Mfarhanonline Social Media News: LAS VEGAS — There was a moment, just one moment where Microsoft 's last CES keynote transcended the mundane and skirted the edge of fantastic. If you weren’t watching or have read the reports coming out of CEO Steve Ballmer 's hour-and-a-half-long goodbye to the Consumer Electronics Show stage, you might have missed it. But those of us in the audience did not and we thought, just maybe, Microsoft's biggest salesman was going to deliver something really big. It came right at the end. Ballmer was sitting with his co-host, the incongruous Ryan Seacrest who must have been wondering how he ended up with this gig. They recapped the walk through Microsoft's various products and product initiatives—from the Windows Phone platform to Windows 8 , Xbox and Kinect. Then Ryan Seacrest asked Ballmer what was next. Seacrest asked it in such a leading way that I think everyone in the audience thought the American Idol host knew something. He had to, since this was a highly scripted event, and Ballmer is physically incapable of diverging from the script. I thought the question was a set-up. Ballmer laughed cryptically and I held my breath, wondering if Ballmer was going to pull a Steve Jobs—an actual “one last thing.” That's not what Ballmer did though. Instead, he told the audience that the future is Windows. "Nothing is more important to Microsoft than Windows." The future is Windows, and Metro, he added. Then he self-mockingly shouted "Windows" three times and "Metro" three times. Seacrest being the savvy host he is knew better than to continue this line of questioning, or anything else having to do with the keynote, and ended it right there. Throughout the course of the lengthy presentation, which was ostensibly more conversational than any previous Microsoft CES keynote, there was precious! little news. In fact every announcement was of the most minor variety. We heard when the next Windows 8 build would arrive: Late February (Don't forget to download it!) We learned that Microsoft signed up Fox Corp as a Kinect Partner, which means Wall Street Journal and Family Guy on your Xbox 360. We now know Kinect is coming to Windows on Feb. 1 , or did we know this already. Who knows? Microsoft also signed up Comcast to its streaming, on-demand video service—which I'm pretty sure is not really news. We saw Kinect in action, running a new Sesame Street Kinect TV experience, and I have to admit that the augmented reality portion was kind of cool. There were a bunch of Windows Phones, but they had all been announced earlier in the day by Microsoft's hardware partners. The rest of the news was quite forgettable. Here's what we didn't get: A single functioning, commercial OEM Windows 8 tablet. The demo was run on an ARM-prototype. (I'm still stunned by this). A new Xbox 360. Yes, we saw a lot of the new Xbox Metro interface, Bing interaction and voice control and search, but we saw all of that in December. The most entertaining and interesting parts of the evening were when the voice recognition failed (it is so hard to demo that stuff live). Tweets from the show were sung to us by an amazing a capella group, and the opening retrospective video, which featured auto-tuned Microsoft founder and former CEO Bill Gates from 1995 through to his last appearance at the show, and some awesome autotuned Ballmer singing "Bing, Bing Bing." Highlights From CES: Kinect Is Coming to Windows Feb. 1 | Justin Timberlake Unveils MySpace TV Service | Samsung Unveils a Motion-Controlled TV and the U.S. Galaxy Note I did think that maybe Gates would make a surprise appearance. He did not. No, Ballmer played the whole evening very, very safe. The only tension found throughout the night was when CEA President Gary Shapiro insisted on calling Microsoft's departure from the event "a break." Ballmer never acknowled! ged this and everyone on the Microsoft side called it a "final keynote." In the end, I think Ballmer has tired of these events. He acknowledged (as did Shapiro) that the world has changed since they began these things in the mid-1990s. Ballmer may believe they've changed so much that a single keynote setting the tone for the entire year just doesn't make sense. Business and technology in the marketplace is now clearly an ongoing conversation. Ballmer also made it clear that he is really not about big, one time gestures. Listen to his description of how they won in the console space. Ballmer explained he was "optimistic, bullish and patient about Xbox," and added "We make big bold bets and invest for the long-term." It's a long way of saying, "slow and steady wins the race." This approach is in evidence in Microsoft's Windows Phone strategy. It has not won or made much of a dent in the smartphone market, but it is growing slowly and steadily (the new handsets could change things radically). Later, after Ballmer left the stage, I caught up with him walking hurriedly out of the conference hall. I asked him again to reveal that one more thing. Ballmer just laughed and said something to the effect that he just wanted to remember what he said. Or at least I think that's what he said. He wasn’t, after all, trying to make a statement. That's really not Ballmer's way. All the talk in the world is meaningless when you're running a global business. With apologies to T.S. Elliott: "This is the way the keynote ends This is the way the keynote ends This is the way the keynote ends Not with a bang but a whimper." Bonus: The Hottest Gadgets from CES Unveiled Thermador Cooktop The Freedom Induction Cooktop by Thermador allows the user to place pots anywhere on it’s surface for cooking. Click here to view this gallery. More About: CES , kinect , microsoft , pubaccess , trending , Windows 8 , windows phone 7 , Xbox 360 Social Media reviews series maintain by Mayya
0 comments :
Post a Comment