Dear Bill

I know you didn’t expect this letter, this email to be specific, from me. You see, you recently left your company, Microsoft, and this is a perfect opportunity to say to you what I ‘ve been thinking about you all these years.

The truth is we have told many bad things about you and your company. Bill, you ‘ve got to understand that he had our reasons. On the other hand, dear Bill, you never stopped being one of us, a geek, and geeks love intriguing each other. Now that you ‘re leaving the scene it seems so awkward to us. I know you have achieved a lot in your life and really I am happy about that because I think you deserve it.

Bill, I am going to say something that a lot of us keep holding it inside: without you many people would be somewhere else, would do something else, would be different. When you introduced us these white ugly noisy boxes you introduced us a whole new world of tiny miracles. These miracles used to become more and more charming day by day and fascinated us.

In this game it was you Bill that gave us a chance to be a part of it and I really need to say “thank you”. You gave me the chance to learn, play, be disappointed, laugh and finally it was you who helped me become what I am right now. I know well that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t put my very best effort on it. But, you know Bill, in this life giving a chance is a great thing. Some people never have this chance.

However, I can’t forget some of your clumsiest products you provided us. Do you remember Windows Me? It was a torture using them and I still recall the moments I was looking for my Windows 98 CD to roll back. Do you remember the infamous blue screens? Once upon a time 16MB RAM were enough to run your OS. Now 1GB RAM is hardly enough to work with your latest muddy child Vista.

I am sure you remember Internet Explorer 6. I can’t forgive you for IE6 Bill. Not because you made a mistake - everybody should make mistakes in order to evolve. I am mad with you Bill, because you left this thing alive for so long and now it makes my life difficult and my designs ugly.

Such things Bill made me become a blood brother with Steve, one of your worst enemies. But I really felt very happy of both of you when you shared the same stage last year. Of course he was slick and witty and he managed to steal the show. It’s OK. Without you, Steve would have been much worse. In a way Apple is better than Microsoft because of you.

Farewell my friend Bill. I hope your successors will be better than you - however I don’t think so. I am sure you ‘ll keep playing with your code and you ‘ll still dream of the very best products for us. Have fun.