LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Bill Gates on Wednesday will show an avid tech audience the long-awaited major upgrade to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, called Vista, as the electronics industry's biggest U.S. conference kicks off.
Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, speaks on Wednesday afternoon and is a veteran keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, held annually in Las Vegas.
A dozen industries are convening in Las Vegas this week for the industry's annual confab to show off the latest electronic gadgets as they angle for a bigger share of a $122 billion industry.
In all, the show will include more than 2,500 exhibitors, 130,000 industry participants and 28 football fields of display space.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has promised to launch Vista -- formerly code-named Longhorn -- in the second half of this year. The next version of Office, its office productivity software suite, also is slated to launch around that time.
Gates has already pitched software developers to build programs for the next versions of Windows, and beta versions have been circulating for some time.
On Wednesday, Gates takes the wraps off the operating system's user interface, and his presentation is expected to focus on the consumer-related features of Vista, such as moving video, music, movies and other digital content easily among PCs and devices.
In addition to Gates, chief executives from Sony Corp. , the world's biggest consumer electronics company; Intel Corp.; Google Inc.; and others will be on hand to give speeches.
Palm Inc., for its part, said on Wednesday it has started sales of its Treo mobile phone powered by Microsoft software, a device that could help Palm compete against Research In Motion Ltd.'s Blackberry for corporate customers.
Palm's Treo 700w device, introduced at the trade show, will run on the high-speed data network of Verizon Wireless, using the Windows Mobile operating system. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc.
The new Treo could potentially open up a much bigger corporate market for Palm, due to Microsoft's central role in the desktop computer software and back-office e-mail markets.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsA...1_ARM457670_RTRUKOC_0_US-ELECTRONICS-SHOW.xml
Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, speaks on Wednesday afternoon and is a veteran keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, held annually in Las Vegas.
A dozen industries are convening in Las Vegas this week for the industry's annual confab to show off the latest electronic gadgets as they angle for a bigger share of a $122 billion industry.
In all, the show will include more than 2,500 exhibitors, 130,000 industry participants and 28 football fields of display space.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has promised to launch Vista -- formerly code-named Longhorn -- in the second half of this year. The next version of Office, its office productivity software suite, also is slated to launch around that time.
Gates has already pitched software developers to build programs for the next versions of Windows, and beta versions have been circulating for some time.
On Wednesday, Gates takes the wraps off the operating system's user interface, and his presentation is expected to focus on the consumer-related features of Vista, such as moving video, music, movies and other digital content easily among PCs and devices.
In addition to Gates, chief executives from Sony Corp. , the world's biggest consumer electronics company; Intel Corp.; Google Inc.; and others will be on hand to give speeches.
Palm Inc., for its part, said on Wednesday it has started sales of its Treo mobile phone powered by Microsoft software, a device that could help Palm compete against Research In Motion Ltd.'s Blackberry for corporate customers.
Palm's Treo 700w device, introduced at the trade show, will run on the high-speed data network of Verizon Wireless, using the Windows Mobile operating system. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc.
The new Treo could potentially open up a much bigger corporate market for Palm, due to Microsoft's central role in the desktop computer software and back-office e-mail markets.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsA...1_ARM457670_RTRUKOC_0_US-ELECTRONICS-SHOW.xml
