I know he never really went away, but sometimes I think they woke Ray Ozzie up from cryogenic stasis in 2006 (June 15, to be exact). Since March 1, it has seemed like all Ozzie, all the time–like they released his new version simultaneously with Vista. Next up, Ozzie07 keynoting Mix07.

By the way, if anyone from Microsoft is listening, I’d still enjoy free tickets to Mix. This year, more than ever, you really owe it to me. Especially after sucking me in to that execrable Office 2007 launch. Did you notice that fully half the developer track walked out at the midpoint? You know what the free copy of Office 2007 did for me? Got me to download OpenOffice.org. You gave me a free copy of your premier application suite and I can’t even stand to install it. So yeah, if you’re “courting developers” so hard (and you need to–we’re the last truly discretionary users of your products), you ought to court me–because right now I’m finding it a lot easier to say “LAMP” than “WISA.”

Oh, and send me one of those sweet laptops while you’re at it. My journa-blog-listic ethics won’t be offended.