Microsoft announced that 2012 would mark its last Consumer Electronics Show Keynote presentation, citing a desire to avoid tying product and marketing cycles to the midwinter event. The organizers of CES, however, says that this came only after it told Microsoft it wanted someone else to take over the Keynote role. MG Siegler rounds up coverage from GigaOM to the New York Times and finds that the true picture remains unclear.
Both sides just want to make it clear in the most subtle way possible that they’re behind this decision. Or, to quote Mase (as one must in such situations): Fuck me? No. Fuck you.
We don’t know who quit who, but we do know that CES’s big speeches tend to be very dull compared to the unofficial corporate press events surrounding them. Where would you rather be? At a CES keynote where Steve Ballmer announces $1500 tablet PCs and Paul Otellini explains Intel CPU roadmaps for 90 minutes, or at a celeb-filled Sony presser around the corner, where sheets of cocaine fall from ceiling canopies every time Howard Stringer hurls a bag of PSP Vitas into the audience?