Microsoft's Technical Glitches at CES Explained

Thomas Hawk writes "Sean Alexander is one of the guys on the Media Center Team at Microsoft who was involved in the CES presentation with Bill Gates. Sean also runs a very interesting blog called Addicted to Digital Media. Gates and Microsoft have taken a lot of heat over the course of the last two days for the technical glitches in Microsoft's presentation at CES. Sean offers us the rare glimpse on why the glitches happened and what it's like to be backstage at the big Microsoft presentation at CES. Very good follow up on Sean's part." Update: 01/08 19:03 GMT by T : Hawk writes with a static link to Alexander's story.

Comments

Same machine

[Bloater]

Seems to be running his blog on the same machine as they used at the CES presentation.

Re:Same machine

[krymsin01]

You are mistaken.

"SERVICE UNAVAILABLE" is his report. Very good work. I wish we had people half as good as this guy at the company I work for.

Re:Same machine

[Aurix]

Second poster "he he...no, it's working...but the report only consists of the two words 'Service Unavailable', which sums up the problem"

First microsoft guy i've ever "met" that hasn't used a tonne of buzzwords and actually makes sense :P

It's nice and concise...

[Xpilot]

The explanation we were all waiting for! Bill Gates' demo failed because...

"Service Unavailable"

That makes it all clear in just 2 short words! Great summary :)

Deja vu

[Legion303]

Remember that video that was floating around of Win98 blue-screening during a presentation? Good times.

Re:Deja vu

[Xabraxas]

Yeah it is sickening, isn't it.

Re:Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation

[justforaday]

Yeah, I used to work with a Steve. There was this one time where his machine had a kernel panic. So it can happen. Just cos you're named Steve doesn't mean you're immune...

The Problem... They used Windows

[hey]

Things would have gone better otherwise.

It's encouraging...

[RealBeanDip]

to see BG's machine craps out when he needs it the most just like mine does when I do.

Unfortunately for me, I don't have anyone to fire.

Re:Behind the Scenes at the CES Keynote

[Jacco de Leeuw]

It could have been all the IR interference in the venue

Next time, Microsoft had better attendees frisked for rogue remote controls! Damn GNU hippies! :-)

Bill Gates

[szyzyg]

If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed, he'd be... oh wait never mind

Uh-oh

[Anonymous Coward]

From Microsoft Legal, Slashdotters need to remember to properly attribute Microsoft intellectual property when such attribution is due:
"Service Unavailable TM" is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Copyright 2004-2005. Other registered marks that Slashdotters may not use without appropriate attribution include:

• Brute Force: as in "it is easy to obtain access to any Windows server via Brute Force(TM)"
  
• Devastator: as in "Microsoft products are often called the Devastator(TM) of network integrity and reliability."
  
• Fist of the Lotus: as in "after we had our customer database stolen via the latest MS SQL Server exploit, I felt as if the CFO crammed the Fist of the Lotus(TM) up my ass."
  

Please see the Microsoft Trademarks website for additional details.

Re:Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation

[the eric conspiracy]

There is a difference between a typo and having the paper catch fire while you are reading it.

Re:But did the demos actually work?

[tomhudson]

or did you all forget to read the full blog article?

Most of us got treated to the "executive summary version" - you know - "Service Unavailable"

So it is due to a hardware problem?

[sl4shd0rk]

Imagine that. I wonder if they have contacted their hardware vendor.

Should have made Bill do pushups

[putaro]

When I was at Apple, if you were doing a demo in front of a large group and something crashed, the cry would come up from the audience "push-ups, push-ups!" with the presenter supposed to do push-ups on stage until the demo got fixed by the rest of the crew.

The best demo ever, though, was when the QuickTime crew was demoing some new stuff on Mac OS 7. They're going along, and suddenly the screen jumps into MacsBug (the old low-level debugger - this was what you got instead of the bomb screen if you had MacsBug installed). We all start yelling "push-ups, push-ups" and the presenter goes "Well, let's see if we can look a little deeper into this" and clicks the mouse. The MacsBug screen peels off and we get this video of guys banging around with hammers inside the machine. What a great setup.

Re:Slides located "here"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha! I got into it in 9 tries. Does that mean I win Slashdot?

Better luck next time, friend.

Re:Teleprompter?

[TubeSteak]

this is an ooooooold joke from back when soviet russia was the funniest thing around:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71358&ci d=6647090

Q: How can you tell an extroverted computer geek from an introverted computer geek?
A: The introverted computer geek will look at his shoes while he talks to you. The extroverted computer geek will look at your shoes while he talks to you.

Q: How do you tell if an Extroverted computer geek is Russian?
A: His shoes look at you while he is talking.

I about died laughing when i first saw this, but your mileage will vary.