Live from D: Gates and Ballmer debut Windows 7
By Ryan Block 
posted May 27th 2008 9:15PM
posted May 27th 2008 9:15PM
We're reporting live from D to see Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher chat it up with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer about all things Microsoft. Live coverage after the break!
6:27 - Announcer welcomes Les Hinton, CEO of Dow Jones. Applauding Walt and Kara, discussing the "change in ownership," talking News Corp. Errr.
6:30 - Welcoming out Walt and Kara... aaand here they are.
6:31 - Mossberg: "It's been a turbulent year for a lot of these companies." Swisher: "It's been a big news year." Indeed it has.
6:36 - They want to have a Bill + Steve redux, except this time the Steve is Ballmer, not Jobs. Playing the Gates retirement video from CES.
6:43 - Stiiiiiiiill playing the video. It's still pretty good though, and they added a few new clips here and there.
6:46 - All done! Mossberg: Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer!
6:47 - Taking it back to the beginning, what kind of classmate/roommate was Bill in college? "He was a pretty shy guy... quiet, kind of shy, but a certain kind of spark. Especially later in the day, early in the morning. Bill was usually going to bed by the time I was waking up." Bill's talking about how he constantly played hookey.
6:50 - Ballmer talking about how Gates came and went Harvard. Gates: "You can leave and come back!" Say, is that a hint about Bills retirement? Ballmer's talking up his time spent at Procter and Gamble. Mossberg: Was it about then that you tried to hire Steve? Gates: "Not yet..." they were still way early on in the company.
6:53 - Mossberg: Did you wait to finish business school? Ballmer: "This is classic. Gates calls, 'Hey, what are you doing? Oh, god, too bad you don't have a twin brother or something...' he didn't just come out and say anything. 'Too bad, too bad -- and he hung up!' That was the sales call!"
6:54 - Gates on the early days: "We had so many customers, so many choices about what we could do next. We've always managed the company very conservatively." Talking anecdotally about how early-Microsoft wanted to have enough in the bank to pay its employees for a year if their customers stopped paying. "I had this very conservative view of our financial limits."
6:57 - Ballmer: "I wondered, why did I leave Stanford business school for this?" Eventually Bill gave him the real pitch: "We can put a computer on everyone's desk." Gates: "I needed Steve. I needed the skills he had, I needed a partner." Ballmer: "Bill said, 'Prove we can hire one good guy, and we'll hire 2-18'... and that became our management approach!" Ballmer says Microsoft hedges all its bets, takes all its risks technologically -- "Why take financial risks?"
7:03 - Mossberg: There's this perception that [Bill's] the technology guy, and [Steve's] the sales guy. Is that right? Bill: They've been jointly involved in a lot of crossover stuff, "Steve and I have done all this stuff together." Ballmer: Discussing working on the Windows 1.0 as a project manager. (Remember that infomercial?) "I'm not an engineer!"
7:04 - Swisher: Would you call yourself a businessman? Gates: "Sure. Sales minus costs equals profits. Is there more?" Big laughter. Mossberg: Did it bug you that Bill blew up and became extremely famous? Ballmer: "No. ... It was always clear Bill was the senior partner and I was the junior partner... it's never bothered me at all."
7:08 - Swisher: Do you still get veto on company decisions? Gates: "No." Says he's become the junior partner when he swapped roles with Ballmer. Mossberg asking about Bill's participation these days and going forward. "It's a very different role" he's taking on. Ozzie and Mundie have stepped up, and he's looking to Steve to help pick and choose his future projects.
7:12 - Ballmer: "I want to know what [Bill] thinks." Swisher wants to talk Yahoo! Ballmer gives the quick rundown of events to date. "We are not rebidding for the company -- we reserve the right to do so, but it's not on the docket." Swisher: What are you interested in, in Yahoo? Ha, they're wheeling out a whiteboard for Ballmer to diagram his explanation. Swisher: "This is like crack for him." Ballmer discussing ads, bidders, search, and the scale of it all. "To accelerate scale, it made sense for us to look at Yahoo!'s business."
