The Consumer Electronics Show, first held in 1967, kicked off the 8th of January in its usual location of Las Vegas. What’s unique about this year is that Microsoft will not be officially exhibiting at it. Announcing the decision last year, Microsoft said it didn’t feel the show aligned with its own product milestones and release dates.
The company will be greatly missed, and a show the size of CES – well over 100,000 attendees are expected to attend – will still almost certainly feature lots of news and announcements affecting the world of Microsoft.
Expect to see lots of Windows Phone announcements at the show. Huawei has already confirmed they will be showing off their first Windows powered devices, and while Nokia officially only has a “mapping software” stand, we might get to see Windows Phone 7.8 running on their hardware. HTC is also there and is also tipped to have some new hardware on display.
Windows 8 is also bound to have a big presence. Samsung will be revealing lots of new hardware, including Windows 8 multi-touch monitors. A host of manufacturers will likely be showing off the new OS in a number of different form factors. Samsung (again) and Asus are expected to show new tablets running Windows RT.
Intel, a huge player in the Microsoft world, is due to show off some of its next generation processors. Intel is desperately trying to fight the challenge of ARM in the mobile and low power space, so its new offerings could be very interesting. Rumors of an Intel range of TV set top boxes also abound, though these are unlikely to be running any form of Microsoft operating system.
So while Microsoft might not officially be at the show, you can certainly expect a lot of interesting Microsoft news when the show finally gets underway. We will post something after the event with an update on what actually went down.