I've worked a lot of different places in my career. I started off at MS as an intern (many, many years ago). I worked as a consultant, I worked at an internet start-up. I worked for one of MS' competitors (RealNetworks, if you must know). And I decided to come back to Microsoft about 5 years ago.

When asked, the answer is simple. There are two things that matter. Working with people who are wiling to think big and take chances. Microsoft is full of folks like that and I get to work with them every day. It isn't just J, either. There's an entire crop of senior managers who are now taking the reins. Without big thinkers and risk takers, we wouldn't have products like MCE, Smartphone, Xbox and Zune. Sure, we have products that haven't done so well either, but we're willing to take big risks, which is incredibly exciting and rewarding.

What's more is that anyone can steer the ship. I hear a lot about the bureaucracy. I'm sure it exists. But, I've been fortunate to work on some incredibly nimble teams. The responsibility doled out to people is incredible given that there are over 70K people at the company. Present your case to the senior management and usually they will say go make it happen. I don't know of any other Fortune 500 company like that.

So, when I read stories about the new batch of MS leaders, I applaud the authors. It is absolutely true. These guys are the visionaries. What we do today will affect my child in the future.

And, I'm really happy they decided to feature J as an example of the leadership. I don't work for J, so I have no reason to brown-nose here. I've gotten to know him over the last 8 months and I've got to say, he's just a great guy. Sure he's dresses cool and drives a fast car. Yep, he always knows the newest and hottest bands (heck, I sometime see him hanging out with them). But the real reason why I like J is that he's a leader. It is very rare that you find someone at any company that inspires such devotion. I'd walk over broken glass for the guy. I think his teammates would do the same. Combine the vision with the loyalty and you have quite a formidable combination. If I were the competition, that's what I'd worry about.

*Note: I will link to encoders, but nothing that uses DeCSS.

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Step one: I'll take partner nominations in the comments section of this post. I want you guys to tell me which company and which product and why. There's no word limit to your description. Assume I've never heard of the company. If you happen to have a contact for that company, you can email me directly.

Step two: Here's where I need some help. I'll take the top 8 suggestions and make a survey if someone can help me with a blogger-based survey form. I'll post it for a week and let you guys vote on it. If for some reason nobody can help me with the survey, I'll do a simple majority of nominations. Before you start to stuff the comment box, I'll let you know if we turn on that option.

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I saw Cesar was answering questions over on his blog.  Since he's just one guy, I thought I'd help him out by asking if you guys need any help.  What issues are you seeing?  I'll do my best to answer.

I thought I'd have a chance to catch my breath after launch.  On the contrary, my phone has been ringing off the hook!  It was 6PM yesterday before I sat down to answer email for the day.  I guess it is a good problem to have. 

I just wanted tot say thanks for all the posts and private mails you guys have been sending me.  Some have even led to some new leads.  It's really great to discover something I didn't know about.  Keep them coming!

I went with Dave (aka Zunster) and did a tour of the area. Guess what? The stores were sold out (and yes I made sure they were actually sold out rather than not stocked). Granted, we live in a skewed market, but I'm feeling pretty good about the week!

Dave at Circuit

Circuit's display

Altec's speaker dock

Empty case at Fred Meyer

Target endcap

 Well, some of the accessories are turning up in the wild. Here is a photo of a DLO armband.

Video

Size - the first gripe is that it is "chunky." There is no denying that it is larger than the iPod. True enough. But, the stats don't really do it justice until you hold it in your hand. We could debate that the larger screen means a bigger physical size (it does) and the double-shot process adds a bit of bulk (also true), the real test is does it feel good in your hand or in your pocket. In my experience, once people hold it and feel the weight (yes, it is weight distributed) and the texture, they are sold. Is it big? Maybe, but it certainly isn't too big. And once you play with the interface, you're sold. Even Walt agrees on that point.

Battery - Much has been made of the battery life. But, the stats don't bear out much of the criticism. If you use Walt's points, then we have an hour less battery life when the Wi-Fi is turned on. But, he also points out that we have better battery playback for things like video. Is anyone really going to use the product for 14 hours straight? Unless you fly to Asia like I do, the answer is probably not. I'll be bold enough to state that whether you get 14 hours (iPod) or 13 hours (Zune + Wi-Fi) you're probably going to recharge about the same amount. I think that's kind of a Red Herring.

