Cogito ergo scribo

The host was a British with a not-so-British accent and an always-on smile. I can't remember his name or position in Micro$oft but i think he was a manager or something. He started off the event by greeting the audience with "Good Afternoon" three times because he wanted the audience to greet him back, which was not an easy task for any host in Singapore (maybe except Singapore Idol where the host actually had difficulties stopping the audience from cheering and applausing).

The opening address was given by Mr. Chan Yeng Kit, the CEO of IDA. I couldn't really bother with what he said and fortunately it was a short speech. He ended his speech by inviting Bill Gates to the stage.

Bill Gates

The entire hall was then filled with thunderous applause. Everyone was just clapping so hard and for so long that i really started to wonder what was it about him that could have this magic on these people? Singaporean, or rather Asian in general, are known to be very stingy in giving applause. Look at the telecast of the Golden Horse Award. Even when the winners were going on stage to receive their awards, most of the audience would just sit there with their hands on the lap as if their hands were made of gold or something.

Bill Gates walked onto the stage and went directly into his speech. All i could say about his speech is that it was dry and he was one boring presenter! Although not reading word-by-word off his script, i could tell from his eyes that he was peeping down to the script like every 5 minutes. The things he talked about were nothing that i didn't already know (such as how technology has become an integral part of our lives... duh!). The slides were also very plain and static that i thought he had missed the chance to show the world what kind of fancy stuff Power Point could do. I think i yawned more than 5 times during his speech and my mind kinda shut off after a while. I couldn't really recall what he has said and couldn't remember how long (or short) the whole speech was.

After his speech, there was a Q&A session. It's not that kind of Q&A that allowed the audience to ask questions on the spot. No, i reckon that would take too long with such a big audience. According to the host, the questions were the top five most-asked ones that were picked from the questions we've submitted during registration. I guess the most interesting question would be the last one that asked him why Micro$oft is so against open source. Bill Gates just basically answered the question with the similar things that were shown earlier in the Linux-bashing video clip (i.e. customers would want easier implementation and lower cost). After the Q&A session, he was also invited to present awards to the winners of Imagine Cup Singapore, who will be representing the country to participate in the Imagine Cup 2005 Finals that is to be held in Yokohama, Japan this late July.

Even though the event was named "Bill Gates Live", he was on the stage for less than 45 minutes. After he went off, there were noises coming from the audience hall. I looked around and saw that many people were leaving too. Apparently they were here just for Bill Gates only. Well, hope they were not disappointed after all the waiting because after Bill Gates' session, i was already thinking to myself, "huh, like that only ah?"

The next presenter was Colin Png, GM of MS Asia Pacific, to demonstrate and talk about the new products such as MS VS 2005, SQL Server 2005, MS Entertainment Center, and of course Windows Longhorn. I was particularly impressed with the MS Entertainment Center which transforms all our entertainment needs such as video, music, pictures, TV, etc. into a single remotely-controlled hub. Howard from the Singapore Reality Show Eye for a Guy 2 was on stage too to demonstrate the Entertainment Center using Creative's Zen Player. Frankly, i was more impressed by Howard's good look and fancy accent than the Zen Player itself. Hmmm, at least they got my attention. Good move in asking Howard to play a part in the demo.

Colin also demonstrated the long-anticipated Windows Longhorn. He showed how Longhorn made use of the graphical power to render better interface. He proudly showed the audience how the Windows Explorer was minimized; instead of just dwindle down quickly to the status bar, it could slowly fade away, i.e. becoming transparent and then disappeared from sight. Everyone was so impressed that i could hear all the "wow", "woo", "ah", but i was thinking to myself, "Ok, that's nice, but what is it supposed to achieve except being fanciful?" Maybe i'm not geeky enough to appreciate useless things that show off what technology can do nowadays. I just don't really agree with having all the nice-to-have features at the expense of processing power. Longhorn also has a new file system that provides the facility to add metadata to the files stored in the hard drive so that they could be organized in a logical way for easy search and retrieval. This is something that i think would be useful to the users.

The last speaker was Singapore's very own Sim Wong Hoo, the Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology. His presentation was the one that i liked the most. He is a very good presenter with the right dose of humour. The subtle way that he would mention his competitor (Apple) without actually mentioning the name was just witty. He talked about his story of how he became a successful entrepreneur, and gave some advice to the audience on how to become like him:

1. Dare to dream -- but the dream must be quantifiable and realistic
   


2. Be prepare to take risk and lose everything -- there is no such thing as taking risk without risking (huh?)
   


3. Commit to only one thing at any time -- is that the reason why he is still single until now?
   


4. Throw the obstacles behind you after you've overcome them -- and let your competitors to face those obstacles
   


5. Make use of sexed-up marketing to sell the bugs in your products as a new feature in the future upgrades -- hmmm, sounds like what Micro$oft has been doing
   


6. When things don't work, blame others (such as the OS) -- oooh, i like this one
   

After his speech, there was also a similar Q&A session, which most of the answers to the questions were kinda the same as what he has talked about in his speech. The event ended with another round of applause. Due to the huge audience, it took me more than 10 minutes to actually leave the hall and arrive at the main lobby.

To sum it up, i've enjoyed the event and was glad that i didn't miss it like my stupid-ass boss did. I personally am not a Microsoft hater (well, how could i be when i'm actually working on MS Navision for a living?!) so i wouldn't mind going to more such events organized by Micro$oft. Just hope that next time they can provide better seating arrangement and give out some door gifts. I love freebie and that is one of the reasons why i like going to seminars.

Labels: life, opinion, trivia