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Ballmer Says Microsoft Is 'Hardcore' About Tablets
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."
I hope Microsoft brings back their Courier project 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.
Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, Tablets!!!!!
i told you i was hardcore
Will the tablets be ruggedized so they can withstand being thrown across the room by Ballmer when they end up languishing on store shelves next to the unsold Zunes?
That Balmer guy sure is wacky.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Last I heard, Microsoft was also hardcore about the smartphone market. So, how is the Kin doing? Oh. Right.
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...
Ballmer using words like 'hardcore' makes me feel the same as when my Grampa would talk about 'the Googles' or any other time a male-menapausal coot tries to use 'cool' words to 'relate' to 'todays youth'
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
When they mean "hardcore" do they mean release a product without it making a loud *thud* in the marketplace?
Is tweak Windows 7 a little bit and replace the mouse with a stylus or the user's finger, this will fail. A tablet needs a UI and OS designed specifically for touch, and applications need to be designed for that OS. I have yet to see anything from Microsoft that indicates to me that they really understand that. No amount of corporate IT agreements will get companies to purchase devices they don't really need.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
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."
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?
Breakfast served all day!
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.
That's going to happen whether MS likes it or not...
...which makes it even hotter.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
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.
I question he means by hardcore - when Apple won't even allow softcore.
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?
Qxe4
The only reason to use Windows is DirectX for gaming. I don't plan on gaming on a tablet so I doubt they are going to get anywhere with their plans. The fact that Linux isn't crushing Windows and MacOS at the moment is a testament to the Linux communities own dis-functionality. Please, we're begging you, get your act together.
It's seriously the only tablet I would feel comfortable to hold and use. A hard single surface tablet is not nice to hold
Anyone who has ever used a pad of paper disagrees with you.
Also the book form factor is awkward to work with while you are holding it - you have to lay it flat to make it usable. Not a good idea for a tablet you'd want to carry.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"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.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Microsoft will defiantly put out a good tablet they know what people want and they will defiantly do a good job. But this is not really innovative. Apple was the one who took the risk putting out the Ipad. Microsoft is just going to not make the same mistakes that Apple made and use existing marketing knowledge. They are pretty much copying and remaking an existing product in the Microsoft image.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
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 to change their corporate culture. I don't think they've hit the point at which they're scared enough to make that change.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I mean, why not just do them? Or is this more of a move relating to the stock market? Maybe its better phrased "This announcement will make our stock more competitive". I guess I just don't understand the motivation.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
"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.
Use Microsoft at work and home? Not just "no," but "HELL no!". When people arrange their computing needs so as to be bound to such an insecure system as Microsoft Windows, despite being warned from every direction about the dangers of doing so, then I have no sympathy for them when their systems get pwnz0r3d. For example:
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 company B's servers. Two days later, every single desktop on the corp network powers off suddenly and without warning at 2:05pm. Tough noogies. (Before you ask, yes, I saw something very similar happen. Twice. In two different workplaces.)
Scenario 2: I am person A. I tell company B that any Windows-only policy of theirs concerning my personal equipment, including my home network, is null and void. If the company wants me to work from home, using only Windows, the company can provide and maintain the equipment and connection at their expense.
The warnings are out there, all over the place, and Microsoft still can't put together a secure system. People will lock their cars, lock their doors at night or when they leave home, but they'll use Windows, plug in stray thumb drives, and browse with Internet Excoriator. Maybe they're betting that fat criminals who hardly ever go outside will be easier for the cops to catch?
No sympathy from this direction.
"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.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I'll bet this has something to do with squirting!
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.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
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.
Keep spending wasting those mod points idiots.
You need to give mommy back her computer. Oh, and be sure to tell her you're not old enough to use it yet.
I've been posting here at +2 for 10 fucking years
*shrug* That's nice - want a cookie?
and even if I got a life ban I could give two shits. This site needs me, not the other way around.
Agreed. It would be a shame to see such entertainment banned.
That's when I'll post my EPIC TRILOGY of hate.
That's when the rest of us will... fall asleep.
I'll save your "EPIC TRILOGY of hate" for when I can't sleep.
Just use Monaco and STFU
Why do I get this feeling that Balmer is gonna cause the end of Microsoft? (At least as we know it)
Give me fast response, no perceptible distance between the tip of my pen and the apparent location of the pixel, and a decent graphics program and I don't care what operating system it runs.
Every time I see Ballmer mentioned in a story that he's hardcore about something, this is the first thing that pops into my head.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Eventually you'll run out of points asshole. That's when I'll post my EPIC TRILOGY of hate.
