Well, Microsoft’s CES 2007 keynote address just wrapped up, and it was lackluster at best.  Most of what was talked about were things we already knew, and the handful of new products they announced were not that exciting.  Microsoft’s theme at this address was “connected experiences,” and predictably, they spent a lot of time talking about how Windows Vista would bring a lot of those connected experiences together, in conjunction with technologies like Windows Live, Live Search, Media Center, Microsoft TV, Microsoft Auto, Xbox 360 and Zune.  Microsoft also talked about their “ home of the future”, which they use to showcase their vision of the future.  That was perhaps the most exciting part of the entire keynote address.

But let’s start at the beginning, and the beginning for Microsoft in 2007 is Windows Vista.  Scheduled for release on January 30, Windows Vista forms the linchpin of Microsoft’s connected experiences strategies throughout 2007.  To illustrate the point Microsoft belabored how much time and effort it has spent in making sure Vista is the highest quality OS it has shipped yet.  It claims that the investment it has made in Windows Vista is the biggest ever made on a software application (and judging by the length of time it took to develop Vista, I would agree).  Microsoft demoed a few features new to Windows Vista, including the ability for Windows Instant Search to search across all the computers on your network; and the new preview pane in Windows Explorer, which lets you see all your files before opening them.  One feature it was particularly proud to show off was the Volume Shadow Copy feature, which dynamically stores copies of the document at various intervals, and lets you go back to those documents at any point in time.  In a dig at Apple, Microsoft was quick to point out that “it’s better than going back in time”.

Let’s not kid ourselves, no matter what we say or do, Windows Vista is going to sell tens of millions of copies this year.  The features they showed off today are not going to set the world on fire, but they were new and they were useful.  It’s going to take time for people to warm up to Windows Vista, and it’s going to take more than these features to convince people to voluntarily adopt it.  Of course that doesn’t matter much, because people will get it on all their new PCs anyway.

Microsoft also showed off the new version of Microsoft office, which features an all new interface that is designed to be more discoverable and easier to use than previous versions of Office.  The new version also features themes that helps make documents look more professional.  Again, this is going to sell tens of millions of copies, whether on new PCs or through volume licensing agreements to businesses.  And let’s face it, its Office; there isn’t much Microsoft can do to make it exciting to consumers.  They did however use it to segue into a demonstration of Windows Live Search, which has a new feature that lets you view a 3-D representation of a map location right in the browser window, a la Google Earth.  You could even fly through the map, flight simulator style, using an Xbox 360 controller.  That was a hit with the crowd, but I have to wonder just how many people will use this thing on a regular basis.  It’s not exactly practical to pick up an Xbox 360 controller just to view an online map.

Microsoft then showed off its new Media Center features, including a new Sports Lounge channel developed in conjunction with Fox Sports.  The sports lounge combines real-time data, stat tracking, and picture-in-picture to create some innovative scenarios for sports fans.  For example, fantasy sports junkies can keep track of their favorite teams, with the system alerting them whenever one of the tracked players makes a play.  Microsoft also touched on new movie channels from Showtime, Nickelodeon, and Vongo which are now compatible with Media Center.  This is one feature I can see many many Vista owners using, assuming they can actually get television reception on their Vista PCs in the first place.  Of the people I know who use Media Center, none of them actually have a connection to television.  If Microsoft can convince people to actually connect these things to TVs, I believe the Sports Lounge and the new channels will be hits.

Rounding out the new features of Windows Vista, Microsoft showed off Photo Gallery, DVD maker, and Windows Ultimate Extras.  Photo Gallery and DVD Maker of self explanatory, but Windows Ultimate Extras probably needs a little bit of explanation.  Windows Vista comes in a number of editions, and the most expensive of those is Windows Ultimate.  If you buy Windows Ultimate, you will get access to Windows Ultimate Extras, which is a set of extra novelty applications designed just to make you feel a little bit better about your purchase.  Microsoft demonstrated two of these ultimate extras, GroupShot and DreamScenes.  GroupShot lets you digitally composite a photograph by taking parts of other photographs and putting them together.  It seemed like a bit of a novelty to me; I don’t see how anyone will use it for anything serious, but it is something that looks fun to play with.  DreamScenes on the other hand, looks amazing.  It lets you use a video as the background of your computer desktop.  Mac fans will be quick to cry that they have had this feature for years, but it has never been integrated into the OS the way it is using DreamScenes.  I think DreamScenes alone will sell a lot of Ultimate versions of Windows.

