Where’s Bill?

A couple of years ago, Microsoft made a big splash with its WPF (Windows Presentation Format) by announcing the release of Times Reader, a pretty slick product for online readers of the NY Times. Bill Gates and some fella from the Times did a joint presentation: one of those old media meets new technology sorts of things. We did - and still do - think it was a pretty cool application. Still, the fact of the matter is that the WPF format - like it’s close kin "Silverlight" - has struggled to gather marketshare and wide adoption.

So perhaps it was no surprise at this morning’s Adobe Max conference to learn that a new version of Times Reader is launching, based on Adobe’s AIR 1.5. For the Nxtbook development team, this is unneeded (but certainly welcome) validation that our product development path is following the needs and desires of users and publishers alike. Not surprisingly, Bill Gates was nowhere to be found at Adobe Max. Perhaps he was shopping with Jerry Seinfeld?