Meet CNET's new Microsoft beat reporter

It takes a real pro to write about a complex company like Microsoft, and we've got one in Jay Greene, the newest addition to CNET's news reporting staff.

Jay has covered Microsoft for more than a decade, first as a reporter for The Seattle Times and then for nine years as the Seattle bureau chief for BusinessWeek. He's done some big stories on the Redmond gang over the years, including one of the first to point out that the company that seemed invulnerable for so long looked like it was struggling with middle age.

He won a New York Press Club award for spot news reporting on the retirement of Bill Gates and was on a team of reporters involved in an award-winning series on evangelism in corporate America. Along the way, Jay has earned himself a reputation as a tenacious, tough, and fair reporter.

Most recently, Jay has been promoting his book, "Design is How it Works: How the Smartest Companies Turn Products into Icons," an insider's look at product design at companies ranging from Porsche to Nike. We expect our new in-house design guru will have a few things to say about design trends in the world of consumer electronics, too.

It's an interesting (to say the least) time to be covering Microsoft, and that's why we hired a veteran reporter like Jay. Despite good reviews for the Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft is struggling to come up with answers to what Apple and Google have been throwing at them over the last few years. They're just getting themselves back into the discussion for smartphone operating systems. Bing is grabbing some share in search, but slowly and at a hefty price. And while Kinect appears to be a big gaming success, that halo doesn't seem to be carrying over to other products.

So will Microsoft return to its glory days, or will it continue to get outmaneuvered? Stay tuned to Jay's coverage for CNET because we're as curious as you are to see what happens.