First let me thank Jon for my introduction to the Windows Weblog reading community. I’m excited about taking the reigns of another b5media blog and running with it.
For my first post to the blog I thought I’d share this little bit of information that I read today from Matt over at 37Signals. He recently had this post about the heads of the e-mail development programs for Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!.
Seems the three of them got together and discussed all chum like (that’s buddy like, not shark bait like) how they were doing with their developments over the holidays. For anyone that’s interested the three head honchos are:
- Google: Paul Buchheit, 29 years old
- Microsoft: Kevin Doerr, 39 years old
- Yahoo!: Ethan Diamond, 34 years old
[Editor’s note: Why did I include their ages? Initially because it was provided in the original Wall Street Journal article, and also because I’m right in that age range so I was kind of comparing myself to them and where I’m at in my life in the beginning of 2006 and looking at what I’ve accomplished and what I’d still like to accomplish. I challenge you to do the same.]
The meeting of the three was prompted by Lee Gomes over at Wall Street Journal. The meeting seemed to go very well for everyone and there was even talk of meeting again next year to discuss what happened in the past year as well.
As Matt quoted in his article on 37Signals, it was interesting to note what each person thought was the highlight of their individual products:
- Google: “Mr. Buchheit said what he most liked about Gmail is the ease and fluidity with which it lets him work with his messages.”
- Microsoft: “Mr. Doerr noted the powerful desktop-like features of his Microsoft product, such as the on-the-fly spell checking of messages as they are typed.”
- Yahoo!: “Mr. Diamond noted that in Yahoo’s mail program, users can see their entire inbox in a single screen, rather than having to page through it screenload after screenload.”
Read the entire article: The Men Who Came To Dinner, and What They Said About Email by Lee Gomes on Wall Street Journal Online
I personally have an e-mail account with each of these guy’s tools. My Yahoo! account has been my main account to give to friends and family for communication. I’ve turned my Hotmail account into my spam trap for providing e-mail addresses to sites that require an e-mail address but I don’t necessarily want to be inundated with e-mails from, and my Gmail account is quickly becoming my preferred account for all e-mail that doesn’t fall into one of the other two categories.
I was recently able to upgrade my Hotmail account to the Live beta preview, (I’ll post on that experience later), Gmail hasn’t changed too much lately, and Yahoo! has been acting funny lately in Firefox. I’m still hoping my request for beta invite to Yahoo! will come through quick.
So, who found something interesting in this post? Anyone surprised that here I am writing for the Microsoft Weblog and I prefer my Yahoo! and Gmail accounts over Hotmail, and that I use Firefox as my preferred browser for now? Hopefully that will give you a taste for what to expect from my posts. I love Microsoft products for the most part, but I also want to use the best product that helps me get my work done in the most efficient manner possible. So, hopefully you’ll see an unbiased approach to what’s happening in the world of Microsoft and their range of products.
I look forward to sharing with you in the future!