Microsoft’s Bill Gates’ opening keynote at CES did not go entirely to plan, but, then again, when does it ever when Windows is powering the show?
“Bill Gates’s legendary luck failed him during his keynote presentation at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,” Iain Thomson reports for vnunet.com. “His demonstration of Microsoft Media Center crashed during the presentation on integrating digital photography, and later a Microsoft product manager failed to access the internet with a Tablet PC.”
“The presentation started on a jokey theme, with late-night TV host Conan O’Brien presenting a mock version of his own show and a video diary of his and Bill’s ‘lost weekend’ in Las Vegas. ‘I got too drunk, I woke up with a hooker,’ O’Brien said. ‘Bill got too drunk, he woke up with an Apple computer,'” Thomson reports.
Full article here.
Well SJ had a problem a few of Keynotes ago if you remember. Comething with his “clicker” if I remember?
Can’t type, laughing too hard
Apple probably didn’t make the cicker.
This is the second time a computer has crashed on Bill Gates and spewed egg all over his face.
Here’s the first one
http://ultimategamers.org/temp/win98crash.qt
There is also pictures floating around the net where Gates got drunk at a basketball game and when helped by his security guards to exit crossing the court fell flat on his face.
I wish I could find it, the closeups of his face was glorious!!
Of course there is one where Bill Gates gets nailed in the face with a pie.
Links people, Links!!
yeah.. good one pkradd.. the clicker didn’t click.. how devastating..
SJ walked casually over to the desk and was handed another clicker that worked fine, and he commented “Apple doesn’t make these” and laughed..
How embarrassing..
Pffft…
And of course, Bill Gates was showing off how great the software was.. and the software crashed.. soooo.. you can’t begin to compare them..
What a freakin’ joke.. oh well.. lucky for him he doesn’t have to be a good salesman.. he’s got a monopoly..
Who needs Conan when you have Microsoft who is even funnier!
Not once but 3 tiimes something failed.
LOL Touch�! Friggin’ Hilarious!
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classic
apple needs to promote thier software by doing nothing but showing bill in action demonstrating his “great” software
the world would come running to Mac
make it so
Funny!
But Steve Jobs had a problem once when showing off “Preview”. He wanted to show how fast preview was scrolling through thousends of pages, and the friggin’ thing just didn’t want to stop scrolling, lol.
“Hopefully it won’t start all over again… oops”.
I thought that was pretty funny, too.
Just finished watching the whole thing. This keynote has to be considered a complete failure. It wasn’t just a clicker problem. There were way too many failures. (Out of system memory on the X-Box–oops!)
In fact, the SBC Media Center integration demo seemed to be the only one that went off without a hitch. That looked great.
Also, Apple’s Quicktime has streamed so smoothly for more than the past 3 years of keynotes. Windows media spent half the time for me with audio but no video. How hard can it be to copy Quicktime’s technology, guys?
You can smile now, but soon, when Bill sells you the same crap, just imagine who would be laughing all the way to the bank.
Hobbes said:
“But Steve Jobs had a problem once when showing off “Preview”. He wanted to show how fast preview was scrolling through thousends of pages, and the friggin’ thing just didn’t want to stop scrolling, lol.
“Hopefully it won’t start all over again… oops”.
I thought that was pretty funny, too.”
Actually he clicked the button that ran through the document to many times (3 in fact). It still ran the document faster than Acrobat did.
WOW, what an embarrassment!
I’m not a drinking man, but if I can get drunk and wake up with an Apple computer then BRING ON THE BOOZE!!
Anyone remember “Crowd Control”, Apple’s commercial that was seen as their response to the release of Win95?
http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/crowd-control.html
I believe the saying is ‘life imitating art’!!!
(this post brought to you by the word ‘progress’, believe it or not…)
And on the opposite end of the scale, several keynotes ago some mainstream reporters wrote that Jobs video-conferenced with Bono and Mick Jagger via a satellite connection, when it was actually iChat over the Internet! Darned Apple stuff works too well…
Can they do anything right?. They even err while cheating. Remember when they were cought cheating at their antitrust trial?. What a bunch!
