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Microsoft Gearing Up To Release a Smartwatch of Its Own 172

Posted by timothy from the funny-how-things-catch-on dept.
SmartAboutThings writes The smartwatch market is still in its nascent form, but with Apple releasing its AppleWatch in early 2015, things are going to change. And Microsoft wants to make sure it's not late to the party, as it has been so many times in the past. That's why it plans on releasing its own smartwatch, which would be the first new category under CEO Nadella. The device could get launched with two specific features that could make it stand apart from other similar devices — much better battery life and cross-platform support for iOS and Android users. A release before this year's holiday season is in the cards, with no details on the pricing nor availability. (Also at Reuters and The Inquirer.)
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Microsoft Gearing Up To Release a Smartwatch of Its Own More

Microsoft Gearing Up To Release a Smartwatch of Its Own

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  • I can already see it (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:33AM (#48185755)

    I bet it's called the X-Watch, has an x86 CPU and tries to cram the regular version of Windows into a 2" display with a tiny cursor controlled by a Kinect camera you wear on your head via the included X-BaseballCap.

  • Funny but Microsoft is the most open ecosystem. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:34AM (#48185761) Homepage Journal

    Microsoft supports Outlook on Android and IOS. OneDrive works on IOS, Android, Windows and OS/X
    Skype works on just about all platforms.

    I guess Microsoft being number 3 in the mobile space makes them support more platforms.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jones_supa ( 887896 )
      Also, Windows works on all PCs with all hardware supported.

      • Tell that to HP. My laserjet 1012 doesn't have any drivers for 7, yet it works if I force it as a 3055.

        Manufacturers should be required by law to provide drivers for at least 5-10 years. All the perfectly good and working hardware that gets recycled or trashed is mind boggling...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by qbast ( 1265706 )
          Provide drivers for new operating systems? Which ones? I somehow don't see any hw manufacturer committing to provide drivers for any weird linux distro in next 5 years. Unless you would want this law written so they only have to do it for new versions if Windows and possibly Mac OSX. That would be received well on Slashdot.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by hawkinspeter ( 831501 )
          If it works when you bought it, then it's your fault if you change the OS and it no longer works. You should have thought about that before changing your OS.

          On the other hand, if a manufacturer doesn't provide you with all the drivers that you want, then don't keep buying from that manufacturer.
          • If it works when you bought it, then it's your fault if you change the OS and it no longer works. You should have thought about that before changing your OS. On the other hand, if a manufacturer doesn't provide you with all the drivers that you want, then don't keep buying from that manufacturer.
            ----
            This message was brought to you by the invisible hand of the free market, except in this case, it wasn't so much a hand but more of a finger.
            • If people insist on repeatedly buying rubbish, then why should the manufacturers have to pick up the slack?

              Personally, I run Linux and the only problem I've had with drivers not working from one release to another was with a Multitech multimodem that I've not been able to get working on a anything newer than a 2.4 kernel. Luckily, I can still quite happily run an old OS and thus it's still working today (although why we need to run fax modems anymore is another question).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          I would love to see that law. When will I be seeing the drives for ReactOS and Minix 3?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

        Really? It can run on an IBM PC?

    • Re:Funny but Microsoft is the most open ecosystem. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sideslash ( 1865434 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:47AM (#48185873)
      Funny but true, at least in terms of proprietary software. The observation even applies to Windows itself, since I can run it everywhere I want, including in a virtual machine on OS X, whereas Apple won't let people run OS X in a VM. Of course, I do anyway because I insist on building my own PCs. Currently I'm running Mavericks on VMware Workstation in a Win 8.1 host, but I get nervous every time I apply an update.

      • Re:Funny but Microsoft is the most open ecosystem. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @09:54AM (#48186411)

        The only limitations I've ever had with Windows on Apple computers are limitations *Apple* put in place.

        Try this - replace the internal DVD drive on a 17" MBP with a hard disk:

        1. Bootcamp won't allow you to install Windows on anything other the primary hard disk
        2. The EFI firmware will specifically refuse to boot Windows on the second hard disk
        3. The EFI firmware will specifically refuse to boot OSX on the second hard disk
        4. The EFI firmware will specifically refuse to boot the Windows installation media from anything other than the internal DVD drive
        5. The EFI firmware will specifically refuse to book the OSX installation media from anything other than the internal DVD drive
        6. The EFI firmware will specifically refuse to allow the Windows installation to write to it, so Windows cannot set the boot partition

        So these days I have a 10GB OSX partition on the primary hard disk which I never boot into, and the final act of doing all the installations was a fun case of swapping the DVD drive in and out.

