Last week, Microsoft built a house of ice in the Yonge/Dundas square in order to promote their two flagship products, Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007. Having some time to kill on Saturday, and being a geeky geek, I braved the cold and visited the ice house.

I did not think the cold would be a problem, because I expected it to be a short trip; I would go inside, take some photos and a walk around, and then leave. But they had setup a system where they would let in a group of people every half an hour, the purpose of which was to hold a draw every half an hour for a $1300 prize pack. Wowzers! That seemed like a good deal because there were probably less than 100 people every half hour, plus I was lucky enough to make it into the last group before they tore the house down, plus I need a new computer. Then they announced that it was a software package…which actually is pretty useless.

The concept of the ice house was to show off how Vista can be used/integrated within the house. They had a computer in the office, a computer in the bedroom, a computer in the entertainment room, and a computer in the kitchen. They also had what I suppose was a fridge running Vista, but of course they screen on the door was showing static. The fridge was, aside from the computer equipment, the only other thing in the house that wasn’t carved from ice (you can barely make out the toilet I’m sitting on in the photo on the left); but it begs the question why one would need a refrigerator in an ice house? Does it keep things warm?

I realized that they wanted us to stay for half an hour in order for us to mingle around each of the computers and hear the trained staff talk about their new tools. I got suckered into the Word/Powerpoint talk in the office, but it was pretty boring. Look, you can make a slideshow of your pictures in Powerpoint! They were also showing off the Windows Media Center and Media Player in the living room, but I couldn’t figure out what products they were trying to show in the other rooms. I don’t think it helped that the staff were tired of freezing for the entire day, and that they were about to get off work.

The other interesting thing in the house was that they used LED lights for the overhead lights. They had a variety of colours and faded the lights between them, which was very annoying when I was trying to take pictures because everything became washed out in one shade or another. You may also have heard that Ubuntu setup a booth promoting Linux right beside the ice house. They were at it again on Saturday at 3PM, but I guess I went a little too late to see the 10′ penguin in action.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: geeky, microsoft, toronto