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So it’s been a big past week for Microsoft. Last Friday, June 27 was the official last day of Bill Gates‘ employment as a full timer, and today, June 30 is the official semi-retirement of Windows XP.

Bill Gates was one of the founders of Microsoft way back at the start of the computer revolution in 1975. Much of the reason the technological world is the way it is today is due to Bill Gates (and a few other revolutionaries) and what they did some 30-odd years ago. Gates announced, about a year or two ago that he would be retiring from full time employment at Microsoft, though he still remains Chairman of the Board. He will be pursuing philanthropy and working with the various charitable organizations he is associated with.

Windows XP was first introduced to the public in 2001 and has become, as so many versions of Windows before it, the industry standard for computing operating systems. In early 2007, Microsoft released their most current version of Windows, called Vista, and thus the countdown to the end of the XP life cycle really began. Microsoft announced that they would end the general licensing of XP on today’s date. While you may still be able to buy a copy of XP from stores, Vista is now the main focus of Microsoft and XP will slowly fade to complete retirement by April 08, 2014.

And so, within a week of each other, two major players in Microsoft have finished their part in the company’s unfolding story. Ray Ozzie has replaced Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect and Vista has completely (in the eyes of Microsoft) replaced XP as their operating system. Microsoft is working on some exciting new products and technologies, and I’m excited to see where the computer industry goes from here as we end what really has been the first era of the technological revolution and begun another.

Bye Bye Bill.

On this day…

• 2007: iPhone is here — [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZKjJt-TkU]
  So who got it, and what say you?
  tags: iphone apple [...]