WinInfo's Paul Thurrott and Keith Furman
headed to Las Vegas for the 20th anniversary of Fall Comdex. They
supplied frequent daily updates to this site from the show floor from Sunday through Thursday
during week, keeping readers up to date on the hottest news, products, and parties at the biggest computer trade show in North America!
Here is the transcript of that trip (and don't forget to check out our photo
gallery at the bottom of this page), as told live from the show floor...
Day one - Sunday, November
14, 1999
Paul and Keith arrive in Vegas
[11/14/1999 12:05:02 PM]
We're here, and we actually arrived early if you can believe it. For a city that is constantly growing, Vegas never really changes: themed hotels, glittery attractions and great weather abound as always. Off to lunch...
Windows 2000 RC3: Wednesday
[11/14/1999 2:15:31 PM]
We've only been in Vegas a few hours and we've already received word from several sources (some within Microsoft) that Windows 2000 RC3 will be delivered on Wednesday, November 17. Of course, we've been off before, so who can say?
Insider Insight: Windows 2000 delays due to application compatibility
[11/14/1999 3:09:28 PM]
According to sources close to the Windows 2000 team, the delays we've seen this fall were due to application
compatibility. Most frightening, however, is that the Application Compatibility
Project Manager was going through the internal bug reporting tool and downgrading "Priority 1" issues to "Priority 3" so that the daily counts of showstopper bugs would steadily go down whether or not actual work was being done. This activity was uncovered about a month and a half ago, so someone looked at all of the downgraded issues and gave them correct priority levels. Needless to say, it was discovered that the project was further behind than previously expected. As a result, a large number of people from the development and testing teams were shifted over to the Application Compatibility team; they've just started getting caught up again. Ouch!
Plans for Sunday night/Monday morning
[11/14/1999 3:18:20 PM]
We're going to be heading over to the Venetian Hotel in an hour for Microsoft CEO Bill Gates' keynote address. After that, we'll hit the Microsoft press reception in the Galileo room at the Venetian and then meet with some friends who are in town for the show. Tomorrow morning, we'll be attending 3dfx's press conference, which is expected to include the unveiling of the Voodoo4 3D
graphics card. Then, it's off to see Microsoft president Steve Ballmer introduce Windows 2000 DataCenter Server at the Las Vegas Hilton, a meeting with Executive Software (makers of Diskeeper) and Microsoft's Windows 2000 Briefing event with Steve Ballmer and VP Jim Allchin. Somewhere in there, we'll get some floor time in and provide numerous updates as the day progresses. We've got a pretty full schedule, obviously, but that's what makes this fun.
ZD mishandles press at Gates keynote... again
[11/14/1999 11:18:14 PM]
Once again, the fumblers responsible for handling the press at the Bill Gates keynote had us running around in circles and waiting unnecessarily in the wrong groups.