It's people like you that make me feel like I need some Ex-Lax. Seriously, when you're around, I just can't give a shit.
preface: this post gets real ugly...some might even say...trollish...but i need to form an opinion here.
being in IT ive already "sanctioned" the ipad, the iphone, and droid for our networks. My blessing doesnt automatically cause a product to fly off the fucking shelves, steve; it never had a bearing on the ipad at all.
in fact considering as we're still hopelessly mired in a recession that just wont end and my state has 10% unemployment as our company looms to cut costs of everything from daytime office lights to toilet paper, i could make a compelling argument that if i dont even have the budget for new CRAC filters, i damned sure dont have the budget for another lifeless battery sucking piece of half-hack competitionalist horse shit from redmond that will either die off completely in 2 years or cease to have any bearing on "productivity" in 3 weeks. I also dont have the manpower to support such a Utopian wireless dog turd, and i dont have the maintenance budget to replace it when someone leaves it in their car in the 110 deg. blistering desert summer heat.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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
http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/archos-9-pc-tablet/1805-3126_7-33800951.html
Unfortunately, the marketplace has mostly switched over to convertibles (pending the release of devices intended to compeat w/ the iPad). This has gotten so bad that some people purchase the Axiotron ModBook:
http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=home
and then install Windows on it, which indicates there is a market...
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I don't know what's there, but it can't possibly be worth the risk.
You're funny.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Shame it didn't play out as he expected.
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.
Ballmer has a hard-on for tablets!
seems like it would be pretty easy to create a windows touch sdk that sits on top of win 7. When you boot up windows 7 on a tablet, it boots into a custom loader app (which for the for the sake of discussion lets just say it looks and acts like the ipad home screen) Anyone creating an application that wanted to take advantage of the touch interface can use the touch sdk - and get all their default ui components. You could even have some way to swap to "desktop mode" to attach it to a base station. You get all the benefit of the new interface, and all the power of win 7.
Not that I would choose to design it this way, but you could also limit applications in the touch interface to market place items so that you can do quality control, or whatever.
I feel like this could be done pretty easily. This of course won't solve your battery issues, but it should take care of the "we need a completely different interface for touch" crowd. (I kind of agree with them)
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 technology there, and it works, it's a matter of putting in the right places to meet market demands, which, to be fair, isn't really MS's thing. They make stuff for companies to buy, and then companies package it up and resell. Apple's model works in certain spaces because they manage the whole process, and have coherent vision between the UI designers and the hardware guys, it also significantly limits the innovative designs one could have for specialty markets
However, having used a (convertible) tablet for years. They are super useful. Smartpens are awesome, but because most of them record audio you can't use them in big business. But a tablet you can write, or type notes and diagrams during meetings (even technical meetings) and archive them for later, and send them around. Being able to annotate power point presentations, in real time, with a pen, that can map to what other people are scrawling on their notes is super useful as well. Do companies need it? Well, companies existed long before computers, so I don't think they 'need' anything, but it can be worth the investment. If the cost is low enough it's worth the money. For a converStible tablet the base hardware cost only goes up by 50 or 60 bucks on a thousand dollar purchase, it's definitely worth that, but it's probably not worth 1000 bucks on it's own.
Slates are another animal entirely though. Without pen input (either a regular pen, or some sort of special one) they're pretty limited in use. You can only type on a touchscreen keyboard that's the wrong size so fast. That makes slates OK for data output, but not so much data input. But I think MS has an opportunity here because all these specialist machines businesses (barcode scanners, notetaking etc), they can let windows 7 support all of that, while at the same time not force any of those things on you if you don't need it. Apple gives you one product, that meets one (granted one big) market segment, but MS can, with its hardware partners hit a lot more market segments and drive a lot more integration with windows 7 desktops, if they can organize the vision.
Ballmer using words like 'hardcore' makes me feel the same as when my Grampa would talk about 'the Googles' or any other time a male-menapausal coot tries to use 'cool' words to 'relate' to 'todays youth'
You do realize that the current interpretation of the word 'hardcore' has been used by the youth for at least 50 years, maybe longer? Ballmer is not using the word to sound cool to you, he is using the word he used in the 1960s to sound cool to his older brother.
Yeah I gave up on even logging in because my shit gets misinterpreted all the time. Users seem to lose their sense of humor when they wear the mod crown.
Aw! :-( Here let me fix that for you! :-)
Yeah I gave up on even eating because my orange gets overripe all the time. Bakers seem to lose their sense of cupcakes when they wear the chef package.
There done! No need to thank me! :-)
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.
