Ballmer Says Microsoft Is 'Hardcore' About Tablets 324
gbll writes with news that Microsoft is gearing up to aggressively pursue the tablet PC market, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft is working with a variety of hardware companies including Asus, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony, to release Windows 7 slates later this year.
"These slates will be available at a variety of price points and in a variety of form factors — with keyboards, touch only, dockable, able to handle digital ink, etc. Since Ballmer showed off a prototype of a Windows 7 slate from Hewlett-Packard at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company has said next-to-nothing about how it planned to address the slate form-factor space. ... Ballmer never mentioned the iPad or the coming Chrome OS-based slates by name during his remarks. Microsoft’s pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."
Still want Courier (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope Microsoft brings back their Courier project [cnet.com] or some other device with two screens that you hold like a book.
There is hope for the future of the 'Courier'. On June 30, 2010, Network World posted that Microsoft received a patent on June 29th, which might be for the 'Courier', "[p]atent number D618683 for a 'dual display device'."
It's seriously the only tablet I would feel comfortable to hold and use. A hard single surface tablet is not nice to hold, especially since we have used to hold books in our hands for hundreds of years.
Personally I will be waiting and will not buy a tablet unless I can hold it like that. Otherwise I might just as well use a laptop.
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I don't find holding a book very comfortable. And saying "books in our hands for hundreds of years" is just plain wrong AND not to mention completely meaningless.
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Chump, it is not about reading books it is about writing books. Computers, them things are meant to be interactive, like inputs and outputs, you know. So form factor wise touch screen means hold in one hand with input by the other hand, so palm up spread fingers and thumb and that gap between fingers and thumbs partially clenching defines comfortable screen width, with one proviso, you must be able to park it comfortably in a pocket ie. the best tablet is a smart phone (add a keyboard for two handed thumb
Re:Still want Courier (Score:5, Insightful)
Tablets have been hyped and died for the last decade, form factor kills their usability
It wasn't the form factor that killed it, it was that manufacturers had designed tablets as scaled-down desktop machines. That didn't work. Once someone came along and introduced a tablet with an interface that made sense for that type of device, tablets suddenly took off.
Re:Still want Courier (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, and if Microsoft thinks they can throw Windows 7 on a tablet without massively changing the interface and take over the tablet landscape, they are sadly mistaken. (Yes, I still own a tablet and I hated using it, so it collects dust.)
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This is not true, iOS is very different under the hood than OS X. There may be similarities, but at the core they have nothing to do with each other. Kind of the opposite to Android & Linux (core is Linux, but that's where the similarities seem to end).
I think MS needs to drop this idea that Silverlight is the panacea for all things mobile. I'm not impressed with them using it with both Win 7 Phone or Win 7 Embeded. It's almost as bad as rumoured the Flash OS that does the rounds every few months. Why y
Re:Still want Courier (Score:5, Informative)
This is not true, iOS is very different under the hood than OS X. There may be similarities, but at the core they have nothing to do with each other
Absolutely untrue. Aside from achitecture-specific bits, they run the same XNU kernel. On top of this, they have the same libc, the same CoreFoundation framework and the same Foundation framework, providing interfaces to the system. They run the same display server, with the same CoreGraphics / CoreAnimation frameworks providing interfaces to it. Text rendering on both is done via the same CoreText framework. They have the same Objective-C runtime, although the ARM version does not support Autozone GC. Both provide most of the same high-level frameworks, such as the address book and calendar store. There are some differences:
UIKit is about the only major addition in iOS, and I wouldn't be surprised if it shares a lot of code with AppKit (a lot of the classes are almost identical, or just cut-down versions UIKit). Pretty much everything else in iOS is also present in OS X.
Re:Still want Courier (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, who wants to use a WIMP desktop on a tablet?
Who wants to switch on a tablet and wait 1-2 minutes for it to boot up? (plus the obligatory BIOS screen, yum).
Internal politics completely ruined Microsoft's chances of doing well in the tablet market.
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>>>I can easily say that I find reading a book the most comfortable form to read from.
I believe you. The problem is whether or not the masses would agree, and buy the two-screen Courier. I suspect not, especially since most people in the desired demographic 15-35 grew up with single screen reading.
