Clemens Vaster, the original developer of my preferred blogging engine (dasBlog), has joined Microsoft as a Program Manager for WCF (Indigo).

If the past is any guide, the next six months will have a significant uptick in moves in and out of Redmond. While MS is always hiring and people are always moving on, there is usually a significant “inhalation” when Microsoft emerges from a heads-down shipping mode such as they’ve been in with the VS 2005 / Whidbey wave of technologies. What makes this a little different is that the WinFX / Vista wave of technologies is right at the verge of that heads-down phase itself, so it’ll be interesting to see if the “inhalation” is cut short. The influx of PM-level talent is one of the most important components of Microsoft’s struggle to maintain leadership in the development marketplace.