I’m typically one of those who is underwhelmed by what Microsoft offers. There isn’t really anything “sexy” about Windows, Office, SharePoint, etc. There are two recent products that I’ve seen that actually make me interested in what Microsoft is doing — in more than just the how-are-they-screwing-up-now kind of way.

The first is Surface. If you haven’t already heard of Surface you should spend more time in front of your computer and less time enjoying the summer weather (tongue firmly planted). Surface is a multi-touch unit that seems to be the first real commercial product in the collaborative touch-screen market. This is very similar to (if not a licensed version of) what Jeff Han has been working on.

Second is Photosynth. From the main Photosynth page, “Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next.” One of the engineers working on Photosynth, Blaise Aguera y Arcas — like Jeff Han — did a presentation at TED, which shows some of the power of Photosynth.

I’m a bit of a cynic, so I sit here and say Microsoft probably licensed the Surface technology from Jeff Han, and the technology behind Photosynth — Seadragon — was the product of an acquisition, and not internally developed. They don’t do the work, the license/acquire the work; that’s just Microsoft being Microsoft. You can’t deny that the products are pretty sweet, though.