ArsTechnica has an interesting (and data-filled) article detailing public perceptions of two of the largest (if not the largest) figures in the personal computing space.  In my experiences with Bill, he's been benevolent yet driven as ever.

There's been a bit of speculation over the past few weeks about what Microsoft's recent reorgs both company-wide and within Robbie Bach's org mean to the company's entertainment efforts.  While I certainly don't speak officially for anyone other than myself, I did want to share my perspective:

Reorgs happen at Microsoft.  They happen more often across the company than gets reported (or speculated upon).  Reorgs in my experience bring more focus.

So what does this mean for me in particular?  Not much really.  I'm as strongly committed to my job and my partners as ever.  More and more devices are supporting our technologies and PlaysforSure and they're getting better (look at my prior CES scorecard post).  Partnerships like those with MTV with Urge and Verizon Wireless's V-Cast are the result of significant investments on both sides.  What matters isn't speculation, but proof.

Wow, we all knew that UPN and WB were in trouble, but this is surprising.  According to a release yesterday, CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. said Tuesday they will close their respective UPN and WB networks, and jointly launch a new channel in fall 2006.  The new CW network will be a 50-50 joint venture of the two companies.

The companies expect the station to reach 95 percent of the country.
The surprise news of the merger comes as the WB Network has faced pressure to perform and prove itself as a strategic asset at a time when its parent company Time Warner is under intense scrutiny on Wall Street and from maverick investor Carl Icahn.

From the wires: Netflix Inc. the world's largest online movie rental service, today

announced it will carry the first movies available in HD DVD when the new

high-definition format launches in late March, according to plans recently

outlined by several major movie studios, and said it will similarly offer

titles in the Blu-ray format when that product launches, expected to be

later this year.

GO HAWKS!  What a great game. Ok, here is my promised story:

Not many people know that there are actually two people named, "Shawn Alexander" in the Seattle area. One is the superstar MVP running back for the Seattle Seahawks leading the league in rushing yards. The other is me, a Microsoft employee whose been lucky to have my smaller moments in the limelight.  I wish I could say I get preferential treatment around town but that's not the case and no, I've never met the man. But one day about four years ago, our worlds collided.  It all started with my wedding.

My wife and I were married in the Summer of 2000.  The ceremony was held in the Bay Area and it was the best day of my life. We received a wide range of gifts from friends near and far that seemed to trickle in over a almost a year.  Then, about 14 months after our wedding, a package arrived to my office.  I opened it up and realized it was a wedding present, and subsequently left it in my office for about a month (bad Sean!).  Then packing up to leave one day, I realized my error and brought the package home. 

It was a typical evening- Nickie and I were chatting about our day and I left the package on the kitchen table while sorting through the mail.

"What's this?" Nickie asked.

"A belated wedding present I think." I responded.

Nickie opened the packaging and missed the envelope for the gift card.  She then went on to open the card.

"Honey?" she asked.

"Yes" I responded.

"Do we know a 'Coach and Kathy Holmgren'?"

The words hung in the air for a second as we went through our mental wedding lists.  Then it hit us.

"You don't think... isn't Holmgren the Head Coach of the Seahawks?" she started.

"Oh my gosh" I said.  I had remembered seeing Shaun Alexander had just gotten married. It clicked- the package and gift was from a local Seattle store on our registry.

"They must have picked the wrong Alexander from the gift registry."

We talked about what to do. The gift was nice, something we had picked out.  I was running scenarios in my head- would Shaun care?  Would he be offended to think Holmgren didn't give him a gift?  Probably not. But ethically, we agreed we just couldn't keep it.  So next posed the problem- how would I get it back to the Holmgrens?  It was from our registry, so I wasn't sure Shaun would want it.

Then I started the process of trying to return the item.  No daunting task.

You see, there are thousands of Seahawks fans locally who would like nothing more than to share their zeal for the team with the coaching staff and players.  You won't find an email address or phone #of the Seahawks on the web site (at least I didn't back then).  Eventually, I realized the path of least resistance was likely the Seahawks PR department.  Many a time I've been contacted the same way at Microsoft.  So, I cold-called the PR department, and left them  a voicemail message.

