Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives the keynote address to the CES crowd tonight in Las Vegas. Dieter and Phil are on the ground, liveblogging the speech. Join us after the break!
If there's anything we love about trade shows like CES, it's when big surprises are dropped on us. And if The New York Times Bits blog is correct, well, we'll just let them tell it.
On Wednesday, Mr. (Steve) Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, will unveil a novel take on a slate-type computer during his evening keynote at the Consumer Electronics trade show in Las Vegas, according to people familiar with Microsoft’s plans. The slate will be made by Hewlett-Packard and possibly available by mid-year, these people said.
Might this be the fabled Courier tablet, which Ballmer just a few months ago said he'd never seen (all be winking with his answer)? Only one way to find out. We'll be there live.
Microsoft had its annual shareholders meeting on Thursday. And reading the press release, it sounds like the biggest snoozer ever.
But apparently things were a little different if you actually were there. A shareholder questioned Microsoft CEO (grilled may be a better term) Steve Ballmer on why Microsoft seems so much less cool than, say, Apple, especially when it comes to younger users. (Let's see: Exhibits A, B and C come to mind.) And the quote of the day:
"I'm just wondering why your marketing group can't do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you've got a real bad image out there."
No kidding.
Ballmer's probably as tired of that question as we are. Of course, he's in a slightly better position to do something about it. And simply deflecting talk about Windows phones — which absolutely don't get a fair shake — to Windows 7 and Office 2010 is a cop-out. The people want their phones, sir. They want their apps. They want their music. They want their video. And they want it now.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. Microsoft has all the pieces. It's time to put them together and market them smartly. And it's far past time to deliver.
When HTC CEO Peter Chou said last month that that the HD2 (aka the Leo) would be coming to the U.S. in early 2010, we weren't entirely sure whether to believe it. This is, after all, the guy who outted that the Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2 would receive updates to Windows Mobile 6.5 before Microsoft had even announced Windows Mobile 6.5. (Not that there ever was much doubt, but still ...)
Anyhoo, HTC today has made things officially official, if not still vague for us in the U.S. The HD2 is available now in Europe and Asia, and it "will be available with a major carrier in the US in early 2010." As for that major carrier? We're still leaning toward T-Mobile, or maybe Sprint. Full presser after the break.
Mobile Tech World via Engadget Mobile
By now it's hardly a secret that we're expecting some sort of Zune integration in Windows Mobile 7. Microsoft has been fairly coy about it, though nobody's really been buying that.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (that's him on the right) dropped word today during The Engadget Show that Zune will be coming to the next version of Windows Mobile.
For Zune he says Windows Mobile is going to get integration in the next release -- which is a comforting thought, if perhaps a bit late.
So there you have it. Good riddance, Windows Media Player.
It's easy for us to forget that smartphones are, first and foremost, a business. We (and you) certainly love our devices. Good thing we have Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer around to remind us it's really all about the numbers.
Gizmodo recently had a sit-down with the boss and grilled him on Windows Mobile 6.5. We mostly got the standard, partner-pleasing lines:
"I think there's a lot of great Windows phones out there now, coming to market now, based upon Windows Mobile 6.5. ..."
On 6.5 not really being up to snuff:
"I think Windows Mobile 6.5 enables a new generation of exciting Windows phones. That's what I believe. Reviews aside, that's what I believe."
On the future:
"Will there be a next release? Sure. And a release after that? Sure. And a release after that? Sure. There will always be new releases."
And, those blessed numbers:
"It's kind of a horse race right now. It's not like any one of the phones, at least on a unit volume, ah, perspective, has distinguished itself from the others -- except Nokia."
Not that we expected much more from the boss, but, darn it, it'd be great to put the Kool-Aid down every now and then. Check out the video over at Giz, and be on the lookout for the full interview later.
You can calling it closing the barn door after the horse is out, you can call it too little too late. But our glass is half-full, and we're taking Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's recent admission that Windows Mobile 7 was botched and late as a positive step.
Ballmer (seen above in all his fuzziness) spoke at a Venture Capital Summit for about 200 in California and let loose a couple of nuggets, which of course immediately made it onto Twitter. [via wmpoweruser, image via @manukumar]
Said @pjozefak: "Ballmer says they screwed up with Windows Mobile. Wishes they had already launched WM7. They completely revamped the team."
And said @beninato: "Ballmer re: poor execution in Windows Mobile" 'We've pumped in some new talent and said "This will not happen again" ' "
We can only imagine the weeks and months of stewing that led up to that, but to us it's a good thing. Because the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing it in the first place.
In the same vein, Ballmer sat down for a chat with TechCrunch's Mike Arrington for a brief state of the union. Any Windows Mobile talk was brief and not overly specific, but Ballmer did drop the following:
So I think you can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that’s gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that’s sold by somebody who doesn’t make their own phone. And, we don’t want to cross the chasm in the short run and lose the war in the long run and that’s why we think the software play is the right play for us for high volume, even though some of the guys in the market today with vertically oriented solutions may do just fine.
Watch Arrington's interview after the break.
Sign us up. The first keynote speakers for the 2010 CES show in Las Vegas have been announced, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is on top of the list, scheduled for Jan. 6.
He'll presumably trumpet Windows 7, which will have officially been out a little more than two months at that point. But there's also a shot that we'll get some Windows Mobile 7 news, with many of the rumors pointing toward an announcement on that front late this year or early 2010.
Now all we have to do is pay off some markers, get some injunctions lifted and learn to tell the difference between ... erm, never mind. Let's just say the feet should have given it away.
CEO Dan Hesse, who for the past several months also has become the public face of Sprint, reportedly is getting out of the spotlight.
Oh, he'll still be running the company, we just won't be seeing him in TV commercials any more.
Mr. Hesse says the ads that feature him have been effective, especially in terms of brand recall. People remember the black-and-white spots with him walking through downtown Manhattan while classical music plays and he talks about the “revolution” of flat-rate data pricing.
But he says there’s only so much of him viewers can take. “I’ll wear out — they’ll get tired of seeing that guy,” he says.
But before you go back to the boardroom, Dan, let's make sure that Treo Pro hits the shelves on Sunday, shall we?
Ed Zander wearing some RAZRWIRE glasses
<
p>Ed Zander will be stepping down as CEO of MOTROLA. He'll be replaced next month by GRG BRWN, who is currently the COO and PRSDNT. ZNDR will stay on the BORD for a few MNTHS after his RZIGNASHN. The money quote:
"Next year marks my 40th year in the technology industry. This is the right time for me to move on to the next phase in my life and spend more time with my money."
At this point I'd like to raise the possibility that I may have misquoted him. I've purchased 2 RAZRs -- they were great phones with cruddy software. If the software would have been great on those RAZRs, I'd have not jumped ship to their competitor's featurephones and I would have strongly considered a MOTO smartphone. Because of that bad software experience (and everything I read about their Q), I just blindly assume that their software sucks now. I hear some positive things about the new Q that has 3 letters -- QRS? QZX? Not enough good things to want one or to listen attentively when someone adamantly insists that they've gotten better.
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