2 posts and columns on consumer strategy

CES: Steve Ballmer Keynote

in News on January 6, 2010 at 6:00 pm PT

Steve Ballmer is delivering his annual state-of-Microsoft address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight–the second he’s given since taking over the duties of former CEO Bill Gates. If anything like last year’s, Ballmer’s address will offer a broad overview of Microsoft’s consumer strategy for the year, touching on everything from the company’s hardware-software ecosystem to its home entertainment offerings. Likely to figure prominently in tonight’s address: Windows 7 and the new touch-enabled PC form factors it has evidently inspired; Bing; and Natal, Microsoft’s controller-less game control system, which will launch in time for the 2010 holidays.
ballmernoteces10

CES 2009: Three Booths and a Clapping Toy Monkey?

in News on December 5, 2008 at 11:26 am PT

If a global manufacturer of computer hardware like Belkin’s not exhibiting at CES, who is? I posed that question jokingly earlier this morning, but turns out there’s a very real and ugly answer to it: Not Seagate. Not Logitech. Not Cisco. Not Philips. Not Yahoo. And not Sanyo, either.