Thursday, January 05, 2006
bill gates and CES '06
I joined the millions last night at 6:30 PM PST and watched the webcast of Bill Gates' keynote opening for CES 2006. CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is where all sorts of electronics are debuted. From TIVO to the cube MP3 player to Windows Vista, all sorts of products are on display for people to see in Las Vegas. Bill Gates traditionally opens the show with a speech about how well Microsoft is doing, and usually demos his next generation of products.
For the most part, the speech this year was just a bunch of buzzwords and statistics that nobody cares about (the xbox 360 is on track to sell about 5 million consoles by the end of June, etc...). The thing that really got me, however, was the debut of the "new" features of Windows Vista - due out sometime this year. First, an improved user interface that is more friendly and that gives the end user confidence. Then the things like an improved alt tab (which is already available as a power toy for XP by the way) and basic photo editing built in to the OS. Sound familiar? Sounds like Bill has been looking to Steve. Then I laughed out loud - literally out loud - when they said Windows Vista was going to "introduce" tabbed browsing. This has been around for well over 5 years if you follow the mozilla browsers (including firefox). Albeit, tabbed browsing is supposedly improved in the next generation IE by allowing a preview of each web site in thumbnail fashion, but that to me is just another way MS can brag about the processing power computers have these days. Just like you can see a preview of videos when you hover over the item in the taskbar.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft hater by any means. I'm looking forward to Vista just as much as ... well, I'm sure someone else is looking forward to it, but Bill Gates just has a way of hyping up a product far beyond what it is worth. Microsoft, in my mind, is by no means a great and revolutionary innovator. Even the products that Bill was showing off - like the VOIP phone that tied into your MSN buddy list or the mobile phone that was bluetooth linked to the planet - microsoft didn't create. They are just creating software for the innovative products that others come up with. Bill said it best when he stated that the next year is all about partnerships. Who can they buy or leech off of. Whose ideas will they steal and call their own. The only pure microsoft product that was demo'ed was the xbox 360 (in which Steve Ballmer let Bill Gates beat him up - boxing style). Whatever, I'm still waiting for the PS3 which has HDDVD built in and won't need an external drive like the 360 (again, due out later this year).
Alright, now that I'm done bashing, time to go get me a pirated beta of Longhorn Windows Vista™