Smartphone Thoughts: CES 2008: Bill Gates' Keynote

Prior to this keynote, Bill Gates had presented at CES eleven times. Ten of those were keynotes and eight were given consecutively. This year's was to be his last while in his full-time role at Microsoft. Gates looked back at his first keynote in 1994 - he recalled it with great significance as it was a time when Windows 95 was coming together and the Internet was starting to boom. He spoke of the years following as the first digital decade. A period when the world saw one billion PCs populate homes and businesses around the world, 250 million broadband subscribers, and a growth in mobile phone adoption to 41% of the world's population in 2006. There was a heavy emphasis on the digitalization of audio and visual and how it all came down to software. Software-driven entertainment and connected services were very much the focus of his keynote and what he believed would drive the second digital decade.