And to be fair, the Clicker incident wasn’t Steve, it was that Canadian in the Blue Shirt we all know and love…
Open Minded:
can you give us the link of the keynote? I just don’t see it anywhere. Am I blind?
Schadenfreude. More quality news that we’ve come to expect here.
I love the way Bill just smiles through it all. I bet I know what he’s thinking: (“that’s precious…, ha!, people won’t care, Bill, they’re so used to our buggy software , just emphasize the fact that they have a greater number of choices with us and everything will be O.K., …that’s precious”)
I was at the ’98 Chicago comdex when Win98 was being launched. Laughed my ass off.
I am starting to think Microsoft is more incompetent than evil.
This is an impression fostered by not only watching Gates’s public, webcast humiliation at CES, but a recent “behind-the-scenes” video of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft posted at http://channel9.msdn.com (one of Microsoft’s endearingly awful propaganda sites). The guys shown on the tour are, unmistakably, complete bumblers–suddenly a lot of things about Word began to make more sense to me.
The capper, though, is this soon-to-vanish picture–
–from the front of Microsoft’s web site, trumpeting the release of their desperately needed anti-spyware effort. The model in the picture is of course looking at a Titanium PowerBook G4–which means that he’ll have to look long and hard to find any spyware on it! It really is a bit pathetic that the organization could have become so large, shapeless, and semi-competent that embarrassing things like this now happen not just regularly, but several times a day.
gRen, there is a link to the stream on microsoft.com, but it’s in wmv format and it’s not working with VLC. I don’t want to and won’t download Windows Media Player to watch it (My computer is Microsoft-free thank you). Somebody need to convert it to QuickTime.
The link is here… http://www.microsoft.com/athome/ces2005/default.mspx …if you are interested.
rogozhin:
If only Apple had the guts to do this sort of advertising today! They could have a field day and so could we!
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rogozin,
That’s a great little commercial. I’m “raising” my nieces and nephews on these commercials. They are so used to their parents argueing over the latest Windows virus, bug. They love my eMac. I’ll buy one for them someday, just my little contribution to world peace.
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“And to be fair, the Clicker incident wasn’t Steve, it was that Canadian in the Blue Shirt we all know and love…”
Who’s that?
(magic word is person) scary…
Yeah and dont forget the time when SJ got so pissed at the Mac he was using he threw the camera out into the crowd becasue it wouldnt sync up….
By the way, their Media Player and streaming totally sucks. I can’t get it to play. It plays for 2 seconds and then spends the next 2 minutes trying to “buffer”.
I forwarded this to every PC user I know. Does that make me uncharitable?
NoMacForYou, Steve Jobs did NOT throw the camera into the crowd! When the camera didn’t sync with iPhoto, Steve noticed the camera was dead. He then tossed it underhand to his assistant sitting in the front row hoping he could fix it. After a few minutes, Steve saw his assistant shake his head indicating the camera was hopelessly broken, so Steve continued on with the rest of the presentation.
iPhoto and OS X were certainly not at fault for the problem.
You must give credit to Microsoft for having the balls to prominently post this fiasco on their home page. It is an indication that these problems are seen as being standard operating procedures.
I always hate it when content is in WMP too. Real or Quicktime is sooo much better.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-!!!!
(*snort*)
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-
He deserves it, that rat bastard.
This story reminded me of a friend who began showing off his new $3000 HP Media Center PC set-up one day. He began by playing an archived copy of “The West Wing” and then while it was playing, tried to switch out of the TV functionality and do something else (all the while talking about how Microsoft did a really slick job with the Media Center).
Somewhere in the process, Windows screwed up and suddenly, you had two audio tracks of the “West Wing” episode playing at the same time (but only one video). The tracks were out of sync by a few seconds, as if someone started playing back two recordings at different times and turned the speakers to full on both.