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
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/feb02/02-19intelwirelesspr.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/feb02/02-19tismartphonepr.mspx
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2004/01/01/mpx2002.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(phone)
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
I'd say the best portable computer for Ballmer would be the chair computer ;)
"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.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I have to admit, I'm a little saddened by this latest proclamation from Redmond. It's just no fun to kick MCSFT anymore. Sure, they still make billions, most used OS, etc, etc. But does anybody really believe they can release a killer device? It seems for all of MCSFT's bluster and posturing, they repeatedly get kicked in the face by more agile, hipper, and forward thinking companies. How soon until MCSFT marketing goons start telling us that "Windows X.x is not your father's Windows?"
It's like watching an old guy trying to pickup 20-somethings on the dance floor. It's just awkward and everyone feels uncomfortable.
Sigh... Okay MCSFT, here's an insult for old times sake: "Hey Ballmer, how about you get one model right *before* you build a product line?"
nah man... the thrill is gone.... Maybe I'll go piss off the android fanboys...
Tablet PCs have been around for nearly a decade. Before the iPad came along Sony was amongst the last few companies still offering them in the US up until 2005 or so. They've continued producing them overseas. I remember that other tablet promised by some company out of California which looked promising but never really materialized. I think what's happened in the intervening years is that the original makers of tablet PCs were pretty much scared off and took the more conventional approaches of netbooks and smartphones.
The very same idiot "experts" who are soiling themselves over how wonderful the iPad completely dumped on the tablet PC market, deeming them pointless. I happened to have one of those Sony tablets which I acquired through my old company. About 4 years ago I was on a subway in Taiwan browsing the web on that thing and it was apparent, at that point, that these things are the future. I found it to be a better experience than lugging around a laptop, although even those have gotten smaller since then.
There were a few problems, however, that kept them from catching on. I think their makers saw them as laptop replacements before the hardware and software was ready. My Sony ran Windows XP which was great. I could do anything I wanted as opposed to the compromised experience you get with an iPad. On the other hand, they didn't feature any kind of custom interface. So navigating the thing was a clumsy affair. And worse, the device featured a 5" to 6" screen running 800x600 which meant everything was tiny. It could be eye-straining. Another problem was input. It was expected everyone was going to interact with these devices using a stylus, so text input was slow and cumbersome. Sony offered a folding keyboard, but that defeated the purpose of having a portable device. With later models they got fixated on integrating sliding keyboards instead of addressing the interface itself. But without question, the potential was there, it's the integration that was lacking.
And that's what Apple got right. Apple constantly gets credit it doesn't deserve for being an innovator. I'm convinced people confuse pretty industrial design with innovation. The reality is that Apple is amazing at two things: taking advantage of technology when its reached maturity and more importantly, integration. Other companies, Microsoft included amongst them, are the real innovators. The problem is, that when you bring immature technology to the market you risk damaging your brand with a potentially problematic product. But I suppose someone has to take the risk because you never truly know how something will work until it's out in the hands of consumers.
As I've said, integration is the thing that Apple has gotten right for years now. They just know how to marry hardware and software in a way that works seamlessly. It helps that they're uncompromising and not afraid about building walled gardens. Without question, Apple products are designed for mass market appeal, but they aren't trying to be everything for everybody. The huge advantage Apple has is that it's a hardware and software company in generally equal parts. I can't think of a single competitor with the same breadth of capabilities. Microsoft has some experience with hardware, but they're a software company first. Google is software only. Sony is heavily focused on hardware and I'd say any software development they do is generally crap.
Ballmer can talk all he wants about tablets, but in the end Microsoft is always going to be left at the whim of whichever vendor they go with for hardware. The first Zune was basically a Toshiba. Their Smartphones are all made by someone else. They don't have hardware designers and engineers they can work with directly. I suppose if they took the same approach they took with the Xbox360 they might have a real chance. But in that case I'd say it would make sense for them to established a separate division for mobile devices. And they need to develop a more intuitive OS that doesn't overwhelm users. At the very least the people at Microsoft should already have plenty of experience with what not to do with Tablet PCs.
Ballmer has all of the slimy of Bill Gates without any of the flair or vision. Not that BillG had technological vision of any kind, but he did have business vision, empire vision. Ballmer is just reacting. Since he took the reigns, he's just been playing a game of "Me too! Me too!" and "You're all stupid! You're all stupid!" and both (sadly enough) at the same time.
