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MS Global Strategy Chief: Tablets Are a Fad
jfruhlinger writes "Wondering why Microsoft isn't jumping into the red-hot tablet market? Well, maybe it's because Craig Mundie, the man in charge of the company's global strategy, isn't sure if the 'big screen tablet pad category' has staying power. Of course, it's possible that tablets will go the way of the netbook, but blogger Chris Nerney calls Microsoft's seeming total inaction in the face of a hot market 'mind-boggling.'"
I'm waiting for an improved tablet. What I would like to see is a tablet with an attached keyboard. Let's say, a device where the tablet and keyboard are joined by a hinge, so that it can be closed while not in use.
I think I'll patent that idea right now.
Netbooks shot way up then crashed. Tablets? We'll see. The one thing that tablet has for it that the netbooks didn't is the iProduct base
Wholeheartedly Agree with Microsoft.
I now fear comment retribution..
Didn't they something similar about the internet? Made MSN instead? Ended up trying to copy what AOL was doing, and we all know since AOL stocks are worth a fortune these days that must have been a great idea.
Looking at windows phone 7 & the x-box (kinect), the company can execute well, but they really need some vision for future markets to get ahead of the curve. Seriously, 18 months ago WP7 would have crushed android. Now? Nothing.
Smaller tablets?
So, sitting here in a public establishment I look around and see 1 laptop and 5 netbooks... Since when have netbooks gone anywhere?
With this coming from the marketing geniuses behind the Zune this is not a huge suprise...
He is possibly correct.
Meanwhile, some others (notably Apple) are riding that bubble like the silver surfer and making money by the crate load.
So Microsoft's goal is NOT to make money from new tech?
Even if it is a bubble Microsoft shows its corporate vision (or lack thereof) in this.
Kind of sad because this is the same company that made the Kinect not so long ago, showing that not everybody at Microsoft lacks vision.
It took until Windows 95 until Microsoft decided that the whole "Internet fad" thing perhaps, just maybe had some legs.... meanwhile, many techies had been on the Internet since 1988 and on the World Wide Web since 1993.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
As for desktops, Mundie had a bold prediction: "I believe the successor to the desktop is the room, that instead of thinking that the computer is just something on the desk that you go and sit in front of, [in the] future basically the whole room is the computer and you go in it."
Holo-addiction here I come!
.. they're tired of playing catch up. So they're doing the logical alternative: innovating^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H resting on their laurels like a bunch of idiots.
It should be obvious by now that Microsoft is incapable of competing with Android and iOS whether on the phone or the tablet. Much less get into the game with something great enough it makes up for their tardiness.
The only strategy left is to hope it all goes away soon, and denegrating that part of the market is the only commentary they can make to help that along.
Look on the bright side MS, at least the standalone digital music player market is shrinking.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
it is portable and even has a full keyboard. It is a clamshell design and it protects the screen when you close it.
netbooks are still around, still selling, problem with them is I am not going to pay 200+ dollars for something that has not changed from 4 years ago, these are 60$ computers
same with tablets, sell me a 60$ netbook for 500$ and make me buy an extra keyboard?
I don't have a keyboard-free laptop and don't plan to get one, but this is just sad really. What self-respecting company would pass up the chance to over-charge gullible consumers and make bazillions of dollars? It makes me wonder if M$ might be entering some long, slow death spiral. I'm imagining they have been entirely drained of all the dynamic, daring innovators who all defected to Google and Facebook and the only employees left are the boring, fearful, lifer types who just want to keep punching the clock and paying off their mortgages. Whither now, Micro$oft?
Now that somebody at Microsoft has said tablets are a fad, they're going to be around forever.
Here is a Microsoft prediction to real-life consequence translation table:
X is a fad = X is going to be a fixture in the future of computer technology
X ought to be enough for everyone = X is going to look very insignificant very fast
X infinges on our patents = X is a major threat to us
X (said 36 times in a row) = X is going to start migrating away from us
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For me, it seems its a smart phone in a bigger form factor, with out the phone capability. If I'm am going to carry it around, it should replace all my other devices. I dont want to carry around a tablet and a phone.
Power corrupts. Absolute power...is even more fun.
I think there is a world market for maybe five tablets.
Aren't fads how most businesses make their money? I mean, if the things consumers bought weren't fads, they wouldn't need to buy new ones very often, would they?
