Microsoft's chairman is setting the company on a course to provide software and tools that will allow different forms of entertainment to blend. Messaging will become a crucial part of Xenon, the code name for the next Xbox. Microsoft will also work with television outlets like the Discovery Channel and MTV Networks to create tools for delivering content, as well as advertising, into the home.
 Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft |
Gates makes play for Portable Media CenterIts eyes ever set on the competition, Microsoft will continue to raise the stakes against Apple Computer in the music industry and against Google and Yahoo in search.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Research is working on ways to reduce the cost of getting people in emerging nations hooked on the Internet. One idea: Mesh networks that will let several families share connections.
Gates spoke with CNET News.com on the eve of his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas about Microsoft's consumer plans, the convergence of entertainment technologies--and why he hasn't done a blog yet.
Q: The industry's been talking about convergence for years. The first products have come out, so what's next? Interoperability--is that the next challenge?
A: Well, there's a lot of that going on. For us, the key convergence product is the Media Center PC, which is the idea of that single remote control giving you the best TV experience, music and photos but also the full power of the PC, and we've got lots of partners who keep signing on to Media Center and doing neat things. We'll show some Discovery Channel stuff in the keynote. We have a new relationship with MTV where they're using our rights management and formats, and we're connecting it to the Media Center.
And so there is growing momentum with partners, growing momentum with the hardware. The price of Media Center PCs came down a lot, which is partly why we were able to double our sales this holiday. We've got some new remote controls from Philips and others.
And so you fill out the ecosystem, you get the people who install these systems to understand how they do the customization, you get the word of mouth going, and so I'd say we feel great about where sort of the centerpiece convergence device is and the peripheral things happening around it.
How are the different entertainment and media industries going to be affected by these changes. For instance, it seems like advertisers are really impacted.
Well, there's a thing that we can do for the advertisers that is critical for them, which is to allow the advertising to be targeted. That's what you've seen with our IPTV (Internet Protocol television) effort--companies like SBC Communications signing up for that--and we've got BellSouth as a new partner there. With that infrastructure, even for people watching the same show, you can insert just in a perfect way an ad targeted to that individual.
And the value of targeted advertising is really twofold. First, it means that the person is less likely to want to skip the ad, and second of all, it means the chance that they'll actually do something--buy something.
And so the new TV infrastructure will be about very targeted advertising. Advertising is taking on new forms. Obviously, in the search space, we're doing neat things with advertisers. No doubt, it's not going to stay the same as it is today.
What changes does this mean for Microsoft? Do you see yourself becoming, let's say, more of a seller of content?
Well, the most explosive piece of content this holiday season was "Halo 2." We sold 6.3 million copies, we've had 69 million hours of online game play. And so is Microsoft a content company? Well, I'd say "Master and Commander" is good--people have talked about how the story made them cry--that's content, but it's also software.
The boundary there has always been a bit gray. Our main role is to provide the platforms and the tools, and simply partner with the content companies like MTV and let them do what they're good at. It's mainly in this interactive realm that we need to come in and do some complete content ourselves.
One of the big phenomena of the year has been blogging. Has the growth surprised you?
Well, actually I think the biggest blogging statistic I know, which really blew me away, is that we've got close to a million people setting up blogs (Web logs) with the Spaces capability that's connected up to Messenger.
Now, with blogs, you always have to be careful. The decay rate of "I started and I stopped" or "I started and nobody visited" is fairly high, but as RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has gotten more sophisticated and value-added search capabilities have come along, this thing is really maturing.
And we've done some things in Japan and Korea that are unique blog experiments. The Spaces thing is a worldwide effort. It's a great phenomena, and it's sort of built on e-mail, and so we need to integrate more blogging capability into the e-mail world--and as we do the next generation of Outlook, you'll see that. We need to integrate it more into our SharePoint, which is our collaboration Office platform, and then, as I discussed, MSN is embracing it so that instead of thinking about, "OK, I go to one community to do photos, one community to do social networking, one community to do this," we say, "Hey," off of Messenger, which has got your buddy list already, then, "Let's let you do the photos and the social networking and everything--but starting in an integrated way off of Messenger."
Which ones do you read, if any?
Well, it's interesting, I get a lot of people--and this is very typical for me--I get people who are forwarding things on to me, so I sort of have
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Just because someone says something, be it Bush or Gates,
doesn't make it true.
"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction"
"Well, no one invests more in security of their browser than what
we do on IE"
These people stated that Microsoft's final-goal was to fundamentally redesign the PC to be nothing more than an, entirely Microsoft-controlled, delivery-system for "rented content", -where even the hardware obeyed Microsoft, not consumers.
