Gossip

Bill Gates to star in Hollywood media glitz-fest at Kodak Theatre

The mobile industry won't be left out of tomorrow's big media thrash at the home of the Oscars, when Microsoft's Bill Gates does the keynote at the launch of Windows Media Series 9 - but let's hope everybody can breathe ...

It is, virtually, impossible to find anybody senior in Microsoft today, and it will be worse tomorrow - if they have anything to do with video or audio or digital rights management.

To symbolise the "broadcast breakthrough" of Windows Audio and Video into mainstream studios, Bill Gates will be stepping onto the podium where so many tears have been shed, so many mothers praised, and so many colleagues thanked - the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are bestowed on cinema's luvvies.

As a result, everybody in Redmond on the WM side, is quietly wetting themselves. Nobody wants to be responsible for a foulup in front of the Emperor Bill ... everybody remembers the guy who blue-screened a plug-and-play demo of a scanner connecting to the PC at the launch of Windows 95, and everybody wonders what happened to him ...

The good news of being in Hollywood, if you work for Microsoft, is you get a chance to shine. The bad news is worse than that; if you don't shine, you end up begging: "Please don't fire me!" but there's also the atmosphere.

As reported in Associated Press's bulletin earlier this week: "Three valet parking attendants were treated after inhaling carbon monoxide fumes in a stairwell at the $94 million Kodak Theatre, the new home of the Oscars and of the upcoming Latin Grammys. Tests showed low levels of the gas in a stairwell connecting to the Hollywood theater's underground parking structure, said Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis."

Hope they have a canary for Bill's big speech ...