Blogging Ballmer
I am attending Gartner's Mega IT Symposium this week at Disney World. 6,000 attendees are crammed into the biggest venue I have ever seen for presentations. We are awaiting the appearance of Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. I think I have enough battery power to stay on and transmit some of his more salient points. Michael Dell is up next.
Some comments on this event. I have always felt that if I were an IT exec I would make it my top educational event. Within one week you can meet hundreds of your peers and hear hundreds of presentations from some pretty smart people. Well worth the $2,000+ that it costs to attend.
Stay tuned....
10:33 No chicken dance. Shoot.
10:40 Rich clients taken care of from "the cloud". Answer to the Google question. Google leads in search in advertising. MSFT is going to invest to "change the rules in that space".
10:50 Answer to Bill Gates transition: MSFT was born as software company, targeted desktop, grown into enterprise, mobile, entertainment devices, productivity, search. So, more distributed thought leadership with central synergies.
10:50 Gartner analyst Yvonne Genovese takes the gloves off on Vista usability. Says her 13 yr old daughter wanted Vista Gadgets. After two days of trying she went back to XP. Audience eats this stuff up. Ballmer's answer: Vista is bigger than XP. Get a bigger computer. Michael Dell is going to love that.
10:54 Ballmer promises to be a little more cautious on timing announcements (remember the Vista issues?) and more transparent on road maps.
11:08 battery dying. Will be back after I find a free outlet.