This guy ought to be running some no-name plumbing parts and accessories company in the south slowly into the ground. Instead, he is running a major tech firm into the ground with more efficiency than could be managed by putting the average NYC sanitation work in charge. Ballmer is the very definition of the PHB.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Says the guy that posts as AC. See I'm an asshole, but I don't care if you know it. Because in real life and "internet life" there isn't a fucking thing you can do to me. On the internet I'll fucking own you. If you fuck with me in real life I'll just bury you. It's lose-lose for cowards like you.
You can mod down, you can talk down from AC. But you'll always be a coward. No comment system will change that. No troll mod will change that.
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.
Yes, sir, Mr. Big Man at his MANputer. Doing his MANLY trolling. Being a REAL MAN out in the MANLY wilderness. Obviously taking a MANLY break from his daily schedule of MANLY bear wrestling, or MANLY hunting with his MAN guns. Or maybe just eating MANwiches in his MANLY mommy's basement. Takes a real spine to waste the time to make a throwaway account to troll a website, Mr. Big Man, sir!
Oh, sorry, forgot a few quotes, Mr. "Big" "Man".
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.
Right back at you "e2d2". Oh, wait, the only way you're not a hypocrite would be if your name really was "e2d2" and you had your home address publicly connected with your slashdot account. Gee, you don't? My aren't you a spineless fuck.
Yep, you really like entertaining with your silly postings. Keep at it maybe some day you'll get a prize for it.
I guess I know which tablet I'll be taking into the bathroom.
And once it finishes booting and ... oh damn ... green flash of death.
Um, what do I do with this piece of junk from the guys who can't even make cell phones again?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You want specifics? I'll send them to you in a message if so. I'm armed to the fucking teeth motherfucker. I'm serious as a heart attack, I would LOVE for you to show up so I could bury you.
Yes, they started the smartphone market, and Qualcomm's QPhone, PDQ, and the Handspring (not Palm, thank you) Treo just shamelessly copied them.
Sort of like how the NCSA ripped off IE with Mosaic. Or how the Apple Lisa and Xerox Star ripped off Windows.
I know all this, because I read about it on Microsoft Encarta, the world's first encyclopedia.
Yeah yeah. I notice you don't say much beyond a lot of fluff.
Just a reminder that more then one person can post as "Anonymous Coward".
I second this. I work for a company that sells software to the emergency services, on Windows, and we've had 2 major outbreaks of Conficker in the last year or so. It was a nightmare to get rid of (though MS consulting services did very well out of it, trying to eradicate it).
As it initially spread from a 3rd party supplier's flash drive, we've now been banned from using them at all. No way at all are we allowed to connect anything to anything anymore.
and that's for a clean, work-only USB keydrive. I can imagine what the IT department would think of a device being used at home and then brought in for work. Not a chance. Our FM team even has 2 laptops now - one for the customer network, and another for ours. If only they ran Linux :(
Microsoft is so hardcore about tablets that they don't have any available! Now that is hardcore! It's too awesome for you to use!
Microsoft will die the death (or at least dominant market share) of a thousand cuts. Apple, Android, Linux, Chrome, each cut is small but they will add up. MS could still pull it together but it would require a restructuring of epic messure.
Looking back it might have been a good thing if the DOJ had split the company up into three entities.
They are very hardcore on that Internet thing!
So that means it will run porn apps, right?
I think what he means is that he will talk to Dell,Asus etc. To make sure they don't release those ARM laptops. He will stuff Win 7 on some sad ATom chip and call it a tablet.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I'm one of the few in these parts that actually love Microsoft products. I used to be a Linux sysadmin, C++ developer, etc, and moved to the Microsoft stack completely willingly because i actually liked it.
That said, Ballmer really screws Microsoft over every damn time he opens his mouth. A lot of product managers and other high profiles employees at Microsoft actually do good work, have good idea, and work on products that have tons of potential, some of which are actually revolutionary. And every damn time, this clown either pulls the plug on it, screw it over with shitty marketing (WPF/E being marketed as Silverlight and a Flash "killer" instead of the cross platform LOB application framework it was supposed to be is one prime example) and by playing catchup to Google and Apple instead of leading on their own ideas.
Seriously, the best thing that could happen to Microsoft is to fire this idiot.
Every day it looks like Microsoft just doesn't get it and has no direction any longer. They are floundering around, playing catchup and not doing a very good job at it.
If they don't get a clue soon, they will be marginalized into a shell of what they were in the 80's and 90's. ( not that ill miss them a bit )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Bitch, Microsoft isn't hard-core about anything, and until I see your ass jumping out of an airplane or busting some extreme moves on a snowboard, I'm not going to believe they are. So get to it!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...with it.