7:17 - Ballmer says they're still in talks with Yahoo! about a "partnership." Swisher mentions that Ballmer's model of competing with Google is reminiscent of a monopoly. Ballmer gives the who, me? look. Gates: "Guys like us avoid monopolies because we compete!" Naturally, the lot of that exchange was all very tongue-in-cheek.
7:20 - Ballmer: "You need scale, you need business and technology innovation. Large and small... this is a funny marketplace in which to say you're cheaper [than the competition]." Swisher: What's the key element" Ballmer: "The most important thing is that we have a good team and that we're patient." And money -- investment. Ballmer's getting super intense. Mossberg: "You're getting a little scary there." Ballmer: "WELL, YOU GOT THE REAL ME!" Dude, this is Steve, what do you want?
7:24 - Mossberg wants to talk Vista. "Is Vista a failure? Is it a mistake?" Ballmer: "It's not a failure, it's not a mistake. Are there things we'll modify and improve going forward? Sure." Gates is mum, smiling off into the distance. Bet he can't wait to wash his hands of this stuff.
7:26 - Ballmer: "Let me ask Bill..." is Vista up to your expectations compared to '95 and 3.0? Gates: "There's no product that we've ever shipped that was 100% of what I wanted. That's part of the magic of software, people give you feedback... and you get to make a new version. ... We have a culture of 'we need to do better."
7:28 - Ballmer: "There are two unique things: in a lot of our Windows releases in the past, we've always had a second stream. With 95 we were introducing NT in the background... the number one thing people found jarring [with Vista] was that we changed the UI. ... That was ironic." Mossberg: Will you show us a little bit of Windows 7? Ballmer: "Sure! This is the smallest snippet of Windows 7. It's just a small little snippet.'"
7:29 - "This is 'likely to ship within three years of general availability of Vista.'" Demo time! It does multi-touch!
7:35 - They worked with the Surface team on the multi-touch stuff. Microsoft is re-thinking the whole user interface to better accommodate multi-touch for day to day use.
7:37 - Not running on surface. Running on a Dell Latitude XT. They've changed the taskbar, but it was difficult to tell exactly what they did.
7:39 - Swisher and Mossberg: So, what does this represent? Is this the next phase of the way people will do day to day work on their computers? Gates: "We're at an interesting junction... in the years to come, the roles of speech, vision, ink, all of those will become huge. I showed what an intelligent whiteboard would be like."
7:43 - "For the person at home and the person at work, that interaction will change dramatically." Talking about the single-user interfaces we have today. Mossberg: This is 15-18 months from release, your friends in Cupertino probably have one more turn before you get this out the door. They have the iPhone, which is on the market today... is there a risk that the work you're doing here will look like they got there first? Ballmer: "There's a lot in Windows 7, and our goal's got to be, with our hardware partners, to produce fantastic PCs. ... We'll sell 270m PCs a year, and Apple will sell 10m. Apple is fantastically successful, and so are we."
7:45 - Ballmer's talking about Microsoft's "real opportunity" to improve things in the future -- which is another way of saying that things could be better, but there's no real specific commitment to making the Windows experience better.
7:47 - Mossberg's drilling Bill on the Mac vs. PC, Bill's reticent. Ballmer: "Every share point Apple picks up is a share point we don't like. ... But it depends on what your goal is. We like selling 290m units. ... Our model is better." Mossberg: But you CAN'T be happy with this Vista situation? Ballmer: "What's the appropriate response? I kind of like what Bill already said." Gates: "You're kind of repeating yourself." Ouch. Big applause.
7:51 - Q from the internet: Do you feel the unsuccessful pursuit of Yahoo! has tarnished Microsoft at all? Ballmer: "No. ... at very least, people now know we're serious about our online business."
7:53 - Talking about the phone market, Mossberg and Ballmer are debating unit volume between Nokia, RIM, Windows Mobile, Apple. On Android, Ballmer: "It's another person taking another crack at the pie. ... Google comes late, without experience, and no clear business model. ... But we take them seriously."
