Slightly ajar

After a long last minute trip, I'm back at Opera headquarters. Last week, I received a mysterious e-mail from Microsoft requesting that I fly out to Redmond, together with a party of our developers whom had a pre-planned engagement there. Their flight was due to leave the day after next, so after a rush to book tickets on any flight that was available, via Paris, France and Atlanta, Georgia, I was on my way.

We were hosted in the Microsoft Campus at the Platform Adoption Center (PAC). This facility hosts the Vista application compatibility lab, that works with 100,000 ISV's to help them get their applications ready for Vista. The main party was invited there by the Strategic Relations Group, where Microsoft works with rival companies to ensure they are treated fairly. Microsoft were very friendly, and we had numerous meetings with people working on Vista. A highlight was meeting up with the IE team over coffee and then lunch. Maybe people will probably want me to say they are satan embodied, but they are great guys and really do care about standards. We all got on like a fox house on fire.

Our programmers found a number of bugs both in Opera and Vista during the visit, and we made huge strides in Vista compatibility. We even got as much pop, and ice cream as we could eat and drink. This wasn't my focus however; Anne and I were invited for a different matter entirely, of which I'll post more about soon, so stay tuned.