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Bill Gates at CES: "Only connect."
by Actual News Geezer | January 8, 2007 at 06:15 am | 372 views | 1 comment | 0 recommendations
Years ago I was invited to a Microsoft executive retreat. Very swish. Frank Clegg, then a senior vice president, told a story about how Gates came into a meeting of senior engineers and executives and said he wanted a "Dick Tracy" watch. After much pen-scratching and acres of furrowed brows, the engineers said that any wearable device that could broadcast and receive videos would require billions and billions of dollars in satellites. "Don't give me excuses!", he apparently thundered. "Build it!" Millions were invested in Teledesic, a failure.
Of course, now we have many congeners of such a system, being built in ad ad hoc fashion (with some participation by Microsoft). Still, Gates' kick-off speech at CES demonstrates if nothing else his singleness of vision.
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Microsoft's ChairmanBill Gates kicked off the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Sunday by unveiling new products that support his company's vision of a world full of connected devices that serve up real-time, personalized content to users.
Microsoft has been promoting the idea of a connected home, where multiple devices can access and share multimedia content stored on a PC or a central server hub, for some time, but so far only the most savvy or wealthy technology enthusiasts have realized even a piece of that vision.
But Gates and Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, who also appeared on stage Sunday, tried to show how Microsoft can help more people can get access to the technology and even expand ubiquitous digital connectedness outside of the home.
January 8, 2007 at 06:15 am by Actual News Geezer, 372 views, 1 comment
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 08:56 on January 8th, 2007
Its a pity Bill Gates did not have the vision of the growing sophistication of hackers taking advantage of millions of personal computer users to commit fraud and data theft. Security should be Microsoft's No1 priority.