CTIA: Ballmer keynote liveblog
Rating: we are not worthy
By Tony Alton
So i arrive 5 minutes late at the biggest CTIA keynote and have to squeeze past the overweight man on the end of the row, treading on his foot and spilling tea in his lap. Steve Ballmer is already in full flow up on stage and his dictator-like delivery is typically punchy:
He is talking about how cellular networks are the ideal way of making sure software and services are kept as updated as possible whilst on the move. Thick clients with thin back-ends are the model de jour apparently. Steve is prophesising that bringing entertainment and enterprise together is a great opportunity for MS. Enterprise computing like presence, IM, video conferencing and consumer applications like social networking and rich media should all collaborate in the phone apparently.
He is asking allot of questions. All at 10000Mph. Ideas are being slung out into the audience at an incredible rate.
We are onto the enterprise now and they have just announced their new Mobile System Center - Mobile Device Manager 2008. This lets IT depts manage, secure and access mobile devices over the air and lets them do things like provide passwords, turn off cameras and even provides a VPN for mobile devices.
Someone called Brian Hoskins from MS is now running a really cheesy demo and showing Ballmer how he can set up his new device "So i just do this?" "Yes that’s right Steve, it’s actually a very easy process". The fat guy next to me with coffee in his lap laughs and mutters something about breaking all the devices in the company at a single time now, as opposed to one by one.
Ballmer is back and he’s now talking about a start-up called Enterprise Mobile who have been involved in the development of this. Their stock just shot up a million points.
Now we are onto Mobile lifestyle (consumer) applications - Ballmer is apparently all about bringing the Internet to mobile for consumer needs. Some bloke called Derek is up on stage waxing lyrical about Windows Mobile and demonstrating how to make a phone call. Genius. We are also looking at Outlook on Windows Mobile - apparently Derek uses it to keep in contact with his College Alumni and they send him pictures, probably of one another standing on a bar downing beers.
Social networking now. He’s using a Sprint Touch handset and showing how to use IM, Photouploading and his PVR to record Oprah. As well as this we get Windows Live Search on the 30ft screen and he shows how the voice search functionality and mapping works to much clapping and even some whooping.
Ballmer is back. He’s giving his concluding pitch to the assembled hordes about WIndows Mobile - apparently it is the most flexible and consistent platform for third party innovation for both enterprise and consumer mobile.
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