Gates’ keynote address features new Media Center technologies, MSN Services and smart watches for MSN Direct; Gates highlights growing role of software in consumer electronics. Here is the web siet for the newly announced Media Center Devices.
Gates Unveils Innovative New Products and Services at CES
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
No suprise there.
Anyone know if there’s any way to check out MS’ keynotes via video like Apple does? I enjoy watching Steve’s keynotes, but am primarily a Windows user.
http://direct.msn.com/about/service.aspx
Hmmm… They should think that over again.
Some years later they’re going to call ‘innovative’ techniques where they collect data from the user, what films he watches, or tv programs, or music he listens to, sites he visits, interests of other people he talks to, form a database of that, sort of what Google is now, only strictly for people and begin feeding chickens their vitamins. It’ll soon be considered norm. Unless the world is willing to give up money altogether of course, which is not going to happen, since everyone would do the same in Gates’ place…
Why is it whenever Microsoft gets mentioned the word innovation or innovative is in the same sentence?
Watches with MSN Direct provide you timely, glanceable information conveniently available at the flick of the wrist. Receive accurate time and stay connected to the information that matters most to you including news, weather, sports, stocks, personal messages, appointment reminders, and more.
Thanks Bill, but my mobile has all these features, and has for the last 5 years. How innovative.
Why is it whenever Microsoft gets mentioned the word innovation or innovative is in the same sentence?
Because M$ makes many of the innovations AVAILABLE to ordinary people.
A Japanese scalable font used to cost thousands of dollars and now the equivalent comes with in the windows CD and routingly copied by M$ bashers to their linux partitions.
OS “News” — a Microsoft press release? Sheesh. Could you have not found a better link about his “keynote address?”
Ussually they put them up on their site. I contacted Microsoft to find out when they will put up the video,as soon as I get a reply I will post the Link here.
Doesn’t anyone else find that computers over the past 2 years have become increasingly boring? All this money struggle with SCO, neverending MS Innovations (TM), Linux trying and trying to be a ‘good desktop’… Sigh. So where has all the innovation gone in the computer industry? I remember even OSNews mentioned this back in the day…
Apple stole has it all. And they’re not giving it up.
i couldn’t have messed that post up anymore if i tried.
A friend of mine often claims that computer innovation ended somewhere in the mid-eighties, since back then he could already use a friend of a friend to print our school paper on a laser printer (one copy, to be diluted on a stencil machine).
For the past ten years, my only counter-argument was, “Doom”. (Yes, there was an internet back then.)
Now finally there’s a second one: using a notebook to watch movies in bed on a Sunday morning.
This integration of “traditional” media carriers (radio, TV, VCR) with computer technology is still rapidly progressing. Although you don’t need some new Microsoft thingy for that, just a brand new computer with either Windows 2K or Linux (DRM-free) and an as yet non-existant 60″ widescreen TFT monitor will do.
Alternatively, if you want innovation, try this:
64 bit computing.
That’s why pretty much everyone uses the word Innovation. Everyone wants to seem to be doing something wonderful and new, even when they’re screwing the customers. Microsoft is just most visible.
“Watches with MSN Direct provide you timely, glanceable information conveniently available at the flick of the wrist. Receive accurate time and stay connected to the information that matters most to you including news, weather, sports, stocks, personal messages, appointment reminders, and more.
Thanks Bill, but my mobile has all these features, and has for the last 5 years. How innovative.”
Actually, these watches have been out for a while now as well. Check out http://www.beepwear.com and the beepwear line. Nothing but pagers in watches with this same functionality. This is not a MS innovation, since you no longer need a mobile to access it either.
very,very nice changes to MSN.COM…both content and look!
hamering of that word really backfired as a strategy
it make Gates look like the barman in Boondock Saint, Turette syndrome all the way!
Other than that it make me want to go away even more of M$ product (kinda hard as i don’t ever use them anymore). Linux also in some way. Monolithic app concept make me puke more and more.