As for the comfort of actual books, the 800 page tome I'm reading now (Best Science Fiction of the Year, 11th edition, 1993) is anything but comfortable. I wish I could find an electronic version so I
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The argument is an evolutionary one suggesting that we've adapted to books. That's an idiotic thing to say and requires no citations (because it's common knowledge that only books evolved in the last few centuries, not the fingers of all humans), especially considering the original poster bears the burden of proof.
If anyone is trolling, it's more likely you. If you're trying to be a grammar Nazi you have to do better than just accuse someone of being wrong. Otherwise you're just an ass, which you've clea
Re:Still want Courier (Score:5, Funny)
Books are too complicated [youtube.com].
Why? (Score:2)
Just use Monaco and STFU
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Have you never used a clipboard before then?
Or a notepad? (paper variety)
Having used clamshell phones and the Nintendo DS, I find having to open something pretty annoying.
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Not to mention [wikipedia.org], tablets [wikipedia.org]..
Get ready for.... (Score:5, Funny)
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They're easier throw than chairs.
Re:Get ready for.... (Score:5, Funny)
First day: "Hello, Mr. Ballmer and welcome to Microsoft R & D. Windows tablets? Sure - here, take two and call me in the morning!"
Second day: "They didn't work? Sorry, I meant you should use Windows tablets like suppositories. You know the drill."
Third day: "Can't run as fast as you used to? Windows will do that to you."
Fourth day: "Can you feel the PAIN? Remember - no pain, no gain!"
Fifth day: "What do I look like - tech support? Call your next of KIN"
Sixth day: "You can't get it out? We need to reboot you. Bend over - this guy here used to be the kicker for Texas. Will this fix it? No, but you'll now know exactly what it feels like to be a long-term Microsoft customer."
Seventh day: *crickets*
Ripper (Score:2)
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Are you hoping MS kills itself [while we all watch]? or are you the kinda person who like to tell dead baby jokes during a "pregnant yoga" class?
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What's funnier than a dead baby at a "pregnant yoga" class?
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Kin? (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is a shame that Microsoft has such lethal corporate politics impacting their every decision... Not that I thought the Kin was cool (it certainly didn't appear to be...) but to kill a product line mere months after launch is pathetic...
But, hey, Ballmer says they're hardcore about the tablet market so that clearly means they'll be serious about it...
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If they're as serious with tablets as they have been with PlaysForSure, Zune, Courier and Kin, I'm sure the other companies are shaking in their boots.
Re:Kin? (Score:5, Interesting)
They killed the Kin long before it launched, they just had to put out something to fullfill their contract with Verizon. Otherwise, I don't think it would have ever left the campus. They already stole all the good parts for the Windows 7 Phone.
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Re:Kin? (Score:4, Insightful)
It really is a shame that Microsoft has such lethal corporate politics impacting their every decision...
Exactly. Microsoft is the NASA of technology companies. The engineers are capable of building great things, but any project worth doing is worth doing right, and any project worth doing right will probably take longer than the tenure of whatever politician or administrator sponsored it. When the new head honcho comes in, or the next election is held, the old administration's pet projects are put in a box and gassed.
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What I want to see now is a cartoon, in that drawing style of Duffy etc with the political cartoon. Show a parade going down the street, with a float with a band playing and confetti raining down, and all the major tablet makers standing up in the "band wagon" holding up their tablets and smiling and waving to the crowd as they pass by.
And then I want to see Balmer jogging in from behind, pulling a little red wagon piled up with bits and pieces of electronics for tablets, dangly bits, and pieces falling ou
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The Kin's market really was "free" (with 2 year contract) feature phone - it would have done well in that segment, but no - 200$ smartphone with no apps, no support etc launched at the same time as the rise of the droids (when one could easily argue Android started to gain serious marketshare).
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Eh... (shrugs)
Microsoft's never been a market leader. Other companies like Atari, Commodore, and Apple did the innovating while Microsoft just rode on the coattails of the popular IBM PC, and copied the other guys' ideas (5-10 years later) over to Windows. It doesn't appear Microsoft ever had the ability to be inventive, and it doesn't look they will ever gain that ability.
To expect MS to produce a Wonder Tablet of the future is like expecting a mule to get pregnant
.
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And Ballmer was all *HARDCORE* about *SQUIRTING* previously... and what happened to all that squirting brown stuff?
