Microsoft PR Frank Shaw: "· What’s the right time and place to make announcements? Are we adjusting to the changing dynamics of our customers? Are we doing something because it’s the right thing to do, or because “it’s the way we’ve always done it”?

"After thinking about questions like these, we have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES. We’ll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing."

So ends a 20-year relationship. Wonder if Eric Schmidt has a gap in his calendar for early January 2013.

"Dell’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show the past few years has been hard to miss. This year, it may be hard to find. Sources say the company is scaling back its participation in the annual trade show — drastically."

No particular reason given; it has a product - an ultrabook? - to launch, apparently. But the spend is being reined in.

Joe Wilcox: "No disrespect to Ballmer, but I can't think of many companies less appropriate to kick off CES.<br />
<br />
"Microsoft's core business is software -- Office and Windows -- not consumer electronics. The majority of Microsoft customers are businesses, not consumers. The company produces arguably only one CE device -- Xbox 360. There are no smartphones, tablets, TVs, portable media players or other consumer electronics made by Microsoft, and the most popular devices run software from other companies.Most of the world's PCs run Windows, but the majority of CE products don't. Microsoft's core business is the Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack, which is eroding before the mobile-to-cloud apps stack. Why is CEA paying homage to the past, again, rather than looking to computing's future and CE devices?"<br />
<br />
Quite why Microsoft has had a lock on this since the year umpty-ump remains a mystery. But which company should be there? (Note: Apple never will.)