Comdex kicks off with Big Billy Gates

Other luminaries speaking at the Las Vegas bash include Scott McNealy, who looks like he's a lost a little weight on the Comdex site picture, Thomas M. Siebel of that ilk, John W. Thompson from Symantec - but we're sure we saw him at Comdex when he was at Big Blue.

To listen to the webcast, you can get it for free from Microsoft, or pay $2.95 to cnet.mp3.com for the privilege. He will be at the Aladdin, a shadow of its former self.

First time we headed for Comdex was in 1987 for the infamous Interoperability show, where Microsoft/IBM were showing off the wonders of OS/2. Big Blue was showing Displaywrite for OS/2 - thankfully we were spared that abomination through a series of events. We also were on the Winword beta programme then, it was a different incarnation.

Things have changed a lot. Now Comdex has got Las Vegas "Project Management Bootcamps". Make the delegates suffer, we say!

The INQ will have a clutch of little INQettes at Comdex, and we've even one of our writers speaking - the details of that are to be found here.

There's still heaps of parties - well, it is Las Vegas. And you can probably still smoke just about anywhere in the ville - for some reason.

More later, when there's more, later... µ