First of all I must say it’s impressive how MS just keeps growing and groooowing and grooooooowing. For years evangelists have said that MS is desperate and about to die. Somehow I hoped they were right, but seeing how they allways have this extremely well thought strategy how can someone beat them?
First MSN, they collect all users, they push stuff into homes (underpriced XBox etc). Now they squeeze all distribution channels together and tell content providers, hey, why not broadcast through us, you’ll reach millions. How can any Cable provider etc compete with that? Buh bye.
The only one I expect to be able to compete with any substance to all this is a company like Sony in an unholy alliance with Apple and AOL.
On a lil’ sidenote. All the “catching up” other OSs has made, I guess Linux+BSD+BeOS+whatever just dropped back 3 years again and will have to start the “almost ready” thing all over again, and that my friends is certainly boring rant.
On a side note: Regarding the “innovation” stuff that has been pushing media more and more lately, I guess before it was usability and before that stability (linux hype) that was hammered.
How about finding that new miracelous word? I think next word should be why me personally love BeOS… it is “enjoyable”… That’s the world I’ll start looking for.
Companies don’t die overnight (ala Enron). They usually just slowly become irrelevant.
Microsoft doesn’t always have a good strategy but right now they are in a much better position to recover from their mistakes (just look at the way .NET started).
And your rosy future for Microsoft has some problems. First, many companies are wary of partnering with Microsoft. Microsoft tries to lever itself into a position where it grabs the lion’s share of the profits. Just look at what they have done to the computer hardware industry. There will be plenty that will simply refuse to play that game from the start.
Microsoft will have some success. Their size almost guarantees it. But they won’t be the gorilla forever.
And your rosy future for Microsoft has some problems. First, many companies are wary of partnering with Microsoft. Microsoft tries to lever itself into a position where it grabs the lion’s share of the profits. Just look at what they have done to the computer hardware industry. There will be plenty that will simply refuse to play that game from the start.
Somehow you know I wish you were right. This is exactly what has happened in the Mobile industry. Nokia simply says “NO!!!” and aren’t we lucky for that. Unfortunately MS quickly squeezed in to PDA market with CE. Luckily Palm is alive and hopefully doing some astonishing things with 6.0. Smaller mobile providers are going for CE like Qtek. If one big jumps on and say “hey we provide aaaall the content from MSN but you can’t” the others are bound to jump on
They entered the home market with XBox and voila, Sega is gone. Sony remains as a true contender… I’m confident Gamecube will vanish. When XBox can provide media content that Sony can’t… I’m getting more convinced SOny will get squeezed out from it.
These are resource intense business all of the above where there is MUCH to loose. There is a HUGE number of content providers… even though in the US it’s almost monopoly in news reporting and AOL owns the other half. AOL might not wanna say NO, they have experience from times with Netscape.
Overall europewise, with the amount of content providers it’s enough that a couple say yes to force the rest into also jumping the MS train.
None of the above is something I favour our hope, I just have a pessimistic day where I tend to see things realistic.
I should rephrase my previous comment though. I think that if Sony+Apple+AOL+SUN would join together they might be able to push something big… but how likely is it?
very,very nice changes to MSN.COM…both content and look!
What changes? It’s still the same old cram a bunch of text in a small space but waste half my screen with a blue background kinda site it always has been. </troll>
On MS’s front page for this media player:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/products/portablemediacenter…
They’ve got this tag line going to thier FAQ:
You Have Questions… We’ve Got Answers
So, when do you think Radio Shack is going to sue? For those of you who don’t know, their tag line is “You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers”. Although, the last time I went into a Radio Shack, it was more like “You’ve got questions. We’ve got blank stares.”
Why is it whenever Microsoft gets mentioned the word innovation or innovative is in the same sentence?
<P>
Because most computer people are stupid.
