Farewell Microsoft Surface

Thirteen months ago, just two weeks before Christmas, I faced one of the biggest turning points in my life. I had just been laid-off as the VP of Developer Relations at Curl, Inc. In that same week that I received shipment of my very own Microsoft Surface.

The Microsoft Surface computer cost me over $18k after paying for the device, extended warrantee, delivery, and set up. Getting laid-off the same week that I got my Surface seemed like bad timing, but in fact it was the best thing to happen to me career-wize in a decade.

With ample free time I was able to dive right in and train myself in C#, .NET, and the Surface SDK. My background was as a Java developer working on server-side open source projects - not the best preparation for UI development not to mention NUI development.

As I looked for a new job I wrote some simple programs for my Surface one of which is pictured above. It was a paint application for my kids. They loved the application and played with it many times over the course of the last year.

Of course, having a Microsoft Surface and finding a job programming in it were two different things. I had decided three months earlier that I wanted to develop applications for the Surface but I had planned to have more time before transitioning back in to software development - I had been out of development since taking a Job as an Industry Analyst at Burton Group in 2004.

As luck would have it a company out of Denver, CSG, was at that time courting Best Buy with a product designed around retail using, in part, Microsoft Surface machines. CSG needed someone on the ground near Best Buy's headquarters in Minneapolis. Someone who could program a Microsoft Surface. It seemed like destiny that I, a re-minted software developer with a Microsoft Surface and no job was located in the same city as CSG's biggest potential client, Best Buy.

Although my official start date wasn't until sometime in February, I started working immediately on the a demo that CSG could show Best Buy. CSG couldn't pay me yet, but its not like I had Microsoft Surface programming jobs lined up out the door. I took the opportunity to learn how to program the Surface on a real project and CSG got my labor for free. I really busted my butt working on that demo and when I finally got on the payroll I started putting in some serious hours.

By late Spring I had been working around the clock on the project for about five months and I was exhausted and to be perfectly honest dispirited. While I loved working on the Microsoft Surface I wasn't fond of the long hours I was working, so I put in my resignation and moved on to a new gig developing an iPhone application for a company in the Health Care industry. I haven't been able to talk about my work at CSG until now because the whole project with Best Buy was hush-hush. But last week CSG and Microsoft made some announcements (here and here) about the effort and what was a successful test of the Microsoft Surface application I helped develop. It's my hope that Best Buy and others will adopt CSG's "DigitalFolio" platform with its Microsoft Surface computers. If it does, than my work on that device will be used in hundreds of locations by thousands of people, which would be pretty neat.

I never had time to go back to writing code for my Microsoft Surface. It sat in our spare bedroom basically gathering dust as I toiled away at iPhone development the last six months. Although I would turn the Surface computer on occasionally for my kids, or my brother-in-law, who liked to play with it - I never did go back to writing software for the device. Finally, I put it up for sale and sold it. It now sits waiting to be picked up and shipped to its new owner where it will be put to good use.

Working on the Microsoft Surface will always be one of my fondest memories. The device literally changed my life. Until I first saw the Surface I was on a completely different career path aiming for the executive ranks. After seeing the surface for the first time in September of 2008 and then owning and working on it for several months, I changed my mind and decided software development was the life for me. Specifically, focusing on the development of Natural User Interfaces.

As of now I've finished my engagement developing the iPhone application for the health care company and I'm enjoying a much anticipated three month sabbatical with my family. We plan to live in Costa Rica for about two months and then return to the Great White North of Minnesota and pick up where we left off. I don't know what I'll be working when I get back - I haven't been looking for what comes next - but I know that I'll be having a blast developing software for some multi-touch or other NUI platform.

I may never have a chance to write software for the Microsoft Surface again, but I'll never forget it and I'll always be thankful to Microsoft for having created it and productized it. Microsoft Surface changed my life for the better and I'm grateful for that.