Ina Fried on CNET has a story and links to the D5 conference Wednesday night discussion with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Jim Glass from the Dynamics CRM team has also posted a link to the Bill and Steve D5 Conference discussion on the CRM blog. ...

I'm turning the tables today, with a question to visitors to the blog, following an article from Bill McGee of Consumer Reports. He has an article in USA Today this week on "When customer service is lost in translation," with a focus on customer service...

This should qualify as one of your questions, as I was asked on Monday "do you still post your reading lists?" OK, I've slacked off posting my reading lists as I didn't think it was of value, but here we go. Here the list of what I had the chance...

A quick note between mtgs today as I expect that the announcement of Microsoft Surface will get a lot of traffic and exposure today, as already noted in the US ISV Developer Evangelism Team blog , this entry from Jim Galasyn's Learning Curve , a link...

Just back from my power walk, I rec;'d a note that yesterday Guy Kawasaki touted Launch Silicon Valley 2007 on his blog... well worth a trip I think to SiValley in June... (here's more info on our Mountain View offices ) Check out Launch: Silicon...

Of interest this long weekend: the Settle Times has a section dedicated to outrageous treehouses in Tina Potterf's Saturday article " One-of-a-kind tree houses that really seem like home ." One of Smith's favorite tree houses is near Poulsbo. The...

In the mailbag this long holiday weekend morning... "I have run in to a problem with my Microsoft software... How can I contact Microsoft Customer Service?" First, if the problem or question is related to software or products you purchased through...

Just in time for the long weekend... LifeHacker's collection of cool MacGyver Tips ... Pack your bagel sandwich with a CD spindle Clean your keyboard with Scotch tape Clean the dishwasher with lemonade Kool-Aid Fix a dent with canned...

In case you missed the news, eWeek's Joe Wilcox asked " What Would You Ask Bill and Steve? " referring to next week's Wall Street Journal All Things Digital - D5 Conference May 29-31 in Southern California, "where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple...

CNET News reports today that Internet taxes could arrive by this fall in the US if the discussions in Congress are successful. "State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts...

Long Zheng reports in his blog earlier this week that "a trademark application in Australia... looks to be for a video-on-demand service from Microsoft yet to be identified has been made available publically." Ars Technica picked up on Zheng's report...

Do you have a TV antenna connection that plugs directly in to your TV or Media Center PC? If so, think about how you will prepare for a transition that is finally coming in the industry: on February 17, 2009, the US will make the transition to digital...

I spoke with a customer today relatedt to a technology deployment related to infrastructure and planning. At one point I was somewhat frustrated as I saw that we had room to improve on the customer's experience with our products, and how we have opportunities...

In Brier Dudley's blog today , the Seattle Times writer writes about how the company is taking a step in a next step beyond the Windows, given some of the latest moves (including the move of Bob Muglia's Server & Tools org to MBD under Jeff Raikes...

On MSN Money Central news today , Qwest and Verizon rated highly when it comes to fixed-line telephone companies in the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) customer satisfaction survey. "The ASCI measures customer satisfaction...

On this day in 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight, landing at Le Bourget airfield near Paris. This from Wired's Wired magazine's today in tech : Late in life, “Lucky Lindy” became an outspoken environmentalist...

Just as I was comparing specs online and the 'feel' of camcorders in person at the few stores that carry the latest hardware, I received a link to on to the the Great HD Shoot Out which compares some of the latest and greatest prosumer HD camcorders,...

Last week, ZDNet 's Mary Jo Foley posted on her blog the Ten lessons the Xbox Team can teach the rest of Microsoft . "When it comes to building community -- and profiting from it -- Microsoft's Xbox team is helping write the playbook. That fact isn...

I was asked this morning by a friend from down south at a not-so-small Internet services company: "What is going on up there [in Redmond]? Six billion for aQuantive? That is a bunch of money. It sounds like a Silicon Valley deal." A new record-setting...

AP reported this week that the legendary Hewlett-Packard garage is now officially an historic place. It's the little garage behind the house at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (the co-founders of HP) first started in...

Lisa Vaas of eWeek has an article today on how nearly 500 people took the bait to 'Click Here to Get Infected.' It was as simple as setting up an innocent looking domain name (drive-by-download.info), one with an '.info' suffix that is reportedly popular...

This week I am blogging from the lovely pacific northwest, from our meeting off-campus with our teams from around the world focused on customer and partner satisfaction. I partner with Toby Richards from our Sales & Marketing Services Group on how...

As Nick posted on the Windows Vista blog last month , the Vista beta and RC preview versions will expire on May 31, 2007. "On 31 May 2007, all Customer Preview Program (CPP) pre-release versions of Windows Vista will expire. If you are running a...

What a week. There are so many things going on at the office right now, with a number of meetings and reviews, and we're just about to kick off a set of meetings to discuss (the continuing efforts of) how we can improve upon satisfying our customers and...

I read today on inc.com that jetblue's founder is stepping down as CEO . "David Neeleman, founder of embattled low-cost airline JetBlue, is being replaced as CEO, company directors announced Thursday." Sad, as Neeleman has been a poster child...