Nick: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took to the stage in New York Thursday to launch Windows 7, in the day of worldwide events, Ballmer took on the role of chief salesman, hoping to convince consumers and businesses to migrate to the new operating system.
Steve: It is a great honor and privilege for me to have a chance to be here today, I’m an enthusiastic personality, I think. I get little fired up about things, and I’ll tell you, there’s not much gets me more fired up than the chance to start selling, delivering, and letting customers enjoy Windows 7. So today, Windows 7 is available, 45,000 stores around the world. It’s available on new PC’s, the upgrade is available and it’s just out there for all to, to start, hopefully to appreciate and enjoy as much as you 8 million beta testers have done. So today, I get to say not only that I’m Steve Ballmer and I’m a PC, but I’m Steve Ballmer, and I’m a Windows 7 PC effective immediately.
Nick: During Thursday’s event, Microsoft was eager to show off new usability features of Windows 7.
Brad: So, to set this up, let’s go ahead and say that this picture frame is sitting in my kitchen, and let’s go ahead and say that that audio receiver is sitting in my den, and let’s go ahead and say this Toshiba TV, I like the TV, is sitting in my family room, and this XBOX360, well, where else does a XBOX360 be, it’s in my basement, my man cave, and it’s sitting down there in the basement ready to work. Let me show you now how Windows 7 becomes the center of your home control and all of your media experiences. So let’s go ahead and start off by selecting a few pictures here, family shots, and play right to that picture frame. So now, bring it up and there you go, start firing up right in that picture frame. Let’s go ahead, same time fire up some music and play it off to that audio AV receiver, and, why don’t we go ahead and send some additional pictures down to my man cave on the XBOX360 and send a high definition screen off to that Toshiba TV set. So, as you can see the experience, that will bring, I’ll go ahead and reset that, oh, there it caught, so, as you can see now, going off of one Windows 7 PC, I’ve got a high definition screen, I’ve got pictures in two different locations, I’ve got music. Off of one Windows 7 PC, I’ve now got four different types of media experiences going in the house, I’ve got Windows 7 now controlling from one PC, my media experiences throughout the house.
Nick: The company had an area set up at the event to try out different features of the OS on different types of machines, some were tablets to demonstrate the Windows 7 touch interface. And others were high powered graphics machines. There are four different versions of Windows 7, starter, home premium, professional, and ultimate, ranging in price from about 120 US dollars to about 220 US dollars and if you bought a PC after June 26, 2009, you’re entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 7, but availability and ship dates differ by PC manufacturer, so check with them. With reporting by Mark Faranti, I’m Nick Barber in New York for the IDG News Service.
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