Microsoft (MSFT) Does Little to Wow at CES Opening Night

Wednesday night in Sin City, Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) exuberant CEO Steve Ballmer gave the opening keynote address of CES 2010 to an eager group of analysts, press and VIPs that endured a 30 minute power outage to see the latest and greatest from the technology giant.

The presentation was more of a look back at what the company was able to accomplish during a tough economic year in 2009 than a bright look forward at the future, but Ballmer and friends did bring a few new things to the table, highlighted by the confirmation of a holiday release of “Project Natal” for the Xbox and a look at a slate tablet form HP that was not like the product rumored by the New York Times earlier Wednesday.

“2009 was an unprecedented year for economic turbulence,” Ballmer stated. “We are at the beginning of a long journey,” he added before going into a display of the success the company was able to achieve amid the economic meltdown.

The reception of Windows 7 was one point that Ballmer iterated numerous times and the future for the operating system looks bright.

Windows 7 has been the fastest selling operating system in the history of Microsoft. There company saw a 50 percent increase in the sales of PCs during the holiday season from 2008 according to NPD, and a survey has indicated that 94 percent of users of the new operating system gave it a rating of satisfaction.

Research agency Gartner expects a 12 percent surge in year-over-year PC sales for 2010 boosting the number of Windows 7 machines in offices and homes.

Ballmer did show off a few of the gadgets that will not require keyboards coming from Microsoft including the Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) Slate PC that he showed off running the Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle program to read documents and then summoned up a video with just a few taps of the screen.

The HP Slate utilizes a multi-touch screen from N-Trig that will be implemented in similar devices from Toshiba, Lenovo and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) which were on display during the speech.

In the mobile phone sector Microsoft announced the HTC HD2 that will be made available through a partnership with T-Mobile and will arrive with the new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

The highlight of the night came when Ballmer gave way to Microsoft’s president of electronics and devices, Robbie Bach who brought with him a trailer for the highly-anticipated Halo Reach game for the Xbox 360 and an announcement of an expansion that will debut exclusively on the Microsoft game console for Activision Blizzard’s (NASDAQ: ATVI) record-breaking “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” in April.

Bach also announced the new game “Alan Wake” which will play out for the user like a television show with new installments being made available on a regular basis via downloadable content, surely through a cost per episode.

Other game announcements that are to be made exclusive to the Xbox 360 included “Mass Effect 2” form Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), “Fable III” and “Crackdown 2”.

The night concluded with the announcement of “Project Natal” for the Xbox 360 and the confirmed 2010 fourth quarter release date. Natal will bring the player into the game with motion sensing controls that will not require any peripheral controllers. Bach confirmed that the company has been working diligently with third party developers to generate numerous games for the product’s release this holiday season.

In all it was a lukwarm showing for Microsoft. The company’s 2010 success will now rely on the successful integration of its products into realms outside of the traditional PC landscape, but it seems prepared.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Chevron, Microsoft strike 20-year deal to power massive AI data center
• Alphabet slides on AI talent departures, Jefferies sees buying opportunity ahead
• Oracle cut 21,000 jobs in past year amid AI shift