Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ballmer Says Microsoft Is 'Hardcore' About Tablets

Posted by Soulskill on from the leading-from-the-back dept.

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."

8 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Get ready for.... by the_one_wesp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, Tablets!!!!!

    1. Re:Get ready for.... by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny

      First day: "Hello, Mr. Ballmer and welcome to Microsoft R & D. Windows tablets? Sure - here, take two and call me in the morning!"

      Second day: "They didn't work? Sorry, I meant you should use Windows tablets like suppositories. You know the drill."

      Third day: "Can't run as fast as you used to? Windows will do that to you."

      Fourth day: "Can you feel the PAIN? Remember - no pain, no gain!"

      Fifth day: "What do I look like - tech support? Call your next of KIN"

      Sixth day: "You can't get it out? We need to reboot you. Bend over - this guy here used to be the kicker for Texas. Will this fix it? No, but you'll now know exactly what it feels like to be a long-term Microsoft customer."

      Seventh day: *crickets*

  2. Hardcordz by Itninja · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  3. "Hardcore" means something different at MS by realmolo · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."

  4. Corporate IT departments by wandazulu · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:Still want Courier by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Books are too complicated.

  6. Oh noes! by Aggrajag · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll bet this has something to do with squirting!

  7. Re:If all they do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Internal Cloud management. Now there's a killer app for touch! Hey 18-24 year old, what are *you* using to monitor your internal clouds? You're not using that old n-teir VB 6 app are you! That's so 1998! You need our touch based windows 7 app. Then the ladies will be all upons! Spend less time managing your internal clouds and spend more time working on managing your upponment schedule!