Seems to me that Microsoft is becoming more and more desperate to keep up with others' innovation and market-making. They do have the technology to drive things like this. But fail to become market-makers. Microsoft usually fails in the early stages. Apparently due to a lack of failure of understanding of what consumers want: timing, technology, hype and ease-of-use.
A tablet would be an ideal device on which to introduce Windows Mobile 7, only it's Windows Phone 7 now so I guess they can't do that anymore. Instead he wants to preserve his desktop OS market share from falling by shoving Windows 7 down people's throats.
Windows programs are not built with touch in mind, sure you can use mouse input emulation but you're simply adding another layer of complexity to the UI, this becomes another barrier the user has to overcome when interacting with an application. This is the main reason tablet devices have not become popular until now.
People can laugh at Apple and make fun of iPhone users, but if it wasn't for them we'd still be using a stylus to drag a scroollbar instead of finger scrolling. Ballmer needs to think more about the user experience and less about market share, as Apple have already proven it is the former that will drive the latter.
Look, here is the reality: People (esp workers who are expected to do more with less) are going to work from home.
You can stop the ability to mount thumbdrives, or block some webmail service but people will always try and figure out a way to get their files home.
Obviously, they aren't trying to do anything malicious; from their perspective, they are doing a good thing: Trying to get more work done and they are willing to sacrifice home time to do it.
Companies will solve this by assigning laptops but the cost prevents most from having this, or they'll allow vpn but only on their machines.
They have to make a custom live cd or something (allow vpn from any machine?) so a worker can safely work from home but that is also cost effective.
Hard working designers like Gloria Vanderbilt and Antoine Bugleboy. These are the people who saw an overcrowded marketplace and said, "Me too!"
OBligatory.
Notice how all the black people are wearing white paint that doesn't rub off.
I'm scared for MS to be 'hardcore' about anything.
As I recall, the last time they were really 'hardcore' about something, they gave us Internet Explorer.
Rarely do good things come from this company, and when they get serious about it, it just makes it all the worse.
Of course, I could be wrong, but they've been slacking off hardcore in the area of UI design for a while now, Win7 is a vast improvement but I still find the UI frustrating for some simple tasks and they've been doing GUI desktop OSs' for over 20 years. (Of course, my distaste for the Windows interface is likely just a byproduct of me being on Linux so long, and thus little more then a personal preference instead of being an actual criticism...)
What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I don't trust them to develop a UI that takes advantage of the unique form-factor of a tablet, and given the lackluster desktop UI that they seem to think is the best around even if they get 'hardcore' about this, I don't expect them to ever understand why they shouldn't just warm-over their normal Windows UI like they always do for tablets. Furthermore, they're still essentially the same 'design by comittee' culture that things like 'Clippy' and 'MS Bob' originated from. I'd be glad to see them get creative with a tablet UI, but I'm also frightened and (maybe slightly nauseated) to think about what would result if they did. But, to their credit, I'm really fascinated with the 'Tiles' concept they've come up with for Windows Phone 7.
So maybe it won't be so bad, maybe they've realized the need to get creative if they want to compete. Nevertheless,I think I'll just wait and see where this 'Android-on-the-tablet' idea is going...
And here we have the Internet tough-guy, a breed commonly found on websites frequented by the socially awkward. Rest assured his plumage is terrible and he has great difficulty attracting a mate.
Internet anthropologists have been familiar with this species since the early days. Back then they frequented AOL chat-rooms and messageboards. It is believed that some of these are the same people from back then. As it is hard to track this group we may never know for sure.
I can remember 12 year olds saying shit like that.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Hardcore like with the Kin? The Zune? Now tablets? When are the shareholders going to revolt and demand that this dolt is fired?
I have no problem with working from home, nor do I have a problem with using a VPN to do it.
But I do have a problem with mandating Windows onto my home network. If they want me to work from home, they will either (1) set up their outside access to allow non-Windows systems to connect, so that my firewall can afford some protection, or (2) provide the Windows computer and the connectivity, so that Windows stays off my home net.
Steve Ballmer's suggestion to use a system at both home and work, reeks of hubris. As soon as someone carries an infection from work to home unwittingly (and it WILL happen, even with the best A-V and firewall), the chair thrower will have to hide behind the Windows EULA, rather than own up to his implied warranty.
In the meantime, the company and the employee will argue about who was infected first, the company will fix the tablet/netbook/whatever, but the employee will be stuck with the cost of fixing his home system(s). And Microsoft laughs all the way to the bank.
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.
Yes, just keep taking them. The little blue ones every day and the big orange ones every 6 hours. You'll soon feel much better.