Obviously, this was not supposed to be happening, so he tried to stop the episode from playing….except that he couldn’t. After a few more seconds of trying to kill the now unwanted episode of West Wing, he suddenly said he might have been hit by a virus or a worm, and he need to run a full virus scan on his system so he would have to show off the media center functionality later.
You could not make this up if it were fiction…except with Microsoft, you don’t need to.
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Anyone notice this video is now down? maybe theyre busy editing out all the bugs, revisionist truth at its best
Hah. I tried to watch the video in both 100K and 300K and neither worked at all almost. The picture kept freezing for minutes at a time while the audio went on. Then everything would stop to rebuffer. NOW, they have pulled it entirely from the website and say that it will be available later today. What a bad impression of their buggy loser technology. This wasn’t even close to being “good enough”.
[Anyone notice this video is now down?]
Thanks for the link Ary.
Is there a different, more reliable source for this?
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It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody at Microsoft gets fired for allowing this to happen. That stuff won’t get covered in the media news, however.
dang it, i was half way through the video when i had to go to bed last night, and this morning, my dad took my ibook to work, and i can’t watch the rest of it on this mac cuz it is down, that sucks
LETS GO FLASH IPOD!
btw, i thought Conan was very funny, and looked like a giant sitting next to small mousy bill, who was at least a foot and a half below conan
I had it stored in the Media Player’s “Favorites” so I could see it quickly whenever it came back from the dead. Now, it just says “Please, Stand By” in bold letters with classical music in the background for 3 mins.
This same thing happened to Apple in… ah… um… no… wait… this never happened to Apple.
My guesses are that their almighty powerful Windows server got overloaded with hits from Mac users looking for these precious on-stage Bill moments. Knowing this, they are probably editing out the “undesirable” parts, thus reducing the number of viewers and along with it, the server load.
This doubly stinks for Microsoft being that they are trying to capitalize upon the consumer Electronics Show. All these people trying to see all of these great MEDIA products from Microsoft, and they can’t even stream a simple lo-res video that is produced, edited and streamed by themselves. No one else to blame.
Microsoft: Crapware for the next century!
Hobbes
But Steve Jobs had a problem once when showing off “Preview”. He wanted to show how fast preview was scrolling through thousends of pages, and the friggin’ thing just didn’t want to stop scrolling, lol.
“Hopefully it won’t start all over again… oops”.
That was at the WWDC for Panther. He had a script rigged up to show how fast you can scroll through a PDF. So whatever problems he had it was with the demonstration script, not a feature on the final shipping software. Either way he managed to really emphasize how fast Preview scrolled through a long complex PDF. Nothing crashed.
Windows is so fucking great that even Microsoft’s CEO can’t bloody use it!
CLASSIC COMEDY – INFRONT OF THE WORLDS IT PRESS TOO!!!
LLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!
Great one Bill!
Keep this up and not even you will want to use windows!!!!
Hey all – click on the link!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/ces2005/default.mspx
It seems that the ‘video of Bill’s Cock-up Keynote is not available now’
I assume someone in the Mac Business Unit at M$ HQ is editing out all the bloppers in final cut Pro HD!!!
LOL!!!!!
This is obviously all a comedic mock up, meant to show Bill’s humourous side. Family Guy would be waaay funnier, and less dorky.
Does MS even use their own products?? Do they even TRY?!?! Good grief; how could such a rich company pull off such an unprepared and unprofessional demonstration at such a high-profile event?!?!
Imagine a global auto maker doing a high-profile demonstration at the Tokyo or Detroit auto shows, and having several of their vehicles break down on stage. It’d be utter disaster, the auto maker would be RUINED. Yet somehow MS does the software industry equivalent and lives another day.
Apple, for God’s sake CAPITALIZE ON THIS!! When the company CEO can’t even make his own products work, something is very, very wrong.
“Apple, for God’s sake CAPITALIZE ON THIS!! When the company CEO can’t even make his own products work, something is very, very wrong.”