<P>
Microsoft DOES NOT INNOVATE, never has, never will, and that is a fact – BUT – MS marketing throws that term around all the time to try to make you think otherwise, why? I guess because it is an MS weakness, and they know it, so they spin huge PR to convince the stupid the exact opposite, and, as you see – it works.
Somehow you know I wish you were right. This is exactly what has happened in the Mobile industry. Nokia simply says “NO!!!” and aren’t we lucky for that.
Unfortunately, Nokia’s making plenty of mistakes of their own right now, especially with the rotary-style dial-pads and the N-Gage (as well as other phones in that series). Meanwhile we’re starting to see more and more MS-based “Smartphones” in the market.
Unfortunately MS quickly squeezed in to PDA market with CE. Luckily Palm is alive and hopefully doing some astonishing things with 6.0. Smaller mobile providers are going for CE like Qtek. If one big jumps on and say “hey we provide aaaall the content from MSN but you can’t” the others are bound to jump on
I really don’t see a lot of the mass market that is starting to look at PDAs looking for either Palm or PocketPC. Most are simply looking at features, specs (even if they can’t determine where the specs make a difference), and price. Palm and Sony are doing really well in the low-end market, and Sony has some interesting offerings in the high-end market, but HP’s PocketPC offerings are also doing extremely well in the mid-to-high-end markets. If anything, it’s the closest race in the market since it’s introduction, but then with most of the market being in the low-end where the mass-market can actually afford them, Palm and Sony are clearly leading for now.
They entered the home market with XBox and voila, Sega is gone. Sony remains as a true contender… I’m confident Gamecube will vanish. When XBox can provide media content that Sony can’t… I’m getting more convinced SOny will get squeezed out from it.
The XBox is barely competing with the GameCube worldwide, with nearly equal sales (~15 million), putting both far behind Sony in the home market. Sega, on the other hand, was on their way out of the hardware space before an XBox was on the shelves (with support for the DreamCast dropped around the same time the first XBox shipped). Sony’s future in this space is probably going to be determined by the next generation of consoles as well as the success of the PSX (PS2 + TiVo + DVD-R), which is said to have sold out in Japan at this point. Nintendo, at the moment, is still in a solid position with the GBA line, but they need to do well with the next console to keep developers on their home boxes. That being said, Nintendo is pulling in more profit on hardware than either MS or Sony.
None of the above is something I favour our hope, I just have a pessimistic day where I tend to see things realistic.
I should rephrase my previous comment though. I think that if Sony+Apple+AOL+SUN would join together they might be able to push something big… but how likely is it?
That’s an interesting choice of names, as Apple and Sun are completely different types of companies from Sony and AOL. Besides that, Sony has many of it’s own interests at hand that aren’t quite compatible with Time Warner (AOL), and if the two did join together they may find themselves in some hot water over antitrust issues (2 of the major MPAA/RIAA members joining together, even to fight MS?). As it is, Sony’s leveraging whatever it can get out of it’s game console to get the rest of their business interests into your home (ie movies, music, and home electronics), and Time Warner’s leveraging their content and cable business to try to make AOL/Netscape a profitable partner in their business. Apple and Sun are more about high profit margins in the hardware space, which isn’t exactly what it’s going to take to compete against Microsoft, who’s already shown a willingness to lose money on the hardware just to get it into people’s homes.
A friend of mine often claims that computer innovation ended somewhere in the mid-eighties
I mostly agree with that, wiht the exception of the Web for the most part innovations since the late 80’s have been fairly small things. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen any major innovations.
MS Media Centre is hardly innovative, they were showing it at CES last year.
The portable versions are just the same thing but smaller, Archos were showing them at CES last year …not MS.
A friend of mine often claims that computer innovation ended somewhere in the mid-eighties
Again, computer people are stupid.
One simple question: what happened after the mid-eighties? anyone? Microsoft started comming into dominance, and then, the end of innovation – ya think?
