The annual Consumer Electronics Show is going to be so boring this year that even Bill Gates is not showing up. He gave his farewell keynote (and his 13th) last year. This year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will try to rouse the crowd.
Ballmer is a high-energy guy who can be entertaining to watch, but Microsoft just doesn’t have anything exciting to announce this year. (Who does, right?). When Ballmer takes the stage at the Venetian in Las Vegas on Wednesday night it is going to be hard for the audience to stay awake no matter how much he yells at them.
Here’s what Ballmer will “announce” at CES:
- Windows 7, the successor to Vista, will officially enter public beta (you can already read about it here).
- Windows Mobile will support Flash by the end of the first quarter. (This was demoed at an Adobe conference in November).
- Two new Halo titles will be released for the xBox in 2009 (something else we know already, whoopee).
- Home networking made easy! (I’m not kidding. This Microsoft’s big advance, making it easy for multiple PCs in your home to find each other and share files. Microsoft has been trying to simplify home networking since at least Windows95, and Apple pretty much figured it out with Bonjour (introduced as Rendezvous in 2002).
This is what Microsoft is briefing reporters on as news. Under embargo, no less. (We don’t do embargoes anymore, and didn’t get briefed in this case). Maybe Ballmer will surprise us with a Zune phone or something. (Blue screen of death on your mobile, anyone?). But don’t count on it. Wake me up when CES is over.
(Photo by obbino).
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How much do you want to bet he’s going to mention “cloud” at least 45 times? http://www.azurejournal.com/20.....ows-azure/
How much do you want to bet that he isn’t going to mention ONE WORD about Yahoo… which, just a few months ago, was Microsoft’s long lost essential twin for tackling the evil Google Empire.
Jon
http://buzvia.com - Where’s Your Traffic Going?
I bet he’s going to mention “azure” 31 times …
where did you get that number? http://groups.im/
A Yahoo! search deal?
fuk that, still s+s!
Erick, your negativity shows no bounds.
No layoffs to write about?
So who’s speculating on Yahoo’s stock right now?
http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/.....ig-moment/ hah!
I predict you’ll be wrong on this one Erik. Possibly a little Windows7 Media Center announcement…
But then again I could be wrong
I love how other sites under NDA are simply leaking the information to Techcrunch who are not under any such NDA
I think we may hear something zune-mobile related. not a zune phone, but something to do with tying the two together.
So probably a bluetooth link or something?
Wow, Eric that was said like a true iBoi. After seeing Michael Arrington soil himself silly on the Zune story looks preening macpheliacs are realizing that there won’t be any shiny new iToi’s to to queef about.
Unlike the dog and pony Stevenotes or is it now Shillnotes(so appropriate)….there rarely a thing MS announces that the community isn’t aware off.
I look forward to seeing you yawn over Snow Kitty.
Bonjour sucks. Bring it on Microsoft.
I’ve been running Windows Home Server for the last six month and have been really impressed. I hope whatever is announced is a next gen.
You can already read lots of great detail about HomeGroup here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archi.....ows-7.aspx
Don’t worry Erick. Maybe Apple will announce another minor tweak to their GUI and sell it to their customers as a $160 upgrade with a swell feline name. How much is Apple paying you to write these “opinion” columns anyway?
Wow, with all of these people on Apple’s payroll on Engadget, Gizmodo, and now TechCrunch, their marketing budget must be well over 500 million.
Why people look to Microsoft for innovation is beyond me.
Wowzers, not much of an announcement there. He’ll have to do some yelling and screaming for entertainment.
Found this link from gizmodo, and, not suprisingly, the anti-MS, pro-apple bias that shows no bounds there is here in abundance.
For all the bile you spew about MS, it’s still the most popular OS and apple cannot gain any market share, no matter how many pathetic little ‘tech’ bloggers write about how good apple is.
You guys are like midgets that are easily held at bay while you swing wildly. Have you ever heard of journalistic integrity? Have you ever heard of being objective? Maybe its your inability to write without bashing MS as to why you aren’t given any information. Ever think of that?
Yes, how dare the TC writers offer their own opinions.
If Erick prefers Apple… then that’s his choice. Nobody’s forcing you to read this blog. Or maybe they are, I don’t know. Either way, this is like complaining about an editorial piece in a newspaper because you don’t agree with everything they say. The notion of differing points of view is clearly lost on you and on all the other commenters here accusing the article of ‘MS bashing’.
