Ray Ozzie is a big stud, Part 1

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(See also Ray Ozzie is a big stud, Part 2, rest of blog at: http://jeremiahsjamison.wordpress.com/)

Today at MGX, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, gave his keynote to around 8000 MSFT employees.  I think Ray Ozzie is the MAN–visionary, clear-thinking, thoughtful, and optimistic.  Of course, with Bill Gates retiring and shifting his focus to philanthropy, there is the question of how you replace him.  Bill is to a large degree irreplaceable, a unique unique soul. 

But IF you had to fill Bill’s shoes, Ray Ozzie is the guy.  Here’s what I find so great about Ray:

• Importantly, he embraces the internet and the web as our friend.  He fundamentally ‘gets’ what it means to be a software+services company.  He is not faking this.  This bodes well for MSFT, as the opportunities we have in front of us are quite strong.
• He is an optimist and he is pushing us to embrace this journey.  MS is a self-critical company.  Too often, I think we’ve let ourselves criticize some of our efforts (e.g., Live Search) and we point out problems.  This is the easy thing, right?  The hard part is figuring out the solution.  Ray gets this.
• Ray uniquely combines a great vision for technology with a great vision for what a sales force needs to do.  Big thoughts packaged in digestable, easy to understand statements.
• Ray is the man.
• (See also Ray Ozzie is a big stud, Part 2, rest of blog at: http://jeremiahsjamison.wordpress.com/)

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