kinect and the microsoft company store opening in oakbrook, il

in my five years at microsoft i’ve had a chance to attend a lot of events.  my first “launch” event was for windows vista in february 2006 where I had a chance to do two of the keynote demos in front of an audience of over 4,500 attendees.  i’ve worked at the intel developers conference, internal training events and various presentations, but today at oakbrook center microsoft opened our first retail store west of the mississippi.  as an employee i couldn’t be prouder of the team that launched this store.  i also get to cross off another “first” since I had a chance to meet and talk with ray ozzie and kevin turner at the opening.

i also made my 2nd microsoft store purchase today (microsoft kinect) – my first purchase was this january in scottsdale, az (the fitbit which we also had in the oakbrook store).  the layout of the store showcases not only microsoft hardware like kinect, xbox, mice/keyboards and zune, but the ecosystem surrounding software like windows 7, office 2010, media center and the upcoming release of windows phone 7.

before the opening – mascots and sam