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Just look at Microsoft's track record in chasing "hot markets". About the only success is the XBox, and only after throwing enormous amounts of money at it for years. The jury is still out on WP7 (though not looking very good so far) but just about everything else they've done chasing hot markets has been total failures.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/tablet-pc
Seems like a waste of development effort on a fad.
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=407&name=Tablet-PCs
I don't think MS knows how to be a hardware company. I'm typing on an MS ergo keyboard, which I like, and I guess we can call Xbox/Xbox 360 a success. However, they have way more failures than I can count. They also aren't very good at providing software support for the new directions hardware takes. They're always playing catchup.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Totally wrong. Microsoft is not a leader. Microsoft is a follower. Their modus operandi is to imitate what already is successful.
Therefor their opinion on what will, or will not, become successful is irrelevant to their business decisions.
I'm inclined to agree. I have some coworkers with iPads, and they're starting to not carry them to meetings in favor of a PaperPad and a pen. They're either awkward to view (too horizontal), or too awkward to type on (too vertical with a case-stand). They're nice for playing angry birds during meetings though.
They failed with their tablets ~10 years ago...
They failed again with their tablets a few years ago then they attached legs to them and failed to sell them as tables...
Microsoft should stick to defending their monopoly and destruction of other companies (Nokia)... It's the only thing they're good at...
A desktop should be enough for anybody...
Microsoft effectively killed the netbook when they quit releasing versions of XP and forced everyone to move to Windows 7, which had higher memory and drive requirements. By the time you were done with a system that could run Windows 7 well, it wasn't that much cheaper than a regular laptop.
Tablets don't need to run a Microsoft OS. Apple and Google (and now Amazon) are showing you don't need to have a local PC to do most of the work you do with smartphones and tablets.
Obviously, we will never need more than 640k (he says as he types on a 1000 Gbps line, not using his quad-core machine with 8GB DDR3) and the Net is a fad too.
Here's a clue stick - Government Computer News shows about half of all government devices purchased are expected to be tablets like the iPad, iPad2, and iPad3.
Adapt or die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
WTF Mundie, yeoman have these things on the bridge of the Enterprise. On both TOS and TNG. That's hundreds of years of freaking "staying power." What a moron.
The stuff is true too, but it's mostly because Windows 7 cannot work well on it, and WP7 has been a disaster so far.
we could easily afford to do that by disarming? more real stories about that might give us something to discuss other than who's (babys are) exploding/dying today/next?
this must be ambitious goal scheduling day?
Tablets have been around nearly as long as laptops, and have historically done terrible outside of specific business applications. Craig Mundie's response seems a well tempered response based on historical perspective.
Not only that, but Microsoft has always lead the Tablet charge, so this article doesn't even seem to make sense. Basically all full-sized commercial tablets come standard with a multi-touch Microsoft operating system. Microsoft has been spamming commercials as of late about their new tablet hardware...
I'm guessing it's because Microsoft doesn't have a touch-based UI for Windows that they're saying tablets are a fad. They thought the same about the internet and portable mp3 players too. Yes, they had tablet PC's long before others but it was a barely-modified version of XP that simply replaced a mouse with a stylus - it wasn't the same.
They'll get into the market as soon as they can cobble together a "good enough" touch-based UI for Windows and then leave it about 5 years later when they realize they aren't making any headway against already well-entrenched Android and iOS markets.
The Microsoft-dominated era is over unless they can figure out a way to execute at least as well as their rivals.
What I would like to see is a tablet with an attached keyboard. Let's say, a device where the tablet and keyboard are joined by a hinge, so that it can be closed while not in use.
Too late to patent since you can already buy any number of keyboard cases for the iPad.
What do they all have in common? They join the tablet with a keyboard in a case you can close.
Only with these you have the option to take just the screen with you if you like, unlike the ancient inflexible devices known as "laptops".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jeez, how many years of feature churning did it take before they squatted out Vista? And don't forget MS was pushing tablets hard 5 or 6 years ago, and that didn't turn out so well. I'm sure mentioning the word "tablet" on the Redmond campus was a great way to kill your career until fairly recently. I'm not familiar with Nerney's blog, is he usually clueless?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
This seems odd, since Microsoft has been trying to get people into tablets for about 10 years. UMPC/Slates/Etc. I remember this was a keynote item for Bill Gates.
Now someone else actually makes a success out of it, and it's a fad?
