Spreading the gospel: Chinese-born program manager Jing Chen readies Windows 95 for the East Asian market.(Microsoft Corp.)

Few of its 17,000 employees are more important to Microsoft's future bottom line than those working push Windows in Asia, the world's fastest growing and, ultimately, the most lucrative, software market. Since the early 80s, when Kazuhiko Nishi and Scott Oki helped Gates establish a strong and lucrative presence in Japan, Gates has prized the Asian market'

Jing Chen is the 34-year-old program manager for the Asian edition of the long-awaited Windows 95 operating system who started with Microsoft in April of 1992.

"I got a job to work on the Far East version of Windows 3.1--the Japanese, Corean & Chinese versions. I was the only one in Redmond directly working with people overseas." …