Bill Gates Displays OS X Features In Windows Vista.

One of the things I like about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is that it’s here at home; in Las Vegas. That makes it an easy commute.

Another thing I like is that I get to visit with vendor booths to touch and feel new gadgets, and there’s plenty. The SanDisk Sansa portable MP3 player is nice. Even more fun is all the hype that comes from big name companies making a splash at CES.

Take Microsoft. Please. Why? Because the hype this year is so thick it’s like walking from an air conditioned casino in Vegas to 115 degrees outside. It’s heavy and hits you like a blast.

This isn’t to say that what comes from Microsoft’s exeuctives is just a pack of lies. They’re too smart for that. It’s more like a pack of gum. You chew on it for awhile because it’s sweet but then, in a few minutes, the taste is gone and the rest is just effort.

Bill Gates gave a great keynote address this week, outlining his vision of the digital hub, the living room, Microsoft’s place in your digital world.

As you might suspect, he was casual sitting down beside a few 30-inch flat panel displays and coughing up furballs of the future. Gates crowed that everything will work together, it’ll be smooth, secure, stable, and viruses will be thing of the past.

His list of demo mock ups included XBox, Windows Media Center, and other Redmonian initiatives.

Gates also gave a demo of Windows Vista (due later this year; or next) to the packed auditorium. It was standing room only. It was also a show about Mac OS X technology with a Windows logo pasted on top.

What’s new for Windows Vista users? Widgets. Single purpose little applications to make your life more productive. He showed an egg timer, a news ticker, and other typical apps.

Widgets don’t work the same as in Mac OS X. They’re stuck in one place, the right edge of the screen for now. But that’s Microsoft’s innovation for you.

What else? How about global search? Yep. It’ll be in Windows Vista. Remarkably, it looks just like the Spotlight that’s already in OS X.

More? Photos in Windows. Digital photos are all the rage for PC users and Microsoft will give users what they want. A place to store their photos.

I swear, the only thing different about Windows Vista’s version of a photo app and the Mac’s iPhoto is the lack of a brushed aluminum look.

Want more? How about transparent window edges with a little shadow. Cool. I know I’ve been asking for that to show up in Windows for years.

As another demonstration of Microsoft’s innovation, tabbed browsing will come to the Vista version of Internet Explorer. While most Windows users would like to have stability, security, dependability, and accurate display of web page standards, Microsoft resorts to 2002 and gives everyone tabs.

More telling than anything during the show and tell of Windows Vista was the look of audience members who recognized all of Mac OS X that went into the making of Vista.

Seriously. The phrases, “Just like on a Mac” or the often heard “OS X does that already” were, well, heard often in the crowd of Gates Watchers.

Frankly, I didn’t see anything that looked fresh, original, or truly cool. Some things were different, though.

Microsoft’s photo application will integrate movie clips with digital still photos. I know what you’re thinking. That’s soooo 2002, right?

Columnist David Pogue, writing for the New York Times said it best:

“I think that what most people want from the next Windows isn’t more stuff added, but rather stuff to be taken away—like crashes, lockups, viruses, error messages and security holes.”

Amen.

But wait. There’s more. In an interview with c|net News, Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said they were in “fighting shape.”

Fighting whom? Customers? Gates: “we compete extremely effectively by having reliability, innovation and the software that you want to use every day for hours a day.”

What about Google? Ballmer: ““To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail?” If you know how to sell advertising, everything is going to look like an advertising problem. I think people like to say the same thing about us. We know how to collect money, charge for software…”

Who are the real competitors to Microsoft? IBM. How about search? It’s bad. How about music and Apple? Ballmer: “Let’s face it, when it comes to actually using it on the PC, our stuff is still the most popular stuff out there.”

“It’s not true in the portable device space, and I think we have to do some stuff to simplify the experience across the portable device and the PC, and that’s an important part of what we need to do.

And we give credit—Apple has done some things right, and it’s worked for them.”

Gates’ and Ballmer’s display of hubris got me to thinking.

What if both of them could be cursed the same way as Jim Carrey in the movie Liar Liar.

They would be forced to only tell the truth all the time.

What do you think they’d say?

Tera Patricks
To the government, Bill would say, “I’m sorry. We forced businesses to buy Windows.”

Jack D. Miller
Bill would be required to give back all his money. Not to charity through the foundation. Checks to users.

Carol Mary Milleer
It’d be cool to hear him get on stage and twist and mumble like Jim Carrey, and then say, “Mac OS X is just better. Don’t buy Windows Vista. It’s just a copy of what you can get already on a Mac. Only better.”