Home > Authors

Ashraf Michail

Ashraf Michail joined Microsoft in 1998 as a software design engineer, working on Internet Explorer 5.0. In 1999, he transitioned to the role of lead software design engineer to deliver core components for Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6.0. In 2001, he left the Internet Explorer team to join the newly forming WPF team. His role on WPF was to build the GPU accelerated graphics engine used for rendering WPF content and for use in the Vista Desktop Window Manager. In 2004, he took a role as a WPF architect and focused on improving the end-to-end WPF experience. In 2005, he took an architect role on the newly forming Silverlight team. At the present time, he is an architect on the Silverlight team working on the next release. After nine years of delivering Web platforms and rendering engines, he has developed deep insights that have guided the design of Silverlight. As the only architect who was present from the first day of Silverlight development, he is in a unique position to understand the motivating design decisions behind Silverlight and possesses the deepest knowledge of the graphics and UI components.