CES 2009

Microsoft will have a bunch of stuff to show at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but a rumored ZunePhone won't be one of them, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.

Instead, much of CEO Steve Ballmer's focus will be on talking about Windows 7 from a consumer perspective. Microsoft is pushing to have Windows 7 done in time for the holiday 2009 shopping season, so that means this CES is Ballmer's best stage to tout its benefits.

While the desktop operating system will be front and center, sources say to expect Ballmer to talk about how Windows is moving beyond the PC and into a world of PC, Web, and phone, a refrain we also heard a lot from Ray Ozzie at November's Professional Developers Conference, where the world also got its first good look at Windows 7.

On the phone front, Microsoft may not have a ZunePhone, but it is going ahead with several other strategies--pushing phone makers to develop phones based on Windows Mobile, developing Windows Live services for phones running a variety of operating systems as well as a number of new "premium mobile services" based on its Danger acquisition.

The company has also talked about extending its Zune service beyond the company's own dedicated player and mentioned the phone as a logical place to access the service. We may hear more about timing of this at CES, I'm told. In an October interview with CIO UK, Ballmer mentioned the possibility of accessing the Zune service on Windows Mobile phones.

The Xbox will certainly get its due as well during Ballmer's keynote speech and, as is typically the case, expect Microsoft to announce some new partnerships at the show. A funny video and celebrity guest are usually safe bets as well.

So that's what I've heard, but if tipsters know any more, I'm all ears.

The Consumer Electronics Show has become a mammoth event every January in Las Vegas, but the down economy is paring it back as Cisco Systems, Yahoo, and other companies scale back their presence.

CES remains a useful way for technology companies to meet with retailers, press, and the media. But for some in the current economic climate, it's not useful enough to pay $35 per square foot for a sprawling booth on the Las Vegas Convention Center's cavernous interior.

"This was to have been Cisco's first time as a formal exhibitor," said spokesman Jim Brady. "Given (Cisco's) focus on reducing costs, the company has decided to scale down its participation in CES in Las Vegas in January 2009." Instead, the networking giant is sticking with a more modest space rented at the Venetian Hotel supplemented with videoconferencing technology.

Cisco isn't the only one to scale back. Also on the list are Yahoo, Seagate, Logitech, and Belkin, company representatives confirmed. Philips won't have a space on the CES show floor, either, though Funai, which has taken over manufacturing and selling TVs under the Philips brand in the United States, will pick up some of the slack.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the show, said the show will be the third largest in terms of floor space, shrinking from its size the peak years of 2007 and 2008.

"The economy is causing some companies that may have had booths to say, 'Maybe we want to be in a meeting room instead,'" said association spokeswoman Tara Dunion. Despite it, the total number of exhibitors is level from 2008's show at about 2,700. "We're also seeing companies on the show floor for first time," including Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Iomega, and Mattel, she said.

And there's a silver lining, too. "Vegas hotel rates are coming down because tourism travel to Vegas is slower than it's been in years. That provides an opportunity for business professionals," she said.

Incentives to show
But the organizers are working hard to keep the show as lively as possible. One promotion is aimed at technology buyers--the middlemen who buy all those TVs, gadgets, cameras, and other devices before selling them to ordinary folks.

... Read more

And the winner is...

Although there were worthy competitors in the afternoon, the winner of the CEA i-stage event here in Las Vegas was Boxee, the "open, connected, social media center." (Though I did talk to a venture capital guy who said he was following my pick, Occipital.) I suspect that Boxee won through sheer slickness of interface, defined value proposition, and possibly presentation value. It's a good product, there's no doubt. Boxee walks away with the $50,000 and the coveted CES booth space, and we'll probably try to keep tabs on it on its road to CES. Keep an eye out for that!

The adorable fan favorite Webcam.

(Credit: minoru3dwebcam.com)

The afternoon session included some interesting innovations as well, but also the show's one serious bloodbath: judges raked three presenters in a row over the coals for presenting products (a digital picture frame, a video-from-mobile-phones streaming service, and a people-powered search database) that couldn't be easily differentiated from others in the marketplace. But that's not to say that all the presenters didn't offer something innovative and valuable--it's just that some were a little too similar to products already on the market.

And thus endeth CEA's first venture into trying to create a Best of CES-worthy booth on the show floor. I can't wait to see what all of you think of Boxee when it has its big Las Vegas debut!

It's lunchtime now and we've seen the first half of the i-stage presenters. It's been interesting and occasionally contentious, with a few notable standouts. First thing in the morning we saw a voice-activated remote control (Amulet) that manages Windows Media Center (cool, but with some minor hiccups that belie the difficulty of voice-recognition technology) and a portable, wireless video-camera system from Avaak that comes paired with an online streaming service. And a company called Frontline showed off the future of the treadmill--an Internet-connected exercise device that lets you virtually run through various locations, like the route of the New York Marathon or, apparently, the interior of the Louvre. The technology will, its founders hope, be funded by advertising that will pepper the interface, so you can shop and research while you run--anything to distract from the pain. (Of course, you can also upload and share your athletic feats.)

