Don’t give up hope yet. With so many companies trying to fit the power of a 1970 mainframe into your hands on tiny gadgets, you’d wonder why you’ll even want to stay at a desk 8 hours of the day typing in a stuffy office. I wonder too. I could be sipping coconuts in Pulau Tioman and reading emails and handling server tickets from the comfort of the beach. Well that may not be too far away and surely, Bill Gates does not want that to happen so soon too by looking at the report below.

Bill Gates and Paul Otellini, two titans of the PC industry, said reports of the demise of personal computer are premature as PCs find new functions in the growing market for digital devices, including cell phones and music players.

Their comments come as worldwide PC shipment growth slowed to 12.9 percent in the first quarter from 15.9 percent a year earlier, according to market researcher IDC. Both companies have stirred concern over a slowdown in PC sales growth this year, with Microsoft last month predicting that PC and server computer sales growth would decelerate in its fiscal year starting July 1.

Bill Says the PC is not Dead source

Photo New York times.

The New York Times points out that Windows XP has 35 million lines of code. And:

Several thousand engineers have labored to build and test Windows Vista, a sprawling, complex software construction project with 50 million lines of code, or more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP.”

David B. Yoffie, a Professor at the Harvard Business School says: “Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base, the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down. That’s why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation.”

Ray Ozzie, Chief Technical Officer, who joined Microsoft last year, wrote in a memo: “Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.”

True, but what’s the answer for a clearly-failing Microsoft?

In a talk to high school students in the Seattle area, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates gave an intriguing answer to a burning question.

“Is Microsoft going to develop a hand-held, you know, MP3 player, to combat iPod?” asked Schyler Mishra, 19, a senior at Seattle’s John Marshall High School.

Seattle PI reports: “Gates, appearing at the company’s annual Minority Student Day, had already complimented Apple, Google and other rivals during his speech, while also touting Xbox 360 and other Microsoft products. He smiled at the question and proceeded to give the students a lesson in the art of the indirect answer.”

“Yeah, Apple has done a fantastic job with the iPod. How many of you have iPods?” he asked, and a number of students raised their hands.

“We are talking with partners about how we, working with those partners, can make even better music players. We’ve got some in the market today. I’d say in total they have about 20 percent market share, which is lower than we like, and so we’re seeing where we can come together to make a device that’s less expensive and connects in better ways, does photos and videos in better ways.”

He added: “I don’t think what’s out in the market today is the final answer. But again, it just shows the magic of software. Apple did a very good job on iTunes, did the user-interface design right. That means we’ll have to match all that good work and do something even better. Between us and our partners, you can expect to see some pretty hot products coming out over the next couple of years.”

We’ll take that as not a “no” then.

Well, there’s a hostage to fortune. And it’s made not by us, but by David Coursey of PCMag.com. Readers will know we’ve had our doubts about this, especially after the sporadic releases of Beta 2, now being served in bits and pieces.

David claims: “After my recent Jim Allchin column ran, I got an interesting call from an ex-Microsoft person: ‘What makes you think Vista will actually ship this year?’ my friend demanded, then adding a list of hurdles the operating system faces before it can RTM—release to manufacturing–and, after that, spring upon the world at-large. ‘Because Jim Allchin told me it would,’ I responded.”

If anyone can say that wth certainty it’s Allchin. He it was who marched into Bill Gates’s office back in 2004 and told him bluntly Vista wasn’t working. It needed to be rewritten from the ground up. Gates eventually agreed. So Allchin is someone who doesn’t BS on Windows Vista.

David Coursey seems to agree too:

Now, I know that sounds naïve at first blush, especially considering Vista’s history of missed targets and its reduced feature set. The latter, by the way, is perhaps the most important decision Windows czar Allchin made to get the operating system to ship at all.

While the Vista betas currently in circulation are clearly not ready to ship, they really aren’t that bad, either.

Further, what Microsoft really must ship this year is a Vista that will run on all the Media Centers and other PCs that will be sold next Christmas.

“Allchin is very proud of a chart he has that shows his release date predictions have, for the past year, all come true. That’s a good sign. So is the pending release of a feature complete beta, meaning all hands at Microsoft can be shifted to testing, fixing and tweaking.”

It seems Jim Allchin has announced his retirement at the end of this year … after Vista ships.