Gates To Tout Tablet PCs, Security Efforts, Spam Control

New Centrino-based devices from Gateway, Viewsonic and Toshiba are expected to share the stage with the Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Software Architect as he once again seeks to jump-start demand for pen-based computing. It's at least the third year in a row Gates will have used the Comdex bully pulpit to pump up devices that accept handwritten input.

Gates & Co. are also planning so show off previously unpublicized features of the next release of the tablet operating system, code-named Lonestar. Lonestar, tales of which surfaced earlier this month, is due in the middle of 2004.

Gates is also expected to reaffirm, or re-re-affirm, Microsoft's commitment to security, more than two years into the company's trustworthy computing initiative. Microsoft, which has seen its products targeted by hackers and crackers with seemingly increasing frequency, is seeking to make patch management and application more rational and easier to administer, and its underlying products more impervious to threats. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer again sounded a call to arms around security at Microsoft's worldwide partner conference early last month and then again at the recent Gartner ITXpo.

The upcoming ISA Server 2004 is slated to be introduced during the keynote as is a new "intelligent message filtering" add-on for Exchange Server 2003 to take on the spam scourge inundating e-mail boxes. Microsoft considers ISA Server a critical part of its "securing the perimeter" initiative. The new version of the Internet Security and Acceleration Server, code-named Stingray, has been in beta since summer.

Microsoft is on the hot seat over security and privacy issues given the hacker attacks on its software and the difficulty of tracking and installing numerous patches. The company will use its Comdex pulpit to again extol the newly shipping System Management Server (SMS) 2003, which promises to simplify and rationalize patch application and deployment.

Gates is slated to expand on the "seamless computing" campaign Microsoft touted at its Professional Developers Conference last month. A key goal of Longhorn, the next major Windows release, is the ability for applications to work across firewalls and between geographical locations securely and efficiently.

Another key theme will be Microsoft's defense of the "notion of IT as a strategic asset," said a company spokesman. "Other companies say people should outsource IT -- we view the world a bit differently," he said

It wouldn't be a Microsoft keynote without the high-production-quality "humor" video. This year it will be based on The Matrix. Last year's offering guest-starred luminaries ranging from P. Diddy and Tim Russert to former Apple CEO John Sculley and former president Bill Clinton.

While the spokesman would not divulge details, he said Matrix star Keanu Reaves was not involved. The story line will be "about how our chief software architect is preparing a certain personality in the company to deliver the message on integrated innovation." he said.

The personality? "That would be our CEO." he said.