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."

Comments

Still want Courier

[SquarePixel]

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.

Re:Still want Courier

[rtb61]

Chump, it is not about reading books it is about writing books. Computers, them things are meant to be interactive, like inputs and outputs, you know. So form factor wise touch screen means hold in one hand with input by the other hand, so palm up spread fingers and thumb and that gap between fingers and thumbs partially clenching defines comfortable screen width, with one proviso, you must be able to park it comfortably in a pocket ie. the best tablet is a smart phone (add a keyboard for two handed thumb typing).

Tablets have been hyped and died for the last decade, form factor kills their usability and drop factor tends to kill of any remaining desirability (the bigger it is the more likely you are to drop it and of course the more expensive it will be).

Re:Still want Courier

[gyrogeerloose]

Tablets have been hyped and died for the last decade, form factor kills their usability

It wasn't the form factor that killed it, it was that manufacturers had designed tablets as scaled-down desktop machines. That didn't work. Once someone came along and introduced a tablet with an interface that made sense for that type of device, tablets suddenly took off.

Re:Still want Courier

[nschubach]

Yeah, and if Microsoft thinks they can throw Windows 7 on a tablet without massively changing the interface and take over the tablet landscape, they are sadly mistaken. (Yes, I still own a tablet and I hated using it, so it collects dust.)

Re:Still want Courier

[gilesjuk]

Indeed, who wants to use a WIMP desktop on a tablet?

Who wants to switch on a tablet and wait 1-2 minutes for it to boot up? (plus the obligatory BIOS screen, yum).

Internal politics completely ruined Microsoft's chances of doing well in the tablet market.

Re:Still want Courier

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft have the brains to produce a good UI. But not the management to execute it.

Kin?

[whisper_jeff]

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...

Re:Kin?

[Man On Pink Corner]

It really is a shame that Microsoft has such lethal corporate politics impacting their every decision...

Exactly. Microsoft is the NASA of technology companies. The engineers are capable of building great things, but any project worth doing is worth doing right, and any project worth doing right will probably take longer than the tenure of whatever politician or administrator sponsored it. When the new head honcho comes in, or the next election is held, the old administration's pet projects are put in a box and gassed.

Re:Kin?

[wickerprints]

Even assuming that your claim that "[MS] started the smartphone market" is true, you incorrectly imply that being the pioneer of a particular market should somehow say something about the present status of that pioneer's products in that market. It clearly does not.

If anything, what Microsoft's relatively long history of handheld mobile device development has revealed is that they have consistently and repeatedly squandered each opportunity to develop breakthrough products with a sense of refinement and attention to the user experience. Quite the opposite--they try to shoehorn existing paradigms (and therefore existing software and interfaces) into new hardware because they suffer from such a pervasive degree of corporate mismanagement, unwillingness to take design risks, and complete lack of imagination, that the contrast in Apple vs. MS approaches might well be considered the quintessential object lesson in product development. Indeed, the fact that MS has been developing such devices for so long and yet have so little to show for it, makes their blatant incompetence all the more inexcusable.

MS is not lacking in the essential capability (both financial and technological) to develop good products. What they lack is the proper management, and that starts from the top of the organizational hierarchy, not the bottom. As long as MS is run by spoiled MBAs who are just riding the gravy train and waste their time with corporate politics, the company is doomed to mediocrity.

And as for the consumer, all one has to do is look at (1) the lack of any real innovation--no real competitor to the iPad and the fact that any such future device will be perceived as a follower to be measured against that standard; and (2) the fact that MS killed the Kin so quickly after its announcement, to realize that this kind of half-assed proclamation means absolutely nothing, and that you would be a fool to buy into the idea of a MS tablet. And the dumbest part of it all is that THE iPad ISN'T EVEN ALL THAT AMAZING. It's a nice, polished product, but true to Apple strategy, it could be SO MUCH MORE yet it is not because they're going to improve it incrementally to maximize sales. Next year's iPad will look like the iPhone 4 and have Facetime, but they obviously didn't put it in the iPad because it would have cannibalized the 4's sales. MS in theory could have outdone the iPad. In fact, they still could. But does anyone really honestly think that they will, given their abysmal track record?

