Bill Gates given a grilling by NPR's Alex Chadwick about Vista and OS X

Alex Chadwick, thank you for asking Bill Gates the questions that everyone else was too star-struck to ask.

NPR runs a show called Day to Day that does long-format pieces on topics of the day. One of the topics chosen for 1/30/07 was the official retail launch of Vista. Bill Gates included Day to Day on his Vista launch promotional tour, and he didn't get the glad-handing he expected.

What he got was a grilling from NPR veteran Alex Chadwick, who has always been on my short list of gifted interviewers. He is well tuned-in to the unspun realities of Vista and OS X. He disregarded the talking points that Microsoft hands out for interviews and used his own homework. I expected nothing less when I heard his name on this story.

I'm fond of Gates for his philanthropic work, and I take no pleasure in seeing or hearing him squirm. But I've gotten so tired of Microsoft deflecting criticism that Vista lacks imagination except for the decision to lift (usually poorly) features from Tiger. It was a pleasure to hear Chadwick carry that challenge all the way to the top. Microsoft was given no place to hide from the questions that those without Microsoft's ear have been asking with nothing but scripted responses coming from Microsoft.

You can listen to the audio archive here. I've cleared the comments cache, and I'd be grateful if you'd distribute the link to this page so that we can get a discussion going. I'll have commentary of my own when I get a couple of Apple announcements written up.

You can read a summary and listen to the complete interview here.