One of the great things about the high tech industry is that you never catch up with the technology. Someone is always inventing some component that’s faster and better than the one you just bought. Even before I put the finishing touches on my brand new PC, I knew it would be something short of state-of-the-art. The downside, of course, is that such prolific innovation makes an aging PC lose its value faster than a condo in downtown Baghdad.

For me, the value of innovation hits close to home. Whether he’s delivering a speech or giving a one-on-one interview, my boss Bill makes it clear that one of his top concerns is protecting Microsoft’s ability to innovate. That license has enabled Microsoft to compete on a variety of fronts, from desktops to palmtops, from the enterprise to the Internet, from Web TV to talking cars. Why, just last month at the Microsoft Company Museum I played a computerized grand piano that made me sound like Elton John backed up by the London Symphony. If I’d discovered that thing a few months ago, I could have mounted a serious challenge for this year’s American Idol crown. What a company.

One of Microsoft’s best hardware innovations of late has been the cordless mouse, which has turned into a pretty good seller recently. I don’t know why it took us so long to make the thing cordless. It’s not like the technology wasn’t there — cordless TV remotes have been around for decades. You telling me it’s such a huge leap to go from a cordless TV remote to a cordless PC mouse? Please.

Still, I’m glad to finally have one. It works just as well as my old mouse and I don’t have to constantly yank at the cord to get more slack.

Of course, the mouse is one of the few hardware areas that Microsoft even bothers with. We don’t make PC components like drives, cases, or power supplies. Just input devices, really.

One recent innovation that I wish we could take credit for is the USB. I think we helped with it, but as with most good technologies, it was a concerted effort. Small, convenient, rigid. The USB port is perfect enough to turn an atheist heavenward. Remember those monster-like RS-232 cables that would make your printer go nuts if you bent a single pin? And what if you had a serial card with an 18-pin port? You had to use a 25-to-18-pin adapter, which never seemed to work right. My blood pressure is going up just thinking about it. More than any other technology over the past five years, the USB port has helped the average PC user add new devices to his computer, increased his ability to transfer data between devices, and reduced his odds of being escorted away in a sirened vehicle. That’s a pretty good invention.

And while we’re talking about peripherals, how about the flat-panel monitor? Is it beautiful, or what? Funny thing is, the computer monitor used to be the unchanging device. When I was selling PCs at Sears back in 1990 (yes, that was me), I actually used to tell people that they could keep one monitor for their whole life because the technology had been perfected to the point where it wasn’t going to change much. It wasn’t a lie; I really believed it. But today’s monitor is larger and flatter, with better color and enough memory to bring you cinema-like action in the comfort of your own home. Not only that, the thinner size gives us more room on our desktops, and the sheer drop in weight will likely put a major dent in the chiropractic profession.

Monitors, mice, and USB, and more is on the way. Pretty soon, we’ll be running fanless boxes with heat pipe coolers, terabyte hard drives, and speech-to-text dictation. All because of our freedom to innovate. I’ll probably never leave the computer field.

One more thing, if you bought a computer off me fourteen years ago at Sears, please accept my apology, I really needed the money at the time. But you may still be in luck. I’ve arranged it with my former manager so that you, at your earliest convenience, can go to your nearest Sears location and exchange it for any piece of software under $4.99. Sorry, sales tax not included.