LAS VEGAS - One year ago, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage at the tech industry's premier gadget show to showcase a Windows tablet computer to an audience that had yet to meet the iPad.
This year, with tablets marking the hottest items at the show and Windows lagging far behind Apple Inc.'s popular iPad, the stakes were higher. Microsoft's status as a technology oracle, which guaranteed its spot delivering the trade show's night-before keynote each year, is slipping.
On Wednesday evening, Ballmer spent more time talking about existing products such as the Xbox video-game system and Windows Phone 7 smartphone software than he did tablets.
Even Surface, Microsoft's giant coffee-table-size touch-screen computing system, got more attention.
Gadget makers including AsusTek Computer Inc. and Vizio Inc., the TV company, have already unveiled new tablet computers this week, and more were expected from the likes of Motorola Inc., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp.
Many of the new tablets will use Android, Google Inc.'s operating software that was initially designed for smartphones.
While Windows 7 remains a question mark for its prospects as a tablet system, Microsoft began talking Wednesday about the next version, which is expected to be called Windows 8 and to launch in 2012.
"Whatever device you use, now or in the future, Windows will be there," Ballmer said.
This year's trade show, which runs until Sunday, will also see TV makers adjusting strategies for selling 3-D televisions after a year of tepid sales.
LG Electronics Inc. said Wednesday it will be among the TV makers switching from sets that require expensive battery-powered glasses to ones that work with cheaper glasses like those used in movie theaters.
Ballmer said Microsoft sold 8 million of its new Kinect sensors, an add-on for Xbox 360 that lets people control games and other features by moving around and speaking. That's 3 million more than expected in Kinect's first two months on the market.
The CEO himself demonstrated new Kinect avatar software that will more closely mimic game players' behaviors and facial expressions after an update this spring.
Microsoft also said that this spring, people who have Xbox and Kinect will be able to wave their hands or speak aloud to browse and play video from Netflix and Hulu.
This was Ballmer's third year leading the gadget-show address. He took the mantle from Microsoft co-founder and chairman, Bill Gates, who had used the stage for the preceding 10 years to talk about his vision for the future of technology.
Gates talked about the tablet computer a decade ago, but it is only in the past year that the tablet - a slim touch-screen computer with no keyboard - has caught consumers' imaginations in a big way.
Ballmer took over Gates' role as CEO but not as company visionary; as such, his pronouncements have not seemed as grand or oraclelike.
Associated Press Jan. 7, 2011 12:00 AM
No tablet talk for Microsoft leader
