I don't think Bill meant to be personal in his message, strictly business. I understand his frustration about the .NET marketing and I will say that Microsoft is working on improving the message to be more clear about things. Bill has been a very close friend of mine for ten years and I don't believe for a moment that he had any intent to attack Daryl on a personal level. He wants marketing to be less hype and more tangible (realistic) which he is entitled to request and complain about. Microsoft is working to clarify the message around the differences between the long term .NET vision (everyone connected anywhere and anytime) and Visual Studio .NET (a shipping product which companies and developers are using already today).

If there was one thing I would change about threads here and that would be for people to take opinions, debates, and feedback less personal. Daryl is also a close friend of mine, I worked with him in the past also. I think he respects Bill's opinions and feedback as do I, but we just wanted to clarify a few assumptions that were made which were incorrect. Again, nothing personal in this thread. I hope others on the UT view postings, especially tough criticism to me and others, as honest opinions and feedback and not personal attacks. We are all business partners here, and many of us are friends, and it is important to keep the lines drawn between them. I just want to be sure that people are not afraid to post messages or join in on discussions since that does not help in community efforts. I really enjoy seeing people here on the UT post messages and ask questions who are not always active, it is very encouraging. Of course I could end here by saying that .NET can also help people all get along (jokingly), but then Bill would most definitely reply telling me to "blow it out" which I would rightfully deserve. <bg>