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Microsoft Says Goodbye To CES
theodp writes "Microsoft has traditionally delivered the pre-show keynote and put up a mammoth booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas each January. No more. GeekWire reports that Microsoft will bow out of CES after this year's show (Steve Ballmer says buh-bye on Jan. 9). 'As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories,' explained Microsoft's Frank Shaw, 'it feels like the right time to make this transition.'"
First AC to ever say goodbye to /.
What... astroturfing?
HAND.
So what, MS is not really innovating anything new so they do not really belong at CES.
It seems to me like Microsoft isn't exactly losing anything by bowing out. CES, Macworld and others are increasingly places for smaller 3rd party vendors to peddle their usually cheap (and sometimes knockoff) wares. More importantly, if you as a company attend and have a large presence, you're obligated to come up with something shiny and capable of making a splash. In a sense, it enforces a hard deadline. In the age of the internet, it seems easier to just issue a PR and rely on your pr team to generate press, or stream your own event. Apple realized this and has since moved from Macworld to hosting\streaming their own events. To me it looks like Microsoft is just making the same wise decision. They have a big enough name; they don't need the press generated by CES.
MS will probably want an all MS show. LIke a 'Microsoft-con' or something....
5 will get you 10.
As a consumer I have to say that it's hard to tell my story what with being all bent over and a ball gag shoved in my mouth. Long live corporate interests!
Sounds like someone finally said "enough is enough!" PR events are always too much effort for too little gain.
CES is becoming increasely irrelevant. Microsoft is leaving while they are still ahead.
Have they actually had anything to show at CES worth looking at? Seems like throwing good money out to show bad products is a bad idea. It makes sense that they should make better products, but it looks like they are just going to focus on saving money.
Since I live in the Puget Sound area, I've signed uyp for and participate in MS "Usability Studies" on a regular basis (it's an excuse to shop at the Redmond Value Village, you would be amazed at the kind of stuff Microsofties donate to second hand stores).
I've seen some of the stuff they are working on in their "labs", and a lot of it is indeed quite innovative. Yet very little ever makes it to a product. Wonder why? There are some smart people working on interesting things in Redmond, but apparently at some level on the Microsoft machine, it all gets patented and forgotten (until they need to ass fuck someone with the patent?)â¦
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
MS is a wannabe Apple.
If Apple is selling shed loads of 'stuff' through it stores then MS will do the same.
Recepie for success?
Nah. Failure more like.
MS does not have a complete story to tell and ultimately sell. No branding, No Kit. No 'aurora of cool'.
Oh well, it will be Mr Balmers swansong won't it.
Don't let any chairs hit you on the way out!
They continue to flood TV with their message. It makes sense - why waste money advertising on, for example, the net (after all, if you're on the net, you have almost zero attention span for ads even if you don't have them blocked, and you already have a computer, so it's not like they can really control the message in 30 or 60 seconds).
TV is still the best place to advertise something that has to be seen and heard.
Trade shows are largely a relic of the pre-Internet world. Nowadays we can get pretty much any information we need about a brand new product simply by visiting the vendor's website. We've seen technology-driven companies moving away from announcing and/or releasing products at mega-trade shows especially over the past 4-5 years, whether they're computer companies (Apple, Microsoft), camera companies (Nikon, Canon), or "we do it all and do it badly" companies (Sony).
#DeleteChrome
Microsoft (Dec. 21, 2011): As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories â" from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores â" it feels like the right time to make this transition.
Apple (Dec. 16, 2008): Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.
And still five years behind.
'As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories,' explained Microsoft's Frank Shaw, 'it feels like the right time to make this transition.'"
New ways they tell consumer stories?! Golly that is some grade-A PR bullshit right there.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
...my all expenses paid trips to pr0n-con^H^H^H^H^H^H^H, CES.
On topic, I'm surprised that it took Microsoft this long to drop out of CES. It has been shrinking and becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing year. I always figured it was just an excuse to be in town at the same time as the AVN awards.
You're definitely getting an internet for Christmas.
HAND.
aptly named.
Considering the only thing they have is the XBox and the world + dog has been coo coo for iPods, iPhones, and iPads plus the Android devcies, it just doesn't make sense for them to be there with no hope of winning consumer hearts and minds.
It makes perfect sense because it isn't called the <bold>Consumer</bold> Electronics Show for nothing.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I attended CES last year. Nobody there was interested in the stuff that wasn't the 'end product.' As such, people were in the MSFT booth, but they were much more interested in the hardware from other vendors than they were with the MSFT software running on it. People could have seen that stuff in the booths of the appropriate hardware vendor. The one place this didn't hold true was in the XBox/Kinect area. There were a ton of people interested in spending time in that space - but that's an 'end product'. Interestingly, it's an end product that is probably best showcased at E3.
The same can be said about Intel's booth. The biggest draw there was the chance to play Portal 2 before release.
Chances are that, unless I can hold the product you're selling in my hand and get an immediate benefit from it on its own, it probably isn't best showcased with a mega-dollar booth at CES (a small booth in the component exhibitors area maybe).
I guess I'm just saying that conventions like CES probably aren't the best bang for the buck for MSFT.
...the porn vendors left and set up their own show. Who wants to go to CES and endure all that crap when your show badge doesn't even buy you any decent eye candy?
We don't have anything to show that people couldn't easily pick apart, and we don't want customers to get close to Windows 8 until we can keep it from randomly exploding, and Balmer's stage presence... let's face it, he's become a laughingstock. So we're choosing to present our products in much more controlled circumstances like TV ads. And in those ads we'll mostly be ragging on how complicated our competitor's products are, because we can't compete on functionality, as every one of them will do more than ours.
There, fixed it for you.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Now if only we can begin the mourning phase for phone books and most of the math you learned you in school.