Definitely different (cheers and applause.) The design team over here.

STEVE BALLMER: Probably. RYAN SEACREST: Certainly different than a

lot of other phones. How is it going? STEVE BALLMER: I'm really excited and upbeat

about where we are. We definitely took a different approach than everybody else, and I think

we've got a really unique and beneficial experience. All these phones these days, they all make

calls, connection to the Internet, email, social networks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If you take a look at it, the other phones all make the sea of icons, the sea of applications

the kind of view of the world. What we've really done with Windows Phone, I think, is

have a better way but putting your people, the people who are important to you, whether

it's dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions in somebody's case, I might think.

RYAN SEACREST: They're watching for the judges. STEVE BALLMER: They're watching for the judges,

but we put them right out there in front of you, and really Windows Phone is the first

phone that I think puts people first. Here's my Windows Phone, right there, if you will.

You can kind of see. RYAN SEACREST: Hit the face of Bill Gates.

STEVE BALLMER: My buddy Bill Gates. It says I missed a call from Bill. What time did he

call? 6:07 p.m. RYAN SEACREST: Go back on speaker?

STEVE BALLMER: Yes, you want us to call him back? But you can see what I have here are

the things that are most important to me. There's Bill. There's our leadership team,

the weather, my family. It's all kind of laid out there front and center.

RYAN SEACREST: Kim Kardashian. STEVE BALLMER: Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian.

I'm with the program, bud. I'm with the program. Watch Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer deliver

the keynote speech to kick off the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev. But

what happens is, things change. Now, people tweet, they post, they email, they text. It

all gets put together right there for you, right on the screen. What's important to you

isn't lighting up emails, or lighting up the text, it's what's going on with brother, sister,

co-worker, your Twitter feed, whatever the case may be.

And literally, in my own case, I'm in regular touch with hundreds of people, and yet I get

it consolidated down to where at a glance I can really see what's going on.

We still have apps. RYAN SEACREST: Right.

STEVE BALLMER: As you'll see, we still have a great browser.

RYAN SEACREST: It's memorizing things here. STEVE BALLMER: Yes, the names of my kids.

Good job there. The New York Times called the Windows Phone

"gorgeous, classy, satisfying, fast and coherent." RYAN SEACREST: Coherent, I was going to say

low on carbs. All right. Well, can we see the phone in action?

STEVE BALLMER: Yes. RYAN SEACREST: Let's welcome please Derek

Snyder. Derek, come on up Derek. (Applause.)

DEREK SNYDER: Good evening. How is everyone doing? Thank you for the cheering section

for Windows Phone, those $100 bills were well spent. Perfect. Thanks. We'll come back to

you. One of the things that we love about Windows

Phone is that there is the breadth of choice. So, the same great software is running on

handsets from all of our handset makers. And you can see here there's a ton of variety.

And these are just the phones that we've launched in the last couple months. We've got phones

that come in different colors. They have front-facing cameras. Some of them have different screen

technologies. And even some of them are actually water resistant. And so, whatever phone you're

looking for, all of them run the same great Windows Phone software.

Now, let's actually take a look at what that software looks like. Go ahead and switch over

to the phone. This is actually my Windows Phone up and running on the screen. Can we

get that please? One of the things that's great about Windows

Phone, as Steve talked about, it's not a sea of icons, it's not a grid of applications,

but it is, in fact, celebrating all of the people and the relationships in your life.

As a matter of fact, we have one place where that all comes together, and that's called

the People Hub. Now, the People Hub brings together all of

my favorite people across all of my favorite social networks. So, I don't actually have

to do any work. All of these people are coming down from my email services that I may use

at work and at home, my Facebook, my LinkedIn, Twitter, all of that stuff comes together

in one place. And we make it really easy to actually mirror the relationships you have

in real life on your phone. So, I've actually set up a bunch of these

groups right here on my phone. One for my best friends, one for my family, the people

I go skiing with. And, in fact, I've even set up a group here for everyone that's at

CES. Now, when I pop open this group, you'll notice immediately the tiles light up with

information. Who is trying to get in touch with you? Emails that are coming in, messages

that are being received, lots of missed calls that are coming in at the same time. I'll

get you that Windows Phone, we'll talk. We also have the ability to see what's new

in your social networks for this specific group. Now, think about how valuable that

can be when you have, for instance, your family, and you want to see what's going on just with

that group of people. You can see pictures just for this group of people as well, and

they all come together in one place. And so it's really easy for me to see all

that right here. And we even do group communication, both with email, and also text and chat. But

unlike our competitors who have proprietary services like iMessage or Blackberry Messenger,

we actually use the services that you and your friends are already using, Facebook Chat

and Windows Live Messenger, together with between 500 million and three-quarters of

a billion users already there today. So, no matter what screen they're on, or what service

they're using, your message will always get through.

Now, let's dive right into one of my contacts. I've been chatting with Joe Belfiore earlier

today. And you'll notice that the contact card comes alive, and it's combined from all

the different places I know Joe across all of his social networks. So, it doesn't just

have contact information, it brings in the richness of what he's up to, the tweets that

he's been posting, and I can easily retweet those, no app required.

I can see all the pictures that he's been posting. I like to catch up with friends sometimes

and see all that in one album. And we even have conversation history. So, this keeps

a full log of all the conversations we've had across calls, visual voice mails, text

messages, and even IMs. And so, when you see here that I've gone into this thread, as we

call them, it actually looks like a text message, but this actually started out as a Facebook

chat, and so it's really easy to seamlessly transition. So, Joe actually sent me a message

here, and wanted to see if I wanted to grab dinner after the keynote. That was sent as

a Facebook message. But now it shows that he's offline, and I can very easily switch

over and continue this thread by texting him on his mobile. And it all gets carried out

in the same place. Now, I can go ahead and actually type out

that message on the QWERTY keyboard, but we've actually built voice throughout Windows Phone.

