The event, run by Bill Gates with help from Conan O'Brien, mimicked "Late Show with Conan O'Brien," right down to an imitation of O'Brien's desk and guest area. And what started off as all fun and games, with the comedian bouncing jokes off a playful Gates, soon lost some of its chuckles.

Microsoft's main theme for the keynote was its Media Center and vision of connected entertainment in the home and on the go. But time and time again, Microsoft's technology failed to come through for Gates as an audience packed with press and analysts at the Las Vegas Hilton Theater watched with waiting eyes.

Microsoft's first mishap occurred when Gates tried to show some mock pictures of the software guru and NBC star enjoying their time in Vegas on the Media Server to no avail. O'Brien was given the signal a few minutes later that the error had been corrected and turned it back to Gates. But again, the technology did not come through, leaving Microsoft with egg on its face.

"Nine people just got fired -- digitally," the talk show host joked, getting a belly laugh from the crowd.

The photos were later found during a different segment and tossed back to Gates and O'Brien, who finally did the skit.

Mishaps continued throughout the night, including an "out of system memory" message appearing on the demo screen as the company showed its fully customizable Xbox game Fortza Motor Sport, due out in April.

What Microsoft was successful at, however, was landing partners for its Media Center vision of the future -- one that Gates wholeheartedly admits will not be conquered by his company alone. In response to O'Brien asking Gates what his vision was for 2005 (and poking fun by adding "and how can I be a part of it?" to the question), the Microsoft chairman responded by looking at the industry as a whole and benefits and shortfalls across the range.

"The chips are doubling in power, and what that means for speed and traffic," Gates said on a positive note. "The storage is doubling, so the ability to store video and music. We're really not going to be that limited. Whether it's putting hard disk storage or using solid state storage, you are going to have as many music and videos as you want. The software, a lot of work is needed there so that the usability, allowing people to customize things, just making things so they are very automatic and people have no concerns about using their data on these systems. Those adjustments will be made, not just by Microsoft but by many companies interested in making things better."

Partnerships noted included ones with MTV Networks, Yahoo!, XM Satellite Radio and The Discovery Channel for content. The company and LG also announced a new DVD recorder. Gates noted LG and Digitrex's development of HDTV for Media Center, and separate universal remote moves by Philips, Niveus Media and Logitech. And the company released news that it and TiVo had partnered to allow users of the personal video recorder technology to transfer TiVo content to any PC.

"The consumer market is very demanding. It has to be cheap, it has to be simple, it'll have to be things that will catch on by word of mouth. But I think we can see here in 2005 that this is the decade that it's coming together. The companies that come to this show, the ones who believe in it, there have been an amazing opportunities for them," Gates concluded.

By: DocMemory
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