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Microsoft's Vision Of Future Workplaces

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that-monitor-looks-nice dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft unveils their new office of the near future in a swanky center in Redmond. Inside this article you will find clear evidence of institutional navel gazing like never before and a staggering ignorance of current technology (much of this seems retreaded) not to mention actual business needs or wants. Want proof? How about: '"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices," says group marketing manager Tom Gruver in leading a tour of the new facility.' Right. More chestnuts inside."

4 of 561 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Clueless by targo · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is exactly the point why e-mailed voice mail is much better. I used to hate voice mail until we got a "unified" system, evcerything's coming in as e-mail. Voice mail comes as .wav attachments, open in your favorite player, skip the uninteresting parts and get to the point. Extremely convenient, there is no way I would ever want to use the old style voice mail again. Just because Microsoft is thinking about it or you don't understand how it works, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

    --
    When men used to be men
  2. Surround Sound Makes Sense If You Know MS by Carnage4Life · · Score: 2, Informative

    2) Surround sound being an important part of an office? If your office is a production studio, maybe - but if your office is a studio, chances are you know more about what you need than a bunch of marketing hacks from MS.

    Surround sound makes sense to MSFT employees because most of us [including wet behind the ears college hires like me] have their own office. I love being able to listen to my obnoxious hip hop music without having to worry about an office mate like I did at internships in the past. However I often find myself wishing for speakers better than the stock, cheap PC speakers than came with my Dell. Surround sound would be way fucking cool.

    Of course, this all assumes having your own office. Cubicles or other shared spaces may not be as conducive for surround sound music listening as ones own office but I wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as you have.

    Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not reflect the opinions, thoughts, strategies or plans of my employer.

  3. Re:Three things by dublin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another Starfire link, for those interested in knowing a bit more about the ultimate desktop environment: "The "Starfire" Video Prototype Project: A Case History"

    Remember that MS is just now getting around to aping what Tog and Sun were proposing in 1994!

    --
    "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
  4. You are missing the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hello,

    You are right that this is already possible but I believe you are missing the point. What the article is saying is that a user can use two computers as if they were one in dual-head mode (nearly).

    "At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop"

    Now this IS already perfectly possible - I am doing it right now. You have to install VNCserver on one desktop, and a little program called Win2VNC on the other. Win2VNC creates a 1pix stripe up the side of your main machine's desktop, and when hovered over, all keyboard and mouse actions are sent to the VNC server.

    You can get Win2VNC at : http://www.hubbe.net/~hubbe/win2vnc.html

    Everyone I've shown it to has said "WOW!!"..

    It's good.

    Alex.