Microsoft's Vision Of Future Workplaces

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."

Comments

Re:More Chestnuts?

[jc42]

> ... the pen copy and paste from computer to computer is interesting.

Hmmm ... What they describe requires the computers to be next to each other. With my X-windows screen I regularly use a mouse and copy-and-paste to transfer stuff between apps on computers hundreds or thousands of miles apart. I've been doing that for 15 years or so, and it doesn't seem like anything special.

Re:Three things

[dublin]

1) That wraparound screen actually looks pretty cool and potentially useful. I find myself glancing back and forth slightly across my large screen, so something like this could help with limited screen real estate. Not everyone's comfortable with X-style multiple desktops. My one worry is that this monitor would be MS-only

It is cool. It's also a blatant ripoff of the work Bruce Tognazzini did at Sun: In his "Starfire" movie (in which we are shown exactly why Bruce should not attempt a career as director) one of the core ideas is the Starfire desktop, a 6-foot wide vertical arc that also sweeps down onto the physical "desktop". While the film is flat, the thinking that went into the world it portrays is excellent, and has stood the test of time quite well.

Not only is the idea presented there, but there are some clever demonstrations of possible features of such tchnology, for instance: The desktop portion of the display incorporates phototransistors as the 4th element of each pixel. The entire screen is touch sensitive, allowing one to "scan" a document by simply placing it face down on the display and rubbing it with your knuckles. The image then visibly flips to "un-mirror" itself and is OCRed into usable form. Cool. Another neat idea is that of merging touchscreen gestures with the giant Starfire display - for instance, a duplicate of a graphics object in Ashlar Vellum for Starfire is created by touching it with thumb and finger joined, then spreading them apart, creating a selected copy of the object.

The MS center sounds interesting, but it looks to be a simple rip-off of the ideas that Sun first expressed in the Starfire film. (That said, I think Sun wasn't quite ready to deal with a vision so bold, either. One of the interesting things about the film is the implied e-business connectedness that underlies the system. In some ways, it is very much like what we have today with Google and large scale information repository sites.)

This vision still needs to happen. Here's hoping it will...

You're 110% right, Microsoft doesn't get it

[Aqua OS X]

Seriously man. Sound systems at the office desk are a BIG no-no. First off, this means every moron will be playing his or her music, which may or may not suck. Secondly, Microsoft's "noises for everything" campain is annoying. Noises that do not pertain to me distract me.

And what's the deal with the video / audio emails? I can guarantee you that they will not catch on. (anyone own a video phone?) Email is great because -we don't- have to listen or see each other. People like it because it is impersonal, you don't have to rush your thoughts, etc etc.

And then there is the data transfer wireless mouse. Now there's something that I'll break or misplace. Whatever happened to networks? It's easier to drag and drop a file over to someone... why should I walk over to someone's office with my mouse? That's idiotic.

It's like MS just doesn't "get it." Moreover, I don't mean to preach, but companies like Apple do (to some extent) "get it."

I mean, why make wireless data mice. Why not work on zero-config wireless networking (like OS X supports now)? And why annoy the HELL out of coworkers with dolby 6.1 "you've got mail" sounds. Why not work on soft silent visual cues insead (ie OS X can do a subtle 'pulse' of a users display instead of using alert sounds)?

The only thing I want from that artical is that monitor :) I'd be down to have my desktop look like Pre-Crime :)

Smoke and mirrors. DRM is their last hope.

[SgtChaireBourne]

Lack of vision about security and other things probably means they've given up and gone over to pure delaying tactics.

Like their recent press release for their next generation of vaporware, this looks like a delaying tactic to give the illusion that the company is going somewhere. From that view, at best it can delay an audit until the company can get a world level monopoly (and thus positive cash flow) through DRM. At worst it can postpone the date when the company flatlines, but postpone long enough for major share holders to offload.

DRM is their last hope. It won't help them out of their security and design problems, but it will let them keep dominion of the desktop and keep using that as a hammer. Otherwise, OS X did an end run around them for the desktop. In general, MS products cannot compete on technical merits, especially security, or price. Even Balmer and Allchin now admit it publicly. And it looks like Microsoft is not likely to catch up, either.

Having been found guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly, MS will no longer be able to rely on purely on existing marketshare either. In fact many key applications types (spreadsheets, wordprocessing, fincancial software) are starting to appear on faster, cheaper, more secure, more easily maintained platforms. Quite a few execs and VPs have been hopping off recently. Bill himself stepped down as CEO the first year Microsoft posted a major loss.