Live at D6: Windows 7

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer share the stage at D6 on Tuesday with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

Tonight at the D6 conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates will take the stage together. The dual interview, to be presided over by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, will be, in part, an exit interview. Gates is stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft (corrected: he will remain as chairman of the board) in July. We will also get an early demo of Windows 7. As Dan Farber reports, we'll see a little bit of the interface, which promises to be very shiny. I'm hoping that we go a bit deeper than that: that there's news about robustness, open architecture, and maybe even the object-oriented file system we were supposed to have in Vista.

Here's the liveblog:

Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.

[Mr. Dee]

Well this is rather interesting. With Steven Sinofsky's pledge of silence until they are truly ready they are actually gonna over promise without the code even reaching BETA 1? Well, we pretty much have an idea of whats in Windows 7 with the recent leaked Milestone builds. Things like the new Homegroup, Health Center and improved Search panel in the Start menu will be things I'm sure will have the crowd going ooh, ahh. I hope Microsoft, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer realize they are walking a thin line here.

[PaulEdl]

I hope someone reads this commentary by Ina and Rafe during the Balmer/Gates interview. I posted many comments during the Live Blog saying that the commentary was coming across as biased against Microsoft rather than just reporting the facts and the statements. Other comments from virtual attendees that were negative in nature were being added and all of my comments were blocked. If you are going to host a service and pretend you are reporting the facts with comments then you should entertain those that disagree with you. You definitely did yourself a disservice today CNet. I had respect for you until you went all totalitarian/gestapo.

[MuhKhud]

I totally agree with you PaulEdl. I posted many comments also, some were in response to the commentary by Ina and Rafe, some specific to how they are obviously biased in their comments, and their choices to only respond to question's against Microsoft. I would have liked to see some pro microsoft responses, because it just goes completely against any journalistic ethics to show one view and not the other. You also lost any respect I had CNet.

[Jjesse285]

Well I see that there are a few who want to fight about putting comment in on what were happenly here, well will someone please get the baby bottle so they can stop crying. What wrong with you people? Alway's want to bring the dark side to a party, well time is changing so get over it, it time for world to con't to grow.

[rafe]

As I said early on in the liveblog, I was unable to watch and report on the interview and to keep up with the comments at the same time. I considered my job to report on what was happening on stage, and to add my perspective from time to time, which if you'll look at the log, you'll see I did only sparingly.

I do feel that, though, the community didn't have enough of a voice during this liveblog, so I'm looking at a way for next time to add a backchannel that people can talk in, without requiring the liveblogger (me) to monitor and approve comments.

As far as bias: A tech reporter cannot win. Express an opinion either way and you come across as a Microsoft apologist or as a hater. So to that end, let me just say that I've been studying technology, business, and Microsoft for years, and my opinion on the company and its products is a bit more complex than "pro" or "con." And take this for what it's worth: I just built my own Vista PC. Nobody forced me to. It was my choice.

Also keep in mind that during this interview, Walt was really trying to nail Bill and Steve on the "failure" of Vista. That was an overriding theme of the interview.

-Rafe