Wow. Three days, a few hundred miles of walking, too much alcohol and too few good meals. Or in other words, a typical CTIA event.
While this year’s event seemed a little light on big news, there was still plenty of buzz oozing from the show floor, in the educational sessions and from the keynotes to register the event on the trade show Richter scale. (Speaking of which, extra props to the ground underneath San Francisco for keeping the earth tremors at bay while the show was going on. The last thing most of needed was a little extra shaking while trying to negotiate our travels on already-wobbly legs.)
As always the highlight of the show for me was the keynote addresses. And no one was better than Steve Ballmer, who is on the short list of craziest CEOs alive. No offense to the other speakers, but the B-Man takes over an event like Jack Black on speed. His enthusiasm is almost enough for me to think Microsoft is just a bunch of fun-loving computer geeks that really just want to make mobile devices easier to use. Almost.
Following B-daddy’s keynote I looked at about two dozen pictures of the B-ster on stage and everyone is the funniest picture ever. I know it does not seem possible, but that man does not take a bad pic.
Also special props to Facebook co-founder and yesterday’s keynote speaker Dustin Moskovitz. Following his appearance on stage, it was announced the company sold a 1.6% stake in the social networking firm to Microsoft for $240 million. Who says deals don’t get done at trade shows.
CTIA wisely has reserved San Francisco for next year’s event and in between we will have the big show in Las Vegas to keep the loneliness at bay. Here’s hoping Microsoft has another need to speak to the industry and Ballmer’s schedule is clear.