No left turn unstoned.
Read the Byte article about Simon: http://web.archive.org/web/19990221174856/byte.com/art/9412/sec11/art3.htm Some of the things mentioned sound eerily reminiscent of the iPhone (esp. the part about phones not being sold for over $500 and most people expecting them for free, no handwriting recognition, battery life). If IBM kept at it they might have become a significant player in the cell phone market. This paragraph is a hoot:
But perhaps Simon's biggest phone perk is that it can act like a pager. When a call comes in and goes unanswered, the caller can leave a phone number, which is recorded in Simon's pager menu. Simon then beeps and darkens the Phone Pager button. It can store up to nine numbers, which you call back with a one-touch selection.
you'll never need more than nine.
That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Yeah let's go with a device as clumsy as a laptop without a built-in keyboard and mouse. Because holding something that folds in the middle is WAY easier than holding a flat slate. Have you actually tried holding a book and trying to write or type on it?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
they are about developers Can we get a chant for this one too? "Tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets, tablets... Yes!"
Smartphone 2002 announced by Microsoft in 2001 - defined as lacking a touchscreen.
Actually, the announcement in 2001 was a name change. The first Microsoft mobile OS to be used in a smartphone was the Pocket PC 2000. It was still a long time after the Simon.
Oh, and I seem to recall that it was rubbish. Microsoft loved using the Win95 user interface on small devices, but I always found it too fiddly to use.
"with keyboards, touch only, dockable, able to handle digital ink, etc."
In other words, there will be no consensus how to develop intuitive user interface for applications running these devices.
Recently I was in a mall where they had a Microsoft store, with layout similar to an Apple store. They copied everything badly, including placement of the Windows logo at the entrance. Went in to play with some of the tablets on display. I think these were HP made.
The tablet hardware on the whole was clunky, had too may buttons, slots, hinges, and what not. Far from clean and functional. Software was equally clunky. Too many tool bars, buttons, windows, and what not. An entirely cluttered screen. I tried using the pen on the screen but was unimpressed with the feel. After playing with it for about 1/2 hour, I finally left disappointed.
I came to the conclusion that it's the windows interface that's hampering MS. I suspect it is the reason for MS lagging behind Apple. While I did not find anything cool in these tablets, I do not see any fundamental reason holding MS back. I do not think it is beyond the realm to expect MS designing one good device (tablet or phone or whatever) whose form fits the function. Even Android interface looks positively elegant compared to the MS clutter. Instead of MS trying to squeeze Windows interface into all other form factors, they should try to liberate the interface from Windows legacy.
The Browser IE was only pushed through twisting of the arm by binding it to the OS.... and not only was it a SHIT browser, they then put their feet up on the desk for the next 6 or 7 years..... AND
"In 2006 as it was releasing the IE 7 second beta, and with Firefox eating up IE market share, Bill Gates delivered what he called a mea culpa "saying we waited too long for a browser release."
It took MS some 7 or so years to install a popup blocker - AFTER Opera and Firefox had installed it......
Oooooooo my favourite porn site.....
POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-
Complain to MS? They do nothing for another 6 or 7 years....
Change Browsers.
Ballmer: "We are going to reach out to work vigorously with you to drive enterprise IT and consumers... they got to come into IT and say I want a Windows 7 slate and I want an Windows 7 phone."
And what if we don't?
What if WE say, "Stick it up your arse"?
You mean after seeing how MS rigged it's sales of O7 - to be double the price in the rest of the world - compared to the USA; THE operating system, THEIR operating system.....
Enhancing the uptake of their NEW OS by shitting in the faces of consumers by ripping them off?
From the VERY beginning of it's launch?
Tells me exactly what a pack of stupid, greedy arseholes Ballmer and this company really is.
After losing thousands and thousands of dollars and hours to a company that makes SHIT naziware, there is nothing so satisfying as being a long term vindictive EX customer, who gets their jollies kicking that company into the gutter - 1 cent at a time.
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
Amusingly, MS are really shit when they enter a market with real competition - like the tablet, or the smart-phone. The only way they get to control the market is through the OEMs and the corporate monopoly MS have.
Anybody who said that this is a management failure is correct. It's about time they trimmed the top of the tree and started re-focussing. Although I think it's a bit late now.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
The biggest problem with the strategy is that it's the same strategy Microsoft used in the 80's when computers were essentially office/research tools. Trying to drive the take up of yet another device through work is not going to achieve anything. The major difference between Apple and Microsoft is highlighted in the target audience of the respective devices. Apple sold a consumer device to consumers, Microsoft wants to gain a consumer market by driving uptake through work and IT departments. Work isn't cool Microsoft and most people would rather leave work at the door when they get home. This strategy is madness from a consumer market stand-point and this has always been Microsoft's single biggest failure that and its ineffectual attempts at squeezing heavy clients on slim devices.
