Bill Gates hails 'digital decade'

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has outlined his vision of the connected future, telling experts in Las Vegas: "The digital decade is happening."

Wow, really? The digital decade? So what was the last ten years about?

Bill also told delegates that "connected experiences" were now the most important part of new technologies.

Hhhmmmm, he's sounding more and more like Steve Jobs every day. Only sounding mind you.

Apparently Bill realises that people want to do things with their content across multiple platforms... does that mean that Bill realises that there's more to life than Windows?

Better check, but I think Hell is staring to freeze.

In a speech with few concrete announcements, Mr Gates outlined how his firm's latest operating system Vista would be the tool to connect people.

Ah, so there is only windows, but nothing concrete, yet.

Justin Hutchinson, group product manager, demonstrated a range of new features in Vista, many of which seemed designed to counter arguments from some observers that Apple was the home of creative computing.

Seemed designed to counter arguments.... seemed. So in other words, Apple is still the creative center of the universe. Maybe hell still has some warmth left.

Robbie Bach, president of entertainment devices at Microsoft, revealed that the company had sold more than 10.4m Xbox 360s by the end of 2006.

Ah yes, game consoles, something that Microsoft is good at. If only they focussed totally on gaming and left the computer business to people who know what they're doing...

A range of new PCs from third-party companies using Vista were unveiled at the show, including a white, round media centre PC from Sony designed for watching of movies and music playback in the living room and a touch screen PC from HP.

Ah, a Mac rip off maybe?

Mr Gates also confirmed that next year would see his last keynote speech at CES as he steps down as head of Microsoft.

He said he had offered to come back the following year but that he might "talk more about infectious diseases than software", referring to his philanthropic work.

Whoah, hold up there, maybe there is hope for Microsoft after all, all they have to do is encourage Steve Jobs to sell his soul and go take control of Microsoft.

And yes, I'm an Apple guy, could you tell?