CES 2010: Microsoft CEO Ballmer Pitches, But Is Anyone Catching?
Steve Ballmer gave the traditional pre-opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show Wednesday evening, but from the beginning, the Microsoft CEO struggled to capture the hearts and minds of the audience.
VIPs, bloggers, press and conference attendees waited in separate lines for over an hour to get a spot in the Hilton Center, only to be forced to wait through a delay caused by power issues that interfered with the product demonstrations. The restless audience struggled to find the sizzle in the early demonstrations of PowerPoint improvements and reports of Windows 7 PC sales. Gadgets, like the HP Slate, a Windows tablet, an
d the Blio e-reader added sparkle to the presentation, and a Bing street level view had some personalization capabilities that showed a map turning into a snow globe, which was mildly entertaining, but not particularly useful.
Paidcontent.org showed a low level of enthusiasm for the announcements. "Keynote started late, ends on abrupt odd note. Fails to hang together. Much like the concept/execute issues MSFT has so often." NerdBoyTV echoed the sentiment, "Microsoft generates little buzz in CES 2010 opener." The power outage proved to have legs as the metaphor for the state of energy around Microsoft at CES 2010, especially after Google's Nexus One announcement stole some pre-show thunder Tuesday.
Microsoft's strategy to downplay mobile in the keynote may have been a risky corporate decision. The company has a history of successfully using next month's Mobile World Congress in Europe to launch new mobile products, but with the buzz around the mobile web, app stores, and the embedded "smartbook" market it was disappointing to many that there wasn't a stronger Windows Mobile story. Continued on the next page
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