Microsoft News Tracker

Last night was the kickoff of the D6 conference and Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were the opening act. Aside from a little light comedy and some reminiscences, the big news was a teaser for Windows 7 which will have multi-touch support for PCs with the requisite touch screen hardware.

The applications shown seem to be PC versions (e.g. no bar coded foreign objects) of those demonstrated with Microsoft’s Surface table kiosk system (aka "Big ass table") which was demoed last year at D5. Touch screens have been around for Windows seemingly forever via third parties and while it may be useful for kiosk builders to have the support baked into Windows 7, it is hardly the kind of thing that will draw the crowds. Still, it makes a nice demo and that’s the point after all.

I’ve already said Microsoft Surface: Bah, humbug! but The Sarcastic Gamer voices some objections more graphically:

You might also care to check out the Ring of Fire song which makes light of Xbox 360 repair problems. In case you think it is all Microsoft bashing, see the “tribute” to the Sony Ps3 - How to Kill Your Brand.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got his turn on the D5 conference hot seat today, but his performance mostly seems to have been soporific:

In a genial interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg Wednesday morning, Ballmer presented a picture of a plodding, predictable, unexciting company. He couldn’t quite say when Microsoft will make some progress against Google (GOOG) in its weak share in Internet search. He couldn’t say why exactly the new Vista operating system was overly complex when it was released. He didn’t particularly enlighten the audience on just why Microsoft is paying $6 billion to buy online ad agency aQuantive (AQNT). By the way, Ballmer won’t mention Google’s name, referring to it merely as “the market leader;”

Nice touch.

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I hate to play Ebenezer Scrooge as Santa Bill Gates opens Microsoft’s sack of lab goodies and comes up with something to announce for the Wall Street Journal’s D5 Conference, but the announcement of Microsoft Surface today is just rife with causes for “Bah, humbug!”

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