Microsoft's Technical Glitches at CES Explained 428
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.
Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm.
Good excuses are still just good excuses.
JsD
come together (Score:4, Insightful)
The other most interesting part of this whole story is that the rest of us don't have Alexander, the MS Media Center Team, or the Windows source code. So when we get the BSoD, we're left scratching our heads. That's why we use Linux: with Open Source, we're as privileged as Bill Gates, to whom Windows is Open Source, because he's got the keys to the vault. His CES debacle should open everyone's eyes to the difference. Especially the "communists" in the global IT community who'd rather not spend more on Gates' closed source, and get less - and get hung out to dry with a crashed Windows app thousands of times a day, around the world.
Re:Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation (Score:2, Insightful)
i don't have any difficulty finding several cars that meet my needs. getting the combination of good hardware and software seems darn near impossible.
i don't thing we're near as technically advanced as we would like to believe.
But did the demos actually work? (Score:1, Insightful)
(Yeah, so I don't have a
Re:Deja vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Behind the Scenes at the CES Keynote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Problem... They used Windows (Score:1, Insightful)
Post Mortems of the demo miss the point (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation (Score:3, Insightful)
M$ has always been inferior, yet they are still on top. Hopefully it will change soon with the uprising of linux and osx.
CES keynote, a bad infomercial at 2am? (Score:3, Insightful)
All year I read about how Bill Gates is the wealthiest, most successful businessman in the world. I don't want to hear about internet access challenges when you are showing off technology that uses the internet. At that point in the keynote I began to wonder why is Microsoft even at the show (nevermind the keynote address)? Shouldn't the keynote be given by a person from Sony/Apple or some other vender that can deliver reliable hardware and software?
The Forza Motorsport demo should have been a slam dunk. Who wants their console gaming experience to be more like a pc experience? With the Xbox Microsoft is introducing unreliability in the gaming console market. Bravo.
They should only have a small booth in the back of CES in my opinion.
That's live theatre, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
In my other life I do tech for a local community theatre group. Folks, anything can happen during a live performance. No matter how much you might prepare, stuff happens, and it happens in front of everybody. Power can fail, body mikes can break, lamps burn out, RFI can wreak havoc. You can't prepare for every eventuality, but you can handle the situation with grace.
It sounds to me like the Microsofties did fine.
Sean's Post (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blooper Video (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to know if there was any testing done? I didn't think the remote not working was a big deal, remotes break, batteries die, etc.
What I thought looked bad was the big BSOD on the XBox in the middle of a game.
Rigged demos? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know a salesman that tells a story of running a rigged demo every 45 minutes for 2 days straight during a trade show in order to sell pharmacists on the idea of getting a computer system. It's not all that uncommon a thing to do.
Sure, media center is a little complicated to rig a demo for, but it's a lot easier than putting up with the aftermath of 3 BSoDs. I'd rather have something approaching a slide show than have Conan O'Brien make fun of me. (too bad they don't have any rich-media slideshow software to write this in, like Hypercard or something)
But that's their problem. I really don't care. Any "media" PC that has DRM is something I don't care to buy. If it comes to not being able to buy some movie or whatever that won't run without DRM telling on me when I do so, I'll just pop in a VHS tape or a commercial-stripped DVD and enjoy myself anyway.
Re:Unrelated (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple was the early adopter in the GUI/mouse controlled interface, 32-bit systems, 24-bit color displays, laser printing, powered serial bus, CD-ROM in every system, the sacking of the floppy, Combo driver (DVD read/CD writer) in every system, network capability in every system, 64-bit systems...
In none of these cases did Apple invent the technology, nor were they the first to market. In all cases Apple implemented the technology in their systems well before the technology/ideas started to be implemented elsewhere in the PC industry.
I'm just going to say... wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's unwise to use IR or RF in presentations (Score:3, Insightful)
Infrared and bluetooth and wifi are great for use at home where the environment is stable and controlled, but in a major international event like CES, the conditions are exactly the opposite. If one could see in the IR band, I bet the CES stage would have appeared swamped in a blizzard of unwanted IR confetti from numerous sources.
Re:That's live theatre, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
You can also write software that doesn't suck. You can write programs that don't crash. You can make things that are secure. These are things you can control.
Things like mics breaking, lamps burning out, and other physical things happen, yes. Physical things break down, and you can swap them out during a presentation. But software is not one of these things.
Everyone who is making excuses needs to face it: the software is what they were presenting, and it broke down in the middle of a big presentation. Not someone else's hardware. The software. Their software.
Even if it was hardware, would it be excusable? If Intel was presenting their latest chip, and it melted during the presentation, wouldn't you be worried about its viability? If a manufacturer of hospital IV machines did a presentation, and in the middle their hardware died and stopped delivering IV fluid, would you consider purchase? Why then, with something that's not hardware, that's more fully controllable, do we make excuses?
