Eight months from quitting his day job to focus on philanthropy, Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates remains enthusiastically engaged in promoting the software giant’s many new business initiatives. Gates is doing all he can to help Microsoft secure a foothold in digital entertainment, mobile devices and new Internet services, such as IP telephony and IPTV. He sat down this week with USA TODAY reporter Byron Acohido to explain why.

Q: What’s the coolest thing about the upgraded Zune?

A: Look at this thing! (Holds up a Zune  Three or four years ago there was nothing like this. This is cool as heck. I’m finding music I haven’t seen in 20 years. Hey, the Lovin’ Spoonful? They’re in this thing. I find one of their songs. I send it to friends I had an apartment with, it was actually 30 years ago. I can send it out to them and say, “Remember when we listened to this?” It’s amazing.

Q: Up until last year, you and your hardware partners were pitching 70 different portable music devices. What persuaded you to change?

A: In the video game and music player markets, the experience is about everything working end to end. We decided this was going to be more important in this category than anything else. So we made a choice to use the Xbox approach for our music player, where we take the full responsibility for the entire experience. And obviously Apple was using that model (for the iPod).

read the rest published by USA Today here:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2007-10-03-bill-gates_N.htm