As for Windows being the most ‘popular’ OS… well, it’s certainly the most prevalent but even the most die-hard MS fan can’t deny that they’ve done a lot to get into a monopoly position and stay there. I don’t believe that it’s the best OS, far from it… but then that would make me a biased Apple fanboy, right?
Get with it. Anti-MS is sooo early 2000s. It’s getting really old. Come up with something good to tell us about or just shut up.
wow. what a way to start the year erick. and you really have ti include the BSOD even if it didnt exist in the zune and windows mobile. and bonjour, zomg itsa piece of shit erick. your fanboyism is really sickening. you’re a piece of shit you gay bastard.
shut up already. you stupid techcrunch writers will have your day. hope youguys get laid off. and i hope you die today!
Dude - get some help.
Whether or not you agree with him - this is kind of over the top. It’s just one guy’s opinion - let it go.
And sinking to gay bashing and death threats makes you sound a thousand times worse than anything he’s said.
Well, reading through this thread, I think we can safely put to rest the notion that Apple fanboys are somehow unique in their fanaticism.
I look so forward to Steve Ballmer’s keynote at CES. One of my favorite speakers.
If he didn’t spend most of the year trying to eat Yahoo, maybe Ballmer might actually have something interesting to announce.
I’m not a regular reader of TechCrunch - so I don’t know if there’s a pro-Appple or anti-Microsoft bias (although it wouldn’t come as a huge surprise)…
But one thing that the author kind of missed: CES isn’t a big conference for new announcements for MS. In fact, MS doesn’t do that - that’s an Apple thing. So if your core complaint is that Microsoft doesn’t do the PR thing the way Apple does - well, you’re right… although it’s kind of a self-defined victory. You could just as easily say Dell sucks because they don’t offer a MacOS X laptop (while quietly ignoring that Apple themselves prevent this). I’ve certainly heard enough pro-Apple nims say that.
The thing is, Microsoft tends to announce things on their own schedules and usually to audiences appropriate to their products - thus when new Visual Studios come out, it’s done at a VS rollout party (and usually accompanied with a lot of useful presentations and free software).
PDC was the pre-release party for Win7. Mix08 was the pre-release party for Media related products and pre-release for Azure (and one of the best keynotes I’ve seen anywhere: Ballmer being harrassed by THE Guy Kawasaki… let’s see Jobs invite a well known PC supporter on stage to interview him…
MDC this month is the rollout for Win7 Beta 1. If you’re into hardware - it’s WinHEC. And so on.
Stop trying to judge Microsoft by comparing them to how Apple does things. It’s meaningless - and just makes you look like an Apple shill.
If MS has no meaningful announcement to make then why even show up. It’s intellectually lazy for MS to not bother putting on a decent show at CES.
We are overwhelmed these days with essentially noise, if you have something meaningful to say, say it loud, make it count and throw in a few jokes while you’re at it.
Well, color me unimpressed. I was hoping MS would have further information on their acquisition (and future implementation plans) of TellMe, or an announcement regarding that slick location based mobile information system Bill Gates demoed last year. Granted, he said it was part of the next “digital decade”, but hey, a guy can hope!
As for Flash on Windows Mobile? Unless the announcement is about a standalone player, it’s no big deal. Flash support is already possible in WinMo. Just go to XDA-Developers.com, and find a cooked ROM for the smartphone of your choice - builds containing IE Mobile 6 (the first version of MS’ flagship mobile browser to support flash) have been floating around for well over a month now.
Flash on Windows Mobile?
And in other news, Microsoft has announced that Silverlight will be available on Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Sorry, couldn’t resist being sarcastic here.
I guess some people are still using Windows Mobile. Then again, I saw my favorite restaurant’s cash register booting up into Windows for Workgroups the other night. Both are legacy technology. Nobody’s really excited about either anymore.
You are such a negative person Erick. Cut the guy some slack he’s stepping it up for the first time.
Just because none of these products is a secret doesn’t mean they are all bad.
Windows 7 is to Vista what XP was to 2000. XP is a solid OS, and Win7 will be too. My Vista runs mostly fine with a few hiccups; it runs 24/7 with seldom reboots needed.
Mobile running flash. Something my iPhone can’t do, and doesn’t seem that Apple wants to help anyone actually make my phone more usable. Without the jailbreak I wonder how many they would have actually sold. Why isn’t this exciting. Maybe the Apple engineers can learn something here and steal this like everything else.
