Steve Ballmer has wrapped up his presentation here at Microsoft's lunch event, and the company has lifted the curtains on its "Vista lounge," a small area where Microsoft and its hardware partners are showing off some of the features of the new operating system.
Interestingly, most of the attendees checking out the new OS are examining its business features, despite the fact that the lounge looks decidedly like a living room.
The lounge has only four couches--amazingly, when I walked in, two of them were empty. At an event like the recent mega Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, those couches would have been overflowing with weary reporters, but not here.
All four couches are positioned directly in front of giant flat-screen displays, and feature keyboards propped on coffee tables, as if to display how a Vista PC could fit into your living room, if you can spring for the big-screen TV, of course. At one, a representative from HP demonstrates the digital photography features built into Vista, which looked impressive on the big screen.
That was the only place where I caught a glimpse of the digital entertainment features that Steve Ballmer had raved about during his remarks. At the other couches, Vista's more serious features were on display. One reporter witnessed a demonstration of the BitLocker Drive Encryption capability that had been referred to during Ballmer's brief Q&A with the press. At another couch, a Toshiba representative showed an attendee how to use Vista's file backup and system restore features.
At a nearby booth, home to a variety of hardware manufacturers, including Sony, OQO, and Acer, several unique-looking devices were on display, including the new OQO Model 2, a UMPC from Medion, a sleek-looking Acer laptop, and a round Vaio PC from Sony.
Still, everyone that passed by seems more interested in the BitLocker demonstration going on. A few cool-looking gadgets, it seems, can't distract people from wondering if this version of Windows is as secure as Microsoft claims.
The launch celebration continues later this afternoon with a presentation by Bill Gates and another from Steve Ballmer. I'll be back with the details.
(Read my earlier blog entries from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event: Vista Launch Begins and Focus on Vista's Security.)
