Microsoft Event ... Not to unwire our conscience

Ballmer rolled out the big credibility guns by introducing Tom Brokaw to speak at the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 launch event last night. Microsoft announced the long awaited Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Server 2008, aka Longhorn. A master at the sound bite, Brokaw said, "Technology alone is not the answer, it will do little good to wire the world if we short-circuit our conscience." I'm not sure it would have mattered who they chose to speak, the techies were wondering what the former NBC anchor was doing there; Whoppi Goldberg would have been a good choice too. From a marketing perspective, you get the developers fired up with free software and bring Tom to woo the empty suits who pay the bills. Makes sense to me.