Bill Gates

• Windows Vista - Market penetration is at the strongest levels so far, and Bill's confident behind his company's product. I'm sure he said the same for Millennium when it came out.
• Connected Devices - This one's interesting. In a demo of some really expensive hardware, like wireless-enabled cameras and photo frames, we got to see just how amazing the enhancements Microsoft has made to Windows Vista's SMB implementation, all the while forgetting that the advanced configurations for non-premium devices will, ultimately, fail. Connect a Linux computer? Ha. Your cheap knockoff Chinese camera? Drivers aren't even WHQL, don't expect wireless auto-synchronization to your glorified NAS box (also called Windows Home Server). Linux: cron job. Done.
• Windows Server 2008 - Pretty self-explanatory. Increased device security for Windows-based PCs. Their ever-more-intricate management consoles are starting to confuse me further. However, it's nice that they're continuing with their pretty box art.

Craig Mundie

Ah, finally, a face to put on MSR. Craig, for inspiration, watched Bill's keynote from PDC 2005 on the future of technology and put everyone to sleep.

• Future Healthcare - If you're a disadvantaged person in a third-world country, don't worry: Microsoft is looking out for you. You (you have a cell, right?) will be able to contact your doctor (there are cell towers in the middle of the savanna, right?) through a guided series of steps with icons (the icon for vomiting is quite explicit), and visit a mobile health station to get your medication.
• Future Interfaces - Yes, it's great that you're thinking about developing countries and their ubiquitous cellphone networks, but grandma playing checkers with her computer and placing her medications on the video-camera controlled intelligent table is far-fetched, even for me. What's next? Facial twitch recognition instead of a mouse?
• Future Computing - Your cellphone as a replacement for a computer. Hook up your TV and USB keyboard/mouse and there you go. The only problem here is that these cellphones will be running Microsoft-based software, a company not exactly known for efficiency of coding when it comes to mobile applications.
• Decentralized Computing and Computing Efficiency - We're not using the full potential of our computers, says Mundie, and with the introduction of multiple-cell processors, there's even more of a reason to take advantage of parallel processing and decentralized computing. Also, conventional programming languages are not sufficient for a future in computing: with parallel processing and multiple types of processors, it's not worth it to build applications in current programming languages. Oh joy, new fun to learn.