By now you have probably heard that this year is the last year Bill Gates will be giving a keynote. He's going to devote his full time efforts to his foundation. You can see his awesome keynote (parts are hilarious) over at Neowin.net here.
The nice thing about trade shows is that they force companies to pick the things that really matter to show off. Booth space is always at a premium and so only certain things can make the cut.
Based on what I saw at the Microsoft booth the key initiatives are:
- Windows Live.
- Games for Windows
- Home Server
- Media Center
Those weren't the only things they showed. But those things certainly got the lion's share of the attention. For example, Office certainly was front and center and so were Windows Vista. But in terms of actual booth space, the focus was much more on Live. Office Live Workspace went into beta and looks quite cool. Essentially, it will allow users of Microsoft Office to put their files on-line seamlessly and work more easily with others.
The November update to Live really does show that Microsoft has its act together. That said, if I were emperor of Microsoft I would be integrating Live into the desktop as opposed to trying to battle Google and Yahoo and others on the web. Where is Windows Live Desktop? I don't want to use web pages for everything.
In terms of Windows Live, Microsoft showed off a new feature called Events. It's part of Live Spaces that is very similar to eVite but is integrated into the other Live services (like calendar and such).
It's a little bit clunky still but shows massive promise.
Events on Live Spaces
Games for Windows was showing off a number of new games including Space Siege, a new game from Gas Powered Games. It looks pretty cool and is similar to Dungeon Siege in terms of game play. Microsoft also announced that Sins of a Solar Empire would be out in February at retail as part of the Games for Windows section. Picture Homeworld meets Civilization meets Total Annihilation for an idea of what it's like.
Microsoft also gave us a lot of NDA-based news regarding Media Center that I should be able to discuss tomorrow.
No big news on Windows Vista that I could see. No big previews or announcements on what the next version of Windows might have. Windows Live seems to have a lot of the company's energy right now.