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No, no, you misunderstood them. What they said was that they have hardcore on smartphones. In other words, they are allowing hardcore porn to be made available on their smartphones. It was their response to iPhone's content policies. Had nothing to do with actually being serious about the product.
Re:Kin? (Score:5, Informative)
LOL. They started the Smartphone market?
I had a smartphone in 2001, *9* years ago.
Look up the Nokia 9110i communicator.
The US lagged massively behind the rest of the world in terms of cell phones, so you might want to read up about smartphones in Europe and Asia, they've been around longer than you think.
The 9110i was an AMD 486 running DOS with a GEOS front end, quite a cool thing.
Re:Kin? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows Mobile phones also have been around for longer than you think.
I've got my first one in 2003.
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Obviously 2003 is earlier than 2001.
1993 - the IBM Simon - a touchpad mobile with apps (Score:4, Informative)
And sold by BellSouth.
Nokia 9000 in 1996.
Smartphone 2002 announced by Microsoft in 2001 - defined as lacking a touchscreen.
Winner: IBM, by nearly a decade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#History [wikipedia.org]
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/feb02/02-19intelwirelesspr.mspx [microsoft.com]
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/feb02/02-19tismartphonepr.mspx [microsoft.com]
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2004/01/01/mpx2002.html [oreillynet.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(phone) [wikipedia.org]
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The problem is, they had this massive lead over everyone else, but they were completely apathetic towards their own product.
Did you copy / paste that from a discussion concerning MS-DOS, Windows or IE?
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As far as I know they started the Smartphone market.
I believe that IBM is credited with the "first smartphone" some time in the early 90's. Nokia had one in the mid to late 90's and the Blackberry has been around for the last 8 or 9 years now. Palm added telephonic capabilities around 10 years ago as well. I'm pretty sure MS got into the market in 2002. I think they jumped on the band-wagon more so than starting anything.
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As far as I know they started the Smartphone market.
Yeah, right. In 2001.
Except that Nokia already had their Communicators out since 1996.
And IBM had created the first smartphone in 1992.
But aside from those 9 years... suuuuure.
Re:Kin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even assuming that your claim that "[MS] started the smartphone market" is true, you incorrectly imply that being the pioneer of a particular market should somehow say something about the present status of that pioneer's products in that market. It clearly does not.
If anything, what Microsoft's relatively long history of handheld mobile device development has revealed is that they have consistently and repeatedly squandered each opportunity to develop breakthrough products with a sense of refinement and attention to the user experience. Quite the opposite--they try to shoehorn existing paradigms (and therefore existing software and interfaces) into new hardware because they suffer from such a pervasive degree of corporate mismanagement, unwillingness to take design risks, and complete lack of imagination, that the contrast in Apple vs. MS approaches might well be considered the quintessential object lesson in product development. Indeed, the fact that MS has been developing such devices for so long and yet have so little to show for it, makes their blatant incompetence all the more inexcusable.
MS is not lacking in the essential capability (both financial and technological) to develop good products. What they lack is the proper management, and that starts from the top of the organizational hierarchy, not the bottom. As long as MS is run by spoiled MBAs who are just riding the gravy train and waste their time with corporate politics, the company is doomed to mediocrity.
And as for the consumer, all one has to do is look at (1) the lack of any real innovation--no real competitor to the iPad and the fact that any such future device will be perceived as a follower to be measured against that standard; and (2) the fact that MS killed the Kin so quickly after its announcement, to realize that this kind of half-assed proclamation means absolutely nothing, and that you would be a fool to buy into the idea of a MS tablet. And the dumbest part of it all is that THE iPad ISN'T EVEN ALL THAT AMAZING. It's a nice, polished product, but true to Apple strategy, it could be SO MUCH MORE yet it is not because they're going to improve it incrementally to maximize sales. Next year's iPad will look like the iPhone 4 and have Facetime, but they obviously didn't put it in the iPad because it would have cannibalized the 4's sales. MS in theory could have outdone the iPad. In fact, they still could. But does anyone really honestly think that they will, given their abysmal track record?
Re:Kin? (Score:5, Insightful)
There were no great first party applications, and there was no organized way to find applications for the phone (not advocating a singular market entity, but having no means at all to find applications isn't good either). They also didn't market it to anybody.
