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LAS VEGAS — With the tech world’s eyes focused on it Wednesday, Microsoft introduced Windows 7, a product many enthusiasts have already become familiar with.

In addition to announcing the widely expected test version of Windows 7 going out this week, Microsoft announced deals it was rumored to bring forth won with PC god Dell and Verizon Wireless; new “Halo” video-game titles it had already unveiled; and Xbox 360 sales statistics it touted Monday.

Some observers said the company’s gift at the International Consumer Electronics Show was as destitute of news as any it has given in the past half-decade — perchance by proposal.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer took his turn in the coveted CES pulpit, from what one. Bill Gates had delivered his sermon on technology’s future each year for the farther than decade.

The giving was entertaining at times, but also unintoxicated. Ballmer was realistic about the economic backdrop fronting which this assiduity meets. He was also resolutely optimistic about the power of technology.

“It feels like we’ve entered a period of reduced expectations, a time when we may be in actual possession of existence tempted to just combination our optimism and lamina away from the thicker settlements our ambition,” Ballmer said.

“But no good sense what happens with the economy, or how long this recession lasts,” Ballmer said, “I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer. There really is no turning back from the connected world and the degree of progress of technological advance bringing people closer together.”

The chief executive rehashed his company’s already well-articulated vision of oblation software and services across the “three screens”: computers, televisions and mobile devices.

“The linchpin for bringing all of this together notwithstanding you will exist Windows,” Ballmer said.

Confirmation of the Windows 7 Beta version, available to computer professionals Wednesday and the rest of the public Friday, fueled speculation that the final translation could subsist released ahead of its publicly detailed January 2010 target — perhaps in epoch for holiday shopping or even back-to-school computer sales in the early fall.

“I guess CES is being used as a nature of broad market introduction to Windows 7,” Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft, said after being briefed on Microsoft’s announcements in send.

Other major product introductions may have been held off to give Windows a wide berth, or perhaps they weren’t willing for prime time.

“In the past, they made an effort to really have something new at CES,” reported Rosoff.

Deals

Microsoft announced two tumid wins for its search engine, which has struggled to gain market share as Google has continued to grow.

In the first deal, the company displaced Google as the search partner on new Dell consumer and small-business PCs. Microsoft’s Live Search, as advantageous taken in the character of the new Windows Live Essentials online services, will subsist preloaded on new machines.

Dell had 13.6 percent of the global PC market in the third quarter of 2008, according to Gartner. Hewlett-Packard, with whom Microsoft announced a North American search-distribution deal that began this month, had 18.4 percent. In 2007, Microsoft announced a homogeneous global deal through Lenovo.

Now the key is making sure the search results don’t balk new users. “Otherwise they’ll shift the default or type in www.google.com and that will be the end of it,” Rosoff said.

Other analysts are skeptical of the value of search-distribution deals to the party.

“[T]hey don’t stop the Google habit,” wrote Danny Sullivan, editor of the online news station Search Engine Land, in a Dec. 30 essay. “Give someone a new computer set by default to search at Microsoft, and I think there’s each excellent chance they’ll still movement to Google.”

The second share announced Wednesday offers Microsoft search, advertising and other services to totally Verizon Wireless subscribers in the United States, beginning in the pristine half of this year. The five-year distribution applies to newly come phones.

Microsoft obviously beat out Google for this, too, in negotiations that reportedly dragged on for two years.

In November, The Wall Street Journal reported Microsoft was sacrifice Verizon guaranteed search-advertising revenue of between $550 million and $650 the masses in excess the life of the deal, roughly twice Google’s occur. Others have suggested those figures were inflated.

Microsoft did not annotate on the financial terms. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, said in an interview the method of developing public wealth were less important than the long-term strategy.

Xbox

On Monday, Microsoft declared 2008 the best year yet for its video-game-console business.

The company aforesaid it had sold 28 million Xbox 360 consoles inasmuch as the scheme’s ushering in in 2005; that’s up 58 percent from last year.

It also counts 17 the public subscribers to the Xbox Live online entertainment reticulated, which is core outfitted through a Primetime channel.

It’s any online venue for people to compete in measure shows, starting with “1 vs. 100,” against thousands of other players.

Bach, in the interview, acknowledged the games matter did comment put on more softness because of the economy. “Last year, if they were buying five games when they bought a console, it may be this year they only bought four,” he said.

Halo

This year resolution see the launch of two new titles in the blockbuster “Halo” franchise, widely credited with making the original Xbox, launched in 2001, a success.

“Halo Wars,” a strategy-based riff on the space-combat series, is due March 3 from Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios, a date announced in December.

Another title, “Halo 3 ODST,” (for Orbital Drop Shock Trooper — a class of soldier in the game), is coming in the fall. This title is from Kirkland-based Bungie Studios, the originator of the “Halo” franchise, which split from Microsoft soon after the record-setting launch of “Halo 3″ in 2007.

Benjamin J. Romano: 206-464-2149 or bromano@seattletimes.com

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