A quick note: Thanks to Toby for sending over a link to this video clip from BillG’s keynote last night, with a look to the future: his last day at the office. (Friends on my concall right now should enjoy this one. 😉
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/#22538447
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates presents a self-deprecating farewell video during his keynote address at the CES 2008 in Las Vegas.
Bill Gates shows off 15 new ‘fashion computers’ with everything to custom cases and colours to one from Medion with enough bling worthy of any A-lister in tinsel town.
Of interest is the uniquely designed (totally tubular) 
Moneual Lab I*magine Ultimate media center PC. I recall seeing people play with such designs in the past in design competitions, but this is one of the first that smacks of an overgrown Roku device with the kind of screen worthy of a compact all-in-one for the living room or den.
Joining the new all-in-one models from Dell, HP and Gateway is the new Sony LT all-in-one with a 22″ widescreen, built-in video conferencing camera running a powerful Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor. This is an elegant looking PC with specs to match, and an integrated HD tuner that will also get the various digital channels that our local digital offerings.
Also see MSN’s list of 30 cool gadgets at CES
Bloggers and the press are out in force at CES in Las Vegas, tonite covering Bill Gates’ keynote at CES 2008. You can find several entries listed here. Check out video coverage at Microsoft’s CES site and on Microsoft PressPass.
[More on the keynote from MS.com: On Monday, Jan. 7, the transcript from the keynote address will be posted on PressPass, along with an online media kit. Click here to subscribe to PressPass via RSS. If you are in Vegas, Microsoft’s booth is 7144 in the Central Hall of the LVCC.]
So far, it’s just like being in Vegas, but with out the 24-hour flashing neon, long cab and restaurant lines, sleepy booth jockeys and uncomfortable hotels… and all from the comfort of my own home with free broadband access.
And much quieter, too.
Our very own MSN Tech & Gadgets has a dedicated CES page along with the their spaces blog with posts from staff in Vegas (with the first photos of Playboy Bunnies, Hulk Hogan and tasers…;). Engadget has great coverage on a CES-optimized page for their readers. Daisuke Wakabayashi at Reuters covered the keynote as did Joseph Menn from the LA Times, and many blogger reports from CES here.
[Added 010708: Here’s a good summary of the keynote from first-time Gates keynote attendee Brian Heater on Gearlog.com, which also has CES product coverage.]
Todd Bishop of the Seattle PI newspaper has an active Microsoft blog and tonite provides an overview of one of the keynote items: partnerships with content providers “including one with NBC to put video of the upcoming Olympics [see below] in Beijing exclusively on Microsoft’s MSN site.” He also notes the deal with MGM Studios to offer movies on Xbox Live Video, as well as with ABC Television, the Disney Channel offering programming from their channels.
Marc has a quick synopsis on his blog, and Mary Jo Foley has a few points on Gates’ last CES keynote, which she said was ‘Long on sales claims, short on futures…’ She also notes here that Microsoft has announced a new sales milestone for Windows Vista: 100 million retail copies sold…
“The company made the announcement via an article, which includes answers to reader questions by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, published by the BBC on Sunday…”
Want to ask Bill a question? You can pose your own questions to Mr. Gates, so to speak, as posted on tech-buzz: Billg invited readers (of the BBC News) “to send him questions about his life and career. This invitation has been extended to readers from all over the world, and the timing could not have been more apt. You can send him questions on his life and career here.” The beeb will select some of the best questions and post the answers courtesy of Billg on their website and via television.
Also cool is the announcement that our Internet Protocol Television technology (IPTV) ‘Mediaroom’ is on more than a million set-top boxes worldwide. (As Bishop notes, IPTV technology delivers TV signals over phone lines.) No mention of any new Xbox 360 hardware yet.
C’mon… VUDU is listing their new XL for nearly a grand US (which is what, C$99 these days?;) and will debut their new Vudu XL movie vault that will hold “up to 500 full-length SD standard movies.” (Thanks, betanews.) Surely we’ll see some more great announcements on the Media Center front when it comes to content and home theaters, right?
