Ian Mercer

Ian received his MA from Jesus College, Cambridge England. Shortly after college Ian co-founded NextBase Ltd. and served as its Managing Director. NextBase's first product, AutoRoute, was one of the most successful European software products of all time and set the standard by which all later route planning and mapping products were judged. Ian managed operations in the UK and France and a network of dealers throughout Europe. NextBase's consumer, and later, professional products were translated into eight languages and placed consistently in the top five products at retail. In 1993, Ian established Automap Inc in Bellevue, WA and moved to the USA. Automap Road Atlas was a top 10 CD-ROM product in the USA right up to 1994 when Microsoft acquired the assets of NextBase Ltd and Automap Inc.. At the time the company employed 55 people worldwide and was still privately held by the founders. At Microsoft Ian ran the Geography Product Unit which created Expedia Streets and Trips, MSN Maps, Encarta World Atlas and Microsoft MapPoint. Expedia Streets and Trips is the last remaining consumer CD-ROM still to ship from Microsoft; MapPoint is an Office family member; and the rest of the technology Ian's team pioneered can be found in Bing Maps. After this success Ian changed tack and pioneered the adoption of video editing by consumers. His proposal to Bill Gates was accepted and a team formed to develop MediaPad which became the world's most popular video editor: Windows Movie Maker. Ian's team shipped Windows Movie Maker in three releases of Windows and also launched Microsoft Producer (an Office family member) and Windows DVD Maker. Ian also invented HighMAT (an MP3/WMA disc format), and worked with Panasonic in Japan to introduce it into millions of DVD players worldwide. After leaving Microsoft Ian spent two years establishing and managing an engineering team for Ancestry.com and is currently consulting and working on his next startup. Ian is also active in the local Seattle startup community advising other startups. He holds 15 patents and a Guinness World Record. His photography has appeared on the BBC News Web site and he has created what may well be the world's smartest home: an energy-efficient, talking house that understand natural language commands.

Homepage: https://profiles.google.com/u/2/116113962992915134874