Mary Jo Foley has finally gotten an interview with Steve Ballmer (after many, many years!) after he announced his retirement from Microsoft. Some great questions in there – Regrets, successor, plans for the future.

Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here (includes from from lead Microsoft board member John Thompson).

Ballmer: I’m proud of being I would say a significant part even of the birth of intelligent personal computing, the notion that people use computing technologies, whether that’s phones, PCs. I mean, we kind of birthed that over the course of the ’80s and the ’90s, and that’s had such an unbelievable impact on people’s lives. I would say a billion plus people and now more with phones, even if they’re not all our phones, I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished there.

Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has started the retirement process and will be gone within a year. Quite a few people that really disliked Windows 8 were calling for his head, but his actual motivation is unknown. He may just want to finally pass on the torch.

I definitely didn’t see this coming, but I wish the best for Steve in his retirement.

As for a successor? There is no one in mind yet, but I’m sure in the next few months a few names will be suggested.

“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Ballmer said. “We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

The upcoming Xbox One will have a nice selection of games, some at launch and some soon after, that are exclusive to the Xbox One or exclusive for a limited time. A good list is available for those wanting to check them out, and I’m sure more will be announced as the console gets closer to launch. All these great games still have me wondering which console to get this fall…

Here are some statistics about Xbox One’s line-up of announced games:

• 38% of titles are exclusive to Xbox One
• 37% of titles are brand-new IP
• 44% of titles will include either timed or exclusive content to Xbox One

• Microsoft exclusive titles received 272 award nominations and 111 wins at E3 2013.
• Xbox One titles earned 10 Game Critics Awards, with Xbox platform exclusive “Titanfall” taking home a record-breaking 6 awards, including “Best of Show.”

We’re really excited to see the positive response to the Xbox One games line-up and remain committed to making Xbox One the best place to play games.  Below is the complete list of announced Xbox One games – for more information, visit news.xbox.com

For those that use Outlook.com for your email, you have a new feature rolling out (for some regions, as usual). Integrated Skype calling from within your Outlook.com window. Skype is a great service that allows you to make video and voice calls to others.

Having more features within Outlook.com is a great thing, and increasing your communications ability from within the single interface is excellent. Being able to answer an email with a face to face quick chat (or longer conversation) can be very helpful to many.

Email is an important and personal tool for most people, but there are moments when you want to be able to speak live or chat face-to-face. In a recent Ipsos Public Affairs poll 76% of people say that their email conversations frequently or occasionally result in a follow up phone or video call, or other means of communication. Those moments are perfect for Skype and now, face-to-face connection right from your inbox is just a click away.

Support for Windows XP ends on April 8th, 2014. Tim Rains of Microsoft goes over the risks of running the operating system after support ends. Running the OS after that date is definitely not something that I would really trust. So, for you still running it, it might be getting time to update your PC.

Some of the people I have discussed this scenario with are quick to point out that there are security mitigations built into Windows XP that can make it harder for such exploits to be successful.  There is also anti-virus software that can help block attacks and clean up infections if they occur.  The challenge here is that you’ll never know, with any confidence, if the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted because attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero day exploits in Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the system and possibly run the code of their choice. Furthermore, can the system’s APIs that anti-virus software uses be trusted under these circumstances? For some customers, this level of confidence in the integrity of their systems might be okay, but for most it won’t be acceptable.

The Xbox One is able to monitor it’s temperature and adjust the fan speed and it’s power usage based on if it’s overheating. This is something that may have helped the initial runs of the Xbox 360 and it’s overheating causing the RRoD’s.

“We can’t prevent misuse of the product," del Castillo says, "but we can certainly anticipate it." That’s done by the Xbox being aware of the temperature it’s running at, and having the capacity to cool itself down in a few ways. "The way we designed the box, we don’t actually intend it to ever have to go to maximum speed under normal environmental conditions. But there is overhead. So we’ll allow the fan to go all the way up to its maximum speed and if that solves the condition without the user having to do anything."

Save the date – October 17th for the public release of Windows 8.1, the free update to Windows 8. A few good new features with it – new Start button (not the start menu), animated backgrounds for Metro – or the same background as your desktop, integrated Bing search, and a bit more.

Windows 8.1 continues the vision we began with Windows 8 and is an example of our commitment to continuous innovation and improvement for our customers. And Windows 8.1 brings many improvements in areas like personalization, Internet Explorer 11, search which is powered by Bing, built-in apps including a few new ones, an improved Windows Store experience, and cloud connectivity with SkyDrive (and much more) that people will enjoy. If you haven’t already, you can give many of the new features and improvements in Windows 8.1 a try with the Windows 8.1 Preview. Business customers can begin testing Windows 8.1 for deployment in their environments with the Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview.

