After Bill Gates and the British Library presentations had been and gone at the UK launch of Windows Vista here in London, most of the assembled press would have probably preferred to disperse. However, as we had been jammed into an auditorium, the possibilities of escape were somewhat limited.
Cynthia Crossley, director of Windows Client Product Group, took this opportunity to introduce the rest of the morning. Once she'd finished talking about the word 'wow', she talked of generation Y - a group that doesn't use TV as much as the PC - and how much the PC is now an every day part of our lives.
Dan from The Feeling played a solo song before David Weeks, Windows Client marketing manager, showed off some of the key features of Windows Vista using one of the new HP TouchSmart PCs first demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show ( CES ).
Weeks exhibited the well-publicised features of Vista - the old-version document retrieval, the improved search plus 3D flip and the Aero interface. He then talked about how Office 2007 would improve productivity, enabling people to create professional documents.
As in the US, Microsoft has partnered with hotspotters The Cloud to offer free UK hotspot access to Windows Vista users. The company is also offering 'Wow' money-can't-buy prizes to users of the new OS.
The Feeling played again as a full band outside the British Library to celebrate the launch. This was in cohorts with Microsoft partner, Universal Music ; the partnership is represented by a desktop gadget that has been created to provide information on gigs and releases.
