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This week my idol, Bill Gates, will retire leaving behind the company that he helped build more than 30 years ago. Last year he announced his planned retirement, and I publicly thanked him… I would like to reiterate one of the points I made in that post: “I don’t care who you are — a Mac fanatic, a Linux geek, or a Windows follower - Bill Gates deserves the utmost respect from business and technology persons of all kinds.”

“Bill embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship that has grown to help define the American economy. He became a hero for millions of geeks all over the world by showing them it is possible. You can do it yourself, sitting in your basement, garage, or kitchen. Through the technology he has created at Microsoft along with the business lessons he has taught us – the idea of entrepreneurship and running your own small business is now a matter of motivation rather than capital expenditure.” - Andy Brudtkuhl

It’s time for the next generation - you and me to follow in the footsteps of the original Pioneer. Bill - thank you for all you have done. I hope you can be a pioneer in the charitable industry and be as successful as you were with Microsoft.

More on Bill’s Legacy:

The secret of Bill Gates’ success - BBC (great videos)
Bill Gates: how a geek changed the world - BBC
Tech luminaries good-byes to Gates - CNET
Bill Gates’ big send-off - CNET
Thanks Bill - GetANewBrowser

Technorati Tags: bill gates, microsoft

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We are two years away (should there be no more delays) from Windows 7, while most people have yet to upgrade to Vista from XP. I have and love it. Vista Rocks. But will Windows 7? It seems like Vista is turning into the ugly stepchild of the Windows family (although he’s got to be cooler than Windows ME). What will Windows 7 bring us that Vista did not? Well here are a few details…

Windows 7 is a *minor update* to Vista
I am not entire sure this constitutes a new version, but whatever … you know Microsoft and their love of versioning the hell out of everything. Basically this means Windows 7 will build on the same driver base as Vista did - hopefully eliminating the same problem Vista had with drivers (although I’ve never had driver issue with any of my Vista machines).

Integrated Virtualization
This is a very cool feature of Windows 7 and I’m sure they borrowed some of the technology from the latest release of Windows Server 2008. Basically this functionality will allow legacy applications (no word on how far back) in a virtualized mode. Again, this will eliminate the other major Vista issue that crippled its adoption. You will be able to run all your older apps and Windows 7 will do its best to reduce any backwards compatibility problems.

Touch Functionality
There have been other versions of Windows that were “touch friendly” although it seems the market did not want that (tablet PC’s). Apparently with the success of the iPhone it seems Microsoft wants to jump back onto the touch bandwagon. I wonder if it will eventually mesh with Microsoft Surface. Altough nothing is that innovative with the initial demo of the touch technology … it is cool nonetheless.

Windows Live Integration
Not sure this is a good idea (Passport anyone?) but they have to push their Windows Live services somehow.

“We have an opportunity to make it much easier for customers to ‘get started’ with Windows Live. Our goal should be to have customers log in, type their Live ID, and then they are automatically ’set up’ with Live. For new machines, we want Windows Live to come with the experience and will consider investments to make this experience easy. For customers who are upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, we will explore ways to make it easy for them to get Windows Live – particularly for photos, calendar, and movies where our applications complete the experience.”

Link

Again… I don’t think this is something customers want. It’s one of those “Wouldn’t It Be Cool” ideas that does not appear to be useful (see Passport again).

Tighter Integration with Windows Mobile
Don’t get me wrong - Windows Mobile is an awesome mobile platform. And with Windows 7 there will be even tighter integration between the two. By that time it should be Windows Mobile 7.

“Improved collaboration and connectivity between Windows PCs and cell phones is going to get a major shot in the arm with Windows 7, according to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.” Link

There are several other features coming in Windows 7. You can watch for them with this Fresh Feed. And of course, I’ll keep you posted on anything cool.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7

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Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer show off Windows 7 for Walt Mossberg and Julie Larson-Green at D: All Things Digital - hosted by the Wall Street Journal.

Engadget has live coverage here.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

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Rumors have been circling all week about a fight between Google and Microsoft over a minority stake in Facebook to essentially provide the advertising model for Facebook.

Well, Microsoft won with a $240 million dolloar minority equity stake in Facebook. Bigger than that is the price provides a tangible valuation for Facebook - which is (drum roll…) $15 billion. Wow.

Ridiculous? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. Why? It’s not worth that much - look at Skype. Sure, different model but same valuation techniques.

So what does Microsoft get out of the deal aside from the minority equity stake? Oh just the exclusive third-party advertising platform for Facebook (sorry Google). Pretty good deal to get in front of 47million users.

Reuters - Microsoft pays $240 million for Facebook stake

Tags: Facebook, Microsoft

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Microsoft officially launched Popfly today. I found out while eating lunch at the Heartland Developers Conference in Omaha.

While sitting here in the Silverlight session I created my first Popfly mashup using the RSS Reader control and our very own Fresh Feeds.

My mashup, located here, pulls in all the latest news on Popfly via Fresh Feeds.

More on this later when I have time to go over all the details. For now, just think Microsoft’s version of Yahoo Pipes. Cool stuff.

UPDATE: Jeff let me know my mashup was not made public so I went ahead and did the share and found the other feature I was hoping for: embedding. Popfly just trumped Yahoo! Pipes…for now.

Note: Requires Silverlight

Tags: PopflyHDC07, Popfly, Fresh Feeds

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