CES: seeing numbers in Bill Gates’ keynote

Sometimes, it's easier to see the bigger picture through numbers. No, we're not necessarily talking about seeing 1s and 0s as Neo does in "The Matrix" - but yeah, sort of something like that if you want a geek's analogy for it. Numbers, figures, statistics, ratios and the like: these can tell you quite a lot.

The recent CES revealed to us a lot of information of or relating to Microsoft as a whole. And as some of us would slice-and-dice Bill Gates' keynote address for all the minor details, here's a bulleted list of his speech, as seen in numbers:

• 30 billion: number of dollars raised by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• 2: current place occupied by Microsoft in the MP3 player wars
• 1 million: number of Zunes they are "on track" to sell
• 200 million: people who play games on Windows every month
• 10.4 million: number of Xbox 360 consoles sold worldwide so far
• 8: number of weeks it took Microsoft to sell 2.7 million copies of Gears of War
• 160: Games currently on Xbox 360; expected to double this year
• 3 billion: hours of gaming on Xbox Live thus far
• 5 million: Xbox Live members

See the bigger picture now? Lots of millions and billions on that list. Can the big MS keep their streak up? 2007 has barely started and it's pretty much anyone's ball game. Aside from the 360's competitors in the gaming industry, the MP3 player market has its fair share of competition as well.

Sometimes, it's easier to see the bigger picture through numbers. No, we're not necessarily talking about seeing 1s and 0s as Neo does in "The Matrix" - but yeah, sort of something like that if you want a geek's analogy for it. Numbers, figures, statistics, ratios and the like: these can tell you quite a lot.

The recent CES revealed to us a lot of information of or relating to Microsoft as a whole. And as some of us would slice-and-dice Bill Gates' keynote address for all the minor details, here's a bulleted list of his speech, as seen in numbers:

• 30 billion: number of dollars raised by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• 2: current place occupied by Microsoft in the MP3 player wars
• 1 million: number of Zunes they are "on track" to sell
• 200 million: people who play games on Windows every month
• 10.4 million: number of Xbox 360 consoles sold worldwide so far
• 8: number of weeks it took Microsoft to sell 2.7 million copies of Gears of War
• 160: Games currently on Xbox 360; expected to double this year
• 3 billion: hours of gaming on Xbox Live thus far
• 5 million: Xbox Live members

See the bigger picture now? Lots of millions and billions on that list. Can the big MS keep their streak up? 2007 has barely started and it's pretty much anyone's ball game. Aside from the 360's competitors in the gaming industry, the MP3 player market has its fair share of competition as well.