Joshua Saunders

Another CES begins and another keynote by the world’s second richest man, the Sultan of Software empire Microsoft.  And yet, every year his speeches become more and more boring.  Nothing against Bill Gates personally, after all he is brilliant, but it becomes more apparent everyday that Microsoft is failing to innovate at the same pace as their competitors.

Among Gate’s announcements, Silverlight will have a tie-in with the Beijing olympics, that’s one thing Microsoft has going for them.  Gate’s also showed off a demo of Live Events, a service launched last year that has gone pretty much nowhere.  Add that in with Sync, now in a car near you (or probably not near you since no one buys Ford anymore).  Actually, I can’t believe Sync is being advertised so much (albeit as an incentive to buy Ford).  The technology is absolutely nothing new, just more rehash of tech thats been on the market for years.

Little bit of talk about XBOX 360, boasting about how it beat the Wii in revenue.  Unfortunately, he failed to metion that Nintendo sold more units, since the Wii was priced much lower.  Live Maps also got a showing, again nothing impressive.

To sum up his talk (and the present state of Microsoft)… unenthusiastic, uninventive, and uninnovative.  Is the empire coming to an end?