The Xbox One no longer requires the Kinect to be plugged in. For me, that was not so much about the tin foil hat spying stuff, but more of ‘what happens when the Kinect breaks’ or ‘what if I block it or don’t want it sitting there’ (My first Kinect broke, I’d hate to have a $500 paperweight if that happened again)? I guess it appeases both crowds. Microsoft seems to be really listening to the consumer this round. Better shout this next: “PRICE! I WANT IT FOR $149 AT LAUNCH!”… Nah, not that lucky!

We already knew that you could turn off the Kinect, but now Microsoft says it doesn’t have to be plugged in at all. Speaking to IGN, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten shared the news that the Xbox One will indeed work without Kinect.

NVIDIA CEO has announced that they are working on the Surface 2 and helping to make the new version much more successful than the first Surface. Still, an ARM chip that won’t run standard x86 application will be the shortfall of the tablets, but at the lower cost for the hardware, it’s a tradeoff.

A big problem for Surface RT, the version of the tablet that runs on ARM-based chips instead of Intel, is that it didn’t have Outlook available at launch, Huang said.

"It is the killer app for Windows," Huang said. "Now we’re going to bring it with the second-generation Surface. We’re working really hard on it, and we hope that it’s going to be a big success."

Microsoft has announced that it is moving away from the Xbox Live Gold Family Pack and going back to individual accounts. They do have a new Home Gold feature that allows anyone in your home to use the Xbox One for all Gold features. For those currently using the Family Pack, you will get an additional 3 months free on each account, which is nice.

Now, it’s time for my naysayer comments – Although the benefits are nice, this is great for those with a single console in the home or are upgrading to the Xbox One. My kids will still want individual accounts to play their games on separate machines (Minecraft, mostly). I haven’t seen the details of the new Xbox Live changes, but I don’t want to pay $60 a year times 3 for all three of us to play together at the same time. For a single console, it’s great. I only have to worry about the single cost, which would be less.

I’m hoping that the Gold membership works across all profiles on that machine for multiplayer, regardless of who has the membership (me, as PC509, would be the owner and Gold holder, but my kids could log in under their profile and still play multiplayer). It sounds like that is the case, so I’m probably good there.

But, Home Gold is only on the Xbox One. So, I would still need multiple Gold accounts on my older Xbox 360 systems. Not sure if this is the case or if it’s going to be something different, but that’s what I’m reading from the announcement. I’m upgrading to the One, but the kids will continue to use the 360 for at least another year or so. We’ll see on this one. It could be completely different.

A lot of good stuff coming from the changes, but I always look at the whole package before I decide. I think the pros will definitely overcome the cons.

Xbox Live Gold Family Pack Conversion to Individual Memberships

As a valued Xbox Live Gold member, we’d like to thank you and your family for being part of the Gold community.
We continually evaluate our offerings and are always working to provide services that best meet the needs of our customers.

• Starting August 27, 2013, we will be converting each activated account on your Gold Family Pack to an individual Xbox Live Gold membership to prepare for new upcoming features on Xbox Live Gold. Rest assured, each individual membership will work on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
• Through the new Home Gold feature on Xbox One, a single Xbox Live Gold membership will allow anyone in your home to enjoy many Gold features like multiplayer, access to Gold entertainment apps, and more on your Xbox One.*
• As a bonus, we will give each converted individual Xbox Live Gold membership from your Gold Family Pack an extra 3 months of Gold (in addition to the time remaining on your membership term).**
• Before your memberships convert, you can still add family members to your Xbox Live Gold Family Pack, for a total of up to four accounts. However, any unassigned secondary accounts will no longer be accessible after your conversion. Please be sure to update your secondary accounts here.

After your memberships convert, the only Gold Family Pack features that will no longer be available are activity monitoring reports and Microsoft Points allowances. Activity monitoring reports will deactivate at the time of Gold Family Pack conversion, whereas the Microsoft Points allowance feature will no longer be available after the next Xbox 360 system update. Xbox Live family settings, including parental controls for what your kids can access and play on or offline, will still be available.
More Info >>

We hope you enjoy your 3 bonus months of Xbox Live Gold and continue to benefit from your Xbox Live Gold memberships on Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Sincerely,
The Xbox Live Team