A friend of mine often claims that computer innovation ended somewhere in the mid-eighties … my only counter-argument was, “Doom”.
Eh, I liked it better when it was called Wolfenstein 3D. Not that Wolf was a better game than Doom, but I was already tired of it by the time Doom came along. But Doom caught on and thus the FPS genre was born .. and lemmings by the millions have been paying for the same damn game year-after-year ever since.
Like: ComputerWorlds Headline : Gates’ keynote speech at CES show short on new technology
http://www.computerworld.com/news/2004/story/0,11280,88866,00.html
Note that computerworld didn’t use the word “innovative”.
The XBox is barely competing with the GameCube worldwide, with nearly equal sales (~15 million), putting both far behind Sony in the home market.
XBox was the first try on this market. At least according to me this was very different from previous products they’ve attempted to work with. I mean keyboards+mice are quite static products, consoles a lot more difficult. I think they learned quite a lot on the first run and next time they’ll have a much wider impact which definitely might hit Gamecube harder… just a speculation.
That’s an interesting choice of names, as Apple and Sun are completely different types of companies from Sony and AOL. Besides that, Sony has many of it’s own interests at hand that aren’t quite compatible with Time Warner (AOL), and if the two did join together they may find themselves in some hot water over antitrust issues (2 of the major MPAA/RIAA members joining together, even to fight MS?). As it is, Sony’s leveraging whatever it can get out of it’s game console to get the rest of their business interests into your home (ie movies, music, and home electronics), and Time Warner’s leveraging their content and cable business to try to make AOL/Netscape a profitable partner in their business. Apple and Sun are more about high profit margins in the hardware space, which isn’t exactly what it’s going to take to compete against Microsoft, who’s already shown a willingness to lose money on the hardware just to get it into people’s homes.
I definitely agree this is very different players doing completely different things. I think we can agree on AOL+Sony playing in the same league here… but Apple is king on doing “intelligent” apps which would be brilliant to have in a PS3, wouldn’t you think?
Suns part here would be to by it’s unquestionnable superiority in serverthinking provide solutions serverwise which might work together with PS3 and Apple software?
Let’s just call this stuff “The Suony Apple AOLliance” ;P
Interesting reflections anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how things work out.
Biggest race 2k4 on the market (not R&D) is definitely mobile phones though with 3G (Note: A market which Palm has also entered with brilliant software. Even Linux is there (Motorola)).
They entered the home market with XBox and voila, Sega is gone. Sony remains as a true contender…
Two mistakes, here. First: Sega’s console woes began waay before the XBox arrived. It’s no secret to anyone who follows the industry (which happens to be the industry I work in) that it was Sony’s PS2 that killed the Dreamcast.
Second: Sony isn’t the contender, it’s the leader. By a very, very large margin. Sony has, what, 6 times more PS2s out there than there are Xboxes? And with the new PSX, which has gone off to an impressive start, and the PS3 + PSP coming out soon, it is an uphill battles for the contenders, Microsoft and Nintendo.
I’m confident Gamecube will vanish.
Actually, since the price has dropped, GameCube sales have been up. I think they made a mistake trying to target the older audiences (which naturally gravitate towards the PS2 or Xbox).
When XBox can provide media content that Sony can’t… I’m getting more convinced SOny will get squeezed out from it.
Sony owns music companies and Columbia pictures, along with smaller media companies. It has a much more solid foothold in media content than Microsoft does.
Not to mention that MS loses money on each Xbox sold, while Sony actually makes a profit. In fact, apart from the OS and Office markets, MS loses money in every other divisions. With market penetration being at its maximum in those profitable market (and consenquently being subject to either stagnation or decline), I really can’t see how you can be that optimistic about MS’s future.
It’s not going to go away, for sure, but it’s not about to export its dominion to other markets…
Supposedly, the PS3 will run on Linux Embedded. That could make Linux present in a lot of homes…although it would be “hidden” inside the console.
