Brief Summary of CTIA 2008 Keynotes - Robbie Bach’s Keynote
(Page 4 of 6 )
Robbie Bach is the president of the Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft. You can find the entire script of the keynote at Microsoft’s website here. In this case, I think it makes sense to assume the clarity and accuracy of the keynote coming from the official source. Therefore, I strongly suggest you read it yourself too.
I’ll do my best to present in a nutshell some of the key parts of the keynote. In its entirety, as expected, the theme centered around innovation and what Microsoft does to feed this innovation. Microsoft does lots of work in terms of wireless and mobile phones – and that’s where Windows Mobile services enter in the picture.
(Photo Courtesy of CTIA Wireless 2008)
Robbie Bach clearly points out that, despite popular belief, there isn’t only one department that is working to develop mobile applications, namely Windows Mobile. There is a company-wide effort to build solutions targeting the mobile space, with the Office departments, entertainment, and others also playing a role.
Later on, the presentation of Windows Mobile 6.1 begins and that’s where the action happens. Let me say that you need to either read the entire keynote or find a video of the presentation; you cannot imagine it. Its user interface was totally revamped, targeted to fulfilling the most important needs of customers such as scheduling, messaging, emails, missed calls, listening to music, organizing photos, and such.
One of the new, truly unique features of Windows Mobile 6.1 is the ability to copy-paste throughout every application on an operating-system level. Regardless of which menu you are in, you can just copy something and then paste it at another place. Outlook Mobile will include filtering, searching, and other “desktop”-like features. Live Search is also outstanding–doing voice searches on traffic, weather, maps, gas prices…
Internet Explorer Mobile will also be pre-shipped with Windows Mobile. Obviously, it called for lots of work to render web pages in the fashion you’d be able to see on desktop computers. To accomplish this, they included a wide range of standards starting from plain HTML up to even Adobe Flash technologies. As long as your phone supports the standards, Windows Mobile will bring them to you.
Sony Ericsson’s latest phone, called XPERIA X1, is going to ship with Windows Mobile 6.1. At this point in the keynote, Ramanath Bhat from Sony Ericsson was called to the stage to present the cellular phone. Let me tell you that it does more than what you’d expect and perhaps more than you could use right away.
At the end, Robbie Bach mentions that the top five operators will be shipping Windows Mobile 6.1. Version: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Alltel. Lots of new hi-tech phones are coming out with cutting-edge features such as the Samsung Blackjack II, Samsung ACE, Motorola Q9, Pantech Duo, and the AT&T Tilt.
“People won't remember mobile phones so much as phones, although that will certainly be at the center of what these devices do, but they will remember them as the next generation platform, a platform that touches everything that our customers do, and certainly everything that Microsoft works on.” ~ Robbie Bach
Next: Dan Hesse’s Keynote >>
More Hardware News Articles
More By Barzan "Tony" Antal