The next set of three presenters definitely got sexier: There was Boxee, which is free software that aggregates your media, online media sites like Hulu or Last.fm, and even recommends movies or music from your friends. It has a very slick interface, and unlike almost everything else we've seen, it was demonstrated on a Mac (probably because of that nice remote control). We saw the totally nascent LightGlove, a virtual reality device that's not really a glove. It's actually a bracelet that uses light to translate finger movements into digital signals. It's fancy, and its founders showed off some very impressive "air piano," playing Bach seemingly out of thin air. But the judges pointed out that it appears to be looking for a purpose.

I personally found the most interesting presentation of the morning to come from Occipital, which showed off a "pedestrian navigation service" that is basically an "augmented-reality GPS." The technology, designed for mobile phones, combines real-life views of an area with mapping data and then overlays a graphical walking route over a street view. And it can even--and this is the augmented reality part--provide an X-Ray view through a building, for a crow's-eye view. Occipital says it will deal with all the image hosting on its servers, and deliver only the giant chunks of 3D visual data you need over your 3G connection. That part is a little tough to swallow, but they're going into limited beta soon and I hope to have the chance to try it out. Occipital's software currently runs on Windows Mobile phones, but the company hopes to be supporting Android phones by CES.

I'll have more from the afternoon sessions, which will include, near as I can tell, a revolutionary digital photo frame, a 3D Webcam, and some stereo equipment. It never sounds quite as cool until you see it in person, you know? Stay tuned!

The only "Philips" you'll see at CES 2009 will be at the Funai booth.

(Credit: CNET)

Philips will not be exhibiting at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. The Philips brand, however, will still be on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center, thanks to the expanded presence of Funai--the Japanese company that will be producing TVs sold in North America under the Philips name starting later this year.

A Philips representative confirmed to CNET that the Dutch electronics giant will not have a presence on the show floor at the mammoth Las Vegas trade show, verifying rumors that had surfaced earlier this year.

Traditionally, the Consumer Electronics Association's massive January event is used by industry stalwarts to highlight emerging trends and key products that will be introduced over the course of the subsequent year and beyond. Philips' exit from that high-profile showcase comes in the wake of its recent announcement that it's outsourcing TV production to Funai for Philips- and Magnavox-branded sets sold in the North American market.

Indeed, Funai is doing its part to fill the void left by Philips' exit from the show. A spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association, the industry group that runs CES, had this to say:

Philips has been a pioneer in the consumer technology industry, and a well-known brand for consumers in the U.S. and around the world. The recent license agreement between Philips and Funai was a strategic business decision between two consumer technology companies. CEA respects the strategic decisions that all of our 2,700 exhibitors make regarding their business model and the International CES. We look forward to welcoming the Philips brand back to the 2009 CES in a new way, through its partnership with Funai, which has significantly increased exhibit space for the 2009 show to approximately 10,000 net square feet.

Keep in mind that 10,000 square feet may sound like a lot, but it's small potatoes compared with the megabooths that house major manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and--up through last year--Philips.

While not having to pay for all that space on the show floor will undoubtedly save Philips considerable expense, it will also mean forfeiting the publicity and intangible buzz that comes from being at the center of the industry's biggest annual event. Just last year, for instance, the company snagged the Best of CES award for its energy-efficient Eco TV (though its admittedly impressive low power consumption couldn't overshadow the middling picture quality evident when we reviewed the final product).

The company could still use the show as a springboard for new product announcements, however: it's all but certain Philips will still have some personnel on hand at CES for meetings with journalists, analysts, retailers, and other industry insiders. And plenty of CES no-shows still crank out the press releases during that week--with the seemingly endless list of gadget blogs and tech sites covering the show, all a company really needs is a product photo and a descriptive blurb to get some virtual ink.

To be sure, skipping CES doesn't necessarily confine a company to also-ran status. Nintendo and Apple, two of the hottest names in the industry, have long since spurned the Vegas show. Likewise, Onkyo and Yamaha have opted out in recent years. Furthermore, Philips is quick to point out that the company is still producing, selling, and marketing all of its own non-TV products for North America. And it will continue to produce TVs for other global territories--most notably Europe--where its brand remains stronger.

Still, when one considers that Funai already produces electronics that are sold under the labels Sylvania and Emerson, you have to wonder: is Philips on the road to joining those once hoary companies as a ghost brand--a holding company that just licenses its Western name to give better brand cachet on store shelves to an anonymous Asian manufacturer? Maybe, maybe not. But skipping the world's biggest consumer electronics show doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

What do you think: Is the Philips brand in decline? Does Philips' no-show mean CES is losing some of its luster as the consumer electronics industry's ultimate sneak preview? Or is this just more "inside baseball" industry gossip that will have little impact on the future of consumer electronics? Share your thoughts below.