“Microsoft may take a page from Apple and step back from major trade shows, Microsoft-focused journalist Mary Jo Foley said in the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast,” Electronista reports.
“Near the end of the show, she told of a source who understood that Microsoft would dial back its presence at the annual January CES show after 2012,” Electronista reports. “The Windows developer would still likely have a footprint, but it would most likely drop the near-traditional Steve Ballmer keynote and, presumably, scale back the size of its booth on the show floor.”
Electronista reports, “The same contact made it clear that the goal would be to copy Apple’s strategy of focusing primarily on self-run events. By dictating its own schedule, Microsoft could unveil products only when they’re close enough to being ready or avoid having to generate filler. Apple’s approach helped set expectations, something which Microsoft clearly liked.”
Read more in the full article here.
CES is still cool but it dosen’t have the excitement it once did for me anyway
But since MS is not Apple they will lose, not gain from going away from CES show.
macdailynews.com/2011/12/06/despite-late-october-release-steve-jobs-bio-becomes-amazons-best-selling-book-of-2011
That’s cuz all the cool toys are from Apple now and Apple Events. And toys now are so Swiss Army Knife with one thing doing so many things. I almost wonder what else they’ll manage to fill in with at CES that’s worth a rats ass.
Ah, less chances to see Monkey Boy make a fool of himself. Long may he reign.
We’re still waiting for those hundreds of iPad killers they announced a couple years ago. Or not..
i’d loose my lunch if he shows up in jeans and a black turtleneck. 😛
Like this…
I love that video. I smile every time I see it again.
It’s true that Monkey Boy has toned it down a bit. Maybe when they start having their show and tell at MS Clownhall, Monkey Boy will be in full form! 😉
…where he can BTN and jeans!
oh, the humanity…
I will honestly hurl if I see that. I’d rather see him do the Boy George dance to Karma Chamelion than that.
I expected this.
Ballmer peaked as keynote speaker in 2010 when he proclaimed it the year of the tablet. That was of course the year of the iPad, the only successful tablet that year.
Even funnier was Ballmer demonstrating what he thought a tablet would be. He was all up there sweating and howling with his big gorilla hands trying to claw at the screen. There was no furniture on stage for him to throw, so I was expecting him to fling his own poo at the audience when he couldn’t get the tablet to work.
And he did (at least metaphorically so).
That’s offing funny.
oops, effing.
offing was funnier.
More likely, CES does not want Microsoft to do the keynote anymore because Microsoft is becoming more and more irrelevant.
Eric T Mole shows nothing with so much style. I want MrEdOfCourse to write, “I expected this”. I think we need an MDN poll for the new CES keynoter.
He’s got nothing to show, so it would be a pretty shitty presentation.
after standing there hyping things like HP Slate etc it’s penetrated even Ballmer’s thick skull that he’s making a fool of himself..
maybe they’re worried somebody would splice together Ballmer CES footage and then how the products flopped (that’s an idea for someone to do , call it ‘fantasy and reality’… )
We like the Windows Comedy Channel. Steve Ballmer and Co set the trend that have the best WTF factor. Windows 8 should be a great laugh.
MicroSoft should start getting serious before it joins palm co & friends.
So now Microsoft is going to copy not only what Apple does, but what Apple *doesn’t* do? Why aren’t I surprised?
“emulate?” EMULATE?? “Take a page from Apple” (that fruit company) ?
ha! ridiculous … RI — DI — CU — LOUS!!!
(although I post usually in defence of the Great Android, I can’t take this Besmirching of Microsoft lying down!)
I have HARD SCIENCE to back me…
Haven’t you guys heard of DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION?
No I’m talking THAT part of the theory (where apple dweebs say monkeys turned into Ballmer) no but the OTHER part about different species having the same stimulus can EVOLVE THE SAME WAY WITHOUT CONTACT!!
Similarly everything Msft did Evolved independently. (it can also be called Android Forever’s Theory of Spontaneous Genius)
it’s obvious that Msft would NEVER stoop to emulate or copy anyone!
Although Bill Gates and his staff writing MS Word for Apple had free access to Apple’s plans at the time for GUI and it was years after the Mac that Windows came out it’s CLEAR that Microsoft developed Windows INDEPENDENTLY! Whenever Apple’s GUI came up Msft engineers shut their eyes, stuffed fingers into their ears and said “nah, nah, nah, naaaah… I’m not listening!! I’m developing my own… ”
(MS DOS was just a SMOKE SCREEN as they worked on Windows secretly … for years).
Like wise Msft independently developed Explorer without thinking about Netscape, the Zune without considering iPod, the Xbox without Playstation, Msft stores were birthed without Apple Store input, Kinect without regard to Wii success etc etc…
The IDEA that Msft will now ’emulate’ Apple in not doing a keynote is BEYOND silly…
next you will be saying Windows Phone is a copy of iPhone… shessh…
Get Siri-ous. The parallel universes theory? The space-time continuum is really warped.
Further PROOF that Msft does not EMULATE Apple for Keynotes:
— for the last ten years Apple had Steve Jobs giving keynotes: Well synchronised dramas with Jobs Charismatic, Articulate telling us about products that became hit after hit
— then we had Microsoft Keynotes with Ballmer doing his.. you know his ‘developer, developer, developer’ thing and telling us about products that became flop after flop
So how can anybody says Microsoft copies Apple for Keynotes?
HUH? HUH?
Microsoft’s “strategy of focusing primarily on self-run events”… must mean one Hell of a Concert they are going to have tickets for!
Microsoft was the keynote at CES? Who knew?
Wait, Microsoft is going to copy Apple??!?!??!
They just did. By the way, Michael, MDN censored you on another thread. Does this happen often?
Next thing you know… Mr. Steve Ballmer will start to wear black turtleneck, Levi’s blue jean, and frameless eye glass…
When you consider half of the world’s PC’s are still running Windows XP, microsoft needs to shift stategies somehow.
Considering the glacial P(iece of)C(rap) I’m forced to use at work, I’m not sure “running” is the correct verb.