Windows Mobile was basically an attempt to compete with Palm. When Palm no longer looked to be a threat, MS stopped caring about it. Since people who got Mobile (business types) had to get Mobile or nothing, MS thought they could just coast. Then RIM came into the picture. But MS was too busy distracted by Google and OpenOffice to focus even on their bread-and-butter Windows OS. Then Apple and Android showed that consumers would buy smartphones if designed and marketed specifically to them, MS was bailing themselves out of the Vista debacle. Now they are years behind.
Hardcordz (Score:5, Funny)
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On that note, as a lesson to old dudes, "Awesome" never fails. Stick with it.
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Tubular? Nah, it'll probably be flat just like the iPad.
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If all they do (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If all they do (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, MS needs to stop imitating Apple, tablets aren't the "next big thing" unless you can deliver workable software or have an army of fanboys willing to buy anything no matter how overpriced and how many features it lacks.
If MS is to release a tablet it needs to create a UI over-layer over Windows 7 and provide ways to use existing Windows programs and such easy on the device. If MS tries to create -yet- another similar yet incompatible OS, it will fail yet again. Lets see here what are all the OSes that MS has released devices for in the past year or two? We have Windows 7, the OS for the Zune, Windows Mobile, Whatever the kin ran, standard Windows CE, etc. Apple has 2 major OSes, OS X and iOS, and most programs for Linux are open source making porting pretty easy.
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Really, MS needs to stop imitating Apple, tablets aren't the "next big thing" unless you can deliver workable software or have an army of fanboys willing to buy anything no matter how overpriced and how many features it lacks.
Agreed. This pretty much sums up the iPad for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haja0u5WUbE [youtube.com]
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Really, MS needs to stop imitating Apple, tablets aren't the "next big thing"
Uh, actually, this is one of the few areas where Apple was late to the show, and MS was first. Except that as usual they fucked it up. Tablets were a non-starter precisely because MS couldn't deliver an OS that made them work, despite promises to the contrary.
Then they swept it under the carpet and hoped that everyone would forget about it.
Then Apple came and showed them how it's done.
So now suddenly it's hot again and they struggle to catch up. Kinda reminds me of the Browser War II - it took Firefox befor
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Meh, a tablet that was just a laptop without a hinge and with an on-screen keyboard that can be minimised when not in use would suit me. Especially if it had plenty of usb, sd and micro-sd slots.And wirelessness.
And if it ran gnu/linux.
Re:If all they do (Score:5, Interesting)
That's simply not true. Our company develops applications with multi-touch on Win7 for our internal cloud management platform. Our users love the touch capabilities more than the automation it helps them accomplish on a daily basis. When Win7 tablets start to appear we will already have a head start on this. And to be honest, all we need is any device that can run Silverlight then Win7 wouldn't even be necessary. You are so thinking inside the box.
Posted as AC because my boss would prefer it.
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They'll have this little red eraser-looking nipple on it to make up for the lack of touch support, and it will be marketed as a 'groundbreaking innovation' in the market.
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"Hardcore" means something different at MS (Score:5, Funny)
It means "We have dedicated 5 different development and marketing teams to 5 different products that all compete with each other. Each of them has different strengths and weaknesses, each of them is mostly, but not *completely* compatible with the other, and NONE of them will actually be available for sale before Apple or Google makes them completely obsolete. Also, there will be skins available."
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"Slates," huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume Microsoft is calling these new products "slates" -- while everybody else still calls them tablets -- to distance them from the last time Microsoft tried to create a market for tablets and failed?
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I can't wait to buy a Microsoft Stale.
wait whoops
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I assume Microsoft is calling these new products "slates"...
That way, when they make bricks, MS can say they met 95% of the design goals.
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Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Announcement is step 1
"Slate" wording is part of step 2. Watch for other strange marketo language soon. Anyone still interested in a Squirt(TM)?
Step 3 is their own lameness when their "slate" only connects easily to Bing, XBox, MS Live and just their cloud.
You can bet by the time MS gets a good "slate" released that market leaders will be moving from haptics to eyetracking/brainwave/biofeedback interfaces.
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It would be the third OS and probably fourth time Microsoft has tried. Not counting the OSes that Microsoft didn't push for tablet devices (Vista supported tablets, but there was no big tablet push).