The lesson Microsoft needs to learn is the same one that has made the X-Box a relative success. It is a product designed, built and sold for pure entertainment (and earning cash through services of course). Microsoft needs to stop trying to drive consumer demand from the office IT department, because when I'm at home I want to forget about work I leave my laptop in its bag, I want to kick back and relax and I already know that I can do that with an iPad because using it wont let work intrude further in my private life.
The consumer doesn't need yet another device tied to an office environment with the entertainment functions locked down (well its a work device what do you expect). I can already envisage an Apple iPad and Microsoft Slate owner having a conversation. Apple guy: 'Wow I watched a cool movie last night on my iPad, here have a look.' Microsoft guy: 'That's great I wrote a tender document on my slate.' Apple guy: 'You really don't have a social life do you?' - excitement all round.....
... Kiss of death. Now no-one will touch the machines.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
So fucking what. How come I have to act like a grown up around a bunch of kids? Fuck you and your horse.
In the Good Old Days, when Microsoft announced they were interested in getting in some market or technology the VCs would tremble. Those VCs inside that market worried about being killed when investors flocked to Microsoft instead of their incubated solution. Those VC outside that market eagerly looked for small fries that wanted to partner with Microsoft to make it happen. Lots of people made moves just on the notion that higher ups at Microsoft were just considering something.
Its MO for Microsoft to stand up and announce stuff like this but the issue is that a lot less people care or follow trends Microsoft sets where the siren song of Google and Apple sound a lot better.
Why this was marked down to -1, I don't know.
If anything, it's insightful -- MS has collected a world class collection of talent (not to say all are at that level, but many are). It's only been Google that really created competing (and possibly better) resource, and that only in recent years.
You might compare (though not in its maturity) such a research group to _historical_ groups like those of Bell Labs, IBM's Almaden(older be less well-known), or Watson research centres, or Xerox's Research PARC.
Unfortunately, such groups are quite vulnerable to mismanagement and need powerful, high-level leadership to protect them from internal company politics -- something Microsoft hasn't been around _long enough_ to develop, and may not be _diversified enough to develop in the future. Bill Gates, being CEO/head of Microsoft was in no position to be both company chief and research VP leading (protecting) the head of company's creativity-nursery. He had insufficient self-restraint NOT to be in the midst of the company's leading edge research and technology.
That a comment such as this would be casually dismissed only shows how little people understand about the positive good MS has done (likely because it is well hidden behind much management, legal and marketing bogosity). This may be inevitable and may be the the final limiting factor in MS's future -- as it's culture was started on the basis of shifty dealings with Bill Gates starting the company based on craftiness the craftiness of taking advantage of other people's lack of knowledge, rather than sound or good ideas. Companies founded on idealism fare little, if at all better in the long run.
Your evaluation is based on current technological constraints. It says nothing about whether or not it is a good idea and therefore has nothing to do with what people want. You might as well remark 'who wants it to boot up and be limited to 640K' for all the usefulness transitory technological constraints have to do with the concept of 'want'.
Same goes for talk about internal politics in Microsoft -- they have nothing to what people would 'like' or whether or not the product was a good idea.
What people want has little to do with current (or future) practicality.
I'm sure a full size keyboard option would be an easy add-on for the courier or the smart[sic]phone.
A well-designed, flat, membrane-style keyboard using touch circuits instead of physical-contacts
to reduce size and weight would fit within the form-factor of the courier and add no appreciable size or weight.
However, such an option wouldn't be possible for a phone sized object designed to fit in your hile a totally flat, fold-able keyboard would be no major decrease in the utility of a
courier, such would not be the case with the smartphone.
I.e. if you have to carry around a keyboard in addition to a smartphone, you aren't going to be putting it in your pocket: you eliminate major benefits of a smartphone, thus making a full-size keyboard option a conceptual incompatibility with the idea of a pocket-able, all inclusive device.
Eh?
I think you aren't seeing what I'm seeing (and maybe vice versa). I ain't nobody's marketing droid -- anti-marketing droid, maybe.
I'm responding to you saying that instead of reading a book, you wanted to be able two write a book on your smartphone (well, a smartphone, since I get that you don't have one), while holding it in one hand using the same hand for input, and putting your other hand in your 'pocket'...(why you need to have one hand in your pocket and be typing with the other, I'll not venture to guess), but write a book that way?? To me, that sounded patently absurd.
