Microsoft E-mails Skin Artists For Help

Microsoft e-mailed several WinAmp skin developers late last week for their help with a yet-to-be announced product involving bitmap based skinning. The message reveals Microsoft is looking for skin artists who want to work as contractors for a future project, which may be related to a previously reported project which involves an extensible window manager for future versions of Windows.

The e-mail, from Microsoft Program Manager Steve Falcon, reads, "Microsoft is looking for skin artists to work on a contract basis on an unannounced product. The product is unrelated to WinAMP but supports bitmap-based skinning. Your name was selected at random from published WinAMP skin designers. If you are interested, please reply with your name, address, phone number, availability, and links to skins or your other graphic designportfolio. If all goes well, I will contact you to discuss the project, your interest it, logistics, terms, and compensation, etc. Since the product we are working on is unannounced, I can't tell more about it without a confidential disclosure agreement. But I can tell you it's very COOL! Please forward to other good skin designers you know."

BetaNews has previously reported Microsoft job postings seeking software design engineers to develop an extensible window manager for the successor to Windows 2000. In a job posting on Microsoft.com, Microsoft wrote, "It will be the foundation for a new generation of Window Managers, which will allow easily extensible UI look, feel and behavior. This component will also enable the operating system to support different Window Managers, which could evolve independently from the operating system itself."