So, I'm going to go ahead and respond with my voice. Sounds great. And just like that

it will type in the message and we'll have that off to Joe. So, that text message will

be sent off, you can continue the IM, and everything works perfectly. (Applause.)

As Steve talked about, one of the other things that we really wanted to do was build in this

Metro user interface. And we actually pioneered this on Windows Phone, and you'll be seeing

plenty of it tonight. Now, if you're curious what Metro is all about, it really is about

representing not the icon or the application, but, in fact, the people and the things that

matter most about you. And so these Live Tiles are constantly lit up, not just when they

link to that application, but the content that's actually behind it.

So, you can see here I've got the weather for where I want to be, and actually where

I live, and it's a stock contrast. I can see my recipes here that are coming up. I can

see that must-see movie Twilight Saga that I've been meaning to see, and all that is

pinned to the start screen as well. I've got my expenses. I've got a Spotify playlist.

I've got the Groupon of the day, so I don't have to get those emails anymore. And I've

even got my boarding pass for tomorrow. And unlike other phones, we shortcut straight

into the part of the app you care about. So, when I tap this boarding pass, it takes me

straight to that page. So, it's really easy to get around.

Now, as you saw in that message with Joe, I actually have to pick dinner out for tonight.

So, for that I'm going to actually use Bing. And Bing brings the world's information to

your fingertips. And so the cool thing here is that actually we'll go ahead and connect

up to my location, start surfacing that up, and I can actually use Local Scout, for that

I'm actually going to switch over to this phone, and we'll take a look at what that

looks like right here. Now, when we use Bing, of course, this is

a decision engine. So, this is really all about making it easy to decide, and take action.

And I pop into Local Scout, you'll actually see that we're given all sorts of information.

Let's go ahead and switch to the second phone. I can see information on what to see and do,

to eat and drink. Let me go ahead and get that second phone up. Thank you.

And we can see everything that you can see and do, all of the shopping that's nearby,

and even highlights. So, this really will help you live like a local even when you're

not. I can see all the highlights in this area, and I've even got some of those favorites

that are bookmarked. And those will actually appear automagically. We are on this phone.

Sorry for the trouble tonight. So, when I see all the shopping, and I see

the highlights, everything to see and do, you'll actually notice I've got a bunch favorited

here. Now, I'm not going to subject Joe, possibly, to Chuck E. Cheese, but maybe the sushi sounds

pretty good. And for that we'll actually pop into this quick card. Now, the really cool

thing about the quick card is that it's scraping the Web's information, so you don't have to

get dropped off into different websites. So, all of that information comes into one place,

and I can see all the location information. I can read the reviews. We're just compiling

all those from Bing as well. And it makes it really easy, actually, to connect up to

apps that are really good at handling things like restaurant reservations.

So, when I go ahead and click reserve a table, it will actually know that there is an open

table automatically on my phone. And it will now pass off the information, in this case

the name of the restaurant and the location, straight into open table. With one click,

I can actually make that reservation and be on my way.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing the Windows Phone experience. And as we said, it's really about

putting people first, and all of your relationships. Thanks very much. (Applause.)

RYAN SEACREST: Thank you, Derek. By the way, that Sushi Roku is a good spot.

So, tell us what's going on with the phone’s hardware partners?

STEVE BALLMER: We really have an incredible amount of work going on with some really innovative

companies. With Samsung, with HTC, with LG, and with Nokia, the range and diversity of

devices is amazing. And the quality of work is special.

About a year ago, we announced a partnership with Nokia. They've already delivered Windows

Phone around the world, but really now intending to go bigger here in North America this year.

And I'm pleased to announce that the Nokia Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 will be coming soon

to consumers in Canada on the Rogers and TELUS network. And this Wednesday, here in the U.S.,

T-Mobile customers can buy the Lumia 710, Nokia's first Windows Phone in the United

States. (Cheers.) The popular Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone will also be available in

the growing base of Microsoft physical stores, unlocked here in the next few months.

But the thing I'm really kind of pumped up about actually is the work that's going on

on moving to 4G LTE networks. And today we had a chance with Nokia and AT&T to unveil

the Nokia Lumia 900. (Cheers and applause.) RYAN SEACREST: Ooh, aah.

STEVE BALLMER: It's really an incredible phone. It's blazing fast on the AT&T network. It's

got this 4.3 inch AMOLED Clear Black display, and it will be heavily promoted in all 2,400

of AT&T stores here in the U.S. in the next few months.

RYAN SEACREST: Beautiful. STEVE BALLMER: Good move there. But wait right,

how does that line go? RYAN SEACREST: But wait, there's more?

STEVE BALLMER: But wait, there's more. Let me show you a new phone today.

RYAN SEACREST: That was good. STEVE BALLMER: It was very good actually.

Unrehearsed, too. Brilliant. Anyway, this is the new HTC Titan II. This

is the HTC Titan II. HTC is an incredibly innovative company. This product was also

launched today. It will be available on AT&T's 4G LTE network. It's an even bigger 4.7-inch

super LCD screen. And, amazingly, it's got a 16-megapixel camera built in which is higher

resolution than almost everybody has on their digital cameras today. (Cheers and applause.)

With new 4G LTE phones, a design, frankly, that's winning rave reviews. Over 50,000 applications

already published in our marketplace, and that's growing about 300 a day. I think with

the Windows Phone, Ryan, we're clearly on the right track.

RYAN SEACREST: I like it. It's very cool. So, there is obviously so much going on in

the mobile market right now, it will be an interesting year, and we'll certainly be looking

to see what happens with Windows Phone Next. So, thank you very much.