That seems like the very definition of sour grapes.
Or maybe it's because they tried to create the tablet market years before the iPad but nobody listened
When has Microsoft demonstrated any vision beyond marketing? Microsoft makes profit out of their monopolies (Windows and Office) only. Everything else loses them money. Check out their annual reports if you don't believe me.
I wrote a blog-entry about this.
My karma ran over your dogma
I hate tablets. These are the worst devices ever made. I don't understand why do people love them. I'll never buy a tablet.
Watch for an MS tablet within 18 months. They are probably scrambling to put something together, it will arrive way late, and it'll suck. I'm not prescient or anything, I'm just guessing based on the past 20 years of being a programmer in Seattle that doesn't work for MS.
Tablets serve the same niche that netbooks do. A smaller machine that is more portable than a laptop or desktop that handles tasks that are needed while traveling or away from your more permanent machine. Also something that is not as expensive as your laptop and won't be as painful if lost or stolen.
There seems to be an assumption by the industry that people want to own just one machine that does everything. What is happening is that they own multiple devices that may or may not share similar tasks, but have different levels of portability. You may have one device that stays at home and one that you take on the bus to work with you. Another may be just for long trips. The hard part is not the form factor, but getting those devices to share data in a transparent and secure manner.
Another reason that Microsoft may be grousing about tablets is it breaks the usage model for Windows. Most windows software wants at least a two button mouse. Click for select and right click for context menus. With a tablet you have no right or left mouse buttons so you have to come up with replacements for those actions. Apple has an easier time converting because they were mostly one button instead of two. (And X windows users have three buttons to contend with. (Though two are just cut and paste.))
I expect that tablets will almost entirely replace the netbook market by 2015. By then the OS issues will be worked out and they will "just work".
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
It's not like the tablet fad caught Microsoft completely by surprise:
Bill Gates unveils Microsoft's new Tablet PC in 2002
And as for the internet thing, what you really mean is: Microsoft didn't get into the World Wide Web until 1995. This isn't terribly surprising, since the WWW hadn't been around yet when windows 3.1 was released. At the time, the WWW was one of several possible futures. The one MS first wanted to bet on was the 'Microsoft Network'. Of course, that's not the path history ended up taking, so they had to adapt.
Netbooks crashed primarily because of MS and the manufacturers got featuritis.
Of course it's totally a coincidence the Netbook market dies around the same time the iPad was released.
No relation here, no-sir.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...in the meantime, Apple is rolling in giant piles of cash earned from this "fad".
1. iPad
2. Android
3. RIM
4. iPhone/iPod touch (Yeah, I'm reaching here).
5. ?
(Yes, and before anyone says "whoosh," I know you are quoting the IBM exec from the mid-20th century).
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
They're in denial, they've spent 10 years trying to make one and have failed time and time and time and time again. Now they're watching a market they can't control blossom out of nowhere.
I don't think tablets are going to replace laptops overnight but they will cannibalize netbooks, leaning back when browsing/reading email/watching movies is a far better experience than hunching over a tiny screen and fiddling with a touchpad. Nobody gives a shit if you can't run legacy dos software on it anymore, we've moved on.
Microsoft isn't jumping into the table market, because they know slates are the future of the industry.
Netbooks are fad?
I still use mine all the time.
Or maybe just MS netbooks were fads? Mine runs Linux.
[enjoy warm, smug glow]
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
My idea of an "improved tablet" is one on which web sites cannot distinguish the fact that I'm accessing it on a tablet so that I won't get any more "We're sorry, but we don't have the content rights to display this on mobile devices" messages. Until that happens, I will always consider a tablet as a deliberately gimped PC. (That is typically actually more expensive than a PC.)
Twice in the last decade MS has tried to do tablet type devices and failed in the market.
Remember project "Origami" circa 2006 , aka the "Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)". Well, here are some slashdot articles to refresh your memory: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/06/02/24/1734257/What-is-Microsofts-Origami-Project and http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/05/03/2337233/Death-of-the-UMPC
The also tried those laptop type devices with the reversable screen circa 2002-2005 that they called tablets; http://slashdot.org/story/02/10/27/1458259/Windows-XP-Tablet-PC-Edition.
Now modern "tablets" are more akin to mobile phones (e.g. ARM processors and embedded type OSes like android and QNX) and the MS stuff was an attempt to shoehorn an XP PC into a smaller form factor. But still, the did try. Perhaps they were ahead of their time, or just inept in bringing novel products to market.