First, in the 90's, was PenWindows. (Windows 3.1 modified for pen input)
Next, came Windows XP Tablet Edition.
Corporate IT departments (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft’s pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home.
Translation: We will aggressively shove these down the throats of everyone though the CIOs who saw our ad in the in-flight magazine.
I think he needs a new sales pitch (Score:2, Interesting)
His argument will be that they are sanctioned by corporate IT departments? You mean, these tablets that don't even exist yet? How does he know? Did he say the same thing about Windows Vista-based machines six months before they were released?
Several companies, mine included, already support the iPad, so this "sales pitch" is less than compelling to me.
How this Ballmer guy still has a job is beyond me.
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Ballmer seems to be trying to imitate Steve Jobs recently... only instead of having both good ideas and terrible ideas Ballmer just imitates the bad ideas.
It's like watching a swordfighter (Score:3, Interesting)
The sad thing is Microsoft has such a strong position, Apple can't dethrone them. The only way Microsoft will fall is they get so confused thrashing around that they destroy themselves from the inside. It almost seems like what's happening.
The biggest problem I see here is an apparent lack of understanding about the market segment. Check this Ballmer quote (paraphrase?) from the article:
These slates will be available at a variety of price points and in a variety of form factors -- with keyboards, touch only, dockable, able to handle digital ink, etc.
Notice the focus on hardware. I couldn't find anywhere that he mentions software. Microsoft has had windows on tablets that reasonable match the hardware specs of the iPad for nearly a decade. What they've utterly failed at is the software side, the software that makes the tablet worth using. Apple clearly gets that, but Microsoft doesn't even seem to be aware of it at all. It seems to think the business link is going to be able to carry it, just like it carried the PC 25 years ago, and he might be right, but it hasn't worked for the last 10 years, so why should it now?
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Maybe Apple doesn't want to dethrone Microsoft.
Competition is not the end all of business. Profit and making product are. Competition comes second to that.
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Well, they didn't get it then, there's no reason to think they'll get it now... And they are a software company. Their big issue is that they stop at "good enough" and ship it. You may or may not like Apple, but the thing is licked clean! Half of the 'standard features' are missing (much like the first iPhone) but the features that are there, man, are they usable!
With MS it is the exact opposite: Everything is there, in a huge mess of menus, configs, clicks, etc. But you can do everything. If you can figure
Re:It's like watching a swordfighter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's like watching a swordfighter (Score:4, Insightful)
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Lets be honest here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lets be honest here... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. MS software has a huge association factor with it. Most people, my mom included, can navigate the UI blindfolded. That counts for something.
fail (Score:2)
Microsoft's pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."
Which is precisely what no IT department in the world wants their people to do. Use the same machine for work and private? Yeah, right. Is Balmer holding shares in all the anti-virus companies?
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Which is precisely what no IT department in the world wants their people to do. Use the same machine for work and private? Yeah, right.
People I know in several different companies do just that - and companies love that because it enables those people to work from home (VPN) in an environment that is exactly the same as at work. IT departments may hate the extra support for such a configuration, but they don't call the shots. And as for security, that's precisely what BitLocker (and other similar options) are for.
I still don't think this makes much sense with tablets since they are inherently not productivity devices. Actually, scratch that
Use at work and home, eh? (Score:2)
"Microsoft’s pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."
The gaping corporate security hole you just opened, let me show you what can be done with it.
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The gaping corporate security hole you just opened
You will now be modded down for making a statement like that without providing a goatse link.
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2)
Windows Mobile 6.5 on an HTC is slow, balky, slow, crash-prone and a misery to experience. Apple stepped on it's own dick with the latest iPhone hardware but the OS remains rock-solid. The antenna issue can be fixed but Windows Mobile cannot.
Do I foresee them doing anything smarter with a tablet OS? No, no I don't. I think it's more likely for Apple to screw up their OS than for Microsoft to fix theirs. I think Microsoft is culturally incapable of innovation at this point and it would take a massive crisis
Why do they have to announce these things? (Score:3, Insightful)
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This is the MS way of buying time (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has been doing this for decades. When a competitor is beating MS, MS announces that MS has a better product right around the corner. Then MS starts announcing delays, and cutting features. Either MS will cancel the product, and announce a better product; or MS will eventually launch a POS.
