Microsoft's Gates endures PC crash during keynote speech at U.S. tech show

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LAS VEGAS (AP) - Despite suffering through an embarrassing computer crash that prompted jokes and guffaws, Bill Gates promised that Microsoft Corp. would help consumers stay plugged into technology, during a keynote speech Wednesday.

In his seventh annual keynote speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft's chairman explained that the proliferation of high-speed Internet access and the falling price of data storage are compelling people to put music, photos, movies and other aspects of their life into a digital format.

"We predicted at the beginning of this decade that this would be a decade where the digital approach would be taken for granted," Gates told hundreds of technology enthusiasts, who gathered for his kickoff to the world's largest electronics show. "It's going even faster than we expected."

But while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates showed how vulnerable all consumers - even the world's richest man - are to hardware and software bugs.

During a demonstration of digital photography with a soon-to-be-released Nikon camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn't respond to Gates' pushing of the remote control.

Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the computer monitor displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death" and warned, "out of system memory."

The errors - which came during what's usually an ode to Microsoft's dominance of the software industry and its increasing control of consumer electronics - prompted the celebrity host, NBC comedian Conan O'Brien, to quip, "Who's in charge of Microsoft, anyway?"

Gates, who was sitting next to O'Brien on a set staged to look like NBC's Late Night set, smiled dryly and continued with his discussion.
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Wanna bet someone just got their ass canned?
 
This should happen more often to him & other high level developers. Then we'd get a better first round product.
 
This isn't the first time this has happened. If they can't even make a product stable enough to last through a 90-minute demo, what says they can make one stable enough to last ~3-4 years?

www.debian.org
www.slackware.com
www.gentoo.org
www.novell.com/linux/suse
www.mandrakelinux.com
fedora.redhat.com
www.linspire.com
www.xandros.com
www.linuxfromscratch.org
www.freebsd.org
www.openbsd.org
www.netbsd.org
www.sun.com
www.openoffice.org
www.getfirefox.com
www.xmms.org
www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird

^Because I felt like it.
 
Reminds me graphically of the infamous Windows '98 incident.....

Mr Gates....if you are gonna steal an OS, make sure it works first eh?
 
Raven said:
Reminds me graphically of the infamous Windows '98 incident.....

Mr Gates....if you are gonna steal an OS, make sure it works first eh?
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that's exactly what i thought of.

and i don't know that he's stolen anyone's OS. just stolen all the useful and innovative pieces of them and spun them into his own homegrown trash.

personally, i haven't had that "other OS I use (tm)" hard crash for no reason in over a year, the once, maybe twice it has happened were because i was doing something i figured wasn't a good idea in the first place.
 
You folks are forgetting one thing. The difference between a bug, and a feature. ;) If I have to explain it, you're much too young. :grinyes:
 
Yeah, I remember the 98 incident. I was in Portland for the opening of that one. The people in auditorium went nuts.

:lol:
 
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