PDC Remarks - An Open Letter to MS

Throughout the conference, my view on Microsoft and their policies towards developers has changed a great deal.  I had always pictured them as aloof, just wanting to make their products the best they could, and release them to the public, and leaving the support to MS support services.  OK, I was half right.  What they really want is for the developer community to help them find out what the best product is, and make it for the public. 

I guess what most impressed me was the one-on-one interaction between developers and people on the product teams. I was given a long demonstration on MSH, and it was great - I proceeded to tell anyone else that would listen about how great it is.  MSDN answered my questions about why Windows 95 isn't available for download from the subscriber downloads, and even Windows 3.1 and MSDOS 5 are.  (Ask Sun why...) I got to talk to MS Research. I met people who are on the ASP.NET team, and got to directly ask them questions.

So good job MS, hopefully we'll see the fruits of the community interaction in later betas.