Tablet PC Takes Center Stage With Bill Gates At Comdex

Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates gave his annual Sunday evening keynote and, as he did last year, touted the tablet PC model and Microsoft's newest operating system version, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. And, as usual, Gates entertained the crowd with another clever video clip. This year, the video "Behind the Technology," a spoof of VH1's "Behind the Music," poked fun at the PC industry with cameos from former president Bill Clinton, rap star Sean "P Diddy" Combs, Netscape Founder Marc Andreesen, and actor Anthony Michael Hall, who played Bill Gates in the television movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley."

While the keynote focused on consumer products such as the Xbox video game system and other entertainment technology, Gates also showed off several versions of the Tablet PC from vendor partners such as Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Acer. In addition, Gates previewed Microsoft Office 11, scheduled for release this summer. The version will feature new applications such as Xdocs, which connects various business processes with XML, and OneNote, an application that can capture, organize and reuse typed content, digital ink, audio and HTML elements.

Gates also highlighted Web services and the progress that has been made in developed industry standards this year via the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), which was formed earlier this year and includes several vendors such as IBM, BEA Systems and Intel.

"A year ago, there was no industry standard that focused on [Web services standards," Gates said during the keynote. "The creation of WS-I was a huge milestone."

Microsoft, however, has suffered some setbacks, specifically around the long-awaited Windows .Net Server 2003, which has been delayed several times. Gates said that the product is current in Release Candidate 2 mode, and the company plans to launch the server in April. The product was originally scheduled for a late 2001 or early 2002 release. "It's a major advance for the Windows server. We're getting very close on this one," Gates told the audience.

Gates said Windows .Net Server 2003 will offer many improvements from Windows 2000 Server, but spent just a few minutes on the product and offered few details. Gates did, however, announce a new partnership with Kinkos that will allow .Net users to take XML content from a client device and print it at a Kinkos location.

Later in the evening, Microsoft held a special Tablet PC reception at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Both Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mingled with guests and talked technology while Microsoft officials demonstrated various versions of the Tablet PC powered by Microsoft's new operating system.