Points - Walt criticizes that we use points instead of dollars. I can see the merits of this argument. It took me a really long time to get used to the concept of points on the Xbox. However, now that I am habituated to using them, I find it quite convenient. As we roll-out world-wide, having one "universal standard" can be quite helpful. I personally think that points will be a stumbling block for some, but being able to use the same currency between Xbox and Zune will not be a barrier for most folks in the target demographic.

Songs - We also get criticized for the number of songs in the catalog. I'll argue that this is a bit of a red herring as well. What really matters is if you search for a song and it is not there. I'll bet with 2 million songs, there will rarely be a song you can't find. In my personal tests, this appears to be true. In some cases, bigger might not be better.

Screen size - We get criticized for having a larger screen, but not increasing the resolution. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell the difference between a native 640 x 480 resolution device and a 320 x 240 device at 3". I think we all think we can, but the reality is that it is pretty hard.

Wireless sharing - Walt is not convinced that this is good feature. He thinks it is a bit Draconian to enforce the 3 days/3 plays rule. Maybe. I think a better criticism is the analogy of the guy with the first telephone. But, that changes over time. Everyone I show this to loves it and I think kids in school will find it a cool feature.

Accessories - here's where I take exception. Criticized for ONLY having a hundred accessories? What? I'm not going to even dignify that with a response! ;)

Walt gives us lots of kudos, software, UI, and subscription models. I think he gives us some fair critiques as well regarding points and wireless. If somebody asked me if I thought Walt's article was fair, I'd say yes. If somebody asked me if I was happy with the article, I say I feel pretty good about it.

When I was asked to come work on third party accessories, I agreed so long as we could have an open environment. The Zune team never hesitated. They wanted me to be open with the partners and also the users. They encouraged me to reach out and evangelize as much as possible. The partners really appreciate it. We give them plenty of notice about our plans and we get their feedback. For the users, we reach out to get an understanding of how you want to use the product not how we think you want to use the product.

I firmly believe that in order to be successful we need to be part of the conversation. Hence, I blog. All of the feedback I get goes back to the team. Some of it gets included, some of it doesn't. But either way, the end result is something we create together (even if that sounds a bit sappy).

One of the difficult things for us is that we see the flaws as they arise and we forget that the experience for most users is much different. In every project there are lots of issues that come up. Some are major and others are minor. But, we get paid to solve those difficult problems. In fact we get paid to make sure the customer never knows about them.

This weekend I installed the Zune Software on my home machine. That's always an indicator of how comfortable I feel with the project. If I'm willing to install software on my home machine that I've got fine-tuned, then you can bet I feel pretty good about the experience. While I was installing the client, I really tried to look at the experience with fresh eyes. Was the experience easy? Did it experience any glitches? Was it fast (I've got 16,000 files)? Was it on message? Did it speak to me? Was it fun? Of course I am biased, but looking at it with this filer on it, I was really, really happy. It is amazing what the team did in a short time.

At the same time I loaded up the player at home, I installed the final builds on my Zune. Again, I tried to look at this as If I had never seen it before. The upgrade feature worked seamlessly (I can't wait for future upgrades). I then went through every feature one by one. I have to say this is a solid product. I can usually come up with an edge case with most products that breaks the device or makes me mad. I couldn't do it. My biggest complaint was that I can't delete tracks directly on the device. However, it is very easy to do that via the Zune software, so it isn't a big deal. If that's my biggest complaint, I'd say we are doing pretty well.

I then spent about an hour on Zune-Arts.com. My wife and I watched all of the shorts (including the Lion and Gazelle). It was really fun to watch her reactions to the shorts. It was clear that she didn't always "get" them, but she enjoyed them none the less. She said that the spots didn't look like Microsoft ads. EXACTLY! Coincidently, I happened to see my first ad this weekend with Dave (Zunester) at the Borat movie. I had a huge group of 18 year olds sitting behind me. One of them asked the other if that was a Creative Zen ad. The other said, "no, it's that thing from Microsoft. I've got to get that shit!" I think that was a compliment. I felt pretty good.

So, all in all, I feel very good about where we are. I really think we've created a great customer experience. This has been the most fun project I've worked on in years. It is right up there with the days when we invented the PMC, which still holds a special place in my heart. But it has many of the same elements; a cool product, great people, and cool new features. Now is the fun part. We get to see how all of you react to the product. In one week we'll know what you think. I've got no doubt you'll tell me (both good and bad).