Sorry, drama fans-- Bill Gates' latest keynote address at Comdex wasn't nearly as much fun as the one in April of last year when Windows 98 crashed hard during a demo of its "improved ease of use." (For those of you who'd like to take a side-trip down memory lane and relive that fine moment, the InfoWorld Electric article describing the event is still available.) This time around, pretty much all we got for our trouble was "Redmond Justice"-related. Let's count off the salient points, shall we? A handful of lame lawyer jokes. Lots of whining about how the government won't let Microsoft innovate. (Is it just us, or is the phrase "freedom to innovate" now officially more played out than even that whole "bridge to the twenty-first century" thing?) And in response to the scads of email and snail mail that Bill claims to have received in support of his company's glorious struggle for liberty, Bill squeezed out a "Thank you for your support," but with less stage presence than that old Frank Bartles guy in the wine cooler commercials from which he stole the line.

Well, okay, that's really not all that Bill had to say. He announced that "the PC has gone to new heights" and "will continue to do so." He showed off Windows 2000 by buying a car online from Ford's web site. (He should have bought it from Cyberian Outpost instead-- they have free overnight shipping.) He showed off some current and future Windows CE devices. And he starred in a video presentation spoofing such "hip" pop-cultural icons as Austin Powers and Judge Judy in a feeble attempt to relate. Now isn't it odd that the director cast Gates as Austin instead of Dr. Evil? Talking about casting against type...

But perhaps the most noteworthy bit of the keynote was brought to our attention by faithful viewer Lisa Boucher, who noted that in a Sm@rt Reseller article, Bill Gates is quoted as saying that Microsoft's underlying message is "choice." How's that for a fine bit of Newspeak? "'Code can run on a PC, Internet device or on a PC server as a service. You need one architecture' that lets developers write applications once that can run anywhere, he said." Uh, Bill? Remember that Java thingy you told your minions to crush underfoot? Uh-huh. So much for "write once, run anywhere." To paraphrase Henry Ford, "you can have any OS you want, as long as it sucks."