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Microsoft's Risky Tablet Announcement
itwbennett writes "The New York Times describes the tablet announcement that Steve Ballmer is supposed to make in his CES opening keynote tonight as 'one of Steve Ballmer's riskiest trade show moves in years.' And blogger Peter Smith is in complete agreement. Here's why: 'Whether or not this announcement is intended as a direct response to the much-rumored Apple event that may or may not be happening on January 27th, consumers will perceive it as one,' says Smith. And if Microsoft unveils a traditional tablet then 'they'll be up against the (presumably more expensive) iTablet and the cult of Apple.' But if the device is the dual-screen Courier that we heard about back in September then it'll be up against the (presumably less expensive) enTourage eDGe, says Smith."
So the last thing Mr. Ballmer wants to hold up is a me-too device.
Huh, and here I was thinking that was precisely what he wanted to hold up. A "Me-Too" device that is the only authorized Windows Tablet for Windows 7. And it will sync with all your Microsoft crap and even let you carry around your Microsoft DRM'd media. Just like I'm sure Apple's tablet will do the same thing with Apple replaced for Microsoft.
Meanwhile here I'll sit with my eeePC running some flavor of Linux wondering when I'll get a tablet that provides support for open source.
Whether or not this announcement is intended as a direct response to the much-rumored Apple event that may or may not be happening on January 27th, consumers will perceive it as one
Oh no! Then surely consumers will see this as Microsoft entering another market they aren't experts in and not buy the MS Tablet just like how no one bought the original XBox ... oh, wait. Well, surely all those consumers will see through this ruse just like they did when Microsoft released the Zune ... oh, wait, that's still being shoved down our throats and people are still buying it.
And if Microsoft unveils a traditional tablet then 'they'll be up against the (presumably more expensive) iTablet and the cult of Apple.' But if the device is the dual-screen Courier, that we heard about back in September then it'll be up against the (presumably less expensive) enTourage eDGe
And the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if the market is large enough. Take the PS3 Vs XBox360 vs Wii console war. The XBox360 wasn't as powerful or as expensive as the PS3 yet wasn't as cheap as the Wii. And yet people gobbled them up.
The sad fact of the matter is that when you're the top dog in a lucrative industry and you're generating epic revenue, you have this peculiar ability to pay people to assess markets and then simply enter them by mirroring your opponents' every move in those markets. And you know what? With a good enough marketing team and a big enough brand name, you can't fail. Two tired adages: 1) You need money to make money. 2) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. These apply on all scales.
For how much us tech savvy people will be able to bash Microsoft's tablet, it will turn a profit. Trust me, I don't say that as a fan I say that as a fact.
My work here is dung.
This is Deja Vu all over again. They already had a bunch of pushes for Tablets. Like here:http://www.pencomputing.com/frames/tablet_pc.html Tablet PC is no go. Get over it.
Including the ability for me to skin the UI with an LCARS theme without "jailbreaking" or flashing custom firmware.
I'm serious.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I think the NYT is reading too much into this. First of all, Apple has it's own market. The folks who buy their products and are fans are not going to be swayed too much, if at all, by a cheaper price from MS for a similar gadget. Apple has proven that they can charge what they charge and their market sticks with them: the early adopters will pay the price. And those who won't pay the price will wait because we know that Apple will drop the price in the future.
The MS market is for those of us that are price conscious, the corporate market that locked themselves into MS solutions, and believe it or not, there are folks who actually like MS and HP products and even prefer them over Apple.
My point is that Apple is in their own league (and market) and any announcement from MS et al. isn't for their (Apple's or their users) benefit - it's for the MS fans that may want a tablet device. It also shows that MS is "keeping up".
MS isn't the power house that they once were. They're more like the obese ex-college football star that thinks they're still the big fast hunk they once were - that's another post from the Anonymous Business and Marketing Analyst.
Windows tablet pc edition is already in the wild, and nobody cares about it. This is just a poor-marketing-dept reply to apple's itablet/hugeiphone.
slashwhat?
This is going to be WAY cooler than Windows XP Tablet Edition running on the Compaq Tablet that it was introduced with. Or Vista with built in Tablet Extensions that MS demoed a while back. Yay!!!! Windows 7 Tablet!!! it will be great where the two previous attempted failed miserably because it's new!
The NYT article is ridiculous. Granted Apple will probably release a tablet like device or at least announce it in the next month or so. However how can MS/HP announce a me-too device without there being a device to emulate? What's unfortunate is that as usual the Mac boosters in the media who believe that the Mac is the be all for all users are going to pass judgement on this device by comparing it to the mythical Apple tablet. It's like comparing a good race horse to a unicorn sure that horse is fast, but it's not a magical and can't fly. (Granted Apple may deliver a unicorn, but the point is it just doesn't exist yet however cool it may be)
2009 was the year of the netbook, 2010 will be the year of the tablet. The problem is, tablets are so niche... and the normal consumer doesn't know.
