The lights dim in the keynote hall, the music comes up, and Microsoft’s leader Bill Gates is announced to the developer legions at Tech Ed for the final time. That is the scene on the first week of June in Orlando as Bill Gates makes one last keynote before moving on, leaving his day job at Microsoft to take over the reins at his charitable foundation.

What would the computer and software businesses be like without Gates? Would pre-PC computer companies like IBM and DEC have held eternal sway? People can differ on the degree of responsibility Gates should share for a technology revolution that put more computing power within the reach of more programmers. But it is surely significant.

In the face of today’s open-source software movement it is hard to remember that, in his day, Bill Gates stormed the barricades in the name of egalitarian computing, sort of. What do you think? Let us know.

The Mono team has been working on its version of Sytem.Windows.Forms for almost four years. And it has hit the finish line. There were 6,434 commits along the way. What’s next? Bug fixing! Twas ever thus!

Microsoft released a beta of .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 releases. While devoted in great part to bug fixes, they also include new features, some that have been eagerly awaited. Versions of ADO.NET Entity Framework and the ADO.NET Data Services framework (Astoria) are included. Read more »

Little noted but of major interest: At last months Microsoft MVP Global Summit, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie spoke about how he approaches his role as leader software technology steward at Microsoft. The session provided an inside view of how this famed technologist operates. Read more »

Microsoft has abandoned its effort to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion. Yahoo vigorously rebuffed the offer, first launched in February. In announcing the withdrawn offer, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer disclosed that the company had increased its initial bid.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” Ballmer said in a statement.

This deal would have moved Microsoft far deeper into a Web Advertising market in which it has trailed both Google and Yahoo. Viewers suggest it well could have shifted the company’s emphasis away from its successful software businesses.

It is not completely certain that the merger machinations are wholly over - as Ballmer’s comments point primarily to pricing as the obstacle to completing the deal. Both Microsoft and Yahoo in the wake of this clumsy dance of courtship.

Some comment from the blogosphere:

According to Stephen Bainbridge. Big shareholders wanted a deal, “but not one that required Microsoft to overpay. In addition, press reports suggest that some of Microsoft’s largest shareholders were pressuring the firm not to overpay.”

Andrew Brust says it’s not over ‘til it’s over. “Microsoft’s withdrawal of its Yahoo acquisition proposal may just be a negotiating tactic.  Or it could in earnest.  Time will tell.”

And, the crack blogger MiniMicrosoft chimes in as well. “With this strategic inflection point, the era of post-BillG Microsoft 2.0 has begun.”