LAS VEGAS – Bill Gates’ send-off at the Consumer Electronics Show here was short and sweet.
The barely hourlong presentation, which Gates confirmed was his last, was highlighted by a spoof documentary of Gates’ upcoming last day as a full-time employee of Microsoft. Everyone from Sen. Hillary Clinton to rock star Bono to actor George Clooney joked about what Gates was planning to do.
“It’s going to be a bit strange, what to do on my last day,” Gates said, introducing the video segment. “I asked my friends to help me prepare for that.”
Of course, the speech, Gates’ ninth in a row here, wasn’t all fun and games. As he’s done in the past, Gates used it to outline his vision for the industry and to tout Microsoft’s place in it.
And he appeared to hand the baton to his possible replacement at CES: Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s president of its entertainment and devices division.
Bach’s portion of the presentation consumed about half of it. And he closed the event with a promise to “see you again next year.”
In Gates’ view, the industry is about to head into what he calls its second digital decade. The first decade was marked by the growing digitization of content and the incorporation of PC technologies into everything from mobile phones to cars.
In the decade to come, Gates forecast that the big trend will be linking all those disparate devices and content, allowing consumers to access music, their calendar and other data from any device anywhere they are.
And devices will become easier to use, through what he likes to call “natural interfaces” such as touch screens and voice- and gesture-recognition software.
“The second digital decade is going to be more focused on connecting people and being user-centric,” Gates said.
Microsoft and its Windows platform are central to Gates’ vision, of course, whether running on mobile phones, PCs, in cars or on kiosks using its new technology called Surface.
The future aside, Gates and Bach touted Microsoft’s current success. Despite mixed reviews, bugs and upset customers, Windows Vista – the latest iteration of the company’s flagship operating system – is now being run by 100 million computers, Gates said. Some 420 million people are using the company’s Windows Live online services.
While Nintendo’s Wii has stolen Microsoft’s thunder in the video game world, Bach said Microsoft remained the leader in the battle among the next-generation consoles, having shipped 17.7 million Xbox 360 consoles to date. About 10 million customers have signed up for the company’s Xbox Live service. And Xbox customers are spending far and away more than owners of the other next-generation consoles, the PlayStation 3 and the Wii, Bach said.
The company also had a number of high-profile partnerships to announce. Most notable: Microsoft will be the online video partner of NBC for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As part of that deal, Microsoft’s MSN portal will offer up to 20 live streams of video at a time and about 3,000 hours of on-demand video.
Even here Gates tried to keep things light, with sportscaster Bob Costas, in a video segment, joking that Gates wouldn’t stop bugging him about being part of the NBC team covering the Olympics.
“Bill, you’ve got to stop calling me,” Costas said, mock seriously. “There’s nothing I can do. Lose my number.”
Bach touted another partnership that could help boost the Xbox 360. Microsoft has been hawking the device not only as a game machine, but as a digital movie player, able to download and display movies over the Internet through Xbox Live.
To date, the video offerings on Xbox Live have been spotty, but the company helped shore that up with deals with Disney and MGM. As part of the agreements, television programming from the Disney Channel and ABC will be available through Xbox Live. So too will MGM’s entire movie library – including films such as “Rocky,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “Legally Blonde.”
Most of the MGM titles will be available in high definition, which could help set the Xbox movie service apart from rivals.
“Xbox live will offer more than two times as much HD content as any cable or satellite provider,” Bach crowed.
Gates and Bach finished off the presentation on another light-hearted note with a celebrity. The two were supposed to play dueling guitar rifts on the Xbox game “Guitar Hero III.”
Instead, they each brought their own ringer. Bach’s was a woman who is a top player of the game.
Gates’ was Slash, the lead guitarist of Velvet Revolver and formerly of Guns N’ Roses.
Bach conceded that Gates’ ringer won.
Contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5021.
