Steve Jobs keynote was worth staying late for (over here in Asia). The man is the best business orator on the planet and continued to shine yesterday morning. The delivery was impeccable, the cameos were from none other than Google's CEO and Yahoo's cofounders, and the product looks amazing.
Steve's oral skills were highlighted when Cingular's CEO stepped on stage, and looked as he is an old telco chief, spouting unoriginal rhetoric and stats.
Will this mean the beginning of an innovative streak in cell phone development? Jobs did mention they had a lot of patents, and no one has really been able to recreate an iPod, much to Microsoft's discontent.
This should motivate Microsoft to update Windows Mobile and add some sort of matching functionality but that's unlikely to happen for a couple years.
I do expect the second gen Zune to provide some sort of real competiton. Peter Moore did mention games will be able for the Zune in '08, and that's a market Microsoft has cornered.
Steve's demo is one of the best pitches I've ever seen and it will probably be remembered and studied in the future. I know I sure will next time I'm looking to pitch!
As Valleyway noted, Steve managed to introduce a revolutionary new product and steer all attention away from CES, not disclose any new information about current Apple products (that are most likely late or delayed), and still wow the crowd. There has been some backlash regarding the lack of updates for Leopards development, as well as any other Apple products, but overall this was a strategic masterpiece.