What a sales-pitch!!! Gates' memo is trying again "everything Microsoft". It's over guys. 
The world has moved to Google, camera-phones, iPhones and iPods. There is nothing that Microsoft sells that is best in class. 
In fact their stuff only benefits from inertia, not innovation. In the intro you mention lots of names. 
It seems that Kahn has consistently invented solutions and all the others were just one-trick ponies. I'd rather use my iPhone than any Microsoft "stuff". I'd rather use my Wii than the xbox!

Excellent synopsis. Gets right to the heart of it. Well done Kappa

exactly the same thoughts here, Martin. dunno if i really like the idea of one consolidated online identity... who's to say i wouldn't one day experience a technological death without a service available?

....independence sounds better that bill's marketing jargon. it's just one word, too :))

I stopped reading after the "20 year" phrase as well.

I can do without wasting 20 minutes of my life.

P.S. I just had the weirdest verification code.

"Soon, you'll have a single identity that spans all of the ways people can reach you"

Oh great, just what I needed : a tool that makes sure that wherever I am and whatever I'm looking at, I won't be able to avoid seeing another annoying spam.
Or get a call from my mother-in-law.

Bill, Bill, Bill (sigh). You still don't get it, do you ? Even though you're married and one of the only geeks that ever got laid, you still feel that you don't get enough phone calls ?
Go see a shrink, Bill. The rest of us actually appreciate having some time in the day where we are NOT joinable to receive yet more work. The rest of us have social lives and people who call us - sometimes too much already.
So stop with the universal connection already, we don't need it and we don't want it.
Besides, you've forgotten once again that Microsoft does not make the world go round. Without the telcos, you're nothing. Without the electrical companies, you're just a hunk of poisonous metal sitting in a corner. Without all the people who toil every day to maintain all the infrastructure we need to be able to play with your little toy, your "visions" would be "pipe dreams".
Which they mostly are anyway.

to the devil ... and now he wants mine too!

There has been recent research that suggests what we really need is less exposure to information ... not more.

Bill wants to wire us all up 24/7 ... presumably with streaming MS ads running straight to our cortex.

This is starting to sound a bit like Big Brother meets Brave new world.

I want to switch off when I chose.

I want privacy.

I want less productivity thanks Bill ... I want a life ... I want some leisure and lifestyle.

You can't talk me into working harder for you ... I'm on a linux box too !!






I keep falling asleep reading the letter. 

Could someone please dump the relevant facts into a comment?

...the relevant fact is that Bill's gone Marketing. 
If he were a bit older - and English - then he might have waffled on about the "White Heat of Technology" (Harold Wilson, dates from the mid-60s). 
I think this was the first instance of someone going overboard about techno-stuff, it's not got any better since then.

... communications devices and services that should be unified, so Microsoft added a new comm. device to the mix (XBox 360). Don't ask me how this solves the problem. 
I stopped reading too.

Sorry...
all I got was "If you've been in the work force for 20 years...", then the letter lost me.

Comms used to be crap.

They're a lot better now.

But Bill still has a bunch of funky s******** to deal with, and can't remember all his passwords.

So here's how he's going to help you.

-

Bill thinks we all have too many PCs at home and work. 

This sucks, even though Bill sold them to you.

Fortunately, you'll soon be able to consolidate your comms systems.

-

You could buy an Xbox from Bill, for a start.

Xbox users make Wikis.

At Microsoft they use Exchange Server, which saves a fortune (presumably because they don't have to pay for it).

-

Bill's also created a version of Office with text-messaging and webcams in it.

Soon you can buy a Windows Mobile device from Bill that wil run it.

Bill has invented 3D virtual conferencing software.
This is really great.

-

Everything's going to get better.
Soon even poor people without toilets will be able to buy funky communications s***************.
This too is really great.