People don’t always realize the astonishing breadth of Microsoft’s technology footprint. Certainly, this past week demonstrated that big shoe.

Over Sunday and Monday, for instance, we unveiled what we believe is the future of electronic gaming – Kinect, our controller-free gaming device, and a new Xbox 360. Plus a bunch of new games that take advantage of both the Kinect and Xbox 360. Go here for great coverage of all that news from the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.

We’d hardly caught our breath from that flurry of announcements before the company pivoted from entertainment to business. With the consumer release of Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft has improved an already strong suite of programs, while giving it the power of the cloud in Office Live.

And that wasn’t all:

• We’re working hard to get Windows Phone 7 to handset makers. This past week CNET’s Ina Fried wrote a behind-the-scenes look at work on the new mobile operating system. With Windows Phone 7 we’re going to have a competitive product that gives the smartphone a new look.
• Microsoft has a big presence in the healthcare space. Our flagship products – HealthVault and Amalga – create ways for consumers and healthcare organizations to collect, share, and use medical data. This week we saw some evidence that such “digital healthcare” can have a real impact. A study by the Medical College of Wisconsin showed that emergency room doctors who have access to electronic information make sound medical decisions more quickly.
• And…we work hard in the education sphere as well. One of those efforts has been the creation of a “School of the Future” in Philadelphia. All 117 seniors who graduated this week have been accepted to post-secondary programs, from community colleges to selective schools such as Villanova University.
• Lastly, we continue to work hard fighting cybercrime. This past week, we launched a coalition aimed at creating a reporting hub where information about Internet fraud such as stolen credit card numbers can be collected.

Posted by Owen Linderholm
Director, Microsoft News Center