Microsoft isn't jealous of Apple's profitability, they are just looking for ways to increase their gross revenues.
They are currently a nice bit more profitable than Apple:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
So what makes Microsoft think that they can make a decent tablet?
Seriously, think about it for a minute. Forget about all the hype, forget about Apple's tablet (which hasn't even been announced). Forget about prototypes and mockups. Look at what we already know for a fact. Look at the state of Windows Mobile. How much attention has Microsoft given it? Now consider what they did to Danger, and the whole Pink debacle spearheaded by Roz Ho. And look at what they're doing with Bing, trying to compete with Google. Finally, what happened with the Tablet PC? Remember those? I ask you in all honesty: do you think that Microsoft is actually capable of launching a touchscreen tablet device that is going to provide an elegant, rich, and relatively bug-free user experience? Do you think that they will put their weight behind a putative MS tablet?
The problem here is that I have serious reservations about Microsoft's competence as well as their sincerity in developing and supporting such a device. I look at their track record with past initiatives and all I see are half-baked attempts. This rumor, if true, totally reeks of desperation, and I would not go near this one with a ten-foot pole. Such a device would not only have to be freaking amazing, it would have to be available by next month AND it would need to be bug-free, and cheap. In other words, it would have to be perfect now. Not in five years. Otherwise, it'll be a joke.
The huge borders of enTourage eDGe really put me off.
For me, it is the egregious use of funky capitalizations.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
On the contrary, I don't really see a second screen as adding that much more value, particularly when the expanded size looks to be roughly the same as the rumored iTablet -- plus, you have the dead space of the hinge dividing the screens.
I'm sure that there will be covers for the iTablet that will fold over the screen, just like there are for the Kindle. So the only real advantage of the Courier would be that it folds into half the length of the iTablet (while doubling the height).
This is got to be the longest-running MicroSoft joke: announcing vaporware as soon as a competitor does. Windows is the classic example: announced in 1984 when the Mac graphical interface was delivered. But not an usuable version until 3.1 six years later.
Half the meaningful web is in flash, ajax, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't run smoothly on a 400mhz small-profile CPU, especially on XP. A version of 7 should be modular enough to scale with the processing power. PROPER touch-sceens, resistive or capacitive, especially in a high enough resolution to be called a tablet don't come as cheap as you'd like to think, and if the performance is crap it won't catch on. We're just coming to the point where we can stick enough juice into a screen big enough to call it a tablet. Give them SOME credit.
Keep in mind that Clay Aiken's holiday album sold over one million copies in SIX WEEKS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Christmas_with_Love
Popularity doesn't equal quality. You can keep your filthy locked down device. I'll stay with my Zen, thank you very much.
Living With a Nerd
It looks kickass, and it would be immediate choice over iTablet or other traditional tablets.
Seeing as the "iTablet" has not even been announced, I don't know how you could assume that.
... and then they built the supercollider.
you must be one of those Linux, PS3, Bloatware, Logitech, Courier Fanboys!
-- Now that's a sig.
Sounds to me like what you want is a modern-day Newton priced like the iPod Touch!
but the future is cheap 'netbook' tablets like in Star Trek TNG.
They only seemed cheap because TNG had one of those fantasy moneyless economies. Somewhere offscreen were legions of young, green slave girls working in the tablet sweatshops on Memory Alpha before they are "promoted" to being sexual escorts for the Starfleet brass and Federation bigwigs.
I swear that sometimes the future is stupidly obvious and these big dumb corporations adamantly try to refuse it.. A $1000 tablet may be a temporary success... but the future is cheap 'netbook' tablets like in Star Trek TNG. The point of a tablet PC is to offer a computing platform that removes the need for paper. Paper is cheap. A dual-screen tablet is the stupidest of the stupid moronic stupid things Microsoft would do..
Excuse me, but you don't get it. People don't want a "computing platform". People care a shit for "computing". People want apps and games and music and movies and newspapers and magazines. As long as you have to call it a computer, it will fail. Believe me, people are sick of computers. They love what they can *do* with them and this is not computing. It's the net (and this means: connecting to other people) and content and fun they're after. The best hard- and software is useless without easy and one-tap access to things and people.
As long as you think hardware and software is important, you're wrong. It's important as air and water, but once they can breath and drink, people don't want better and faster air and water, they want other things. Then they care for the air and water only if it smells and has the wrong color.
Well, maybe you meant exactly this. Sorry then.