WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Microsoft talked mostly about consumers at today's keynote session at the Worldwide Partner Conference at the Verizon Center. It was a first for the annual conference, a gathering of companies that resell, build on and sell services based on Microsoft products, mostly to corporate customers.

Corporations buy in bulk based on how it will help the bottom line, whereas consumer shoppers buy items one at a time based on the market appeal of the technology.

"We all know we’re consumers first and business people second," said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president for the Microsoft Partners network, and said "the consumerization of IT" and business priorities are driving technology innovation. He said many partners had been asking for a consumer-focused keynote at the annual conference.

This morning, Microsoft highlighted Windows 7, the planned Windows Phone 7 and the new Xbox Kinect sensor, which makes the video game system controller-free.

Windows 7:

Microsoft gave another peek at a Windows-based slate device, one of several forthcoming iPad competitors that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer referred to in his keynote on Monday. Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer marketing, demonstrated a Windows slate like a giant remote device to play video on four screens -- televisions and computers. "It’s going to be Windows 7 plus your personal cloud," Brooks said.

He added that 370 million Windows PCs are expected to ship in the next 12 months. Microsoft has sold 150 million copies of Windows 7 since the launch in October.

Brooks also showed the PhotoFuse feature now available in a beta test version Windows Live photo software. He used it to splice together four photos of Microsoft workers in Seattle Sounders jerseys so that everyone is looking at the camera. In the future, no one will need cardboard cutouts to add celebrities into photos.

Windows Phone 7:

On Monday, Ballmer said Microsoft had missed a generation in the mobile phone market. Today, Andy Lees, senior vice president for Microsoft's mobile business, talked about opportunities still ahead for the smartphone market. "Over the next three years, the number of smartphones sold is going to double fro 200 to 400 million smartphones sold every year."

He said the problem with smartphones today is the lack of integration between apps, referring to the iPhone without naming it directly. "The problem is today phones are just at-larges, just a grid of icons," Lees said. "We think there’s got to be a better way than going app by app by app."

Microsoft is putting all its effort into Windows Phone 7, a smartphone operating system scheduled to come out during the holidays. The company recently launched a social-networking phone called Kin, which it pulled the plug on a little more than a month after sales started.

The WPC audience gave a lukewarm reception to the Windows Phone 7 demo, which showed the various hubs for contacts, e-mail, calendar, photos that integrate Outlook, Windows Live and Facebook. The one feature the audience perked up over was the ability to edit PowerPoint presentations on the device.

Lees said the developer tool kit for Windows Phone is now available in beta test version.

Xbox Kinect:

The Kinect motion sensor accessory, which will also go on sale for the holidays, was the crowd pleaser of the morning with demos showing how it would make the Xbox video game system controller-free.

The demo showed how Xbox users can fast forward through Netflix movies with a hand wave, and pause play with the voice command "Xbox pause." The company then showed a young girl playing with a virtual tiger cub in the game "Kinectimals" and navigating a river-rafting course in a game called "Kinect Adventures." This was the demo that finally elicited the "I want that" response from the people in the audience.

Microsoft plans to have 15 titles available when Kinect hits the market.

For the blow-by-blow of this morning's keynote, check out my tweets from the morning in the top-right corner of Pri0 or at www.twitter.com/sharonpianchan/