I sorta agree with the "fad" characterization, in the sense that the new devices have the cachet of cool companies like Apple and Google and that is why the are now becoming sucessful. Before, it was just a niche and not on the radar screen of the consumer, but now it is. The iPhone and iPad have shown that powerful devices can fit in a pocket or purse, and people now expect and will from now on continue to expect to have all the power of a PC in their pocket. MS will have to really worry about tablets/smartphones when businesses start issuing them to their employees *instead* of PCs and laptops, and not just in addition to PCs and laptops. I think that day is coming and MS should be afraid; very afraid.
when I worked at at&t I bought the eeepc 701 right when it came out because a small, cheap laptop without a cdrom was exactly what i wanted to carry around. So i got into the elevator with an at&t exec, he looks at the eeepc and with a smirk says "oh that is one of those kids laptops" ... yeah whatever...
I love my netbook, its a great mobile supplement to my powerhouse desktop. Why does a particular form factor have to be the "right one"?
that they are not getting better. The new Atoms are just as underpowered as the old ones. They lack most of the features of a modern CPU. They still have no gigabit ethernet, no USB3, no eSATA, no decent horizontal resolution. And Windows 7 Starter is even worse than Windows XP Home.
As a consequence, everybody who wanted a netbook has one, but there is no incentive to upgrade. They will sell again once they get better.
A netbook is not your primary computer. It is your travel computer, and from personal experience I can vouch that tossing a 10" netbook into your backpack is a lot less hassle than lugging around a 14-15" laptop (or god help us, a 17" laptop).
If we (Microsoft) made a tablet, it would just suck. But, on the bright side, at least we know it this time.
They aren't inactive. They are carefully watching all the players and when one emerges that has awesome written on it they will swoop down and buy that company post haste, slap an MS logo on it and profit.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
He was wrong too.
Isn't this exactly the same what they said about the internet in the nineties?
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
"guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein"
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Just like they did with Internet Explorer. All they have to do is give away tablets for free until the competition goes bankrupt.
"The Internet? We are not interested in it"
-- Bill Gates, 1993
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
If you look back at MS's history, they generally try to downplay any new innovation they aren't actively in the market with. Smartphones, music players, tablet PCs, etc.
They don't have a tablet (at least not for sale or for show) so they're going to call it a "fad" and hope that keeps buyers from getting one and getting branded on it.
In the meanwhile their R&D department will be mad busy with their photocopiers, trying to make an "improved variation" on whatever they're labeling as a fad. No one believes them, but they're convinced that by simply making the statement, that somehow everyone will believe them and not create a market for the product, giving them time to scramble and rush something out the door in time to catch the wave.
18 months later they will suddenly stop calling it a fad and announce their new product, with surprisingly familiar looking features, plus a ton of additional bloat. Many months later, after delays, price increases, even more bloat, and cutting of key features that were pushed hard in the initial announcement, product will hit the stores. MS will announces this new product will "revolutionize" the market.
Despite outrageous amounts of funding and marketing, it will still bomb because the market has already been captured several years ago by what they were unsuccessful at downplaying as a "fad", it doesn't work like consumers are now expecting it to (even if some features may even work better than their ancestor in the market), is clumsy to use, and few will buy it.
After losing their shirts in a spectacular show of bad retail, someone will then get a clue and less than 6 months after product launch, an announcement will be made that the product has been discontinued. No official numbers will be given as to how much the fiasco cost the company, but inside sources will whisper tales of massive financial loss.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The tablets failed when the manufacturers starting putting features on them and raising prices to make them little notebooks. People bought $250 netbooks, they did not buy $500 netbooks. They also failed when Windows XP started appearing on them.
Tablets are different. I know my iPad 2 is not a 'real computer', that is what Ubuntu is for. But, aside from a few missing features, it is a well designed highly functional piece of equipment. I can take it places and do things with it that I cannot do with a 'real' computer. The touch interface is great and much better than a standard mouse. A netbook/laptop also has a hard time matching the battery life an iPad gets. Once AirPrint setup on Mac/Linux/Windows, printing is a breeze. I can remote into my other systems when needed. etc.
FYI: There is a cool single case iPad keyboard device here , but I have not used one. Probably others out there too...
