All things Microsoft strangely lacking, Vodafone's back-down

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at WSJ columnist Walt Mossberg 's(L) All Things Digital conference. Photo / Asa Mathat

Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's influential personal computing columnist is doing his 6th annual All Things Digital conference in the plush Four Seasons Resort Aviara in Carlsbad, just north of San Diego.

A seat at the D6 conference costs a hefty US$4500 and it sold out. But you can see why. Mossberg pulls in the big names every year and this year was no different with him kicking off proceedings with a discussion with Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

But it all served to show just what is wrong with Microsoft at the moment - the pair were defensive about Windows Vista, evasive on the proposed 'Microhoo' merged with Yahoo that never came off. They used the same corporate-speak they've been spouting for years. It wasn't an inspiring performance from the Microsoft camp.

The one interesting thing was the touch-screen demonstration of Windows 7, which looked pretty good.

 

Microsoft is really pushing hard in the area of user-interfaces as it realises the traditional PC is on the way out. That's why it came up with the Surface, one of the most innovative things it has produced in recent years.

The interview with Yahoo boss Jerry Yang was much more interesting. Said Yang of Microsoft's failed merger attempt: "It's like when you break up with your girlfriend in high school. It very quickly becomes 'he said, she said'. I don't want to look back. But I think we both understand that there is a tremendous amount of power in a combination like the one Microsoft proposed."

The highlight blurbs and video highlights will give you a good flavour for the conference, which winds down just as our own interesting tech conference kicks off in Wellington.

An impressive line-up of international talent has been secured for the Media X Lab conference being held from the 30th of May to the 1st of June. The focus of the conference is digital media. I'm really looking forward to catching the keynote speeches tomorrow.


Vodafone's lock-in ends

So, welcome news this week that Vodafone has backed down on its plans to lock new mobile phone handsets so they can only be used on the Vodafone New Zealand network. They were planning to charge $50 to unlock the phone for use on another GSM network.

Herald Online readers made pretty clear last month what they thought of that.

Mobile carriers have managed to get away with phone locking in other countries, but as Ernie Newman from TUANZ keeps telling us, New Zealand is unique in the world in only having one GSM mobile operator.

That's soon to change, but the fact remains that at the moment Vodafone is the only GSM network available to consumers to make a call on. It's a bit rich to lock in customers who can only use their GSM phone on another network abroad.

This issue will rear its head again as the two new GSM operators launch and start trying to poach Vodafone's customers. But Vodafone has been warned - it will face stiff resistance from consumers if it seeks to go down the phone-locking path again.

Worth checking out is this interesting piece in Computerworld on Kordia, the state-owned broadcasting and broadband infrastructure player. Is it the missing piece the telecoms sector needs?