These people also predicted that, eventually, all consumer-choice would eliminated, by this fundamental redesign, because it would leave no room for any product or service not sanctioned, and licensed, by "...the holder of all the keys", ...Microsoft.
These people were, at best, ...ignored, or made fun of. At worst, these forward-looking critics of Microsoft's actions, were actively attacked and demonized.
Now, Bill Gates freely admits that the "X-Box", in Microsoft's vision, is the computer of the future. Furthermore, he bluntly states that Microsoft's goal is, in fact, for the entire electronics-industry to finally, exclusively, adopt Microsoft's concept of,
...Microsoft Hardware (the locked-down "Trusted Computer"),
...Running Microsoft software (a Microsoft OS and Microsoft-allowed applications),
...which Microsoft can change or disable at any time ("Automatic-Updates" without choice)
...using Microsoft DRM (which cannot, under any circumstance, be controlled by consumers),
...to deliver Microsoft-chosen content (thanks to MS-DRM and mandatory MS-Licensing),
...over Microsoft-controlled networks (since Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" is already being implemented by network-hardware companies, in order to, "...protect the Internet, and other important networks"),
...all of which, by the way, would have to be 'perpetually' paid-for by the consumer (remember Microsoft has been claiming for years that consumers don't actually own the products they have bought).
And, thanks to the recent extensions of "Intellectual Property Rights" (which most people are finally realizing is little more than an underhanded-charade), ...the imposition of such anti-consumer concepts as "computer-use as a Service" (not a 'tangible' product-sale) is now steadily moving within Microsoft's grasp.
No More Microsoft!
Daily Mozilla News
To me it seems Mr. Gates is more in touch with the world today then I thought before. Be interesting to see what microsoft will do for the industry in the next 10 - 20 years.
How he can say that people who want all business to operate and compete on a level playing field are communistic is a sad statement. Of course Gates doesn't want a level playing field, MS would be shoved out or at least severely marginalized out of nearly every market they are in.
The only good thing that MS constantly produces is comedy.
And to Bill: sure Bill, you have many great ideas in mind regarding IE and that should be the reason why you kept them for more than 4 years and security updates was the only area innovations have occured on.
/Donny
SF Gate News article / Associated Press AP:
Bill Gates touts 'digital lifestyle,' despite technical bugs
RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
(01-05) 21:19 PST LAS VEGAS (AP) --
Despite suffering technical glitches that prompted jokes and
guffaws, Bill Gates promised Wednesday that Microsoft Corp.
would help millions of consumers stay seamlessly plugged into a
world of digital music, movies, video games and television
shows.
But while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates
showed how vulnerable all consumers -- even the world's
richest man -- are to hardware and software bugs.
During a demonstration of digital photography with a Nikon
camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn't respond
to Gates' pushing of the remote control.
Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager
demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game
expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But
instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the
computer monitor displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death"
and warned, "out of system memory."
The errors -- which came during what's usually an ode to
Microsoft's dominance of the software industry and its
increasing control of consumer electronics -- prompted the
celebrity host, NBC comedian Conan O'Brien, to quip, "Who's in
charge of Microsoft, anyway?"
Gates, who was sitting next to O'Brien on a set staged to look
like NBC's Late Night set, smiled dryly and continued with his
discussion.
Gates also announced several partnerships with
telecommunication companies such as SBC Communications Inc.
and television networks.
Microsoft and music network MTV last month inked a deal that
will eventually allow people to send cable programs from rock,
pop and country music channels and Comedy Central to their
laptops, hand-held computers and other devices.
Although he accepted guffaws from audience members in the
theater, the technical hiccups didn't prompt Gates to engage in a
hard-hitting analysis of computer reliability and security.
It will likely take Microsoft years to understand the consumer
electronics market and produce simple, glitch-free products for
consumers' living rooms, analysts say.
"Microsoft was founded by programmers and is still run by
programmers, and the bias of programmers is that software can
do anything," said Paul DeGroot, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-
based Directions on Microsoft. "While Microsoft's goal is to turn
the PC into a superhub that does everything -- plays music,
works as a cell phone, stores your photos -- they're running up
against the fact that most people buy discreet components that
do particular things."
This was also announced on Channel 4 KOMO News - ABC in
Seattle, WA. as well...
Redmond, we have a problem...
Excuse me? Is this an implication that communists are the main people against government-granted monopolies that disrupt the free market economy? Yes, such as (software) patents?
And how does this compare with the fact that the EU commission is trying to jump through hoops currently to please Microsoft, among others, and disregard the will of the democratically elected parliament in the software patent issue?
I don't like to underestimate Bill's intelligence, therefore I must conclude that he's simply talking PR bull. And, in the spirit of respecting his intelligence, I must also assume that we both know that him resorting to reality-challenged communist rhetoric is rather desperate.