I don’t think Microsoft’s CEO is Lord Bill. I believe he gave that to our buddy Steve Ballmer in 2000 (could be wrong). I might be wrong on this too, but I think Bill is the lead software architect (hmmm… reminiscient of The Matrix?). And he’s the Chairman of MS, not the CEO… but I could be wrong.
Dark Side,
Yeah I probably botched whatever Billy’s current position is, but the point is the same. He’s the man you think of when you mention MS. He better know what’s going on, especially when doing high-profile demos. If he can’t make it work, nobody can.
Could you imagine a Sony executive doing a high-profile PlayStation demo & have things go so wrong? Not in a million years.
It makes you wonder how things really are inside MS when they can’t even get the demos right. Remember how sick Apple was when Amelio stepped in, yet nobody knew until later? Call me nuts but I firmly believe that MS’s Longhorn will end up being a direct equivalent of Apple’s Copland, and that this botched demo is just a symptom of MS’s real current health.
Maybe these bllopers will land here:
http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/movies.html
But, maybe they’ll get bloopers instead!
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Sour grapes?
Too bad for all you that it wasn’t Steve jobs up there touting the latest ipod–which is about all Apple has going for it these days in terms of new technology.
You gotta hand it to MS, at least they get out there and develop new technology (smart phones, x-boxes, media players, tv technology, and so on). All we get from Apple is eye candy on top of open source for twice the price. Before you get all hot under the collar, I do believe that Mac is a nicer looking OS; but c’mon, people are getting tired of Mac Nazis blathering on about how Bill Gates got egg on his face yet again. Do you think he really cares what you have to say? No, he’s too busy getting his troops fired-up to kick everyones’ #sses in the marketplace while the Apple, SCO, <insert disaffected Bay Area company name here>, people are busy whining. Boo hoo.
The next time you are using your copy of Office for the Mac, be glad that Mr. Gates has a fondness for Apple or be stuck using some open source crap that copies it.
Amen brother.
There are two kinds of Apple users: whiney pencil necked artists who dress in all black and wannabe whiney pencil necked artists who dress in all black.
Apple will never win. Its users while fiercely loyal annoy the hell out of the rest of the 97% of computer users out there.
I own a Mac and I own a PC and they both have problems. The only difference is that on PC websites they don’t waste their time talking about the last time Steve Jobs made an ass out of himself. They have better things to do.
Get a life people!!!
Obviously Mr. Jobbie and Crybaby are Mr. Bill Gates himself. Either that or they are paid by Bill. Face it ya moron Billy, you fscked up. LOL! What’s taking so long putting your CES keynote up??? Embarrassed? LOL! Ya jackass!
It’s called give it up… try some.
A Windows using friend of mine sat back in his chair one day and talked about how his system had crashed again and that he was forced to have to reinstall all his software once more. I asked him how often that happens? He said about every four to six months.
Mac users I know would speak up and say “Buy a Mac and your problems will go away”. Being a Mac user I often find myself in situations were a friend has problems, but I never tell then to buy a Mac.
The way I see it, my friends, like myself, have to discover the alternatives on our own. Why? Free choice. I discovered the Mac after using Windows for many years. For what I did the Mac was the perfect choice, but this may not be true for all Windows users.
Personally I think the current version of Windows is a product that has outlived its usefullness. Microsoft needs to start over and rebuild Windows from the ground up, but if they do this they may make alot of their Windows compatible software unusuable. This would be in the same vein that Apple did with their own Mac OS 9 to OS X migration. Apple had a small market share that they could do it without alienating their customer base too much. Microsoft could lose big if they did that.
Microsoft is trying so hard to control the entire spectrum of computing they have ignored basic customer needs. Fix Windows first then show us what’s next. I will never give up being a Mac user but if Microsoft could give me a safe and secure OS I may eventually add one to my computer life, until that happens I could never use Windows in its current form.
Bill, you need to step back and look at your customer base and find away to keep them happy.
Mr. Jobbie said..