7:54 - Open floor for Gates as he transitions out of Microsoft: "It probably is the last time I'll get to speak here..." Nawwwwww. "Melinda will be speaking Thursday, you'll hear from here why this will be a fun journey."
7:58 - Audience questions, but unfortunately none have been all that interesting so far.
8:02 - O'Reilly: You set out to put a computer on every desk -- and you achieved that. So do you have a new audacious goal? Gates talking about the future and goals of how Microsoft thinks the future will look. Interactive TV, tablet PC, and so on.
8:08 - Question about apps in the browser, and what that means for the future of software. Ballmer doesn't think it's all or nothing.
Okay, that's it!
Some people are focusing on the multi-touch but seem to forget the other two methods of interaction that Gates stated would be added to "7", voice and gesture interaction. We will just have to wait and see how all of these methods interface.
Voice isn't anything new, Vista does this.
Multitouch on a desktop system is not dependant on a sensible surface. Imagine the glory of wielding a Double Mouse Set :DDD
Damn it, now I want Windows 7 for yesterday!!
WoW and flash hentai games will never be the same ever again.
1.5hrs, waste of time.
Imagine all the porn sites you could've gone to...
i hate you perverts... your just like my history teacher.
Did he make you sit on his lap while forcing you to play with his giant Mac?
Beware of pornadoes...
all i can hope is that they stop 7 from uninstalling my speakers and crap.
I honestly would rather have an OS that looks like Vista but function like XP.
And Come on, there releasing this thing to fast, vista came out like 2 years ago, no one upgrades to until about the OS 1st birthday, so really for Vista to be called mainstream for 3 years, it would have to come out in 2010. Since I am a laptop guy I can say, Upgrading a a laptop to a new OS is not worth it, so I can say I wont be buying a new laptop until at least 2010, if even. Come on, correct me if I am wrong, but Mac doesnt release a new OS every 3 years.
I would like to see a good product here from Microsoft. I prefer to use a Microsoft computer but Vista forced me to buy a Mac. Please Bill, make sure things are done right this time!
5 bucks says people will comment all night, arguing about macs, pc's, and vista.
probably, and its not going to end anytime soon
I have an interesting question; where is MS GOING with future products. it's trying too hard to cover all bases. "premium" and "business" aren't different products, its the same product with different accessories. I'd like too see MS with a utilitarian distribution of sorts that would focus on efficiency, and start a new leaf from there. give 3rd party devs enough code to create products w/o faster than the time it takes to port or emulate older editions.
on the other end, I'd like to see another distribution with a UI not unlike vista or XP, but with better support and a more direct organization of, well, everything.
also, a cheap minwin edition for instant bootup on desktops or as a lightweight OS that genuinely competes with linux on subnotes. price would have to sit under $20 for it, with compatibility with common XP programs (Office, quicken)
lastly, wtf is up with "works word" which, as a clone of older versions of office word, should be able to save in .Doc format. don't fuck over users MS, or people will just find other software; google docs + OpenOfice is good enough for 75% of users. proprietary formats are on thin ice on a cold day: it isn't getting worse, but one stupid move and you're gone.
Disappointing...once again. The last question goes to show you they don't really understand their core business anymore. And copying Apple and every other company out there (although many will disagree) should not be that core business if they want to compete and increase market share and regain lost high-end tech market confidence.
They don't understand their true assets and that they really are destroying them.
Simply doing three years later what Apple are doing is not going to help them. More and more people are finding out there is greener pastures and they simply cant rest on their "We make Windows therefore we can do what we want" attitude. I have been a Microsoft loyal customer for years and years and this really is the nail in the coffin for me. "The best idea we could come up with to show you we are really innovative is to do a worse job than Apple at touch"
Windows kernel improvements? Not interested at all...I cant imagine anything they will do will be 'industry breaking' since after all.
I think they need to consider breaking this idea of Legacy support, go back to the drawing board, and rethink the whole reason people use computers and technology. Dont branch off into areas which you cant succeed in and think just because a Microsoft logo is on something is going to make you an industry leader. Sure it works for Sony from occasion to occasion (BluRay) but not for MS.
