Are We There Yet?

Hope you guys are having a great Summer.  I'm slowly easing out of my blogging hiatus after spending the first three weeks of July traveling for work and play.  I've got one more work trip and two mini-vacations coming up and then I'm totally back into the swing of things.  Microsoft is almost completely back at it too.  I've got two more official kick off meetings to attend and then final FY12 quotas get set.  Even without individual quotas, our account managers have been asked to provide preliminary forecasts for the full year.  We don't mess around here.  We celebrated record earnings of almost $70B and now it's time to get back to work.  I'm sure there will be a few more celebrations once final FY11 commissions are paid out, but in general, there is no rest for the weary.  The work starts now to make sure we hit our FY12 numbers.

Anywho, back to the real reason for this blog post.....

I was going through some old videos tonight that we used to show at seminar events when I first joined Microsoft back in 2002.  Back then I didn't think realize quickly the vision in these videos would come true.  This was way before there were smartphone apps for just about everything.  Before the proliferation of Tablet PCs and slates.  Before VOIP and video chat.  Before businesses had begun to integrate LOB applications to support better decision making and improve customer service.  Take a look at the videos I have posted below.  As I watched these videos, all I could think about was how most of the technology from Microsoft and our competitors that has come to pass like:  Windows Phone 7, Windows 7, Windows 8, Skype, Tablet PCs/Slates, Apple iPad, Apple iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft SharePoint, PerformancePoint Services, Business Intelligence, PowerPivot, Bing Search, Yahoo Search, Google Search, Xbox, Xbox Live, Kinect, Windows Home Server, etc.  Seeing how far we've come in nine years makes me even more excited about the future of technology and role that Microsoft will play both in the consumer and business market.

 

.NET Health

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICmIsuOQJuw]

 

.NET Consumer

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfX_mzlaTGs]

 

.NET PC Experience

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvaQOlf_zE]

 

.NET SolarComm

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6JkicZ1-kA]

 

.NET One Degree of Separation

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsQ60voyMgQ]

 

Long Ago

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0wOSpIwYE]

 

Red

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF8FfMOanQA]

 

Vintage

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnfTBDBjG1E]

 

So are we there yet?  Based on these videos I would have to say yes - at the very least we are close.