        I've never had anything like as many issues installing Windows on non-Apple hardware.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

      Skype no longer works on my ZTE F930. It worked great until about three weeks after the acquisition, then a software update broke it beyond belief. I can find no way to roll it back and disable updates.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ErnoWindt ( 301103 )

      Yes, I agree. It seems like Nadella is taking the cross-platform approach seriously and is not just blowing smoke. Refreshing, no question, and in direct contrast to Google and Apple as you point out.

      • Re:Funny but Microsoft is the most open ecosystem. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @10:18AM (#48186599) Homepage Journal

        " Refreshing, no question, and in direct contrast to Google and Apple as you point out."
        Actually no it isn't in direct contrast.
        When Apple first entered the mobile market they only had to worry about Blackberry, Wince, and Palm. In the smartphone market there was no real dominate player. It was in many ways a lot like the early days of micros with Atari, Apple, Commodore, Radioshack, Ti, and the CP/M machines fighting it out.
        Apple and Google where friends and Google got Maps, search, and youtube on the iPhone.
        When Android came out IOS was pretty much king. so Google kept putting their products on IOS to keep market share. Apple having the marketshare did not feel the need to put any services on Android. They used their services to keep market share.
        Now Microsoft to get market share supports Android and IOS. Android and IOS see no reason to help Microsoft gain marketshare. It is the exact same pattern.

        • I understand your point and it is well taken. Thanks.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

            Office is a different strategy.
            On CP/M you had Wordstar, Dase II, and often SuperCalc or PerfectCalc. On a lot of other machines like the Apple II, TRS-80, and the Pet you had Visicalc.
            When the PC came out Wordstar and Visicalc thrived for a short time then cam Lotus 123 and WordPerfect. WordStar died as did VisiCalc. Dase hung on for a good while fighting off Paradox.
            Then you had Windows and Office took over most of the market.
            Microsoft is desperate to not have Office go the way of Wordstar, Visicalc, Word

            • Yes, that is true. I think one thing that might save Microsoft on this front (and avoid the fate of Novell, say) is that they've responded in an intelligent way to the growth of Google Docs. That, and almost 20 years' worth of inertia to overcome in long-time Office users - which is still just about everyone on the planet - will work in their favor. I do think Nadella is making clear that he is going to respond intelligently and with clarity to the challenges the company faces. Quite a difference from the c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Krojack ( 575051 )

      Skype is a poor example. It worked on all those platforms before MS bought them out. You really think MS will stop supporting mobile tech? They would lose 97.5% of the mobile user base if they did.

      As for Outlook, well again they are forced to support everything. Again they don't want to lose that 97.5% users.

  • The smartwatch market is still in its nascent form, but with Apple releasing its AppleWatch in early 2015, things are going to change.

    I'm pretty sure the Pebble and the too-many-in-too-short-a-time Samsung watches were already changing things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MouseR ( 3264 )

      X2

      Pebble won that race. unfortunately lacks the marketing power of Apple and thus, they will become moot in not so long. Sad, because they already do what Apple's watch promises. Right down to SDK.

      • There's one thing The Pebble doesn't do as well as the Apple Watch, and that's running out of battery power after only a few days.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hondo77 ( 324058 )

        Pebble won that race. unfortunately lacks the marketing power of Apple and thus, they will become moot in not so long.

        Assuming that was actually true (big assumption [cnet.com]), whose fault is it that Apple is so much better at marketing? Is it Apple's fault? A vast right-wing conspiracy? Don't you think that if Pebble had come out with something really spectacular, rather than a black and white screen with graphics almost as good as Intellivision [google.com], they would have gotten a huge amount of publicity for truly beating Apple to the punch? Instead, they put out an embarrassment.

  • The downside is (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:37AM (#48185787)
    Its only compatible with Microsoft time, requires network access for a license check before you can set or change any functions, and won't be supported in 7 years time.