Until MS realizes they are destroying and neglecting their core asset which holds together their entire business, I don't really want much to do with them anymore. Period.
Yey! new Media Center? Vista made me much happy than Win 95! Hope Win7 will improve even more!
... and because it is the operating system that will come pre-installed on MOST new computers, Microsoft will make that much more money, again.
The videos look interesting, it looks like being a computer user will be less stressful in the coming years :)
Ubuntu!
Anyways, the coolest thing i saw was the swirling loading sign in the shape of an infinity sign when they were twirling around the maps. Looks cool. And quite fitting since it takes an infinity to load apps sometimes. Thank god my computer would blow up under the pressures of vista so I'm not even tempted to upgrade... or downgrade, whatever your cup o' tea.
But seriously... touch screens.. yeah those are new, and fun. How about inproving the UI? and not making the graphics spiffier... xp = good, vista.... slow on a computer with about 3x the power of my current one running xp.
3d cube interface would be nice. Saw a tweaked version of Linux like that, microsoft should just steal it and release it with all the drivers and such. :)
what a great demonstration of vista's code base
multi touch support and what not...
and I recall hearing rumors about that round context menu
perhaps they will have worked out the kinks in winfs this time around
mm.. well, I'm looking forward to it
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oh... and for anyone who's confused about why it's being released so soon after vista... you should know that windows has always been released in 2 year successions, (sans vista, which was delayed due to spaghetti code issues with the first builds)
I don't think MS core business has never been high-end PCs. That's related to the hardware makers. They just make an OS that runs in a multitude of hardware and that's all.
I don't want MS to increse their 90-95% share. They need pressure from the competition to improve and we the end user to get a better deal.
Legacy support is not going anywhere soon. MS core business is "businesses", not home users after all.
I don't think MS core business has never been high-end PCs. That's related to the hardware makers. They just make an OS that runs in a multitude of hardware and that's all.
I don't want MS to increse their 90-95% share. They need pressure from the competition to improve and we the end user to get a better deal.
Legacy support is not going anywhere soon. MS core business is "businesses", not home users after all.
UAC, "Are you sure you want to use that finger to twiddle the doohickey?"
UAC, "Your thumb wants to manipulate a register setting, Ok?"
etc... etc...
MS is showing multi-touch on the screen, oriented vertically in front of you--which makes for pretty much the most muscle-fatiguing way to go about it that you can find. See "gorilla arm" in the jargon file sometime for an explanation...but suffice it to say, using a vertically oriented touchscreen is rapidly and thoroughly tiring, which is why it's so unpleasant to use the kiosks that show up so frequently in shopping malls. I can't believe a human-factors department so well-funded as Microsoft's hasn't remembered (or even rediscovered) this.
Passenger: "Captain - the ship, the TitanicVista - it's sinking!"
Cap'n Ballmer: "Don't worry, look...here are some pretty pictures of the new 'Titanic7' we are building 'real soon now'. Built just a well as this one, but even shinier! Looks pretty nice, eh? So just be a good passenger and sit there in your Window seat. Everything is under control."
Passenger: "But the ship, it's still sinking! Shouldn't we head for the lifeboats?"
Cap'n Ballmer: "Naw, and besides, we don't have any lifeboats".
Passenger: "But what about all those ones over there? Why can't we use those?"
Cap'n Ballmer:"Those? Those are no friggen good! Those are OpenSource lifeboats. You can see right through the damn things! You sure as hell can't trust something you can see through! Here, give me your wallet. You can make a down-payment on a seat on the Titanic7 if that will make you feel better. You'll probably have to use a payment plan, anyways."
Passenger: "Give me my wallet back you cretin! Wait, you handcuffed me to this closed-off pipe! Come back! You can keep my wallet...I just want to get to the OpenSource Lifeb....blubbbbbbb.....".
What the hell...
Actually not impressed.
