Gates Delivers Last CES Keynote as Chairman of Microsoft

Jan 6th, 2008, Las Vegas, NV: In his last 8 consecutive years, Bill Gates has opened the Consumer Electronics Show with a keynote address as the Chairman of Microsoft. Later this year he is stepping down from his day to day activities at Microsoft, marking today as his 12th and final appearance in that capacity at the Consume Electronics Show (CES).

Always Open with a Joke

Mr. Gates opened the show with a short summary of what he dubbed the First Digital Decade, followed by a crowd pleasing tongue-in-cheek video depicting his last day at Microsoft punctuated with stars like George Clooney, Stephen Spielberg, Matthew Mcconaughey, Rapper JayZee, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, U2 front man Bono, as well as the famous political faces of AL Gore, Barrack Obama, and Hilary Clinton.

Following the self deprecating humor, he then described his vision of the Second Digital Decade powered of course by Microsoft technology, before moving on to the usual announcements and achievements expected from Microsoft.

Highlights

Vista Momentum
The company reports having over 100 million users for their latest Operating System Windows Vista since the it launched almost a year ago.

Windows Live uptake
Gates announced 420 Million users of the various Windows Live services, Search, Spaces, Email, Calendar and others. He then yielded the floor to Mika Krammer, Director of Windows Client Mobility, to demonstrate and highlight the integration of Windows Live and mobile devices.

Microsoft Surface
Mr Gates also gave an interesting demonstration of Microsoft's Minority Report inspired user interface named Surface. Using muti-fingered touch technology, he designed a new snowboard and then uploaded it to his Windows Live Spaces account through his mobile phone just by placing it on the Surface table top.

SilverLight, The Beijing Olympics, and NBC
The next Olympic games will be streamed live and on-demand on the internet through an exclusive partnership with NBC on a site built using Microsoft's new Silverlight web technology.

XBox Live Video Marketplace
XBox Live Video Marketplace gains new downloadable content. The head of Microsoft's Entertainment Devices Division, Robbie Bach, joined Mr Gates on the stage to announce the availability of MGM Studios film library for download as well as TV shows from Disney and ABC.

MediaRoom
A partnership with British Telecom to bring Microsoft's Mediaroom set top box technology to millions of UK homes using the Xbox360.

Zune Social
A demonstration of the still in beta Zune Social which is a myspace/facebook analog for what you are listening to, giving all your friends a windows into your tastes and one click access to purchase music.

Sync for Automobiles
Climbing into a car onstage to demonstrate a voice activated access to your cell phone, Zune or other supported devices. The Ipod was not mentioned but phrase "other MP3 players" was used. Also announced was Ford's intention to deploy SYNC across it's product line.

Microsoft R&D
Gates focused on a clever visual identification application in the works for Windows Mobile Phones allowing you to point at people and locations to call up information, mapping and of course the ever present advertising to go with it.

In Closing, SLASH!
To finish off the keynote, a Guitar Hero Challenge between Robbie Bach and Bill Gates. Rather than showing how awful these two executives are at the game, both decided to substitute ringers for the competition. Bach used GH champion, Kelly "TipperQueen" Law-Yone, and Bill brought out Slash and closed the show with a snippet from welcome to the jungle.

What was not said
To no one's surprise, there was no mention of the wide spread consumer dissatisfaction of Windows Vista. Asked about it in press interviews after the speech, Gates said "I think a lot of people would say it was the best new product of the year in terms of the neat, new things they're using in it. "

I'm guessing he didn't read this article from PCWorld naming Vista "Biggest Tech Disappointment of 2007"

He continued with, "They also have very high expectations in terms of having all the (device) drivers there and the compatibility. There's some of those areas where, as the year went on, we definitely did a better job on those things, and there's a bit of a lesson learned there. "

Also no reaction to this recent announcement from Warner Entertainment on the decision to switch to exclusive support of Sony's BluRay over the Microsoft backed HD-DVD high definition disc format.

The entire one hour address can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/default.mspx for your viewing pleasure.