CES: Live report on the Steve Ballmer Keynote
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer launched this year"s Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show tonight in what will become the company"s last of a long, unbroken string of keynotes kicking off the show.
Microsoft said it would give up its monopoly on giving the event"s keynote address this year, explaining that the timing of CES doesn"t fit its product release schedule. That was one of the same reasons Apple gave for pulling out of Macworld Expo three years ago, the same year that Ballmer took over the task of giving the CES keynote in place of Bill Gates.
Over the previous decade however, Microsoft rarely presented any big surprises related to new products in its CES keynote that were ready for imminent release.
In 2009 Ballmer outlined Microsoft"s plans for Windows 7 and multitouch initiatives. The following year he unveiled Slate PC alongside HP, very unfortunately timed just days before the release of Apple"s iPad. Last year Ballmer simply gave a broad status update on the company"s various PC, tablet and smartphone software platforms.
As the trade show itself grows obsolete from the vast reach and immediacy of the Internet, Ballmer"s 2012 CES keynote offers a final taste of the passing era of big keynotes, a format sensationalized by Steve Jobs through his last decade of increasingly exciting presentations dripping with spectacular reveals, dramatic pauses and dangling "one more thing" to the delight of the transfixed nerds in the audience.
AppleInsider is attending this year"s CES event, and as as it turned out, managed to snag a third row seat among VIP attendees in the front and center of Ballmer"s presentation. Here is, as resources and network bandwidth allow, a live report on how it went. You can also watch for Twitter updates at @DanielEran
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