Thursday 22md Feb 2007 and Microsoft is launching Windows Vista. It’s a little past 11 a.m. and I’m lounging at the Civic Center, Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island Lagos.
It takes the like of MS to afford Civic Center, its lovely with a grand view of the ocean so close it’s breathtaking. Some motor-boats sit nearby by that’s by the way. The place is so good looking I sent an s.m.s. to Stan, “Come over, this place is enchanted”.
Jim Ovia: MD, Zenith Bank (Left)
The launch gains momentum as FRANK Edoho of “Who wants to be a millionaire” climbs the podium. There was a recital of the National Anthem by a lady that made it so romantic. For some time, I wasn’t sure it was the Nigerian national anthem.
Frank introduced himself. Of course we all know who he is. He goes on to tell how people have found it difficult to dissociate him from “Who wants to be a millionaire”.
“One day”, he begins. “I was walking along the marina looking for the Nigerian Stock Exchange and waits to ask for directions”.
Frank: “Excuse me, where is the Nigerian stock Exchange”;
Stranger: “Em, Frank, I don’t know that one o, can I call a friend?”
Victor Okigbo, Marketing Mgr of Microsoft Nigeria (Dreadlock RastaJ) gave a little speech, some MS advert held people spellbound and then the truly interesting Chinenye takes the mike. After a rhetoric that made everyone sober, he goes ahead and talks about how he was a teacher 20 years ago and asked J.S.S. 2 kids to draw the layers of the earth’s atmosphere. A lad goes ahead and labels his 3 layers Earth, Sky and Heaven to the amusement of all. He goes on and relates this to how little of original things we’ve had in Nigeria and how given the right mindset we can achieve a lot more.
Chinenye, Country Manager, Microsoft Nigeria
Akin Akinwolere did a short Vista demo. He shows off the new search features, the 3D windows Presentation Foundation, the cool one, adding more memory to your system using a flash drive, security etc More MS Vista features
Everything was all charged up again when Jim Ovia of Zenith bank made an appearance, more men in black really. For some time I thought it was El-Rufai that came in. People gave him a loud ovation as he goes on and mentions how he intends to self-install Vista on his pc. He also got a signed copy of Vista Ultimate, signed by Bill-G.
The very interesting Chinenye is back and speaks on how he gets a BSA (Bandwidth Separation Anxiety) once he is disconnected from his mail for a few minutes. He talked some more about how technology has changed the face of doing business and the future. He wraps it up with a very beautiful Igbo piece, “What an elder sees sitting down, it takes a child climbing a palm tree”.
Office is definitely a good buy if you can afford it.
Very few was said about Exchange 2007, probably for fear of boring the not-so-geek audience.
MS partners in attendance included HP, Zinox, Infographics, Bi-trax Axxent. Altogether, a good day at the exclusive Civic Center.