Microsoft spent a lot of time talking about new form factors for PCs.  These included touchscreen PCs, sideshow displays, ultra-mobile PCs, and a new PC that we’ve never heard of before called a home server.  This last one is particularly interesting, because Microsoft is building a new version of Windows to support that.  It’s called Windows Home Server, and it’s designed to be put on boxes that will go inside a closet somewhere and will quietly manage the rest of your Home Network.  It will provide automated backup of all the computers on your network; connectivity from all the devices on the network (including Xbox 360), as well as from a remote location; and it also allows for RAID-style plug-and-play expansion using standard hard drives.  This product is interesting to me, because it illustrates what I’ve felt about the future of Home Entertainment and networking.  I’ve always felt that sometime in the near future, we would all have these boxes in our closets, connected to the outside world, and controlling all the other devices on our network.  Many of us now have a multitude of networked devices in our homes, not just PCs but also Game consoles, Tivo boxes, receivers and amplifiers, refrigerators, high definition DVD players, the list goes on.  It will be interesting to see if this new home server product can connect all of these devices effectively.  A lot will depend on how this server product is priced, and I don’t see it gaining much acceptance this year at least.  But in the years to come, I think this new product will be very successful for Microsoft.

Microsoft then talked a lot about its entertainment initiatives in music, mobile, and gaming.  Nothing really new here, just a regurgitation of everything we’ve seen over the past year.  We know about URGE, we know about Zune, we know about Windows Mobile, we know about Games For Windows, and Microsoft said absolutely nothing new about any of those.  But they did elaborate a bit more about Xbox 360.  They made a big deal about mentioning how they have sold 10.4 million Xbox 360 consoles, and how the majority of those buyers were new to the Xbox.  Finally, they talked about Microsoft’s work in TV and movie delivery.  They talked about the HD DVD player for Xbox 360, Media Center, Xbox Live Video, but the big thing they wanted to talk about was Microsoft TV, an IP TV platform they’ve been working on for the past few years, which is finally been deployed among five different providers throughout the world, with more coming in 2007.  They showed a short demo of the IP TV platform, but it wasn’t as impressive as the IP TV demo they showed two years ago at CES, until they mentioned the demo was running on Xbox 360.  We all knew this was coming, but it was still a bit of a surprise to see it in action.  I wonder if Microsoft is biting off a little more than they can chew here.  The Xbox 360 is quickly becoming a jack of all trades, and Microsoft is going to have to work very hard to make sure it is not a master of none.

Microsoft’s next big foray is into the world of in-car entertainment, and it announced a joint venture with Ford to bring its Microsoft auto platform to Ford’s 2007 model year lineup.  The system, called Ford Sync, allows you to connect many devices inside the car using USB, such as cameras and a multitude of MP3 players (including iPod); provides full access to your bluetooth enabled phone; includes a full entertainment platform; uses voice commands; is fully upgradeable; and will be available on just about every Ford car in the 2007 model year.  This goes much further than Apple’s in-car solution, which only works with iPod, but it remains to be seen how widely accepted this new initiative will be among auto makers (and no snickers in the back about your car blue screening).

Finally, Microsoft let us have a look at its “Home Of The Future” initiative, a home automation prototype Microsoft maintains as a vision of what it sees as the home of the future.  It demonstrated a location-aware mobile phone with the ability to pick up bus schedules while you’re at the bus stop, and to sign for packages remotely when it detects a deliveryman at your front door.  Moving to the kitchen, Microsoft’s vision includes displays projected onto your countertop showing recipes based on the RFID tags of the groceries you place on it.  And in the bedroom, Microsoft sees you using an ultra-mobile PC to control a whole wall display to do things like watch TV, play games, serve as a picture window, and receive reminders and notes.  It is a fascinating glimpse into the future, but I for one feel that it was a little bit pedestrian compared to previous homes of the future that Microsoft has shown off.

All in all, the vision Microsoft paints of “connected entertainment” is actually rather unremarkable and restrained.  Of course they talked a lot about Windows Vista and Microsoft Office, but beyond that, they didn’t really say much about the future.  They didn’t announce anything completely new (aside from the Microsoft Autos platform and the Windows Home Server), nor did they announce anything particularly forward-looking.  Nor were there many exciting announcements.  Indeed the most exciting announcements for me were the aforementioned Windows Home Server and the fact that IPV is now supported in Xbox 360.  Microsoft seems very much focused on promoting Windows Vista and Microsoft Office, but that’s to be expected, as those are its cash cows and it’s got new versions of both products coming out this year.  It’s clear to me that everything else Microsoft announced was in the service of those two products.

Perhaps we’ll see a more adventurous Microsoft in 2008.