brainwagon

Engadget blogged with Live coverage of Bill Gates CES keynote, and I’m left with a couple of questions/remarks:

1. Is this really what a keynote is supposed to be? It seemed like little more than a presentation of a particular company’s product plans. That is normally not what I think a keynote is for: even at CES. (Okay, it looks like Intel did it too, but sheesh.)
2. Gates pulled out lots of gadgets, none of which (as far I know) you could actually go out and buy today, tomorrow, or even within a month. He lead with “I though I’d start off and show a scenario that we think will be real in the next four years”, with no indication how we are actually going to get there. That seems pathetic.
3. Then, the demo of Vista. Oooh. Quicktabs. Transparency. Parental controls on games. Oooh. Big deal.
4. Join venture with MTV. Wow. I’m asleep with excitement. Justin Timberlake makes an appearance. Wow. That’s really innovative: using a celebrity to sell a product. How ’bout using a product to sell a product?
5. You’ll see more Tablet PCs, apparently from Gateway. Reviewing their product lines, you might actually be able to buy one of these, but Gates’ message is diffused by generality. No clue as to why the average human might think a tablet was a good idea.
6. Discussion of Windows Mobile and Palm. Fine, whatever. Phones are phones. It’s a pretty low margine business, I’m not sure why its good that Microsoft is participating, but I have a Smartphone and a Windows Mobile PDA, so I guess I understand.
7. We’ll see more Media Center stuff, including portable devices. Doesn’t seem like they have anything actually new to see though.
8. “We’re all going to have fun using these systems.”

Someday. Really. You can’t buy them today. You can’t order them today. But they are coming, and you should be ready.

Next week, when Mac World is underway, compare and contrast this keynote with what Steve Jobs does.

Addendum: David Pogue writes in the New York Times a sentiment that I can empathize with:

But I think that what most people want from the next Windows isn’t more stuff added, but rather stuff to be taken away–like crashes, lockups, viruses, error messages and security holes.

Amen, David, amen.