    • Re:The downside is (Score:5, Funny)

      by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:52AM (#48185911)

      Wow, 7 years of support!

      That would out do the original iPhone (released June 2007, last software update February 2010, less than 3 years of support), the iPhone 3G (released July 2008, last software updated November 2010, less than 2.5 years of support) and the iPad 1 (released April 2010, last software update May 2012, just over 2 years of support).

      Bring on that 7 years, it sounds positively fantastic!

      • Especially for an embedded/mobile device. My phone came out with Android 2.3, and Android 4.0 was released 6 months later. It never saw an update. Less than 6 months of updates for my phone. iOS is a no go for me, because I don't like being locked into one vendor, and their phones are expensive, at least of bought new. Android is really my preferred choice, but I really don't want to be screwed over on updates again. I'm seriously considering going with Windows phone for my next phone, as there are multi

    • Re:The downside is (Score:5, Informative)

      by bazorg ( 911295 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:59AM (#48185977)

      On the upside, the support policy will be published on http://support2.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com] and you'll be able to check the status of your chosen products regularly instead of just keeping your fingers crossed and hope that the "service" doesn't move from Beta to discontinued.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      Settings -> Display -> [_] 12-hour time [x] 24-hour time

      You will need to reboot for the changes to take effect. Reboot now? [_Yes_] [_No_] [_Cancel_] [_Abort_] [_Retry_] [_Fail_]

  • Behold the bluescreen watch! (Score:5, Funny)

    by miknix ( 1047580 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:38AM (#48185799) Homepage

    Wait no more, with this new windows watch you will be able to make pauses during your work and stare a wonderful 8-bit blue.
    No need to wait for the 16h to drink your tea, with the windows watch you get random bluescreens every time!

    Now available with the new RandomFunctionEx32! It is random 7.9999 times in 8!

    Call now, and get a free copy of Windows 10 Fisher price edition!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      * The Windows 10 Fisher price edition is limited to 1 running process.

    • Now available with the new RandomFunctionEx32! It is random 7.9999 times in 8!

      Ah, you mean the DWORD WINAPI RandomFunctionEx32( LPVOID lpParam ).

  • Since when does MS stuff get categorized as an Android item?

    • It's either because of the Microsoft patents in Android or timothy is a Samsung fanboy.

      If you ask me, the icon for anything related to smart watches should be a Pebble icon.

  • Can somebody explain why the links I have included have been modified? Not fair from /. to remove links and direct the traffic to already big outlets. Slashdot is also about diversity and supporting smaller publications, from what I remember.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bazorg ( 911295 )

      I don't know about the diversity, but agree that links should be added, not subtracted from user submissions.

      • Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's really annoying to compose an original submission, be ahead of everybody else and now getting anything to your website. Especially when you've been with Slashdot for 4+ years...

    • Re:from the submitter (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @09:07AM (#48186037)

      Can somebody explain why the links I have included have been modified? Not fair from /. to remove links and direct the traffic to already big outlets. Slashdot is also about diversity and supporting smaller publications, from what I remember.

      Are you new to submitting? I've had a bunch make it to the front page... the mods Heavily modify your submission. To the point that, you might as well not even bother spending time typing it up nicely. I got concerned when they not only corrected things but wrote their own diatribes into the submission, made their own mistakes and such, and then attributed the post to me. So I don't submit nearly as much anymore.

      If you're going to quote me with "Charliemopps writes" then it should be cut&paste. If you're altering it, Slashdot needs a different statement like "Submitted by..." etc...

      • I have had around 50 on front page... :( I didn't get this : "If you're going to quote me with "Charliemopps writes" then it should be cut&paste. If you're altering it, Slashdot needs a different statement like "Submitted by..." etc..."

    • Ad revenue.

      SlashDice isn't about supporting anything which doesn't generate revenue for Dice.

  • Maybe get one thing going before the NBT? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @08:57AM (#48185949) Homepage

    Anyone remember Apple in the early-1990s? Coming down off a high of realizing they could charge $6000 for a computer, the company felt invincible and practically started chasing every Next Big Thing that came along. It didn't make a difference whether they had any background in it, whether anyone in their market wanted it, or whether it really was going to be the Next Big Thing - if someone said it was, they were on it!

