Brier Dudley's Blog

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

January 6, 2008 6:22 PM

At CES: Paul Allen beaming about Hawks, wishing Bill Gates well

LAS VEGAS -- I almost didn't recognize the guy standing in the front row, waiting for Bill Gates to deliver his swan song keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show.

It's Paul Allen, who was yacking with, I believe, Viacom boss Philip Daumann until a nosey reporter horned in.

Allen has lost a lot of weight -- "I've got a trainer,'' he said.

I thought it was from all the cheering at Saturday's Seahawks game.

Allen said he's here to show support for Bill. Maybe the Microsoft co-founders will have more time to hang out after Bill finally cuts back on his Microsoft duties this summer, as Allen did back in 1983.

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Posted by fan boy

7:33 AM, Jan 07, 2008

It's fine to have a joke on stage, but minutes dedicated to a highly scripted and repeated comedy sketch gets old year after year. Yes, we know Bill Gates doesn't play Guitar Hero.

This keynote would have been an inspiring technology keynote address if 1) it was given at a local Seattle grade school and 2) the kids happen to own an XBox to play Halo on (because otherwise they don't really care about technology).

Everyone is going to have HD everywhere? Genius!!! Microsoft must have figured this out in August 2007 when they added HDMI to the XBox. What leaders. Microsoft must really believe that software is everything...just look at the hardware situation of the XBox (loud fans, huge power bricks, external HDDVD players and recently HDMI support!!!).

Hopefully next week Steve Jobs will do more than mock his own image strutting around on stage with a plastic guitar.