Jim Allchin - From starving musician to Longhorn vice president

Posted By: scobleizer | Apr 28th, 2005 @ 12:37 PM | 83,988 Views | 40 Comments
Yesterday morning we sat down with Vice President Jim Allchin (aka the guy who is responsible for developing Windows).

Here's an index of the questions we ask. We talk about Longhorn and the recent Winhec conference, as well as get a personal look into Jim's life.

00:00 Where are we and who are you?
00:25 What do you do?
1:10 If you wanted to change the start button to a purple color you could probably get it done, huh?
1:30 What's your average day like?
3:00 What's a Jim Allchin review like?
5:14 What don't we know about you?
7:30 You're dogfooding Longhorn?
8:41 Tell me about your press tour last week. (Discussion about what Jim's passionate about; 64-bit, peer-to-peer, stuff happening around edge).
14:35 What's going to be thrilling in Longhorn? (Reaction to Winhec reaction. Discussion of Metro. Discussion of what Winhec was for).
18:17 Why are you so passionate about 64-bit Windows?
22:13 When did you get into this industry?
22:35 Are you suprised by how far this industry has come in just your lifetime? (Discussion of where industry is heading).
24:53 So the PC is not dead?
25:17 Getting the Channel 9 guys involved. What's coming on the Tablet PC?
27:30 Any guesses on how long it'll take most mobile devices to have inking capabilities?
29:07 What's the developer story on Longhorn?
31:16 What is a business going to get out of upgrading to Longhorn?
36:09 The most exciting thing about Longhorn for me is security improvements (discussion of security improvements in Longhorn).
38:12 What kinds of new applications (or improved ones, like Notepad/Paint) will ship with Longhorn?
39:03 Will Avalon and Indigo be in Longhorn?
39:40 What is the desktop compositor?
41:33 What will Longhorn do with RSS?
43:00 What's different about search in Longhorn?
45:45 When will we get a chance to use Longhorn?
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#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 1:04 PM
byron
byron
strike1
After watching WinHec, and others, the more Im falling in love with this area,Longhorn and Avalon.
Thats me anyway, just to say....
"In the future Imagine receiving a CT SCAN FROM HOSPITAL to/on your home or clinical medical records in Longhorn using webservices, in 3D Mesh,and Data 3D,avalon ,3D Diagnostics medicaly,apps,bypassing direct the doctor or your local G.P in your area, even if the hospital is far away, by broadband.Good for patients external and internal,
Great for doctors at work or home with media center and the New windows systems.The systems can also be direct from Doctor to patient, if needed and vice versa."
Just a little richmedia idea in reality attached to processes in hospital to I.T Systems,networked and using the webservices Live on demand medical records,
with SQL2005.
Everything connected, securely, New managed Code
applied, to all.
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 4:20 PM
Chris123NT
Chris123NT
Longhorn Guide Writer
Hmm, hes running 5059 as his main OS.

Scoble, would you be able to find out if he has the nasty directsound bug thats been plauging the WinHEC build?
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 4:25 PM
eddwo
eddwo
Wheres my head at?
Great Interview. He seemed much more relaxed than in the last one.
I'm starting to really look forward to using Longhorn, pity it's still such a long way off.

Good answers about the compositior, registry virtualisation, application updates, new controls, etc. Sounds like its going to be fun.

How much further up the chain of command can you go with your interviews? There can't be many people above him, apart from one obvious example...
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 4:27 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
eddwo, our hope is to get the one obvious example you mention in the not too distant future, but's it's hard to get on his schedule. We hear he loves Channel 9, though, so it shouldn't be impossible!

Something tells me Steve Ballmer may be up next for the big shot interviews.

Stay tuned.

C
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 4:57 PM
moofish
moofish
Living in Scotland, UK
I saw this before, Scoble 'donated' the video prematurely to posting it here at Neowin.net.

I thought it was a good video, I'm surprised he managed, at such an important time, to get Mr. Allchin's time. All I have to say is after learnign of his interest in P2P I would like to see this in MCE soon, I gather it will be in Longhorn so MCE should hopefully benefit.

And not to mess up Notepad, the review of this as well as Paint and some new apps, well I won't ho;d my breath but I can't see Notepad being changed for the better unless Edit/Undo is given greater attention.

Samuel
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 5:00 PM
mwirth
mwirth
very interesting video indeed! congratulations on that one. i also found Jim Allchin's views on the internet as a raw means of transport (except some applications of course) worth noting... somehow the internet seems to get "demystified" a little these days and people tend to focus a bit more on the client side, whether it's the pc or connected devices etc.. the stuff i use to work on my information of interest (that maybe has been gathered via the internet).
interesting shift in the point of view. maybe this is because users have gotten used to the web so much now, that it's taken for granted. it's nothing special any more.. so we've to focus on the client side again (also from a vendor's perspective). innovation in the structure of the internet might be achievable much harder with a sane amount of vision, time and money...
i'm very much aware that microsoft is trying hard to change the way information can be shoved through the internet with new standards, the indigo platform, etc. i'm more refering to the excitement and focus of the industry (not so technical a post)..  just my random thoughts, much too late at night.

btw, i have to say i'd really love to see an interview with Steve Ballmer. keep on your (more than) good work guys!

more off-topic than anything i might have written here before: channel9 needs to get a hold of Jim Allchin's desktop wallpaper!
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 5:55 PM
Andre Da Costa
Andre Da Costa
Created with PhotoDraw 2000 V2
Thanks for asking my question Mr. Scoble.
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 6:42 PM
markwan
markwan
pretty cool interview.  Now I want to hear his music.  What instrument(s) does he play?
That said Longhorn does not seem to interesting from a web developer perspective.  Now if I can start developing some avalon apps that's a different story.
#Apr 28th, 2005 @ 7:01 PM
Okoboji
Okoboji
Kevin Moore, Program Manager, WPF, WinFX
Guitar.

He played it at the company meeting a couple of years ago. He's really good.

It's nice to have cool execs.
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