    By the mid-90s it was clear the company was in utter disarray. Teams throughout the company were chasing products as mundane as X.400 servers while at the same time offering the ridiculously designed PowerTalk that, for all purposes, rendered the server useless. Meanwhile no one could be bothered to work on anything as dull as the OS, which became a ridiculous collection of warts on bags. Copeland was the most obvious symptom of this problem, not the end result.

    And then came Jobs. First he fires most everyone while personally interviewing new hires. Almost all ongoing projects were cancelled outright, even ones that maybe shouldn't have. Lots of utter trash, like OpenDoc and CyberDog, were thankfully killed, although people still lament HyperCard to this day. In any event, within ONE YEAR the iMac was introduced and by 2000 the Mac lineup was completely overhauled and greatly simplified. THEN they did iPod.

    I believe the lesson to be learned here is that any company, no matter how large, can only do so many *new* things well. That number appears to be somewhere around two. You can continue improving existing lines, but radical change requires the entire employee base to pull in the same direction, and maintaining cohesion at that level on too many projects is simply not going to work.

    So...

    It is really a good time for MS to be doing a watch? The phone and tablet efforts are still completely up in the air. I don't run a multi-billion dollar company (and I'm very happy to say that) but it seems pretty clear that jumping into yet another product category while *every one* of their other categories needs major work seems extreme unwise to me. Hell, Windows 8 is universally detested. That needs to be addressed first.

    • And then came Jobs. First he fires most everyone while personally interviewing new hires. Almost all ongoing projects were cancelled outright, even ones that maybe shouldn't have. Lots of utter trash, like OpenDoc and CyberDog, were thankfully killed, although people still lament HyperCard to this day. In any event, within ONE YEAR the iMac was introduced and by 2000 the Mac lineup was completely overhauled and greatly simplified. THEN they did iPod.

      I don't remember all projects. Just most of them. There was the famous 4 quadrant chart [casestudyinc.com] where he focused Apple on only 4 lines of products.

  • Stand alone? (Score:3)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @09:03AM (#48186009) Journal

    Unlike Samsung and Apple's watches, which are meant as an accessory / extension for their existing flagship mobile devices, I would think MS would tend to make something a little more stand-alone and not so intimately tied to a specific device or OS. That, IMO, would be a good thing.

  • The new Microsoft Time Telling and Instant Notification Wrist Computer Ultimate Edition

  • We should remember that even though they weren't exactly world beaters or "killer apps", that MS has more experience with watches than any of the large tech vendors, including partnerships with existing conventional watchmakers. They could very well be the first to get something close to the right balance here, and the fact that they appear to be making it compatible with ALL of the major smartphone platforms is an encouraging sign. We shall see.
  • As he did with DOS and Windows event hought he didnt have line of such software. MicroSoft is slipping in its old age.

  • Late to the party? Microsoft released a smart watch back in 2004!

    http://www.cnet.com/news/time-... [cnet.com]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]

  • I had a microsoft smart watch for about 12 years. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @10:45AM (#48186855) Journal
    It was called Timex DataLink. Released around 1995 or so. You set up the calender, contacts etc in the PC and click on "send to watch" menu item. The CRT monitor will flash horizontal bars. You just hold the watch up in front of the monitor to receive the data.

    It sort of worked. But it was too much of a pain but it worked when I tried. Eventually I stopped updating the data and carried around long obsolete phone numbers, addresses etc for a long time. It had super good battery life. Lasted 12 years or so. Then I went back to a simple Casio GShock.

  • "The time has changed" (Score:3)

    by itzly ( 3699663 ) on Monday October 20, 2014 @11:07AM (#48187009)
    Please reboot for the change to take effect...

  • Will it be a stand alone smartwatch that doesn't require a mobile phone? I want a smartwatch like the old school Casio DataBank Calculator (150/300) watches. :(

  • I haven't worn a wrist watch for a couple of decades - why should I start now?

    Unless it was officially classed as 'clothing' by the state (MN) and so exempt from sales tax.

  • Microsoft wants to make sure it's not late to the party, as it has been so many times in the past.

    Aren't they already late to the party? Apple, Samsung, Google, and others have been working on smart watches for *years* already. If MS hasn't been quietly working on this for a while already, it seems to me like they're already late.

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