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Microsoft's Technical Glitches at CES Explained

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the best-laid-plans dept.

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.

5 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. Blooper Video by antdude · · Score: 5, Informative

    Click here to view a streaming video. It shows Conan O'Brien easing the tension with his classic humor as Bill Gates encountered problems with his remote control while demoing the Windows Media Center.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  2. Bill Gates by szyzyg · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. Uh-oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.
  4. Post Mortems of the demo miss the point by lildogie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Explaining what went wrong in the demo, and how environmental factors contributed to the glitch/crash, misses the point that the audience so obviously got:

    Microsoft products have problems with crashing. Everyone who uses them knows that. Conan knows that. Bill knows that.

    The amusement factor is that even the leader of the company knows that and experiences it in the most sensitive moments.

    If you need software to run critical proceses in a nuke plant or an airplane, would you use Microsoft products?

  5. Re:But did the demos actually work? by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny
    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"