CES 2009 Pre-Keynote Speech

Updated with pictures at 12:21am.. We’re inside waiting for the start of the pre-keynote speech to be delivered by Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. I should have guessed it. 3G service is super spotty in here. Blah.. hopefully I’ll be able to shoot off this posting.

Most of the press is here in the house now. Funny – Boing Boing came by and interviewed Yvonne while she was wolfing down a slice of pizza. Good one. They asked here what she thought Ballmer would unveil.. and she answered.. “Uhh… Windows 7”. Hah.. funny stuff.

6:20pm – music starts rolling with vendor names coming across the screens

6:24 pm – beat boxers come on stage and well.. do their thing.. I’m thinking.. what the heck?? Pretty cool though. In the background you see kids walking by on the screen – clearly admiring these beat boxers. Heh.. And what’s up with the pictures of Windows Mobile and Windows applications floating on by? Oh wait. it’s a pre-keynote being delivered by Steveeee…

6:30pm. Things quiet up.. and here’s Steve..err no.. Gary Shapiro of CES wishing all of us a very Happy New Year. There are over 2700 industry leaders here this year.

He’s now introducing Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. Did you know he scored a perfect 800 in the SAT MATH section? Yup. Oh yes, this is Ballmer’s first ever pre-keynote at CES. And now.. a small video clip.

Steve comes on stage to a small applause. Ballmer talks up Bill Gates charity work which gets a nice applause from the audience.

Funny moment – Steve talks about some of the funny messages he’s received from folks today including a message from Gates about how not to go to the other conference in Vegas

Ballmer talks about the challenging times ahead for all of us. Talks about how all of us might have reduced expectations from everything.

6:39pm Ballmer believes companies that continue to achieve innovation during tough economic times will position themselves for better growth than companies that pull back during these times. It seems that “innovations” is going to be buzzword for the speech.

Steve is focusing on three main areas:

The first area is the convergence of the PC, Phone, and TV. Technology is converging between these three devices.

On the PC front – we need to make it more accessible to everyone.

On the phone front, there’s an immense growth in this market – especially in the smartphone front.

And on the TV front (and the oldest front) – expect to see more and more sophisticated and connected TVs.

Second area is natural user interfaces – changing the way we interact with devices such as computers and phones. User interfaces will evolve to be more intuitive and natural

The last area is called “Connected Experiences”. Right now everything is “disconnected” between various devices. The Internet Cloud has begun to help connect devices – this might well be the “last mile” for consumers in bridging information and devices no matter where you are.

The “lynch pin” for everything should be Windows. (No laughs here).

6:45pm

Windows has become the language that over a billion speak around the world.

Video clip of some cool PC hardware from different vendors running Windows.

Woo.. we get to see a glimpse of the new Lenovo dual display notebook. The second display is attached to the side of the main display.

Back to Steve..

“Many powerful and cool PCs at different price points”

Steve declares “I AM A PC” because he believes it provides the most value today.

Microsoft is transforming what Windows is – from a PC operating system to a connected platform between various devices and the cloud. A life without walls.

He’s happy with the progress of Windows 7. Windows 7 will make everyday tasks faster and easier. Faster boot times, longer battery life, new Windows Media Center experience, easy access to media across devices, enables cool new user interfaces.

Announces Windows 7 Beta available to TechNet and MSDN customers right now. Start downloading folks! Better yet – the beta will be made available worldwide on Friday.

Now to Windows Live:

Announcing worldwide availability of Windows Live Essentials.

Announcing partnership with Facebook to connect Windows Live with Facebook. Facebook updates can be published to Windows LIve.

Announcing partnership with Dell to prepackage Windows Live Essentials and Live Search on all of their consumer PCs.

Now to Windows Mobile:

The last year saw over 30 new Windows Mobile phones in the market. Over 20 million Windows Mobile phones sold last year.

New partnership with Verizon to offer Windows Live Search on all Verizon phones in the U.S. (not much of an applause here).

6:56pm.

