Microsoft CEO’s Keynote Talks Up Windows Phone 7, Kinect

LAS VEGAS — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his Jan. 5

keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show to highlight the company’s forays into

the consumer realm, including the Kinect hands-free controller for Xbox 360 and

Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft’s product line is the result of “big technology

bets that we’ve made,” Ballmer said, including “bets on the cloud” and “natural

user interface.” Thanks to those innovations, he added, Kinect and the Xbox 360

are expanding from pure gaming platform to household entertainment hub,

integrating offerings such as Netflix and Hulu.

“As we speak today, millions of people are enjoying their

TV, their music and their movies on demand through Xbox Live,” he said. In

coming months, Microsoft will roll out Avatar Kinect, which will allow users to

interact with others in virtual environments via gesture.

Although Ballmer’s presentation focused primarily on

consumer innovations along the lines of smartphones and gaming, Microsoft has

already made some significant announcements in the opening hours of CES. Hours

before Ballmer’s keynote, the company used a Jan. 5 press conference at the

Consumer Electronics Show to announce that the next version of Windows will

support System on a Chip (SoC) architecture, in particular ARM-based systems

from partners such as Qualcomm, Nvidia and Texas Instruments. ARM chip designs

dominate much of the burgeoning mobile market, which Microsoft is anxious to

penetrate.

Windows currently dominates the x86 platform used by

traditional PCs, but the rise of powerful mobile devices such as smartphones

and tablets — powered largely by ARM chip designs — has effectively created a whole

new market for the operating system, provided it can work out the engineering

details.

For more, read the eWeek article: Microsoft CEO Ballmer Keynote Touts Kinect, Windows Phone 7.