We shouldn't. This is just another problem in a long line of problems from a vendor who is notorious for problematic software.
Don't make excuses.
Re:come together (Score:3, Insightful)
So your vested interest lies in fixing the buggy nightmare that is Windows. You make your living off BSoD crashes. If it worked, you'd have to get a lot more creative than installing a patch rebooting 'til it kinda works. The OS shouldn't crash when running a USB repeater and/or a flaky Internet connection - that's a crappy OS at work.
Your Windows bias lets you excuse that prison in which we all work, while complaining that a specific Linux distro doesn't support a specific piece of hardware, or that a dinky little ".org" website is down at some particular time. If Windows didn't control the market though nontechnical superiority, more HW would be tested for Linux compatibility due to market demand, unconstrained by monopoly competition. And if you were a more experienced presenter yourself, as am I after 28 years in your business, starting when facilities often didn't even have 3-prong power outlets for grounded equipment cables, you'd have prepared a lot better. Gates, of course, has no excuse, except that monopoly makes you complacent, and sometimes you wind up with pie on your face.
Re:Grow a brain before typing! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Behind the Scenes at the CES Keynote (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:come together (Score:3, Insightful)
David and Golith (Score:1, Insightful)
Half Life 2 (Score:1, Insightful)
This is getting tiring (Score:1, Insightful)
I can remember the schoolyard, "look he's wearing reebok!", "Hey, shitty trainers" etc. Eventually people grow up and realise a pair of trainers are just a pair of trainers, thats all. If you're serious about a sport though you'd get a pair that were suitable to it, you following this?
MS has its place (btw its ahead of the rest IMHO!), but its just an OS, an OS which my parents can use easily. To be honest they would rather have an OS which was simple but broke down occasionaly than an OS which was
Perhaps what I would like to see is a Slashdot for professional, employed and intelligent people with real world experience (is that not what it was started for?), as the comments from anyone else are of absolutely no concern to myself.
Grow up and get a job you close minded OS bigots!
BTW: I'm a very experienced and well paid long-time IT Pro.
Re:Deja vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deja vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahhhh, that explains why Linux is so stable. Torvalds rules over the hardware manufacturers with an iron fist!
(if you hadn't noticed, linux runs on much more varied hardware than windows does, and is much more stable. MS has no excuse anymore)
Re:Deja vu (Score:3, Insightful)
So because you can't manage to install Linux or have hardware that for some reason is not supported by Linux (and I really would like to know if you are just trolling and what hw and problems you have had), you claim that the parent poster is wrong. Amazing!
I have used Linux since kernel 0.91 and as my main OS since 1995. I have installed it on a wide varity of hardware. Problems, sure... Not been able to install it? Never. And in the past few years close to zero problems. Currently running Gentoo on 2 P4's and and AMD64 box. The 2 P4's are Dell's, the AMD64 a no-name box.
Re:Never seen Steve Jobs in this situation (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, that's good, make up some bitter anti-Apple FUD when your own platform gets some bad publicity. So defensive! When Microsoft already dominates computing into the high nineties percentage, in ways both good (broad market for those who create software, peripherals), and bad (poor security, rampant virii/trojans, many exploits), why is it so hard to accept criticism?
When a figurehead from MS has a very public failure, everybody focuses on it - it's as though it was a symbol for MS's other failures (security etc.) It gives people an outlet, where they otherwise feel they have no control over those situations where they feel victimized by MS's failures.
So, relax! MS will continue to dominate, and criticism will continue to flow. Just ignore it, think of it as primal therapy for hackers.
Re:Actually, WinXP 64bit runs like crap... (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows NT 3.5 for MIPS processors
Windows NT 3.51 for Power PC processors
Windows NT 4.0 for Alpha processors
Windows XP for the Itanium processor
Why? No one would write any software for these NEW NON-Intel compatible hardware platforms. Not even MS Office. Yes there was one version of Office for a RISC platform, Office 4.2 for the Alpha.
Steve works in more scripted/controlled environ. (Score:1, Insightful)
Steve J's demos are more heavily scripted and polished, like an informercial. Remember Steve J was the business/sales guy, Steve W was the technical genius. You need both sides for success but it helps to keep your Steve's straight. Steve J is a superior pitchman and puts on better shows, part of this is to work in much more highly controlled environments. Onstage/backstage of Conan is quite different than MacWorld Expo.
Re:Are we even slightly surprised it's down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Trying 66.226.14.131...
Connected to blog.seanalexander.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 dedi312 Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.211 ready at Sat, 8 Jan 2005 17:12:10 -0800
helo
250 dedi312 Hello [203.45.93.121]
MAIL From: bill@microsoft.com
250 2.1.0 bill@microsoft.com....Sender OK
RCPT To: test@xxxxxx.com
550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for test@xxxxxx.com