A few months back I was approached by Microsoft to present to a group of their senior tech executives at an annual retreat called SoftServe. Its a 3 day event where they discuss their strategy around the move to hosted web services. Specific to me, they asked for a read on how Microsoft is perceived by start-ups, what trends we’re seeing at OATV and few examples of start-ups they should be watching in those areas.

I was only given 50 minutes, so I had to prune the list of both companies and trends. As a result this deck does not include a number of other areas we’re tracking and actively pursuing investments, nor does it include a comprehensive list of all the cool start-ups we’re tracking. You’ll note that its fairly heavy on OATV portfolio companies, which primarily illustrates that we’re putting our money where our mouth is.

Some depth of the discussion is obviously lost due to my disdain for bullet points and my conversational presentation style, but I hope the messages come through regardless.

The second to last slide (picture of my feet) is particularly obtuse without the talking points so I want to explain what I was trying to convey. On that slide, I relayed a story of going for a barefoot run along the California coast. During that run I used a number of different services to enhance and capture my experience (Foursquare, Runkeeper, Echofon, Twitpic, LoseIt). I encouraged the team assembled that if they want to get a pulse for startups and technology trends they need to dive in and use lots of different services. As a company I encouraged them to try and buy producst from emerging startups and as individuals I suggested they get out and use services to better understand what percolating from the bottom up.

Finally, I wanted to thank everyone for your flood of fantastic feedback which shaped the opening slides to the presentation. I was overwhelmed by the responses in both comments and emails. Even if your exact quote didn’t make the deck, it shaped my thinking tremendously. I also want to thank the team at Microsoft for inviting me to speak, specifically Matt Pope. Markets are transforming so rapidly. I hope you and all of your teams embrace the change and leverage your assets to recognize all the value you can for your users and partners.