First they ignore you. Then they fight you.
In fact, would the IP laws have been the same as they are today, some of us would today be running Wordstar and Visicalc on Altair computers, but most of us would still only be able to dream about using a computer.
The IP laws have been reformed since and are still in the process of becoming more and more restrictive. The so-called communists that Gates refers to are only trying to reverse this in order to bring back the balance that allowed the whole industry to exist in the first place.
Hmm sounds like Billy boy is brown nosing to the RIAA and MPAA. I mean instead of talking about fair rights he basically called anyone who wants to restructure IP rules communists. Lovely. It also suggests the mindset of where Microsoft will prob take DRM in Windows in the future. e.g. Favor the big corp's agenda rather then fair use to the end user.
Look at the "get your pictures printed" wizard in Windows XP - it's the way that MS wants everything working in the future. XP sees that you've plugged in your digital camera and offers to get prints of your pictures ordered. The software grabs the photos, and ships them off to one of 3 photo developing labs, you enter your credit card number and *poof* you get your pictures delivered in about a week - and Microsoft gets a nice kickback for every picture developed (that's why the MS photo developing partners are so much more expensive than other online photo labs).
Right now you have a choice about who does your photo developing, but with each revision of Windows it will become more and more difficult to make your own choices.
I predict that in future products MS will allow you to buy DVD movies from some on-line retailer at a discount much deeper than the going rate, but you'll have to pay a $2 "viewing fee" every time you play the movie back (and you'll only be able to play it in MS DRM'd machines). It'll all be very slick, and you'll hardly notice as your cerdit card bill gets bigger and bigger every month and more and more "services" are added to your PC/Media Center/Game console.
There'll be people that might think it's just great - and that's fine for them, but I think that myself and a lot of other people see which way things are headed and have already chosen to abandon MS's vision of the future. We've chosen to secure our own freedom of choice. We'll use Linux, BSD, and Macintosh systems that are all free of Bill's "vision".
http://vnuuk.typepad.com/ces/2005/01/gates_keynote_t.html
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160317
I'll wait for Shorthorn 2006
(entire keynote unedited by C/NET)
http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/01/06/1337228.shtml?tid=109&tid=211
power cord to my iBook, call my husband away from our 21"
screen iMac, and pull the children away from their Flower Power
iMac...
People ask me all the time who I call for home networking and
the blue screen of death...I tell them to call Steve Jobs in
Cupertino, CA. He's the best "computer guy" that I know...
- communists?!?!?
-
by rdean
January 6, 2005 7:14 PM PST
- Bill seems like a bright enough guy, but occasionally he says things that are just so wrong-headed it's baffling (ala "640k ought to be enough for anybody"). However, knowing that Bill is a militant capitalist (indicated by statements to the effect of "the only incentive to create is money") at least makes it possible to understand where the statement comes from.
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See all 147 Comments >>If Bill really believes that the proponents of Intellectual Property Reform are communists, he's stupid. I don't believe he's stupid. I think he wants to protect the revenue stream from Windows Media DRM, so he's going to disparage anyone who would undermine the need for draconian DRM schemes.
Just because someone believes in Intellectual Property Reform does not make them a communist. Intellectual Property Reform is overdue.
- It was designed to protect small inventors from larger companies who would copy inventions and undercut the small inventor's selling price, thus eliminating any hope of them being able to profit from their invention. What we have today is a bunch of big companies (Microsoft and IBM being the two gorillas) being granted patents on "Method for converting oxygen to carbon dioxide" that they then turn around and use as a bludgeon against small inventors. Furthermore, some patents are written without the claimed invention having been realized (thus it wasn't invented so much as imagined). These problems undermine the value of patents as protections of new and useful *inventions*.
Beyond that, there is the fact that the patent system is not just about enriching the inventor. The other side of the coin is that it is also about advancing the state of the art. At least in the realm of new technology, the USPTO is woefully understaffed to be able to make the kinds of assessments to reliably determine what inventions constitute an advance in the state of the art and are therefore worthy of patent. James Gleick once wrote an article "Patently Absurd," which I remember mainly because it included a description of a patent that a gentleman had received on entertaining a cat with a laser pointer. I don't think I need to say more than that.
- Copyrights seem to me to be less problematic than patents, but they still need some work. The framers guaranteed copyright protection in exchange for the release of the work to extend the sciences and useful arts. The recent enactments affecting copyrights, DMCA and copyright term extension, both create new problems (including prohibitions on getting into things to see how they work and the possibility for interminable copyrights) while trying to solve valid concerns.
The intellectual property system in the U.S. needs more than tweaks, and I'm not a communist for believing that.