Today’s was Steve Ballmer’s fiirst CES keynote, overall he did a pretty good job. Talking about continuing to invest in innovation even during a downturn in the market. Of course there was a slew of Microsoft announcements and demos of Microsoft products.
One unexpected surprise was our very own Australian-grown band Tripod playing 2 songs. I’ve heard a bit of Tripod before, they can however be very hit and miss as to wether they’re music is funny. Unfortunately I think they fell short today, really far short. Watching #CES on twitter, it was clear that most Americans were just confused by Tripod. For more information check out Tripod on Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripod_(band).
Featured heavily was Windows 7, Windows Live, Windows Mobile and Xbox, which are (with the exception of WinMobile) are amongst the strongest Microsoft brands. Most things demo’d we’re met with enthusiastic applause. Possibly the most interesting announcement of the keynote is the upcoming integration with Windows Live and Facebook, 2 services I use everyday.
There were a couple of bad points of the keynote, however they happened while Steve wasn’t on stage. Probably the most undercooked was the young girl giving a demo of an Xbox game. Not sure if she was just nervous or hadn’t practiced. This was clearly intended to on showing the development simplicity, instead it came off as just awkward and pointless. The game didn’t look engaging or fun and had no background or purpose.
Check out all the CES 09 Keynote vids @ Microsoft