Too Late (Score:2)
"Microsoft’s pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."
iPad and iPhone have been making massive inroads into IT departments. It's a bit late for Microsoft to be holding out on this selling point. I already know of many major companies that are either field testing iOS gear, or have already implemented deployment strategies.
only willing victims would take Ballmer seriously (Score:2)
Person A works for company B. Company B mandates use of Windows for access from outside corp network. Typical.
Scenario 1: Person A picks up malware unknowingly, and transmits it to co
"Sanctioned" by Corporate IT (Score:4, Interesting)
"Microsoft's pitch will be that these slates will be sanctioned by corporate IT departments, enabling customers to use them at work and at home."
Lovely.
I translate that as "We can't sell these things on their own merit, so we'll just convince / bribe / put pressure on our corporate partners to disallow anything else." Like a command from the Vatican.
Oh, a bonus result: Ten years from now the Windows 7 Tablet will be an IT albatross just like IE6.
Oh noes! (Score:4, Funny)
he's throwing tablets now, then? (Score:2)
there is a marketing and promotion window in the computer business, between being able to produce something with a delta-dollars on it (called "profit" in circles we hacks don't visit,) and Apple's first shipment.
MS missed the market. Tablet I didn't cut it.
Just what you need (Score:4, Interesting)
Rather than one tablet design which people liked, the courier project, there will be shed loads of really amateur, plastic, butt ugly tablets from OEMs running an OS that is two years behind Apple and has a fraction of the software.
Microsoft could have nailed the tablet market with the dual screen tablet design. But nope, they killed it and they lost their most productive consumer electronics whizz kid J Allard.
You forgot (Score:2)
"there will be shed loads of really amateur, plastic, butt ugly tablets from OEMs running an OS that is two years behind Apple, has a fraction of the software, is too underdeveloped for serious tablet-mode use, and is unsupported within 18 months, at which time Microsoft will be hyping something else that shares all of the same properties without being software, hardware, or API compatible at all.
Dance Ballmer Dance (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Slates available... and cancelled (Score:2)
While it would be nice if they could keep companies like Fujitsu in the slate market (they recently discontinued their Stylistic ST6000 line and HP/Compaq has yet to replace the TC1000/1100/1200 line), there are a couple of slates running (or which can run) Windows 7 available:
http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_J35.asp [motioncomputing.com]
http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/archos-9-pc-tablet/1805-3126_7-33800951.html [cnet.com]
Unfortunately, the marketplace has mostly switched over to convertibles (pending the release of devic
Don't google "hardcore Ballmer" (Score:2)
Ballmer is such a buffoon. (Score:2)
Microsoft, stop copying what apple does, and start doing it FIRST.
The ideas are all out there. You just need the balls, marketing and design to pull it off.
Tablets are old slates are new! (Score:2)
Having used as my primary laptop a windows tablet for years, with several different tablets (not slates, like the iPad), having pen input, from it's own digital ink pen is super handy. Touchscreen, hell I have a crappy 10 inch HP from a couple years ago that does that, but it's a feature you wish it didn't have. It works fine (your finger replaces the mouse, simple, intuitive, easy to use, easy to understand), but you don't want to be handling your screen when you're using a pen. MS has all the technolog
Sad... (Score:2)
It's like watching
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...which makes it even hotter.
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I got a better idea. How about you post your real name and address and I come over for a debate? Oh wait, you're a spineless fuck. Never mind.
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Yeah, we need a new icon for MS related news. A monkey [youtube.com] would do.
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I find it hard to envision a behemoth like Microsoft doing anything "defiantly". If you're the 800kg gorilla in the room, people defy you not the other way around.
Re:Success with little risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will defiantly put out a good tablet they know what people want and they will defiantly do a good job.
1. They've been flogging "tablet computing" unsuccessfully for damn near 10 years now, because they do a shitty job at tablet computing. That's not just me saying that, the market has spoken. Clearly, nobody wants a bloated desktop OS with a few UI changes, shoehorned into a tablet form factor that then must have heavy-duty hardware and a big, heavy battery to make it usable. As long as they keep trying to stuff Windows and Windows applications into a tablet, they will fail. The iPad is doing well because it uses a purpose-built OS with a UI made for fingers that runs fast on relatively lightweight hardware.
2. It's spelled "definitely"
~Philly