Two days later, I got a call back from the Seahawks.  They apologized for the situation and explained that the Holmgren's assistant had accidentally picked the wrong Alexander off the gift registry.  They asked to coordinate a time for a "runner" to pick up the item.  Later the next day, sure enough the "runner" arrived at my office and apologized for the inconvenience. I explained it was no problem. He also gave me a small bag with two Seahawks hats and bumper stickers as thanks. I was appreciative to receive it.  I wasn't expecting tickets or anything.

So... that was my first brush with Shaun Alexander.  Judging by the hugs after yesterday's game, I'm sure everything is fine between Holmgren and Alexander despite all the hoopla at the end of last season.

 By now you're probably wondering what the gift was.  I'm not saying... until after the Seahawks win the Super Bowl <g>.

Go HAWKS!

Audioholics did an interview with Sage Schreiner, HD DVD Program Manager which helps to clear up some misconceptions about the coming format.  Personally, I got one of the sample (production-ready) hybrid HD-DVD/DVD discs that was being handed out at the Microsoft booth at CES and can't wait to try it out.  It's literally a single-sided disc with both the HD-DVD and DVD formatted movies on it and plays in both types of drives.

CD Freaks, the self-ascribed, "World's Largest CD/DVD Community" recently did a poll which format would be the follow-up to DVD.  The results of over 500 respondents polled can be found here.

While this doesn't mean anything from a scientific perspective, it is interesting to see that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are effectively neck and neck with this audience, with a good-sized # of holdouts.

In other news, reportedly Blu-Ray drives for PCs will be ready in March. The drives can read CDs, DVDs but will not be able to burn until the second generation hits the market this summer.

Mano Clement has a great roundup here thanks to Robert Scoble. Items of interest to Digital Media enthusiasts:

- Many times the perf on Networking stack (and USB stack too BTW) ;)

- All new Audio stack with per-app audio and more.

- FAST search through tens of thousands to millions of tracks in WMP11 (I can't go back)

- Other features I just can't talk about yet...

I talked to Robert last week and we're going to line up a bunch of videos for Channel 9 on digital media efforts in Windows Vista in the coming month.  Stay tuned for more.  And congrats to Robert and Shel on their book- sorry I missed the party- had another party last night!

(Update: All my Beta invites are spoken for. If I get more, we'll have another runoff.  Thanks!)

I'm a huge believer in "dogfooding" our own products.  After my friend Harry (who runs the Windows Vista demo lab) moved his own home PC to the December CTP (Customer Technology Preview), I decided to take this integrated build thing for a spin.

You see, for "the field" at Microsoft (that's what we call the subsidiary offices), they also need to be able to show Vista to customers.  Of course, they have all sorts of different hardware, so creating a master demo image can be a pain.  With Vista, the drivers are "abstracted" from the core OS - the result is that you can build a single image and deploy it on multiple PCs of different types and in most cases, no additional drivers are required. 

In my case, I run an Intel D865PERL mobo and P4HT processor w/ a mix of SATA and IDE drives and the like.  Vista recognized everything, including the ATI Theater 550 and Hauppauge TV tuner boards.  It set up no sweat, off of the demo disc Harry gave me.  Sure, there is the occasional bug and performance optimizations haven't started yet, but it's looking pretty good.

I have a raft of feedback for my team on areas we can provide fit and finish.  Overall though, I'm finding it really hard to go back to Windows XP and WMP10 on my freshly installed dual-boot system.  WMP11 is sooo much better.  Sidebar is really coming along as well (I know I'm teasing- good things come to those who wait!)

Want to do a little dogfooding yourself?  I have 9 invites to Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) top 9 answers for why you'd make a good beta tester (pictures may be submitted  via email) will get the invites. 

Oh and in case you haven't noticed, I've switched my photoblog to Flickr - I'm sean_alexander there. Gosh I love that service, more on that another time.  Now we need a totally tricked out Flickr screensaver (I was unimpressed by Slickr, sorry).  We also need a general tag/cropping mechanism for display on 16:9/16:10 displays (most widescreen PC monitors are 16:10 <g>).

The winners of the Next-Gen Windows PC Design Competition have been announced.  This was a risky idea I had back when I worked on Vista planning. While I'm not longer associated with its development, I'm excited to see the team do a great job carrying through on this competition and the winning design, "Bookshelf" was personally my favorite as well.  I understand it was so successful it may become an annual event.

There's a ton of good talent and good ideas out there.  I just wish the economics of the PC industry were such that more manufacturers had premium brands that looked premium as well as the innards (hello, Dell XPS?)