“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has flopped his final keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, presenting a bizarre display that was hosted by US entertainment personality Ryan Seacrest and included a ‘tweet choir,’ but virtually no new significant announcements,” Asher Moses reports for The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Several demos failed, and attendees were dismayed that a rumoured new Xbox 720 console wasn’t revealed,” Moses reports. “One attendee remarked at the end “thank god it was the last year” – reflecting the mood in the audience and of the live bloggers covering the speech.”
Moses reports, “The keynote was “hosted” by entertainment personality Ryan Seacrest. It was conducted in an interview format, a departure from previous years, and attendees noted the exchange was awkward and felt scripted, while Seacrest had little knowledge about the technologies being discussed… Ballmer said he was ‘excited and upbeat’ about Windows Phone 7 despite dismal sales worldwide and a relative lack of support from telcos and handset makers… One demo, showcasing WP7’s voice-to-text SMS, failed, with the software only picking up the word ‘sounds’ in the phrase ‘sounds great.’ Another demo then failed and the Microsoft staffer had to reach for a different phone.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:
Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.
BusinessWeek: Is this common in the industry?
Steve Jobs: Look at Microsoft — who’s running Microsoft?BusinessWeek: Steve Ballmer.
Steve Jobs: Right, the sales guy. Case closed.