Today's multi-product launch has shaped up to the biggest ever in the history of Microsoft product launches. CEO Steve Ballmer appeared at NASDAQ headquarters in New York City to announce the Business Value Launch of Windows Vista, 2007 Office System and Exchange Server 2007 and we were able to experience the event first-hand.
Before the press conference, Steve Ballmer turned up at NASDAQ to "press the button" to open the day's trading on the exchange. Here are some shots of him as shown on the NASDAQ's huge display screen in Times Square in NYC.
At the press conference immediately following, Steve highlighted how Windows Vista, 2007 Office System and Exchange Server 2007 will help companies seeking to run "people-ready" businesses. With Windows Vista and 2007 Office System, users now have tools that will help them do their jobs more efficiently. In part, this means finding the right information at the right time -- usually right now. Further, both Windows Vista and 2007 Office System offer "live previews" of the potential changes a user could make to documents, spreadsheets and presentations so s/he can quickly tell whether a given change works for that document or not. In other words, no longer must you rely so extensively on the Undo function.
Rather than blow our own horn, we had customers tell the story at this event. For instance, Interknowlogy and the Scripps Research Institute talked about a new application they designed together that takes advantage of the .NET 3.0 Framework running on Windows Vista in conjunction with SharePoint 2007, in Scripps' efforts to detect and fight cancer. Their application literally allows you to drag a Word Document "onto" a hi-res graphic of a specific protein molecule, thereby combining the two documents and uploading them to SharePoint 2007. Anyone using the application can then browse to that protein molecule and see the associated Word document.
Now that businesses have access to Windows Vista and 2007 Office System, we've only just begun. I've said it before and I'll say it again: when it comes to the consumer market launch of these two products, stay on your toes and keep reading this blog, as we've got some amazing things in store for you between now and the end of January!