[photo by Dan Farber]

I enjoy reading interviews with Ray - you can almost sense the wheels whirring away in his head as every answer comes across as measured but not spun by PR. Two very interesting interviews today, the first with Om Malik and another I just finished reading in The Financial Times (and a shorter FT article on with Ray commenting on Yahoo)

A few thing come across for me that help create the change many observers of Microsoft last week noticed.

  • Ray is open. Not just in his manner but in a standards kind of way. He recognises the need for interoperability
  • There is a real lack of arrogance which takes people by surprise as I guess they've grown used to some arrogance from Microsoft. To be honest I think we're way less arrogant than in previous years and less so than other tech companies. I think Ray's approach is rubbing off on other Microsoft folks though.
  • Ray is patient. He the antithesis of FUD and also strikes me as something of a perfectionist. The latter may mean we get to market slower than people would like but without the FUD of incorrect expectations, that's a good thing.
  • Ray likes to tease but doesn't give a huge amount away. It's now showmanship if the Steve Jobs kind but Ray leaves you guessing which creates intrigue and interest rather than apathy.
  • At the same time Ray is bullish. When he says stuff like

      • "I assume that some number of years from now most major enterprises and many independent developers will be running their services in our data centres," Mr Ozzie said. "They will, because there aren't many people who have the capacity and the number of business reasons we have to build out that infrastructure."

What does this all add up to? Respect and credibility, at least I think so. Of course the real test comes in the delivery so we shall see over the course of the next 6 months or so. Even sooner perhaps.

More interesting perhaps, is this the emergence of the new Microsoft? I know some people who work with Ray and they're similar. No arrogance, no spin. Refreshing. I also got to sit in a small session with Ray about 6 months ago and hear him talk about a range of things. It was similar to sitting in the small sessions with Bill I've had the privilege to attend on a few occasions but also different. With both though you kind of hang on every word as you sense there is some deeper thinking going on than you're trying to connect with. I got that from both of these Ozzie interviews. 

Maybe I'm looking through rose tinted spectacles though....read the two interviews and tell me what you think.