azure for Operators Through Integration
OPPORTUNITY
Microsoft had acquired Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks to expand its telecommunications and 5G portfolio. Both companies brought mature products, experienced teams, established customers, and deeply embedded ways of working.
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They also brought different content systems, authoring tools, publishing models, support practices, organizational cultures, and customer-access requirements. Some documentation was public, while other material was restricted by customer contracts. Teams used formats and workflows such as DITA, PDF, custom-built and gated customer portals, and versioned product manuals, while Microsoft increasingly relied on Markdown, GitHub, Microsoft Learn, and public documentation.
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The challenge was not to force two acquired organizations into a standard Microsoft model overnight. We needed to preserve support for existing carrier-grade products and customers while creating a practical path into Microsoft’s broader documentation, learning, engineering, and business ecosystem.
Role
I was hired to lead the integration of the acquired content and learning organizations into Microsoft and manage the globally distributed teams across the United Kingdom, India, New Zealand, and the United States.
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My responsibilities extended well beyond content migration. I helped teams understand Microsoft’s organization, culture, planning rhythms, tools, processes, and decision-making practices. I connected people with engineering, product, legal, marketing, localization, support, and publishing partners across the company so they could operate successfully inside a much larger ecosystem.
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The training organization also reported to me, which meant I was responsible for connecting product documentation and structured learning while helping both functions navigate repeated organizational changes.
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My previous experience at Avalara and Hootsuite proved useful during the integration. I was familiar with several of the tools, CMS approaches, support systems, and publishing practices used by the acquired teams, allowing me to understand their operating context quickly and make more informed decisions about what should remain, what should change, and what could be integrated over time.
APPROACH
We began by assessing the current state rather than assuming that Microsoft’s existing model was automatically the right answer.
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The assessment considered product roadmaps, customer types, documentation confidentiality, intellectual-property risk, content volume, authoring formats, publishing systems, localization, versioning, support contracts, and the skills and capacity of the existing teams.
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From there, we separated immediate launch needs from long-term integration. New Azure for Operators offerings needed a presence on Microsoft’s public documentation platform, but mature acquired products still required their existing portals, release-specific manuals, PDFs, and customer support models.
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The work included:
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Supporting the first Azure for Operators presence on Microsoft Docs
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Preparing content for major product and event announcements
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Evaluating DITA, PDF, Markdown, GitHub, and portal-based publishing models
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Defining what should remain restricted versus publicly available
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Aligning documentation and training more closely
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Introducing Microsoft planning, governance, and content-review processes
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Helping teams adopt Microsoft tools and build relationships across the company
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Preserving support for existing products and customers during the transition
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The goal was progressive integration, not disruption.
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This was a significant change-management assignment.
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The acquired teams were adapting to a new company, new leadership structures, different planning systems, unfamiliar tools, and changing expectations about how documentation and learning should be delivered. At the same time, they remained responsible for supporting complex telecom products used by service providers around the world.
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I focused on creating clarity where possible, communicating changes directly, connecting employees with the right Microsoft partners, and helping teams understand how their work contributed to the larger Azure strategy.
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The organization experienced multiple reorganizations, shifting priorities, and reductions in force. The training and content teams needed to repeatedly adjust their structure, scope, and operating model while continuing to deliver for customers.
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Ultimately, Microsoft changed direction on the business, sold portions of the portfolio, and eliminated many of the associated roles. My responsibility throughout that period was to lead as transparently as possible, protect customer commitments, help people navigate uncertainty, and maintain a functioning organization through difficult transitions.
RESULTS
The work established an initial Microsoft documentation presence for Azure for Operators while creating a more structured framework for integrating acquired content and learning organizations. Teams gained stronger connections to Microsoft engineering, publishing, localization, support, legal, and product organizations. They developed greater familiarity with Microsoft tools and processes, and documentation and training became more closely connected within the operating model. Some even went on to work in other organizations at Microsoft.
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The integration also clarified where standardization made sense and where it did not. Public Azure guidance could move toward Microsoft Docs and Microsoft Learn, while established products sometimes needed to retain customer portals, versioned manuals, PDFs, and restricted access.
Although the business did not ultimately continue in the form originally envisioned, the integration work helped the organization support existing customers, deliver new Azure launches, and operate through several years of substantial change.
LESSONS LEARNED
Acquisition integration is fundamentally a people and systems problem, not merely a technology or migration problem.
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Teams need time to understand a new organization, build trusted relationships, learn unfamiliar processes, and see how their expertise fits into the acquiring company. Leaders also need to respect the operational realities of the acquired business rather than assuming every existing system should immediately be replaced.
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This work reinforced the importance of separating standardization from simplification. A unified customer experience does not require every product to use identical tools, formats, or support models. The right target state depends on the customer, product maturity, contractual obligations, and the cost and risk of change.
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It also taught me more about leading when the outcome is not fully within the team’s control. Change leadership sometimes means helping people deliver through ambiguity, reorganizations, and an eventual business exit rather than guiding them toward a clean transformation endpoint.