“I own a Mac and I own a PC and they both have problems. The only difference is that on PC websites they don’t waste their time talking about the last time Steve Jobs made an ass out of himself. They have better things to do. “
Like coming to our websites to insult us? I have yet to see Mac fans go to pee-sea websites to dump on the wintel world.
Get a life, indeed.
david vesey
Dang, I hope someone captured this. They are now saying they will show “highlights” shortly. READ: All embarrassing parts cut out.
If anyone has a link to where you can still watch the uncut version please post it.
I googled all over for it but can’t find one.
“Obviously Mr. Jobbie and Crybaby are Mr. Bill Gates himself. Either that or they are paid by Bill.”
You got it, Wha.
Bullseye.
I opined a long time ago that these Pee-Sea goons hanging out here had to be Bill himself, or hired goons. Who ELSE would hang around the other platforms websites tossing .22 caliber insults about like puppy shit?
I think it’s Bill himself.
It has to be.
Get lost Billy-boy. Shoo-Shoo!!!
david vesey
Mr Vesey,
“I opined a long time ago that these Pee-Sea goons…”
Most of the time I agree with the posts on this site. However, I find it insulting that people like you need to speak for me.
As an IT admin in a very large organization (who happens to be a Mac fan), I never hear my PC users complain about Macs. Why? Because the majority of PC users at my company don’t realy care to listen whenthe Applerati say things like “I opined a long time ago that these Pee-Sea goons.” It is really a turn off for a lot of people. AND, it makes my job harder because NO ONE in senior management wants to hear from the art staff about how everyone ought be on a Mac.
My Windows users aren’t evil or dumb, they are interested in getting the most for their money (not just in harware but in SW, games, etc.). If Mac users would just stop complaning they would have an easier time prostelitizing.
Oh, and I can tell you firsthand that XP and Windows Server 2003 RARELY crash nowadays. I’m pretty sure that the Windows people are working hard to make Windows better.
My Macs do generate more calls per user but i don’t mind becuase the art staff is a fun group. The calls are usually centered around faulty third party drivers. So it is not really Apple’s fault, but it doesn’t look good for them.
In the end, for my company, it goes down to which of the two operating systems costs less to own over its lifetime and Apple is a harder sell (though I wish that were not the case). We buy Macs because we have a large art staff, but the Windows computers cost a lot less to manage.
Here’s my suggestion, rather than taking the holier than thou approach (which has only backfired on us as a community) why not show the world what is GOOD about Apple without making deragatory statements about other operating systems?
Macadaddy, is the first poster in my 2 yrs of coming to MDN that actually has a brain. Wow a Mac user with a conscience….Unbelievable..!
Mr Mac Daddy,
“I opined a long time ago that these Pee-Sea goons hanging out here had to be Bill himself, or hired goons. Who ELSE would hang around the other platforms websites tossing .22 caliber insults …..”
I thought that I was being as clear as vodka that my problem was with PC folks like Mr. Jobbie who travel all the way here to insult us.
How has Mr. Jobbie inoculated himself against criticism from you? And only I draw your fire?
” I never hear my PC users complain about Macs. Why?….”
Ummmm.. Perhaps because they are better?
” NO ONE in senior management wants to hear from the art staff about how everyone ought be on a Mac.”
People often get bored listening to other people who are right, while having no adequate argument to justiy a decision.
“My Windows users aren’t evil or dumb, they are interested in getting the most for their money”
How did your people get dragged into this? I thought I was being clear that I was talking about the rogue Pee-Sea attack droids that seem to inhabit EVERY mac website, and have nothing better to do than infiltrate and criticize our forums. Hey it’s a free country.. just STRANGE to do so. If you ask me.
“Oh, and I can tell you firsthand that XP and Windows Server 2003 RARELY crash nowadays. I’m pretty sure that the Windows people are working hard to make Windows better.”
Okay, well, that’s nice. I’m sure that in the proper hands that XP and Windows Server do just fine. However, the average person seems to end up with a problematic Windows machine in about 6 months. Or so I have observed.