Charlotte Jones comes on stage to show off Windows 7 beta and Windows Live.

Charlotte is basically showing off the same features that were shown at the Microsoft PDC back in October – things like Aero Peek, Jump Lists, HomeGroup etc.

New Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile coming this year. Flash built right in!

Now shifting to Windows Live. She talks up Internet Explorer 8. The newest release of Windows Live (home.live.com) brings social updates to you.

IE 8 has new accelerators that help make browsing easier. She demonstrates the integration of Windows Live Translation to help translate content on the fly in a given page.

Windows Live Homepage has a “What’s New Feed” that retrieves the latest updates from various social networking websites (facebook being the newest partner).

Showing off Windows Live Hotmail which will soon have a new “Quick Add” feature on the right hand side allowing you to add additional information to emails without having to go to a new web browser.

Now onto Windows Live Messenger. New emoticon feature that maps standard emoticons with video clips that you can record yourself with your webcam.

And now a “I’m a PC” video clip.

7:12pm

Tripod comes on stage to perform (who the heck are they??) Yvonne swears it reminds her of the Flight of the Conchords. Yeah.. it does..

I think.. we’re going to the Xbox 360 now… just a guess.

Yup.. it’s Xbox 360 time!

Robbie Bach comes on stage.

Robbie is here to talk about the three screens and connected entertainment.

Entertainment is at its best when you’re sharing the experience.

Overview of 2008:

- New version of Sync being launched by Ford (does anyone care?)

- Zune had a great year. Doubled the number of people on Zune Social to 2 million.

- Great year for Media Center. Over 10 million unique users of Windows Media Center. Average session on Media Center is about 90 minutes.

- 2.5 million people who are subscribers of Mediaroom services

- Expanding Mediaroom with Mediaroom Anytime. Go back to watch your favorite show from the past.

- Xbox 360 had the best year in 2008. Best year ever – best holiday season ever. 28 million consoles in over 30+ countries. Expect to see accelerated momentum on the Xbox 360.

- 17 million members on Xbox LIVE. 70 percent growth in 2008. 3 million members added in the last three months.

Now to 2009.

Starting with Halo. eh?

Average Halo player plays 150 hours of Halo on Xbox LIVE.

Two new releases this year – Halo Wars – available on Feb. 28th. Downloadable demo of Halo Wars on Feb. 5th. Halo 3 ODST will be coming this fall. This is a traditional Halo game with new characters, new scenarios etc. All coming in 2009.

Xbox LIVE

Downloads on LIVE are up 60 % since NXE introduced. Xbox LIVE has had 10 billion hours of gameplay and social interaction over the last five years.

Users on average have added 33% more friends since the launch of NXE.

This Spring will be the launch of “Primetime”. Scheduled programming coming to Xbox LIVE. Demonstrating 1 vs. 100 (we’ve seen this before at the PDC). Set up scheduled times to play and interact with friends.

Expanding into the video marketplace. 45 movie studios and tv partners on Xbox LIVE. Demonstrates Netflix Watch Instantly Queue.

7:30pm

Now demonstrating new app on Windows Mobile (available later this week). This app will allow you to control your Netflix Queue while on the go.

Community Games. Will be shipping a new game called Kodu this year which is a game creator. Again – we saw this at the PDC. Kodu allows kids to learn how to program and create games on the Xbox 360. Girl comes out on stage to demo Kodu and man.. she’s fast with the game creator. Applause all around.

Back to Steve Ballmer now.

7:40pm

Ballmer talks about Moore’s Law – and how it changed from more speed to more processors. Screens and displays will be everywhere. HD displays will be cheaper, lighter and more portable. PCs, phones, TVs will be a single platform. Applications will be written to adjust and take advantage of the device and platform it’s running on.

Communications will be transformed in the coming future.

Steve invites on stage Janet from Microsoft Research (I forgot her last name) to show off some cool things they’re doing over at Research. She demos a tablet PC like device connected to the cloud showing off student project work (something from Grey’s Anatomy?) stored on the device and on the cloud.