3GSM Diary: Ballmer n Branson, O2 guerrillas and Craig David
Day 3
You know a tech show has heated up when you leave a session having witnessed Steve Ballmer getting all excited and Virgin boss Richard Branson joking around (albeit via video).
After lunch on Tuesday, Ballmer gave what will probably be the best-attended keynote of this week's event. He even looked - dare I say it - if not nervous then at least respectful in front of representatives of an industry which has done pretty well without Microsoft's help.
He got his virginity out of the way at the beginning. "I'm a newbie at this show," he boomed.
And with that, he gave a wide-ranging, glitch-free and at times very impressive presentation.
On the plus side, we saw how products such as the mobile version of Office Communicator will bring the power of presence to millions of people and heard nuggets such as: "We do recognise and understand that the world is a heterogeneous world." Like it.
But on the flip side, we heard talk of a "consistent software experience" and how an integrated personal set up - from work, to home, from TV and desktop to mobile - "will only happen if a large company like ours, maybe some others too, works on end-to-end solutions and software that enables it".
Microsoft's inroads into mobile now spans 102 operators, more than 100 phones using Windows Mobile, 55 countries and 47 manufacturers, he told the packed main conference hall. But with the exception of Motorola and a few others, mobile's big boys have yet to come to the table.
And speaking of virginity, who better to give a friendly hello on stage than Richard Branson, with Ballmer happy to announce a mobile TV phone to run on Virgin Mobile in the UK and called the Trilogy. BT, Taiwan's HTC and Britain's TTP are also behind the offering.
Many will take away Branson's mocking of Ballmer's usual on-stage enthusiasm. "I love this company!" he shouted, pointing to a Virgin logo. Those billionaires, eh.
Almost as famous, though not as well paid, are several celebrities attending this year's show. Wednesday will see actor Wesley Snipes and celebrity-model Caprice grace the press conference. This writer knows nothing about Blogstar but it carries the strap 'Hollywood goes mobile!' and has a roster "who co-produce mobile content in the form of text, picture, audio and video blogs, branded wallpapers, ringtones and celebrity-driven games that are distributed through international carriers to mobile subscribers worldwide". So now you know.
Craig David, the singer, is adding a bit of soulful glamour to the GSM Association annual awards (my invite must have got lost in the spam filter... again) but, somewhat interestingly for a showbiz type, he is also performing to a 'festival crowd' at 09:00(CET) on Wednesday morning. I'm thinking the GSMA blow out won't be the biggest party night of his year.
One good source reports some interesting guerrilla shenanigans going on outside O2's hotel. I say O2's hotel because the network operator, which of course could now claim to be on home soil, has plastered the place where most of its people are staying top to bottom with O2 branding.
Yesterday morning saw a scooter driver pull up outside the hotel, rip down some O2 flyers from an advertising hoarding and begin to put up his own. Fairly quickly, someone rushed out from the hotel and O2's bubbles again saw the light of day. We have it on good information that there was a lot of waving of fists and even the odd insult exchanged. But don't get me started on advertising.
And back to something a little more core to our readers' needs, I hear that at Tuesday afternoon's Symbian press conference - I wasn't there, ask Mr Ballmer above - there was some hand-wringing from CEO Nigel Clifford. The OS vendor is doing well - a phone that is based on the software ships every second these days, its latest results tell us - but we'll be blown if there still isn't a cast-iron definition of a smart phone.
Don't blame us - if you need to know what constitutes being a smart phone, check out this analysis piece fresh from silicon.com reporter Jo Best - yes, the very same Jo Best finding time to whiz around this week's 3GSM show - which aims to cut through much of the spin.
And speaking of spin, I'm still waiting for Vodafone, the proud sponsors of the England cricket team and mobile network operator (not in that order, I'm assured), to apologise to me about the opening of the show. When I heard the King of Spain would be doing the honours, I assumed they'd booked Ashley Giles.
And if that means nothing to you, I'm afraid I don't have time to explain. More about all things 3GSM tomorrow. In the meantime, keep up to date using our Newsdesk Blog - and if your UK start time tomorrow is 8:00(GMT), you could just get our blogged first-hand account of Craig David's performance.
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