Now, back to the keynote: Todd Bishop also sat down and interviewed Billg just before the keynote where…
“Gates talked about the future of technology and discussed his plans as he prepares to go part time at the company later this year. He also defended Microsoft’s year-old Windows Vista operating system from critics and credited Nintendo’s Wii game console for its approachability — saying he expects Microsoft to “match that and do better.”
[Note: IMHO, “match that and do better” for starters should equal an Xbox 360 with a much quieter fan and disc drive than I have today in my black Xbox 360 Elite. Another note: smaller and durable is also a good thing, too: to our boy’s delight, we traveled over the winter break with a Wii in my laptop carry-on bag, which included a laptop as well, power supply in the checked bag.]
At this year’s keynote, Ian Dixon posted here that Billg and Robbie Bach from E&D covered Vista customers (over 100 million served), Window Live bits, Surface, Silverlight, Xbox Live and Mediaroom (IPTV), Samsung’s new Media Center Extender and how in the UK customers will find the “the Xbox 360 as a IPTV client.” Add to that the numbers game: 10 million members strong on Xbox Live; 17.7 million Xbox 360 consoles sold so far (as x3sphere posted here); and 420 million Windows Live users worldwide.
And another number: Gizmodo covers the 3,600 hours of the 2008 Olympic Games on MSN in Silverlight…
“Bill Gates (and Bob Costas) announced that NBC would broadcast 3,600 hours of games from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics via MSN on the nbcolympics.com site. The video will be both live and on demand, with over 30 simultaneous live broadcasts. The cool thing is that finally, people who love ridiculous games like the hammer toss will get their fix, without upsetting the basketball fans who wouldn’t dare allow for a pre-emption.”
(Silverlight is a relatively small download: a whopping 2.6 MB which took less than a minute to install on my machine.)
As reported on Engadget, Zune will finally say ‘eh’ as it’s soon to be launched in Canada: perhaps I can then find some more Nash the Slash and Jane Siberry on Zune, too. I hope that they do this before the next general election or no later than Canada Day: friends up north shouldn’t have to endure another Zuneless summer.
Todd Bishop also offers an edited transcript of the interview in his post — good reading — in addition to coverage of the keynote address here, as Gates came on stage with Slash, lately of of ‘Guitar Hero III’ fame…
“The night ended with Microsoft executive Robbie Bach challenging Gates to a “Guitar Hero” duel. After Bach brought out a “Guitar Hero” champion to stand in for him on the old Guns N’ Roses tune “Welcome to the Jungle,” Gates said he had a ringer, too: Slash, the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist…”
Mary Jo also posted that…
“the only truly futuristic technology that Gates showed during his hour-plus CES appearance was a piece of visual-recognition software under development by Microsoft Research that, some day, may be integrated into cell phones and other devices…
“I was hoping Gates would pull a Steve Jobs and say at the very end of his remarks, “We have one more thing…” and show off Windows Live “Horizon” or a sneak peek of Windows Mobile 7, or the “Pink and Purple” project’s Zune phone, or — heck, even just a glimpse of “Fiji.”
Hey, Mary Jo… it’s the early start to a long week. Give it time. 😉
For our sons: Engadget provides a video look Guitar Wizard. Our kids are big on Guitar Hero on Xbox, and now the makers of the big hit at our house this Christmas — I Can Play Guitar from Mattel — have this new teaching tool showing at CES. Add to this Max is in his first year of real guitar lessons and Music Wizard’s Guitar Wizard looks like a great learning tool. (More info here.)
More info:
Tags: Consumer Electronics Show, Bill Gates, Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft Corp., Gate, Microsoft Windows, CES 2008, Windows Live, Windows XP, Windows Mobile, Zune, Xbox, Xbox Live, Windows 7, Software, Consumer Electronics.
