Microsoft had one of the biggest presences at CES in Vegas. Microsoft head, Steve Ballmer even had an enthralling presentation hinting at the future plans of the company. However, it wouldn’t be CES without Microsoft proudly displaying a few “blue-screen of death” situations at the show.

Two consumer electronic devices Microsoft is currently actively pushing experienced issues while on display. Consumers in attendance at CES were lucky enough to get a few snapshots before being escorted out of the area. One of the devices Microsoft has been pushing is the Surface.

The Surface is Microsoft’s next vision for what every household will eventually want in the future: a coffee table/iPod/computer. The Surface on display at CES was experiencing problems where the touch functionality apparently ceased to work properly. A consumer in attendance was lucky enough to take a snapshot of the glitch before being ushered away by Microsoft folks.

The other Microsoft CE product that was experiencing problems was the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 became notorious for its Red Ring of Death (RRoD) back in 2007. The company eventually ended up spending over a billion dollars in warranties. Apparently the Xbox 360 was flashing red rings at the CES display for the upcoming game, Halo Wars. It wasn’t the RRoD but it was the two blinking lights, which usually indicates an overheating problem.

We seem to get a whiff of these issues at almost every trade show event. Chances are that many of these devices are just not meant for prolonged use, hence the issues. After the recent Zune incident, this is not the best way to start off the year, with a bunch of CE related issues. However, we really should give Microsoft the benefit of doubt considering the company is a software development powerhouse not a CE manufacturer at heart.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 10:12 pm under Microsoft, Technology.

Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
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