Re:Kin?

[UnknowingFool]

There were no great first party applications, and there was no organized way to find applications for the phone (not advocating a singular market entity, but having no means at all to find applications isn't good either). They also didn't market it to anybody.

Windows Mobile was basically an attempt to compete with Palm. When Palm no longer looked to be a threat, MS stopped caring about it. Since people who got Mobile (business types) had to get Mobile or nothing, MS thought they could just coast. Then RIM came into the picture. But MS was too busy distracted by Google and OpenOffice to focus even on their bread-and-butter Windows OS. Then Apple and Android showed that consumers would buy smartphones if designed and marketed specifically to them, MS was bailing themselves out of the Vista debacle. Now they are years behind.

If all they do

[Low Ranked Craig]

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.

Re:If all they do

[Darkness404]

On the bright side though, at least Windows 7 with tablet-esque ad-ons would at least have programs and independence without having to sync -everything- like Windows CE does.

Really, MS needs to stop imitating Apple, tablets aren't the "next big thing" unless you can deliver workable software or have an army of fanboys willing to buy anything no matter how overpriced and how many features it lacks.

If MS is to release a tablet it needs to create a UI over-layer over Windows 7 and provide ways to use existing Windows programs and such easy on the device. If MS tries to create -yet- another similar yet incompatible OS, it will fail yet again. Lets see here what are all the OSes that MS has released devices for in the past year or two? We have Windows 7, the OS for the Zune, Windows Mobile, Whatever the kin ran, standard Windows CE, etc. Apple has 2 major OSes, OS X and iOS, and most programs for Linux are open source making porting pretty easy.

"Slates," huh?

[PCM2]

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?

Re:"Slates," huh?

[jbezorg]

I assume Microsoft is calling these new products "slates"...

That way, when they make bricks, MS can say they met 95% of the design goals.

Re:It's like watching a swordfighter

[phantomfive]

My ideal world is one that is 1/3 Apple, 1/3 Microsoft, and 1/3 Linux. May not happen, but if any one company gets too powerful it gives us problems.

Why do they have to announce these things?

[dilvish_the_damned]

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.

Re:Success with little risk

[phillymjs]

Microsoft will defiantly put out a good tablet they know what people want and they will defiantly do a good job.

1. They've been flogging "tablet computing" unsuccessfully for damn near 10 years now, because they do a shitty job at tablet computing. That's not just me saying that, the market has spoken. Clearly, nobody wants a bloated desktop OS with a few UI changes, shoehorned into a tablet form factor that then must have heavy-duty hardware and a big, heavy battery to make it usable. As long as they keep trying to stuff Windows and Windows applications into a tablet, they will fail. The iPad is doing well because it uses a purpose-built OS with a UI made for fingers that runs fast on relatively lightweight hardware.

2. It's spelled "definitely"

~Philly

Re:fail

[shutdown -p now]

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.

People I know in several different companies do just that - and companies love that because it enables those people to work from home (VPN) in an environment that is exactly the same as at work. IT departments may hate the extra support for such a configuration, but they don't call the shots. And as for security, that's precisely what BitLocker (and other similar options) are for.

I still don't think this makes much sense with tablets since they are inherently not productivity devices. Actually, scratch that - they are, but in their not-so-popular "Tablet PC" incarnation, where you actually get a full-featured laptop which can be folded into a "slate" on which you can jot notes in a meeting - I've seen that used to great effect in combination with OneNote. But this is not a new market - you can buy a ThinkPad that lets you do it today - and it's completely different from tablet as (re)defined by iPad and the likes.

Re:Lets be honest here...

[BigJClark]

I disagree. MS software has a huge association factor with it. Most people, my mom included, can navigate the UI blindfolded. That counts for something.

doesnt matter.

[nimbius]

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.

Re:It's like watching a swordfighter

[dclozier]

Linux isn't a company. A world with 3/3 Linux would provide you with companies competing on their services and value added options such as remote backups or such. They wouldn't be trying to get you into their walled garden so they can tell you what to do. A 3/3 Linux to me is a more ideal world. (but to each his own) :)

This is the MS way of buying time

[walterbyrd]

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.