In dueling tradeshow keynotes this week, Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates laid out their competing visions for digital convergence. To Messaging and Collaboration editor Steve Gillmor, Apple now holds the lead position.
In back-to-back keynotes in San Francisco and Las Vegas, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates this week underlined the vanishing difference between consumer and enterprise markets. Convergence has been the password for at least the past two Comdex and CES events, and both Apple and Microsoft are rolling out products loosely based on the notion of a home information hub. Microsoft's chief software architect was uncharacteristically off-center on Wednesday here as he let Jay Leno and an MSN product manager entertain the theater-sized crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show keynote. He stumbled frequently as he winged it in a presentation revolving around "consumer" experiences in the home and on the move. Even the demos had a slap-dash feel to them.
However, don't mistake these surface messages for a lack of preparation. If anything, the technologies Microsoft is readying represent the culmination of years of planning, investment and R&D. But the results somehow fell flat—becoming only small flashes of brilliance buried in miles of cable and duct tape across Microsoft's splayed divisions. At MacWorld Expo San Francisco on Tuesday, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs made the best of a largely transitional set of announcements. The iPod Mini has some form-factor appeal, limited price incentive, and some momentum-building for Apple's cross-platform iTunes-iPod strategy. But the headline was Apple's move into the music creation space, via the company's new GarageBand sequencer and recorder add-in to its iLife software bundle.
News source: eWeek
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