Procrastination; I'll think of a sig tomorrow.
A fad, or unable to shoehorn Windows 7 into something like an iPad or Xoom?
I was at Comdex in 2000 and saw Gates himself demo a table and proclaim that the tablet was the future.
As for tablets, I give them 10 years and $500 Billion dollars, then they're done.
Just another fad, I tell ya.
Didn't IBM say this about PCs a long time ago?
How can anyone take what Microsoft says seriously?
They keep trying to barge into everyone's market and often fail, largely because they just don't get it - they don't understand the market, the product or the customers, but march in with their own Microsoft Brand and PR bandwagon going full-tilt, withdrawing quietly after a few years of marginal success or outright failure.
XBox is about the only thing they have going, but that didn't come cheaply and the one thing I know from decades as a video gamer - gamers are NOT loyal - as soon as a newer, better game shows up they're off to that platform and the old one is pushed to the back of the closet or flogged on eBay for what they can get.
Take away the revenues generated by The Windows Tax, Office software and Servers and they'd have gone bust a decade ago, with all the other phonus balonus dot coms and all their hubris about reshaping the world.
The one innovation which eludes Microsoft is getting their operating system off the home-brew legacy throttled model it has always been on. It may look glossy, but it's a cow, with security holes galore and all the important things users need to know safely buried in obscurity. At least Apple realized Mac OS was becoming a painfully large snowball to support and switched to a better model. The next version of Windows will again be completely unnecessary and try to copy everything Google has been doing, which will make it a real pain for desktop apps.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes but we all know deep down that tablets are indeed a fad. Except nobody wants to hear that. If you do try tell someone they yell "Nooo!", take a swing at you then scamper off to a corner and clutch their shiny glowing smartphone.
Laptops never killed PCs which are still going strong, Tablets will never kill laptops which aren't in any danger with the current crop of tablets.
I'm waiting for a tablet that uses 1.8" HDDs (kind used in ipod classic etc) - ie ~250gb *cheap* storage. Throw in a actual USB host and memory card reader and you have a hope in hell of something that can substitute an actual laptop and be productive.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The truth of the matter is that Microsoft can not make an ipad-like object without screwing it up in someway.
(Either marketing, pricing, licensing, or bad design)
It takes vision that spans all 4 of these areas.
And they know it. They are completely relegated to XBOX and MS Word.
Always Innovating Smart Book already had detachable keyboard.
http://alwaysinnovating.com/
Randall - Whizman Software Solutions
They just saturated the market.. I see netbooks all the time.... people are still buying them.. but the initial surge has passed...
They are still selling plenty of them
You guys are missing the point. What most of people, that is Joe sixpack, really want is a device able to instant chat, go on facebook, "coca cola" like websites, browse youtube, cheezburger and random naked chick on google images. They don't want a device constantly popping up alerts saying you are insecure, devices that go slower than turtles with adware, antivirus, malware, antimalware etc.. They don't want to be annoyed with auto-updates, they just want to come back from work, sit on the couch and open whatever website they heard about at work. They want to be able to plugin memory cards, USB storage to see family pics. And, IMHO, current state of tablets already do all of this..
So I kind of predict this decision will cost this guy his career in a couple of years..
As soon as we get a universal paperback form factor device that powers up instantaneously, has a screen that resembles real paper, has two oversized buttons for paging on either side, and boasts a battery life of a month (a feat easily achievable with my antique rocketbook rb1100), yes, ebook readers will die. Sounds like it will take a while though. ipad 2 battery life is what 10hours? I believe it is considered unprecedently good.
Can't build a competitive mouse trap so declare the mouse trap a fad after 3 failed incantations. As well I would like to point out to the MS "Chief of strategy" that netbooks are not hot anymore because these fad tablets took over that market. They clearly have no idea how to shift business in to new growth areas. Not only this but they fail to also understand the computing market is headed toward public clouds that really take full advantage of these tablet and mobile phone factors. All their marketing aside their business is not set up for it. They are set up to continue to profit from Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, and hence windows itself, until they are no more. And looking where things are headed my friends...that is a very tangible scenario.
Microsoft achieved and is achieving its world dominance through fear:
A significant majority of Windows users use Windows because Microsoft has managed to convince them that anything different is "scary", anything that does not have a mouse and a start bar is different and scary.
