Every now and again, I read somebody claiming that Microsoft is no longer relevant in our increasingly online and connected society and how we’re all moving to a world of cloud computing and device independence where Google and other younger and more agile organisations are going to run our lives. Oh yes and it will also be the year of Linux on the desktop!

Then I spend an afternoon listening to a Microsoft conference keynote, like the PDC ones last Autumn/Fall (announcing Windows Azure and the next generation of client computing), or today’s Worldwide Partner Conference and I realise Microsoft does have a vision and that, under Ray Ozzie’s leadership, they do understand the influence of social networks and other web technologies. That’ll be why, as I’m writing this, the number 6 and 7 topics on Twitter are Office 2010 and #wpc09.

Competition is good (I’m looking forward to seeing how the new Ubuntu Google OS works out and will probably run it on at least one of my machines) but I’m really heartened by some of this afternoon’s announcements (which I’ll write up in another blog post).

Meanwhile, for those who say that Windows 7 will be Microsoft’s last desktop operating system, perhaps this excerpt from a BBC interview with Ray Ozzie will be enough to convince them that the concept of an operating system is not dead… it’s just changing shape:

(Credit is due to Michael Pietroforte at 4sysops for highlighting the existence of this video footage.)