Maybe you could use speech input -- but I stated -- what I think you agree with -- that to write a book you'd need two hand and a keyboard to have any speed -- and that as unsuitable as a tablet might be, a smartphone of any type would be a non-starter for most people.
That why I asserted that a no one would want such a primitive interface.
HOWEVER...a tablet isn't the same thing -- for drawing, reading I'd love a light-weight, fast multi-touch & Pen-pressure sensitive input tablet for use in visual arts, *maybe* watching a video -- if it had good battery life and was well suited for viewing in sunlight (thinking of taking it to a park or beach to work outdoors. It should have plenty of memory -- and not worry much about diskspace when undocked -- for docking, either a cradle better -- a flexible long cable to allow 6GB USB3 access to disks or the network. Still think voice would be a good option -- if they can make it as as fast and natural as typing. Ideally, I could use it as a 'remote' display if the bandwidth were high enough.
I'd prefer a table over a desktop for visual arts, since I can change position with it -- or I can use it with me parked right over it and looking down -- not some distance away
on a too-high desk in a stiff backed chair.
Right now I use a 0G-reclining chair -- which is ok for keyboard usage (keyboard on tray), but it's not so great for reading -- not a comfortable laid back position, -- the monitor is too far away -- and if I move it close, it's way too large (it's large for programming work -- 30" 2560x1600). It's also not a good setup for using a pressure-sensitive tablet like a Wacom -- there's no table to rest it on. so it sits in my lap. For drawing, nothing beats being 'over' the work -- it being flat, and me being able to lean on the surface it is on.
Doing lots of drawing without such a setup -- you have to support your own arms weight -- and use your arm muscles to support your hands -- something that interferes with fine, pixel precision motion -- especially after a few hours. Sure -- if your surface is huge, like a paint-easel, that's one thing -- but computer art is usually about much finer details -- so you need arm support so you can use your hands and wrists for fine motor movement.
A standard computer setup that's ideal for programming or office work isn't ideal for drawing.
I can't think of any compelling reason I'd want a computing device that would be held and used with one hand. You wanna reconsider your idea that I'm an apple droid trying to sell a product?
Corporate IT department didn't even want to switch to Windows XP; NT4.x was good enough.
They didn't want any Windows Vista either so it was D.o.A. except when forced to pay for it when buying any new replacement hardware.
They have thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of desktops to manage and they've been shedding SysAdmins for a decade now so they're short on staff.
They look forward to change like hospital patients look forward to surgery. Its gonna HURT!
If you want to see the new OS adoption rate, take a look at how often IT updates existing machines. (I know of some machines installed in several banks, securities firms and trust companies still running OS/2. Their function hasn't changed so their configuration hasn't changed. Regardless of how much money they handle per transaction.)
Take a look at IT acquisition of new machines. Is it actually falling because the old equipment is still working? (NAS with hot swappable storage was a Godsend for many IT departments. There is no need for huge storage capacities on the desktop, there is no need for huge processing capacities on the desktop.)
I was just in a bank running 327x emulation software because their transactions were actually running on IBM mainframes (probably Z Series.) How much horsepower do you need to screen scrape and push a screen's worth of transaction at a time? Not much... That bank probably has 15K to 20K desktops and there are a few thousand such banks, insurance companies, mortgage firms and other really BIG organizations. They're going to buy hardware in lengthening amortization cycles.
Nobody ever got fired for putting off a PC hardware upgrade. And that's the only time they'll consider getting now OS software.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
They actually manufacture things that a large enough number of people LIKE TO USE.
Microsoft is a software company which reduced, debased and beggared the hardware market until none of their "partners" can afford to do any but the most basic cosmetic changes to anything. Since that comes at a price so their understanding of color wheels is NOT a designer's. (The response to the original iMac was to put crappy colored plastic panels on the cases, like chrome plating a turd.)
Why, YEARS after the development of USB technology, do I still have PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse on my newest box?
Because there is an engineer utter failure to see that the world does NOT need a hundred-bladed switch bade knife.
Why, after Apple has changed hardware form factors several times on all their product lines and moving into different lines entirely, is the PC still hobbled by the same PC chassis that they used to make beige boxes for the last 20 years?
Because there isn't a single engineer out there with any sort of creativity or imagination, or if there is, there isn't a single accountant willing to let the engineers take the chance.
Microsoft said it wanted to put "A COMPUTER ON EVERY DESKTOP."
Well, they've succeeded, all too well...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.