Each year at CES Microsoft kick off proceedings with the keynote address, and then they have one of the largest areas at the event itself. Well all that will change after next year!
Here is what Microsoft said today:
Our industry moves fast and changes faster. And so the way we communicate with our customers must change in equally speedy ways. To ensure it does, we constantly challenge our assumptions. For example:
· What’s the right time and place to make announcements?
· Are we adjusting to the changing dynamics of our customers?
· Are we doing something because it’s the right thing to do, or because “it’s the way we’ve always done it”?
After thinking about questions like these, we have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES. We’ll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.
As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories – from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores – it feels like the right time to make this transition.
Microsoft has enjoyed a close to 20-year working relationship with the Consumer Electronics Association – and we look forward to working with CEA for many years to come.
In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing many of you on Monday night, January 9th, to kick the year off at CES 2012.
Posted by Frank X. Shaw
Corporate Vice President, Corporate Communications, Microsoft
Apple never attend CES, so it’s nothing new for them, but for Microsoft to no longer be going is something different. I wonder what this will mean for CES and it’s attendees? Only time will tell.
