In his 2008 CES keynote presentation tonight, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates described three things that he thinks will dominate the next decade in technology:
Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uau0aIbrzkQ
Seriously though, tonight Gates talked about the following:
1. High Definition everywhere
2. Everything will be interconnected and sharable
3. Power of “Natural User Interface”
In describing his third point, Gates mentioned touch (including Apple’s iPhone by name), speech, pen-based, and gestures as ways users will interface with machines and devices in the next decade.
Gates claimed that Microsoft has “100 million people using Vista now.”
Gates then claimed “over 10 million new users” for Windows Mobile last year and that Microsoft “will double that in the next year.”
Gates then ceded the stage to Mika Krammer, Director of WIndows Project Management who claimed that Windows is “her lifeline.”
MacDailyNews Take: Livin’ dangerously there, Mika.
Blah, blah, blah and Mika departed. Gates came back out and demoed Microsoft’s Big Ass Table. It’s all very Jeff Han three years ago. Gates failed to mention that Microsoft has delayed their Weak iPhone Obfuscatory / Me Too Campaign, er… Big Ass Table.
Gates shilled for Silverlight, Microsoft’s “Flash killer,” and announced that NBC (who else) will partner with Microsoft to broadcast the Bejing 2008 Olympics using SIlverlight. Naturally, no mention was made of the 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee dumping the unstable, unreliable Windows Vista.
Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s President of Entertainment & Devices Division then came out – scarily clad in a light blue V-Neck sweater just like Gates’ light purple one – to tout the many money losing products that Robbie oversees, such as Xbox (over which Microsoft is being sued yet again, this time not for defective machines (Red Ring of Death), but for recent Xbox Live outages) and Zune. Bach announced that Disney, Disney’s ABC, and MGM will be bringing content to Xbox Live (Did Steve Jobs sign off on that one?) There was no word whether MGM’s version of The Emperor’s New Clothes would be available. Probably not. Bach then said that “this is not a hobby” for Microsoft, wiggling his fingers in air quotes during “hobby” in a clear slam at Apple’s Steve Jobs who referred to Apple TV as a “hobby” last year.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll see how much of a “hobby” Apple TV is next week when a real visionary keynotes Macworld Expo.
Bach then claimed, with a straight face, that Zune is “becoming the clear alternative to the iPod.” That would, no doubt, be news to the real clear-yet-distant #2, SanDisk. Microsoft is so psyched to be #5 or whatever, that they’re vowing to inflict Zune upon Canadians this spring. Oh, you lucky Canucks! Come spring, you’ll get to ignore Zune just like us Yanks.
MacDailyNews Take: Nothing against Canada, we love Canada, but if Zune is such a rip-roarin’ success, why stop at Canada? Why not bring Zune to the entire world? Because it’s a failure, that’s why.
Bach then demoed “Microsoft Sync” in a Ford car onstage which allows for voice controlling iPods (and other MP3 players) and iPhones (and other mobile phones) in Ford vehicles. Amazingly, both doors stayed on the vehicle despite being opened and closed at least once.
Bach then claimed that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is “a leader” in mobile phones, says that Windows Mobile “outsells Blackberry, outsells iPhone,” and then talked excitedly about how Microsoft is taking a very serious approach to mobile advertising.
Gates then returned to demo a huge black brick that you can point at people and places that recognizes faces and buildings and presents information – and ads – relating to what the device’s camera is seeing. Of course, no shipping date was mentioned.
Gates then took on Bach in Guitar Hero contest with Guitar Hero Champion Kelly Law-Yone standing in for Bach and Slash standing in for Gates. Each played guitar and then the keynote ended.
You can see Gates’ CES 2008 keynote here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yawn.
So CES is really the MS propaganda show?
They really are a bit of a joke aren’t they with all the rehashing of old ideas.
One day Gates should stand up and confess to all his and MS’s mistakes. THEN he might gain my respect.