So, Microsoft has a bit of a conundrum on their hands. They convinced people that the only way to interact with a computer is their way, but their way does not make the most sense for tablet computers. If they change their UI to make more sense on a tablet, their goes the main reason most people stick with Windows.
This is the great thing about tablets now: no one choses an Android or IOS tablet based on backwards compatibility, no one choses a current tablet out of fear. All tablets are essentially new to just about all users, so users make a choice out of what they like better: Android or iOS. Without the fear of "not being compatible", Microsoft really does not have anything substantial to sell.
is all you'll ever need" comment? How about "the Internet is just a fad?"
I guess Mr. Mundie can't say "Microsoft is a flat-flippered, bloated, beached, dead whale of an organization and we cannot expect to catch our more nimble competitors." At least he can't say that and keep his job.
Instead of Microsoft trying to be "cool" - which they are genetically incapable of - they should go after a market where a hugely overpriced competitor could be undercut. I'm thinking Oracle business applications could be undercut without too much effort. Microsoft sort of has their own server software stack - they just need to cobble together some business junkware that runs on it then sell it at a tenth the cost of Oracle's junkware. Then it's "Hello Mister Massive Sales! W00t!"
MS already has a lot of the pieces, they just need to bundle it altogether, call it a "solution" and run it in the cloud :)
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
well i kinda agree with this. i like the idea of a laptop that you can flip the screen, close, and it becomes a tablet. something very compact and thin u can hold like a magazine or clipboard. but i have my itouch, smartphone, ereader, laptop, and multiple computers. where does an oversized itouch fit in there? fold the tablet into my laptop, and my phone, and im good. dont really need another device imho, and these tablets are underpowered proprietary garbage imho. i dont really need to spend 500 to read obsolete magazines on an obsolete tablet do i? can i install ubuntu? can i play steam? yeah, theyre here to stay, but realistically, its a very niche product, thats been slighly inflated by the glamour factor of apple. but at the end of the day, the iphone was an amazing step forward for phones, while the ipad is a toy computer (imho)
That might be true in some (even most) areas, but not tablet PCs. Microsoft has been trying to create a market for tablet PCs for over a decade, with out any luck. These were real PCs with a real desktop operating system, but no one bought them. Apple comes late to the party, sticks their toy OS on an over-sized smartphone and everyone loves it. If I was Microsoft, I'd be pissed too.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
...why microsoft isn't making ANY progress in the mobile front :)
I sure hope Mundie didn't think that about smartphones a few years back (I read TFA, I know he thinks they're the future now).
But wait a sec... they DO have the tablet market covered! It's called Win7 touch edition! YAY!!
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Sounds like he might be channeling Ken Jacobs......
"The Internet? We are not interested in it" - Bill Gates, 1993
is a "laptop lite" and for us the primary selling point was in fact the sub-$200 price. It's a Damned Cheap Computer and that's why you buy one—because they're essentially disposable laptops but with adequate performance for most uses. Then you don't mind tossing them in a bag, taking them to the beach, using them on bouncy train rides with the screen hinge flopping, etc.
They can be used in all the places you don't want to risk your much more expensive laptop, and the small size that the constraint of small price imposed was just a bonus. No way I'd pay $300+ for a netbook, but our second netbook was recently acquired on eBay for $75. We didn't mind that it only had a sub-Ghz celeron processor, 512MB of memory, and a smallish hard drive. It runs the latest web browsers fine, and that's all that matters.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
TOY-level (iPad / Android) tablets are a fad.
LAPTOP-REPLACEMENT-level ($1200 / 4+GB ram / 2.5+ghz proc) tablets that run full OSs (Windows / OS X / Linux / etc) are the future.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
Reminds me of when I saw Gate's book back in the mid-90's with a sticker on the cover that read: Now Updated to Include the Internet, or some such wording. I thought maybe they had mistakenly put out a printing from 1986, but no - it was the current one.
Microsoft's crystal ball is a lot like other people's rearview mirror.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Asian manufacturers like Acer and ASUS starting releasing netbooks with versions of Linux on them because it wasn't possible to run Vista effectively on machines with first-generation Atom processors. They couldn't install WinXP on those machines because it had already reached its end-of-life, and MS wanted everyone to move to Vista. MS's partners like Dell and HP wanted nothing to do with netbooks because they feared, rightly I suspect, that these devices would erode the market for their more powerful laptops.