I would bet that IF and when Apple wants to play nice and works with Adobe to get flash working Techcrunch will have a headline:
“Flash comes to iPhone!!!!!1!1one”.
Halo is a great game and even better on Xbox Live. What is with the “whoopee” comment? I know XBOX360 doesn’t compare to the Apple…. umm… the Apple… I forget the name of the Apple gaming platform for now…
It is about time that MSFT came out with a home networking application. Bonjour did not work well for me when I tried it a couple of years ago.
Two things to note here though:
1. When you want to do home networking, you go to your “PC”, not your Apple (I know mac fanbois who use PCs to do real filesharing and storage servers).
2. Why is this Bonjour crap app always bundled with the even buggier and resource hogging iTunes on WIndows.
The bias in Schonfeld’s article is really annoying and unprofessional. I am no MS-fanboy but how about you judge the presentation AFTER it is given?
One reason MSFT can’t always be secretive is that businesses RELY on their products and need to know what is coming down the pipeline so they can prepare accordingly to upgrade and keep with current technology. Sorry MSFT can’t just spring Windows 2010 Server on a Fortune 500 company, leave alone a small business, with black curtains. Apple isn’t all that innovative… they just REALLY know how to make good looking and solid products. This is why I own Apple products and stock.
You are really comparing apples and oranges (pun intended).
Microsoft is always boring, its all about Apple
You can almost picture Eric gleefully thumping that out on his oh-so-unique ‘revolutionary’ unibody toybook or a white iKeyboard.
Although, I’m noticing a certain backlash against the Fanboism on all the blogs including Engadget and Gizmodo.
The next decade is gonna be different for our bi-coastal iBloggers judging by the fact that the Vista=Sucks meme will soon be history and their emaciating leader thinning away has gotten them a little worried.
Time to crank up the Win7=Vista=Sucketh F.U.D campaign and recycle the Brown Zune Lolz and BSOD jokes.
Microsoft will crush Google by 2015.
Google is a good company and so it will take a few years longer then usual, but Google has already made many organizational mistakes.
The top mistake is focus on “education” vs. “talent” - Warton MBAs and such. We saw what Warton MBAs have done on Wall Street.
Who needs non-biased journalistic integrity anyway? Oh, that’s right, mike and his slingers can pontificate about anything that comes into their head. It’s mike’s soapbox.
which leaves even less to say when Ballmer is main keynote at mobile world congress three weeks later
Who needs non-biased journalistic integrity? If these clowns ever want to be taken seriously by the companies they cover (like they whine about wanting) then they sure as hell better learn about it.
I read non-stop about bloggers wanting acceptance in the mainstream, to be accepted as a viable form of information for the masses. But until they stop their ridiculous pro-apple, anti-MS bias, they will never be seen as anything other than shills for the companies they bow down to.
Like to know what Microsoft is doing with Powerset? Like to know about Qik and what Microsoft is doing with them.
2009, I think Microsoft will acquire Facebook and possibly Amazon, they need to transition to established Services and don’t have the talent to do it from scratch and have the money to buy Services. Follow the IBM formula of success.
Sure are a lot of fanboys here. More MS than Apple, but still, it’s like a fanboy war. This time around, I think the MS fanboys made the more pitiful showing.
I really liked TC a couple years back. This article and the ensuing comments remind me why I contain my visits to once a week now. Feh.
It’s not fanboyism to call out a blog for blatant homerism and shilling for a company, any company.
If you arent doing briefings under embargo, then how do you know this? I highly doubt a reporter who *is* doing pre-briefings under the non-disclosure agreement is freely sharing the contents of their meeting with TC (only to get trumped).
Show me a keynote that is not a snoozer and I’ll show you a fan boy.
you are depressing / boring
lol so much hate! cant we all just be excited at a new year with some cool technologies coming out from various companies?
Its like the more aggressive the companies get, the more aggressive the fans are….
I am hoping for a demo on how to do the towel trick to induce a RROD on your XBox so you can get a free replacement. That would be impressive.
Otherwise, what are you guys expecting of a company hawking word processing and spreadsheet software.
Microsoft’s OS market share shrunk more in the last quarter than ever before, while apple’s OS market share grew up to nearly 10%, more than ever before.
I’d rather Windows keep the majority share, as I’m a firm believer that popularity generally equals shit (artists will agree with me on that, bureaucratic lemmings will not), but it’s nice to see Apple, the original creative innovators, alive and well.