Supposedly, the PS3 will run on Linux Embedded. That could make Linux present in a lot of homes…although it would be “hidden” inside the console.
Wow, then MS would really win the battle. Linux is hardly made for games nor media content.
Let’s just hope Sony stays away from Linux and builds something useful suited towards the consolemarket
Some years later they’re going to call ‘innovative’ techniques where they collect data from the user, what films he watches, or tv programs, or music he listens to, sites he visits, interests of other people he talks to, form a database of that, sort of what Google is now, only strictly for people and begin feeding chickens their vitamins. It’ll soon be considered norm. Unless the world is willing to give up money altogether of course, which is not going to happen, since everyone would do the same in Gates’ place…
Don’t like it, don’t buy it. Nobody is forcing you to use this stuff.
I should rephrase my previous comment though. I think that if Sony+Apple+AOL+SUN would join together they might be able to push something big… but how likely is it?
0% probability.
Apple stole has it all. And they’re not giving it up
Who cares. They’re catering to a miniscule market of goateed art house freaks.
Microsoft DOES NOT INNOVATE, never has, never will, and that is a fact – BUT – MS marketing throws that term around all the time to try to make you think otherwise, why? I guess because it is an MS weakness, and they know it, so they spin huge PR to convince the stupid the exact opposite, and, as you see – it works.
You guys never seem to get this: Innovation is about putting useful products in the hands of people, not whining about somebody copying your ideas.
Thanks Bill, but my mobile has all these features, and has for the last 5 years. How innovative.
That’s nice, ac. But the point of putting it in a watch is the small form factor and not having to carry around one of those lousy phones. Get it?
The XBox is barely competing with the GameCube worldwide, with nearly equal sales (~15 million), putting both far behind Sony in the home market. Sega, on the other hand, was on their way out of the hardware space before an XBox was on the shelves (with support for the DreamCast dropped around the same time the first XBox shipped). Sony’s future in this space is probably going to be determined by the next generation of consoles as well as the success of the PSX (PS2 + TiVo + DVD-R), which is said to have sold out in Japan at this point. Nintendo, at the moment, is still in a solid position with the GBA line, but they need to do well with the next console to keep developers on their home boxes. That being said, Nintendo is pulling in more profit on hardware than either MS or Sony.
Nintendo will not exist in 5 years. This is going to be a two-horse race between Sony and MS. Watch.
Anonymous (IP: 12.242.149.—)
Nintendo will not exist in 5 years.
Nintendo’s portfolio is too strong for them not to be in the race: Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pokémon, Metroid…
Just because they didn’t get the expected results with the Gamecube doesn’t mean they’re finished. Take it from someone who works in the game industry: Nintendo isn’t over yet.
Anonymous (IP: —.cm-upc.chello.se)
n MS would really win the battle. Linux is hardly made for games nor media content.
I know from your numerous postings that you’re an anti-Linux troll, but would you care to elaborate on how Embedded Linux would actually hurt the PS3? Not the usual FUD, but actual facts? What embedded OS does the PS2 currently use, and how is it more geared towards media or games?
The fact is that you don’t know what you’re talking about. There are PVRs and other media solutions built around Linux, and they are just as capable (and sometimes more) than solutions built on other OSes. Also, Linux makes a great gaming platform despite the small number of games (which is due to market penetration, not capabilities). Neverwinter Nights runs as well on Linux as it does on Windows, so does Unreal Tournament, so will Doom 3.
Game engines are always proprietary (i.e. as it “custom-made”) anyway. The OS underneath matters not – except perhaps in the PS3’s case, since they want to use SMP and “grid” technology, and area where Linux shines.
Please get a clue.
Nit picker Eugenia, the word site should be spelt S I T E
not S I E T.
>>>People need to pay $59.00 per year for watch services?
You pay about the same amount to get the same kind of information from your cell phone provider.
