Jim Allchin Gets Nostalgic

Jim Allchin, Microsoft Co-President, Platform and Services Division, has a nostalgic tone in the post he has published on the Windows Vista blog. And his nostalgia is fueled by the rapid approaching Vista customer release. Windows Vista's general availability is just four days away, and while the rest of the Windows community is living on anticipation alone, Jim Allchin has become reminiscent of the past.

When you take into account the fact that Allchin will be retiring following the commercial availability of the operating system, you can understand his nostalgic tone. The retirement announcement was made back in September 2005. Allchin has been leading the Microsoft Co-President, Platform and Services Division together with Kevin Johnson, both as co-presidents. In the fall of 2005, Microsoft had announced the realignment of the company into three new divisions. The Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division was one of them.

"Windows Vista includes innovation after innovation. We lead in so many areas including stunning handwriting recognition, speech recognition, TV integration, gaming, and feature after feature such as Shadow Copy, SideShow, ReadyBoost, and more," revealed Allchin.

Allchin also presented a selection of Windows products that have been released while Vista was in development:

- Windows XP Service Pack 2 (August, 2004): Other companies would have called this a major release and charged money for it!
- Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 (August, 2004): Our handwriting recognition is even better in Windows Vista, but this innovative product broke new ground in handwriting capability.
- Windows XP Starter Edition (September 2004): Our innovation here is opening computing to many throughout the world where previously it was out of their price range.
- Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (October, 2004): This innovative product ushered in a new era in home entertainment -- moving computing into the living room -- that others are just trying to imitate now.
- Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (March, 2005)
- Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions (April, 2005)
- Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (April, 2005)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (December, 2005)
- And more, including Windows XP Embedded updates, etc.

"I can't tell you how proud I am of the Windows team here at Microsoft and our partners around the world. Their hard work has resulted in a significant milestone for the Windows Platform -- and their focus on engineering excellence has made Windows Vista the highest quality version of Windows ever," added Allchin.