I enjoy Angus Logan’s blog, in particular, a recent post on what to do when you’re drowning in email. But his new post calls out a great function on how to use Live Search to tell the time in <random city you have no idea where>.
“I always find myself trying to figure out what time zone a city is in;
“And [Live Search is] smart too – it can tell the difference between Brisbane & Sydney in Australia (both GMT+1000) but one has DST and the other doesn’t.”
That’s a cool feature.
Unfortunately, Live Search isn’t up to date on their time zones. Neither is Google. (Reminds me of an old song by Morris Day and The Time… I’m showing my age.)
For example, I ran a search on “time Argentina” on both Live.com and Google.com: both displayed the incorrect time:
When I ran the search (at 11:31 PM Pacific) it was actually 5:31 AM in Argentina (not that I actually called anyone there to verify), not 4:31 AM as shown: the searched returned the incorrect results for countries that have had recent DST and TZ changes. Argentina just made the change on December 30 (as I noted here), when the country adopted a new DST offset of -0200 UTC.
I also tried the search out with one of the latest changes (this one from a favourite, memorable series on one particular South American country that had some difficulty deciding on when to make the change):
Unfortunately the time quoted is incorrect, off by 30 minutes. There is a new cumulative Windows OS update which includes the correct time for Venezuela. In this case, Venezuela is -0430 UTC as of mid December (they have a new DST in effect, as noted noted in this post).
Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST. 4,020,000; 10,600,000; 649,000+
As much as I prefer to shop at the lowest price, reputable e-tailer for many things, Amazon is one of the places I trust to always have a great customer experience. I still wander around local bookstores and buy books in person (you never know what you might find, plus the kids love to search for that special new book.)
Tonite as the family sleeps, I wander online to return an item to Amazon.com, frankly what turns out to be an easy experience.
Easy? No, really. Amazon makes it easy, not just to buy but to return as well. It’s a company focused on a great, all-around customer experience, due in no small part to the dedication and attention to service of founder Jeff Bezos.
As noted in the New York Times today by Joe Nocera, Jeff Bezos has an unceasing attention to customer service and prides himself on the “the customer experience” provided at Amazon…
“Just a few months ago, for instance, he appeared on Charlie Rose’s talk show to tout Amazon’s new e-book device, the Kindle. Toward the end of the program, Mr. Rose asked the chief executive an open-ended question about how he spent his time, and Mr. Bezos responded with a soliloquy about his “obsession” with customers.
“They care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast,” he said. “And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”
So true. No wonder that Brian Valentine headed to Amazon when he left Microsoft last fall: he’s passionate about technology and providing a super customer experience. (The stock’s done quite nicely, too, thank you.)
Of course, Wall Street wants short term results, and may not consider investing for the long haul…
“Wall Street, however, has never placed much value in Mr. Bezos’ emphasis on customers. What he has viewed as money well spent — building customer loyalty — many investors saw as giving away money that should have gone to the bottom line. “What makes their core business so compelling is that they are focused on everything the customer wants,” said Scott W. Devitt, who follows Amazon for Stifel Nicolaus & Company. “When you act in that manner many times Wall Street doesn’t appreciate it.”
Here are a few of the reasons I like Amazon, and why the etailer is a success…
Amazon alerts me when a price drops (or rises). I appreciate that when I log on to Amazon, I’m notified when an item that’s saved in my shopping cart has gone up or down in price: on occasion, that’s been one catalyst for me to make a purchase.
Tracking Amazon’s fluctuating prices. If you’ve visited Amazon often, you probably realized by now that prices change regularly on products at Amazon.com due to supply, demand and I’ll guess popularity. Because of these changes, there are times when a particular item you want may suddenly go on sale, but there’s little chance of finding a notice of the new price.
RSS to the rescue: you can track Amazon prices by various methods, but quite easily via RSS. I prefer to use RSStalker to watch specific prices of items on Amazon, in addition to tracking comparison shopping pages with Feedity via RSS (such as a specific product on Pricegarbber.com). When I’m shopping for a consumer device that is subject to price fluctuations, one of these two methods usually comes up a winner. (Dealcatcher.com is also a great place to find the lowest daily prices on popular items, but that’s fairly hit and miss.)