M$ is throwing sh-t on the wall to see where it will stick. They are out of touch. They cannot innovate – it’s not in their DNA.
Apple dealing with M$’s pervasiveness? Since when? Apple has one main goal– to make cool tech that keeps the company profitable. They are not trying to be masters of the universe, big man on campus, or playground bully. They’re just doing their thing. It’s M$ that has to be everything for everyone. That’s actually their problem, because they master nothing. Everything becomes a shoddy, limited quasi-fiasco– at least until they get it right years later but have inflicted pain on everyone first.
I don’t want Apple tech everywhere– at least not in the way M$ has been doing it.
Poor Ford. They’re trying to turn things around, but they chose the wrong partner.
He’s still around? I thought he retired.
MDN’s editorial is funny…too bad its completely misleading when it comes to Microsoft. It makes me embarrassed to be an Apple fan sometimes. Who can take us seriously when our ‘news’ outlets are helmed by zealots?
Yes, a lot of early Xbox 360 hardware sucked. But MS is making right by replacing those units. Yes, they have another lawsuit surrounding Xbox Live. But that’s because people couldn’t get on due to an overwhelming flood of new users (that’s a problem any business would want). MS is also making right by this. They’ve apologized to the Live community and are going to offer free content. I seem to remember Apple and AT&T;having similar server problems when I bought my iPhone on release day.
Amazing. I said nice things about MS and I didn’t have to give up my love for Apple’s products to do it. I wonder if the universe will cease to exist?
“scut” is pissed because everything MDN wrote about Gates’ keynote is true.
Go read CNET if you want sugar-coated, fawning coverage of Microsoft and its Chief Liar Thief.
You’ll only get the truth here at MDN.
theloneus,
who cares if every non apple product is interconnected if all of the products suck and force you to watch ads. I won’t be buying any of them. that’s why apple’s vision is the best.
Silverlight? I still refuse to use flash.
“MS demonstrated Silverlight (which you will be downloading and using at some point)”
sorry, i had to stop reading at this point because i realized that you are totally full of crap……
“We’ll see how much of a “hobby” Apple TV is next week when a real visionary keynotes Macworld Expo.”
Of course all the windoze trolls will exclaim that Apple watched the CES keynote and ‘copied’ what Gates talked about, conveniently forgetting the old silly concept of product development lead time.
Gates’ keynote was AWESOME!. All the important stuff was covered: Xbox, Vista, Windows Mobile, Zune. Pure magic. If you’re like me you stayed up all night reading all the Windows fan blogs for more information. I am super-jazzed for Surface. Every bar and hotel I visit I make sure to ask if they’re gonna have one. It’s so cool! Microsoft is so ahead on the Surface thing the bars and hotels don’t have an answer. That will change because those things will be everywhere. Guaranteed.
It’s not too late to cancel Macworld, I mean, what’s the point of going forward after Microsoft clearly trounced anything Apple could come up with?
Your potential. Our passion.™
Hi-Def everywhere in the future. Ya think!?
Jeeze… than man’s a freakin genius.
Gates is the Me Too King.
Until last week my Safari browser has never crashed. I repeat NEVER – neither IE nor Firefox have been so stable for me. That IS UNTIL, I installed Silverlight. I have a project proposal to bid on for a Silverlight interface. Had never used it much. Had never installed the plug-in. Oddly enough, I never needed it – I can’t say that for Flash.
Long story short – I passed on the project. What a piece of bloated crap ware.
“I am super-jazzed for Surface.”
I think you meant to spell “jazzed” with an i.
@ZuneTang: “Every bar … I visit….”
I’m guessing there are quite a few of those?
You need to have the crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to enjoy Bill Gates.
Shouldn’t the headline read “CES Keynote recrap”?
I just tried to watch the keynote. The audio is so bad that they had to use subtitles. This for the consumer ELECTRONICS show.
I can’t wait ’till next week….
Yawn is right….
