For little devices, it’s a big, big show

Alex Johnson Reporter • Profile

LAS VEGAS - Everything about the annual International Consumer Electronics Show is big, but at this year’s cattle call, much of the hype is about all that is small.

Mobile devices and applications take up a major chunk of the bandwidth at CES 2008, with the most significant developments coming in the mobile phone sector.

Major movements toward open systems last year indicate that 2008 will bring a less bumpy relationship between mobile developers and the major U.S. carriers, which traditionally have walled off their devices, limiting users’ software options. As a result, announcements of unlocked phones and software designed to run on them will have a much higher profile this year than ever before.

Of course, Apple Inc., whose iPhone jump-started the open-system rush, isn’t at CES, preferring to make its splash next week at Macworld.

But all sorts of iPhone software are, thanks to third-party developers who have feverishly worked to unlock the device and allow users to install non-Apple-approved applications. CEO Steve Jobs’ announcement in October that Apple would eventually ship unlocked iPhones itself has only fueled developers’ eagerness to jump into the market.

Verizon, Google: Bring us your software
Once the iPhone hit, change came quickly.

Within three weeks in November, Google Inc. announced Android, an open-source platform for mobile phones, and Verizon Wireless, the most closed of the major U.S. carriers, promised that it would allow almost any device to run on its circuits as early as late 2008, along with most kinds of software, including Android.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Intel Corp., which joined the Android alliance, will focus at CES not on the desktop, but on the palmtop. Intel will showcase a new integrated microprocessor and flash memory chip for high-end cell phones based on its time-tested x86 architecture. It plans to shop the system, dubbed Menlow, to any interested handset maker.

“Virtually every computer and handset manufacturer is struggling to figure out how they’re going to compete with Apple’s iPhone,” Chief Executive Paul Otellini told technology analysts in previewing the system over the summer. “If we get the power and performance right, it’s going to be a killer combination.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates vowed to increase the penetration of Windows Mobile software by 80 percent, saying it would power 20 million mobile phones by the end of the year. Then he displayed a prototype of what he said was the future of mobile communications, a handheld device that would use voice recognition to do everything from placing calls to transcribing text and playing video.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

For Microsoft, CES will be a bittersweet affair. Gates, whose early enthusiasm helped make CES the premier technology trade show, is retiring, and his pre-show keynote address Sunday night was his last big CES production as head of the world’s largest software maker.

Gates gave a wide-ranging overview of the near-ubiquity of Microsoft’s products, touting in particular the company’s new Surface touchscreen computing table. And Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, announced that Sync, a Bluetooth system developed with Ford Motor Co. to allow wireless use of mobile devices like phones and mp3 players in the car, would be upgraded to automatically call 911 whenever an airbag deployed.

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