A wide range of purchasing choices. I also appreciate that on product pages, I not only see the discounted price from Amazon, I’m also presented with “More buying choices” that allows me to window shop from other Amazon sellers via Amazon’s payment system.
In this case, I found a copy of Bill’s book in new condition from a reputable reseller for $3.71 + $3.99 shipping, a bit of a discount over the $11.53 for a new copy from Amazon. [Disclaimer: I already own the book ;]
If you’re looking for a copy of Bezos’ biography by Bernard Ryan Jr., “Jeff Bezos: Business Executive And Founder Of Amazon.com” you’re in luck: “only 1 left in stock–order soon (more on the way).” But if you miss out, there are 24 used & new from $12.92 from other reputable Amazon sellers.
Real customer reviews online. I also like that I can see which products customers ultimately buy after viewing items like the one I’m considering. Sure, there are probably a few shill reviews from the manufacturers and even competitors, but it’s easy to weed these out: as with eBay, the community votes on reviews.
Real customer reviews help you get a feel for a product, the experience of using it and even the after-sale service from the manufacturer (as many dedicated Amazon customers update their reviews months after their original purchase). You can see which reviews others found helpful: on one item I considered, I found that 20 of 21 people found a particularly detailed and thoughtful review was helpful. In this case, I found that 72% purchased the item featured on the page, and get links to other products that customers purchased.
This also helps long after the sale, too, as one review was particularly informative: it details that the buyer (who purchased the item back in July) had some difficulty with the manufacturer on an issue that should be covered by the warranty:
“Update: January 4, 2008: The repair company said it’ll take 3 months to get the replacement part. I called [the company] and they said they’ll try to see if they can get the part faster, but no promises. They won’t give me a replacement…”
That’s eye opening. When I was at a previous company, I used to watch the reviews posted by customers on Amazon about our products and contact the customers for follow up (particularly when there were problems). Overall, it’s not surprising that “according to Forrester Research, 52 percent of people who shop online say they do their product research on Amazon.” [from the Times article]
Price Guarantees. Recently, I noticed that a product I had purchased as a gift for the kids had dropped in price. Although Amazon.com does not price-match with other retailers, Amazon does offer a Post-Order Price Guarantee. The process is simple: you have 30 days after the item has shipped to request a refund of the difference in price.
I’ve even found that when I’ve requested a price change 30 days after receipt of the item, Amazon still honoured the price guarantee. As for the refund on the item I requested, an Amazon customer service agent contacted me via email within a few hours of my original mail and made the adjustment.
Easy returns. And if you’ve ever had to make a return, Amazon makes it easy… too easy, actually. For instance, we had to return a product that didn’t quite make it in one piece to our home, and the return process at Amazon was smooth and simple: open the original on-line invoice, click the item, specify the reason for return and Amazon emails you a shipping label.
And if the problem is Amazon’s (such as poor packing, which has been my experience in the past), you’re not charged for any shipping or return costs.
Amazon certainly doesn’t get all my business, as other mass merchant etailers such as Buy.com and Newegg.com are very competitive and offer similar discounted shipping and low prices (not to mention no sales tax for Washington residents). Amazon is consistent and offers great value for the price.
IMHO, it’s clear that Amazon is focused on the customer and the shopping experience.
So, what’s it worth, this focus on an improved (if not best-in-class) customer experience? Turns out, a lot. With more than 72 million customers (Amazon’s estimate), Amazon has a high repeat customer rate.
Good customer service makes good sense: to paraphrase the old shampoo ad, a satisfied customer tells two friends, who tells two friends, and so on, and so on…
Now, I’ve got to order that new Robert Fulghum book…
Tags: customer service, Amazon.com, Amazon, etail, retail.
