This was the tenth time Bill gave the keynote address at CES, but the first time I’d ever had the chance to go watch in person. Frankly, the 3 hours we spent just sitting in lines was enough of a disincentive to do it again next year, especially since the event was so well covered by others. Also, as Richard MacManus’ tag cloud shows, the content at the keynote was fairly, well, predictable. As a plus, I got to spend a lot of that time (and much of Monday as well) talking with Ron Dave Winer. Here’s a quick video of the line(s) of folks waiting to enter, then actually pouring into the auditorium.
All my pictures from the keynote are on Flickr.
We entered the theater at 5:30pm, Bill didn’t go on until 6:30. This left us with two entertainment options:
or
Ugh.
While watching the keynote itself, I was impressed with the quality of Vista. I’d seen much of the demos before (again, go here to find more detailed coverage), but this one just came across a little more polished than in the past. Interestingly though, I felt the event fell short. Not because there weren’t any famous people. Not because one of the demonstrators actually asked us to give him some applause. More because I just felt that Vista is finally at the level the OS is supposed to be. It’s not more than what it could be. It’s not a vision of the future, it’s a vision of today.
That’s a lot less than I’d expect from a visionary.