CES Keynote

I watched the keynote last year from Microsoft. I thought I should watch this year with the arrival of Ballmer in place of the stepped down Gates. They both sound extremely similar, a rather high pitched voice - maybe that is a trait of where they are from.

The presentation was all about the convergence of PC, mobile, and TV. A common theme in recent years and everyone in the industry is probably dreading the day that Microsoft finally gets it right.

There are some signs of that, but also some signs of a misfiring monolith. The highlights I could see were:

1. Windows Live - a demo of the new desktop, to us this is Vista when they should have shipped it, but of course it is touted as all new.
2. Touch interface, maybe this will be big - it looked a bit clumsy in demo (small icons, needing precise fingers) and the globe application shown is probably one of the few that would benefit.
3. Server did not get a mention, replaced by the ubiquitous "cloud" phrase - they really could do with disowning this!
4. Easier Home networking, if they've done this right it is not a moment too soon.
5. A rather enlightened data, application, device mantra. Not like them at all, but I don't believe I'll get my data if I stop using their application!
6. Some strange stats on usage of things. Zune 2 million, 10 million unique media centre downloads per month. Only 20 million Windows phones sold. MediaRoom only 2.5 million worldwide. This all sounds lightweight.
7. Xbox 360 makes up for this, 28 million units, now at the right price point, live service doing well - they have got this right and will reap the rewards.

All in all not a bad presentation, but just at the end as Ballmer began to talk about Moore's law turning from processor speed to number of cores and a shift in how software was written - my Silverlight plugin stopped working! Let's not get ahead of ourselves Microsoft.