Steve Ballmer’s CES 2012 Keynote

I’m often accused of being a Microsoft fan boy and to a large extent, that’s true. I’ve worked with Windows and Office in the work arena for a very long time and am familiar with the products and most (not all) of what they’re capable of. With the exception of IE, Sharepoint and OneNote, I quite like the products Microsoft produce as they make sense and allow people to just crack on with what they need to do in a logical sense.

With Windows 7, I honestly think Microsoft answered their critics in the open source world at least by releasing an OS which can compete. Now all they have to do is give it away free like Linux and we’ll have the best OS ever!

Anyhow, I digress. If you haven’t already gone and dug this up, please see the video below. Its Steve Ballmer’s keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in January this year where he shows us little guys what Microsoft are planning to do in the 12-18 months or so. I particularly like the fact that he doesn’t brush the acquisition of Skype under that carpet, it does however remain to be seen what they do with the brand going forward.
I’m secretly hoping that they’ll announce a tie in with Polycom or Cisco/Tandberg to turn the Xbox (or PC) with Kinect into a domestic video conferencing solution families can use to stay in touch, with Skype as the backbone and gestures to control calls. Yeah, I’m dreaming but I’m hoping I’m right. What a great opportunity they have.

Enjoy the talk, its a bit obviously set up at times but the information is there and being demonstrated in an accessible way. The Metro interface is coming, we better get ready for it! 🙂