Mr. Ozzie Comes to Los Angeles

Ray Ozzie really hit his stride as the executive MC at PDC (Ray led the keynotes on both of the first two days). At Mix08 earlier this year he was a little apologetic ("I'm not Bill Gates") and tentative (nothing formal to announce -- just vision) but all that was gone at PDC. Ozzie is now not only a reasonable alternative to Gates -- in many ways he's better. It was always thrilling in a celebrity sense to attend a Gates keynote, but sort of like attending a Who concert today -- it's no longer all about the music and the performance. Sometimes Bill seemed like he was just calling it in (for lots of possible good reasons). Often he explained things in the context of the history of Microsoft. Ray definitely wasn't calling it in and he didn't worry about explaining the Windows 3.1 history. The story was Windows Azure (Windows for the Cloud) and he was very articulate and passionate. Ray Ozzie has accomplished more than enough to rest on his laurels if he wanted to (Lotus Notes, Groove) but he clearly didn't sign up as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect (Gates' final position) as an honorarium for his earlier work. If Azure and Live Mesh succeed, the impact will swamp what Ray has done in the past. He's fully engaged, excited and passionate and it shows. Bravo!