“In the end, for my company, it goes down to which of the two operating systems costs less to own over its lifetime and Apple is a harder sell (though I wish that were not the case). We buy Macs because we have a large art staff, but the Windows computers cost a lot less to manage.”
In most situations I have heard that it’s the other way around. Perhaps you or your people are doing something wrong.
“Here’s my suggestion, rather than taking the holier than thou approach (which has only backfired on us as a community) why not show the world what is GOOD about Apple without making deragatory statements about other operating systems?
Maybe I just took too much Oxycontin this morning, but I would swear that all I did was put forth a theory that the Pee-Sea folks here were REALLY Bill Gates in disguise, and to call him a goon. I’m sure that what I said fell short of criticizing your people, and commenting on the stability of XP. But since I am being accused of criticism, I may as well do it.
Mr Gates did have a heck of a time at the keynote speech to the CES when his oh so stable products froze, blue screened him and refused to connect to the internet. I guess no one told them that they were better, more stable , and cheaper than OS X.
Take care now, Bye-bye then.
David Vesey
Check out the Geek take.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Jan/gee20050107028584.htm
Thurott on Wininfo says it had nothing to with Microsoft software. Rather it was the lights that caused the computer to crash. I could just see the MS knowledgebase article now:
Knowledgebase Article ID Q23525: Light can cause Windows to crash.
Affected products: All.
WORKAROUND: Don’t expose Microsoft products to light.
STATUS: Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.
Nothing but bogus Highlights left; Sanitized for your protection
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/ces2005/default.mspx
Mr Vesey,
You are an angry person. Did you get your butt kicked by PC using bullies when you were a child?
You do insult “my people” because as an IT pro I am the one who has to answer for the lame remarks of people like you. I’d be pleased if we could get more Macs in our corporate PC environment–but I’ll never get there as long as the Apple Snobs continue to act like their Sh*$ doesn’t stink. I’m a mac fan but I don’t make it a point to let the world know how much I like Macs by insulting PCs.
As for your point about PC users or agents of Mr. gates lurking about in the interest of raining on your parade. Try not to be so self-absorbed. This particular article was chosen by Google as an article of interest (and my IIS and proxy logs at work indicated that it was widely read there). Your little haven for ranting was read by a lot of people. So it is not a surprise that there were some posts which disagree with your perspective.
I think it is your approach that is faulty. No one really cares to be nitpicked by a paranoid person when the points that the paranoid person is making are inflammatory (although I’ll admit that I’m not helping matters by letting you bait me). I’m not arguing that one platform is better than another platform. You’re just being really sensitive. Perhaps YOU are an agent of Mr. Jobs paid to defend his honor?
Allow me to state my case in a different way: By making inflammatory statements about your “enemy” (who, by the way, is ignoring you or dismissing you because you sound like a nut) you immediately render any intelligent discourse impossible. Slinging insults or sallying theories about how you are being picked on just isn’t going to get you anyplace and it will just irritate people who are otherwise ready to listen.
Cheers,
Mac Daddy
Mac Daddy is the man!
Vesey, you call PCs “pee-see” which suggests that you are angry at PCs. Perhaps it wasn’t the bullies but the PC that was too difficult for you to use. I’m glad that the Mac is around to help with the less intelectually fortunate.
While we’re on the subject of urination (“Pee-see”). Your sophomoric attempt at humor reminds me of those losers in the Chevy pickup trucks with the currupted image of Calvin peeing on the Ford logo(or Ford owners with Calvin peeing on Chevy, or some other manufacturer’s logo–the combinations are dizzying). Maybe you ought to make for yourself a picture of Calvin pissing on the MS logo. Then the world can know how you were wronged by Mr Gates. Maybe what you need is a support group–or is this site your support group.
Oh, and while you’re at your support group, Vesey, you might have a chemical dependency problem that you could bring up. You make reference to vodka and oxycontin in the same post. It could be that your judgtement is clouded and once you get some help you will see more clearly.
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