Even though this is a holiday weekend in the US (Monday is Memorial Day), the next few weeks promise lots of upcoming news, some of it potentially monumental. (all times listed are Pacific Daylight time, GMT –8)
The Wall Street Journal/All Things D are somewhat frustratingly coy about the specific timing of their interviews for D9, as they haven’t yet released the schedule for their list of speakers, and have never live-streamed anything in the past (they will for the first time this year, but only for 3 speakers: Google’s Eric Schmidt, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, and Netflix’s Reed Hastings) but we know that sometime during the conference sessions (Tuesday, May 31 @6pm, Wednesday, June 1 @8am, 1:30pm, and 7:30pm, and Thursday June 2 @ 8am), Windows and Windows Live Engineering President Steven Sinofsky is slated to speak, and is widely expected to show off, for the first time, the work Microsoft has been doing on a Windows 8 tablet. (as the news should be VERY significant, we’re betting on the Wednesday evening session, which would hit just in time for the morning news in Europe, with full coverage the next morning in the US. Apparently the world revolves around the Wall St. Journal, however, and we’re expected to remain glued to our crystal sets awaiting cryptic messages sent from southern California. We have no idea when Sinofsky will speak other than sometime in the next few days).
Oh, and Nokia’s Stephen Elop is speaking at D9, too. Can we hope for some news about the first Nokia Windows Phone? He’ll also be speaking at the Qualcomm Uplinq Conference on June 2 at 10:15 am, on “The Future of the Mobile Ecosystem”. Here’s hoping Nokia is getting ready to unveil some specifics.
Next up is the Microsoft press conference at E3, at 9am Monday June 6th, from the annual gaming conference in Los Angeles. No one’s sure just what Microsoft will reveal at E3, and rumors, from the wild (a new Xbox console, we don’t think so), to the wildly anticipated (new Gears of War?, a Kinect Forza?, an all new Halo?), to what we’re hoping for, some news about the Kinect controller for Windows Phone, and more news about Xbox Live/Windows Phone connections. As usual, it should be an extravaganza, and well worth checking out.
Then, at SMX Advanced in Seattle, on Wednesday June 8th at 9 am, Bing Director Stefan Weitz will be demoing Bing features and chatting with Danny Sullivan. We’re not sure what Bing will show off, but they’ve used SMX Advanced as a launch platform in the past, and we’ll be there to bring you the latest.
After that, we’ve still got Windows Live Wave 5, and some early news about a new SkyDrive has our hopes up for more news, soon, and maybe even a surprise or two. And with Microsoft’s “next developer’s conference (read: was PDC) coming in September, there should be lots of news to keep us rolling this summer. Let’s get this party started!