>>>Some years later they’re going to call ‘innovative’ techniques where they collect data from the user, what films he watches, or tv programs, or music he listens to… Unless the world is willing to give up money altogether of course, which is not going to happen, since everyone would do the same in Gates’ place…
Tivo’s are already collecting those data. Microsoft’s entrance into those businesses is actually a good thing — because Microsoft has a better privacy than most of the competitors (from Tivo to RealPlayer). So the other companies have to make their privacy policy better. OTOH, if Tivo and RealPlayer have to give up their user data collection — then they will lose money and eventually going belly-up.
>>>Nintendo will not exist in 5 years. This is going to be a two-horse race between Sony and MS. Watch.
Sony will not exist in 5 years —- Dell, the world’s low cost leader, will kill Sony’s TV business.
Sony will not exist in 5 years —- Dell, the world’s low cost leader, will kill Sony’s TV business.
I doubt it. In any case, Sony sells more than TV. They’re market leader in console games, which is a huge (and very profitable) market.
Meanwhile, where can I buy a TV from Dell?
>>>Meanwhile, where can I buy a TV from Dell?
Go to Dell’s website.
Again and again so many people bashing Microsoft so blatanly, that it is almost equal to admitting they are an idiot. Probably these morons talk this way cause it seems everybody says the same thing, so there is no danger of being alone. But when they critize Microsoft, they always hit the wrong nails.
Microsoft innovates, and that’s the main reason why they are the leader. Web Forms in asp.net is a good example. Visual Studio .net, nothing can compare with it on the open source. Oh the fact that Microsoft is better doesn’t mean that you can’t say anything against them, but say it in a meaningful way. You are a pro linux, good for you, but don’t be a moron linux user. If you can’t deal with the fact that linux sucks for the desktop, then you are probably an insecure moron linux user. I am saying all these as a linux user myself, but I hate to say that I am a linux user programmer just to be able to make these obvious points. Even if you are a windows user, you can understand that linux sucks as a desktop. First of all there is no one linux, there are hundrends of them, each update, upgrade breaks the old stuff, etc… If you hate MS so much, in a religous way and you want it to die, then dedicate your time to the development of the software. Cause while you are wasting your time here bashing Microsoft, Microsoft engineers are making progress. That’s how things work.
Go to Dell’s website.
Can I get them at Future Shop? If I can’t, then I don’t care.
If you can’t deal with the fact that linux sucks for the desktop, then you are probably an insecure moron linux user.
Or, it could just be that Linux doesn’t suck on the desktop.
First of all there is no one linux, there are hundrends of them, each update, upgrade breaks the old stuff, etc…
Actually, that’s not true. Upgrading components will usually not break stuff, with the notable exception of changing major version numbers for glibc. But the overwhelming majority of packages can be updated without breaking anything (as long as they’re not “test” packages – but then, when you run beta software you should expect things not working as they should, whether it’s on Windows, Mac or Linux…)
Also, saying that there are “hundreds” of Linux is misleading. Again, the great majority of these are binary-compatible, and the major distros are aiming to align on a common standard base.
Personally, I have nothing against Windows, it’s a fine OS. I prefer Linux, but that’s a matter of personal choice. I do have something against Microsoft though, mainly their despicable corporate behavior. I’m also wary of putting that much power within a single entity.
You seem to want a world where there is a single choice (or rather, the absence of choice), and where a single corporation holds sway over an entire industry, one that is becoming more central to our society every day. I see this as an extremely dangerous situation, and fortunately most people (including the majority of Microsoft users) also feel the same way. I can’t tell you how many people I know that use Windows not because they like it or like MS, but because they feel that they don’t have a choice.
Personally, I’m in favor of diversity and multilateralism. You may be in favor of a computer monoculture, that’s you choice.
However, I do take exception to your assertion that those who think that Linux doesn’t suck on the desktop are morons. That, in itself, is a pretty moronic statement, if you ask me.