Bill Gates has never taken himself as seriously as he does his company. So
it was only fitting that it was with a humorous and star-studded video parody
that he kicked off his final pre-show keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES) Sunday night in Las Vegas.

Gates fictionally portrayed his last day of full-time work at CES in a video
that had everyone from presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
to The Daily Show host Jon Stewart turning him down for a job, and music mogul
Jay-Z and film actor Matthew McConaughey patiently enduring his painful attempts
at new extracurricular activities -- rapping and hitting the gym.

When the laughs and well-received applause from a crowd of several thousand
at The Venetian hotel and casino died down, Gates once again outlined his vision
for a world of service-connected devices that allow for human interactions through
speech and touch -- a vision he's been promoting for years from the CES stage.

"Getting the latest software, getting your data -- you'll just take that
for granted," Gates said. "When you take a photo it will show up in
a place you like it to show up. That will be very simple."

He added that eventually, devices also will know the context and location of
the people using them, so location-based information from a device will be automatic.

Gates' vision for a connected world of devices and services has always been
impressive. But as he makes his full-time exit from Microsoft, the company has
yet to bring it to the mainstream user.

Although some of the news in Gates' keynote seems to suggest Microsoft is poised
to change that, the company's strategy remains rooted in disparate product lines
that haven't quite come together. And the company is facing increased pressure
from competitors such as Apple and Google, which have turned ideas Microsoft
has bandied about for years -- such as touch-screen technology and Web-based
services -- into profits the software giant has not come close to achieving
with its own efforts.

Still, Microsoft introduced some new deals and services on stage Sunday that
show the company is on the right track. In particular, Microsoft has struck
some savvy deals with entertainment companies MGM and ABC to bring films and
popular TV shows, respectively, to Xbox Live. That service and community, aimed
at gamers using the Xbox console, has turned the Xbox into a viable television
platform, tying together Microsoft's gaming strategy with its aim to provide
premium entertainment. Along those lines, the company also announced a deal
Sunday with British Telecom to deliver its IPTV service Mediaroom through the
Xbox console.

Other offerings that tie together multiple services and devices on display
Sunday also showed that Gates' connected services vision is coming into focus.
A demo during the keynote showed how users can take photos from within a Windows
Live hosted service and post them seamlessly to a blog or e-mail them to friends.
Another showed how users can purchase movie tickets on a Windows Mobile device
using voice commands and then text-message those tickets to other mobile devices.

Microsoft also showed some progress on the Zune media player front, even though
many still view the device as a poor competitor to Apple's enormously popular
line of iPods. During the keynote Microsoft introduced Zune Social, an online
community where Zune users can share playlists, track what their friends are
listening to on their own devices and connect automatically to the Zune Marketplace
to purchase songs.

Toward the end of Gates' keynote, he and Microsoft President Robbie Bach demonstrated
a prototype device from Microsoft Research that seemed to represent the culmination
of the company's connected-device strategy. The device used visual recognition
to identify people and places in its line of "sight," and remind a
user of events related to them. For example, when Gates aimed the device at
Bach, the device identified him and reminded Gates that Bach owed him US$20.
However, information neither Gates nor Bach could provide was how long it would
take for such a device to be fully developed and released.

When all was said and done on Sunday, Gates ended his CES legacy not with a
bang but a whimper, allowing a special guest star to steal what would have been
his final CES thunder.

During what was poised to be a $20 contest between Gates and Bach on the popular
Guitar Hero game, Gates instead introduced a ringer to take his place -- former
Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. As the shaggy-haired guitarist played a loud
riff from the band's song "Welcome to the Jungle," Gates stood smiling
on the stage and let Bach say the final goodbye, assuring attendees that he,
at least, would be back again next year.

IDG News Service

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