Listen I don't know why everyone has to get their pull-ups all in a bunch, an every OS has pro's and con's:
Windows users have to deal with Microsoft's ideas on how to "improve", constant vulnerability and security issues, a resource hungry snowballing infrastructure, amongst a few other things; but by far it can be they said have the largest suite of compatible hardware and software.
OSX users have very efficient OS that simply "works", a sleek customizable UI, and an impressive array of stock apps, however in order to become on of the Mac club your nose must invert straight up as you look down upon every one else. It also may be noted with this OS that "according to apple" one must purchase overpriced hardware with the vendor name scratched out, and an apple sticker in it's place.
Linux users get probably the most intuitive, up-to-date, fastest and customizable system, however initial support with newer hardware will always lag behind the competition until vendors take Linux more seriously. In my opinion I love the plethora of options and software repositories to gaze through; but so many groups going too many different directions (often creating multiple software serving a parallel function) sometimes produces applications that could be so much more.
So there you have it. They all have good points, and could all be improved. So Windows users, unfortunately the business model of "we are the biggest therefore the best" will probably stagnate a more innovative windows for an indefinite period.
To the Apple users (with the exception of the few humble out there), please get a grip, OSX is awesome, however is not the "hands down best operating system ever was or will be", please step off your high horse and quit acting like your on the verge of a temper tantrum.
Linux users please stop saturating the web with videos of how your desktop looks, I've seen the damn cube spin around, Compiz can be configured to be useful too.
And lastly to all computer users, please stop the "my OS can beat up your OS" mentality; pick yourself up a virtual machine and try them all before you cast your judgment in stone.
*Yawn*
I've been seeing nerds do this with a cardboard box a webcam, and some free software. Microsoft wants us to pay for ideas that were perfected elsewhere, then shitted on, and wrapped in a Windows box? No thanks.
After 10 years as a windows power user, 8 years with linux, and 1 with OSX (love it!) I've experienced this:
Computers are like cars, test drive them all and pick what you want to get skilled at driving. And like cars, they all screw up at some point because they are programmed and run by humans and you can't beat the human error factor.
So if you like linux, osx, or windows, it's ok. You can buy multiple cars if you can afford to.
It would be nice if we could all just live in a multiplatform world without all the negative comments. Because choice is the thing that gives us freewill. And freewill is what makes us human.
"can't we all just get along?" (cheesy grin)
This completes my morning rant.
with love,
OSX, Linux user and abuser. (and occasionally my wifes windows lappy)
I bet it will still have the same mspaint ap in Windwos 3.0. How sad.
So, the big thing is multitouch on a PC for Windows 7?
Hold your arms out in front of you for 5 minutes straight. Feel that burn?
There's no clear reason to have multitouch on an everyday PC.
I think you should have had an editor look at this blog before you posted it! It is not a smooth read!
Wasn't that same background used in one of the Star Wars movies ;)
It's actually pronounced BEESTA!
I only have one hand free when I watch pr0n, so how does multitouch help me?
Windows 7 actually looks like a mix of Vista and the iPhone, and in the end- a little of Leopard too perhaps. It is a little too early to really judge though, so one can't really expect any major differences yet.
And yes...Vista (pronounced "Veesta") is a Spanish word. It means the "View", which naturally relates to Windows. What I'd really like to see is the view of Windows moving further and further away, as I finally leave it for good. One can only hope that one day, they can actually do better than XP (and all others at that).
As I was reading these comments, i stumbled across the second one posted which said it looked like Leopard
Finally, Somebody in that f'in company got their head out of their ass and figuered out that Leopard=Good and would have just duplicated it.
Its a damn shame that no good company offers windows, so a leopard like OS could only live up to any hype on a mac
Im sure Apple will have that covered- in version 10.7's (Pussycat) Bootcamp
MS MVP "Vishal Gupta" posted a topic about 2 Bugs found in Windows 7. I would like to share the link here:
http://www.askvg.com/microsoft-windows-seven-bug-report/
anyone noticing the kde like taskbar in this. the giant k is now a giant vista logo. im excited