Gates to exhibit Vista Windows upgrade at CES By Franklin Paul and Daisuke Wakabayashi
2 hours, 1 minute ago
Bill Gates on Wednesday will show an avid tech audience the long-awaited major upgrade to Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows operating system, called Vista, as the electronics industry's biggest U.S. conference kicks off.
Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, speaks later on Wednesday and is a veteran keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, held annually in Las Vegas.
A dozen industries are convening in Las Vegas this week for the industry's annual confab to show off the latest electronic gadgets as they angle for a bigger share of a $122 billion industry. In all, the show will include more than 2,500 exhibitors, 130,000 industry participants and 28 football fields of display space.
A central theme this year is portable digital content, taking video and putting it on various devices, from portable players, portable disk storage, and being able to watch it easily and seamlessly.
Wireless broadcast tower operator Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI - news) announced plans to launch live television in several top U.S. markets this year and aims to deliver video and audio services to a range of products from cellphones and portable media players to laptop computers and cars.
Microsoft has promised to launch Vista -- formerly code-named Longhorn -- in the second half of this year. The next version of Office, its office productivity software suite, also is slated to launch around that time.
On Wednesday evening, Gates takes the wraps off the operating system's user interface, and his presentation is expected to focus on the consumer-related features of Vista, such as moving video, music, movies and other digital content easily among PCs and devices.
In addition to Gates, chief executives from Sony Corp. (6758.T)(NYSE:SNE - news), the world's biggest consumer electronics company; Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news); Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news); and others will be on hand to give speeches.
Palm Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM - news), for its part, said on Wednesday it had started sales of its Treo mobile phone powered by Microsoft software, a device that could help Palm compete against Research In Motion Ltd.'s (Toronto:RIM.TO - news) BlackBerry for corporate customers.
Palm's Treo 700w device, introduced at the trade show, will run on the high-speed data network of Verizon Wireless, using the Windows Mobile operating system. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - news) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).
The new Treo could potentially open up a much bigger corporate market for Palm, due to Microsoft's central role in the desktop computer software and back-office e-mail markets.
Also at the show, Japan's Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) said it plans in March to sell a high-definition, or HD, DVD player in the U.S., becoming the first electronics manufacturer to roll out a player for next-generation DVDs.
Toshiba and Sony, leading rival camps, have waged a three-year battle to have their different standards adopted for the new DVDs, which promise much greater capacity for high-definition movies.
"HD DVD represents the future of HD digital video," Yoshihiro Matsumoto, president of Toshiba America Consumer Products, said.
"It gives consumers a clear migration path from DVD."
Toshiba, along with NEC Corp. (6701.T), has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T), the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been championing a technology known as Blu-ray.
This year's show features gadgets ranging from advanced satellite car radios to luminescent fibers that can turn clothing into wearable lamps to camera phones that can take nighttime pictures without flashbulbs.
Big Asian electronics makers, automakers, computer and phone companies and even pornographers will be out in force, seeking to define their roles as new technologies blur the line between industries, and allow for media on
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