A trip up to Microsoft in Redmond this month reminded me that this old broad still has a certain je ne sais quoi that makes smart, ambitious people from many walks of tech life want to dance with her. I have to confess I felt a certain lucky thrill to get a personal invite to attend TechFest, Microsoft Research's annual shindig. I was far from alone, flanked by old and new media ranging from The New York Times and Popular Mechanics to CNET and Engadget. Academics and venture capitalists were also on hand,

eager to suck up the couscous lunch and get a look inside what is probably the world's largest software R&D organization.

Wandering around outside, I bumped into media mavens, gamers, businessmen--you name it. My PR guide was quick to point out that Bill Gates has an office in the executive briefing center where we met. The building itself is high-tech chic with layers of security to protect visitors like the president of China, who stopped by last year.

Google it ain't, but frankly there is probably no other high-tech company more courted in the world. There are several reasons why.

The main one is the iconic stature of Bill Gates, at heart a super-smart guy driven to win. And he has many managers under him who are cut from similar cloth. From them radiate not only a glow, but also the golden halo of real success.

Microsoft made more than $12 billion in profit on some $44 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year. That's a profit ratio of nearly 30 percent. By contrast, metal benders Dell and HP had profits of about 2 to 5 percent of revenue.

Sure, much of that is from Windows, still loaded on most of the 100 million-plus PCs shipped each year, and Office, loaded on most of those boxes. But the company also stands toe-to-toe with Sony and Nintendo in videogame consoles, and owns a pretty sizable Web site and TV station, as well as the media player most of us use to watch YouTube.

Even Washington, D.C., loves Microsoft again. Gates testified recently before the Senate on education and competitiveness . Senators including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were practically falling over themselves in praising Gates. This is the same Bill Gates who just a few years ago sat in the witness stand in the capitol as a convicted monopolist.

Ah, the short memory of popular culture. Microsoft is the Madonna of the tech world. Although her ingenue years are long gone, she still looks pretty sexy, even if you hate to admit it.

By Rick Merritt (rmerrit@cmp.com), computing and medical devices editor for EE Times