However, this really, really hurts me to say it, as I really have a dislike for anything from the Borg, but Sync actually works really, really well….
It pained me to find that Sync came in my new 2008 Ford Edge…. I joked w/ the dealer telling him that I hoped this wouldn’t mean that I needed to reboot my car or download any service packs…..
But then I started using it… iPhone over Bluetooth. Perfect. iPod integration – excellent. Unlike the Apple implementation I had on my old BMW X5 (which BTW was a reliability disaster!), I actually get all the menu items from the iPod on the nav touch screen on the dash…. and can navigate playlists, artists, albums, songs, genres, etc, etc by touchscreen or voice command… Way cool….
Where is Apple w/ something similar for the auto manufacturers???? My Apple/BMW integration was pretty lame…. I had to set up separate playlists called BMW1-5 (6 was always reserved as the entire library) and then the stereo just treated the iPod like it was the CD changer….
How lame & out of date…. It’s almost as though the two companies did role reversal as I expect something cool out of Apple & something lame out of Redmond.
It’s pretty obvious that neither the Vista nor Zune development teams worked on this puppy.
The only annoying thing about it is that it refers to the iPod as a ‘USB Device’ when the damn system knows it’s an iPod. I’m sure it calls a Zune a Zune, but the iPod is just a ‘USB Device’
And before all the Ford bashing starts… the MacDailyNews boys may know technology well, apparently they are not too up to date on vehicle ratings….making their digs at Ford appear quite uninformed & childish…..
Most reliable mid-size sedan? Ford Fusion. Worse than average reliability midsize sedan? Toyota Camry V6….
According to Consumer Reports, the Ford Edge lost out to the Lexus RX-350 by only 1 RATINGS POINT!
Microsoft exists to solely provide gainful employment to the thousands of socially challenged men (and possibly woman) who, we all remember, were the hapless dorks in the A/V Club in junior high school.
>PLING<
Next Slide…
I watched part of the Keynote and the sound was terrible. I was using a PC system with winblows and everything. So my guess is that the people that run the event just do not get media.
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So what else is new.
Also, just my opinion, this event has become a “Windows / Microsoft ” is king. Its not about consumer electronics, its about MS and all the people that build for it.
At least MacWorlds conference is aptly named.
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Ben Dover…
You traded in a Beamer for a Ford?
Sheesh. Times must be tough.
You’ve gotta cut the BMW iPod integration some slack. Weren’t they one of the FIRST to offer it several years ago. That’s a long time in tech years. It was probably barely beta at that point.
I’m glad I don’t need a car.
It must pain you guys so bad that the 360 is a much better content streaming device than the Apple TV. But by all means, keep denying. Everyone knows better.
theloniousMac said:
“Apple’s weakness is that they are delivering software for a handful of proprietary devices.”
My question is, what is so non-proprietary about SYNC, Silverlight, Zune, Xbox, .Net and Surface?
If they were truly non-proprietary, without having to license anything from Microsoft, you would then be able to use SYNC technology on the Mac or Linux, Zune Marketplace DRMed songs on your iPod, Xbox games on your PS3 and Surface touch technology on your LCD from say Samsung.
I love many things Microsoft has made (Surface looks awesome, Exchange is to this day the best e-mail system in the world and Windows 2003 Server is rock-solid and relatively easy to configure), but c’mon there is nothing NOTHING that Microsoft puts their hands on that is non-proprietary.
At least Apple is up-front about them wanting to control the whole experience by adding proprietary extensions into open source technologies.
Microsoft, on the other hand, paints itself as a full-time proponent of non-proprietary technologies when they are clearly always adding their own proprietary extensions into each and everyone of these technologies.
You said “…I’m not so pig headed and blind that I can’t rationally evaluate the strengths of other platforms.”
In order for this statement to be true, you should have removed the word “proprietary” from your references to Apple’s weaknesses.
By the way, watch the part of the keynote where Bill shows us what he’ll be doing from now on…really funny stuff…