All that changed the day MS decided to extend WinXP licensing solely for netbooks. To protect its partners, MS imposed strict limitations on this license. "Netbooks" were defined by the screen size and limited to 1 GB of memory. Bigger screens or more memory meant no WinXP. Since Microsoft knew it was competing against a product that was free-of-charge, it dropped its OEM price for WinXP on qualifying netbooks to a mere $15 per copy, compared to four or five times that figure for OEM copies of Windows on laptop and desktop machines. Later they developed the crippled "Starter Edition" of Windows 7 to serve the same market and again charged hardly anything for it. It doesn't require a conspiracy theorist to see that these strategies were designed entirely to keep Linux off machines that might end up in the hands of ordinary people.
Well you can imagine what happened after that. The Dells and HPs of the world saw there was a demand for netbooks and began competing with the Acers of the world. People who wandered into Staples or BestBuy suddenly saw small form-factor devices with friendly old XP on them competing with systems offering some flavor of Linux with an unfamiliar UI. Guess which ones sold? Guess which OS comes with netbooks from Acer and ASUS these days?
Nowadays netbooks have 10" and 12" screens and often 2GB of memory. Which operating system are they running? Usually Win7 Home Premium. How much does it cost the OEMs to license that OS? A lot more than $15/copy I'm sure. The higher license fee pushed up the price of netbooks so they're no longer so price-competitive compared to low-end laptops. Dell and HP breathed a sigh of relief.
All this happened years before anyone ever touched an iPad.
Summary talks as if they have gone away. No. They evolved into mini-laptops by added memory, hard disk and computing power. it was inevitable. technology progresses, and devices improve.
i have one of them mini acers since 2 years. its a good device. i carry it around, it has 7 hour battery life, i even do medium amount of web development on it when i attach it to a fixed monitor. even by itself, i can do small debugging.
not mentioning any kind of normal web surfing, video watching or mobile computerly needs.
this is what way the tablets will go. they may become folded tablets with 2x the screen space in future. stronger cpus, more mem more hd. but, they will probably evolve into a stable device at some point.
microsoft is missing another train. good for us.
Read radical news here
i'd be glad to come up with a product that "goes the way of the netbook".
buzz sales. Netbooks sell a lot. I'm not even sure sales are actually down.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I went to the Microsoft store and they had smart tables. If that's worth making for some sort of market, why aren't tablets?
Sendou Wave Kick!!
Good news is I think they are right.
The bad news (for MS) is that I think the user base currently engrossed in tablet world are destined to ultimately go to cell phones and set-top boxes, not the directions MS are particularly strong in relative to the desktop/laptop world. I think that no matter what happens in tablet/netbook/etc, the desktop/laptop market is in maintenance mode, with people finding their current product 'good enough' until it actually breaks instead of when it is obsolete.
I'm personally waiting for augmented reality capable glasses add-on to my 'phone' to give me a personal, seemingly huge screen in a form factor that can always be with me. I'll even let apple release first if they want and call it 'iWear'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
1) You can print to a wifi printer (I think some apps are starting to get there.)
1) iOS from 4.1 on I believe, supports printing to a variety of printers, system wide (the app itself can offer printing or you can just take a screen grab and print that). Pretty much all document and note apps on the iPad support printing.
I have a $80 HP printer that's only hooked up over WiFi and the iPad prints to it just fine, with no fuss. There's no setup, it just sees whatever printers are on the network.
2) You can get a lot of different iPad cases that include bluetooth keyboards.
3) $500 is not that much compared to any decent laptop.
Other than weight why spend the same amount as you would on a really good (we're talking quad-core) laptop
It's not just weight, but weight and size.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dedicated appliances that do few things and do them well will ALWAYS have a place in a consumer's life.
Television, text-messaging, toasters..etc all are things that can be done by a more integrated or more capable device, yet these items continue to thrive in the marketplace. Consumers time and again choose convenience over functionality.
Tablets let you do your "online thing" quickly and painlessly - no boot times and the apps are small and get right to the point.
Microsoft's problem is that they want to make EVERYTHING like a desktop computer. When all you have is a hammer - everything looks like a nail.
-ted
Nokia had their series of tablets (770, N800, N810) which eventually became the N900 phone. However, the phoneless tablets were not much bigger, and I think this tells something about their idea of a tablet. I have found my N800 a very nice reader, it is much nicer to hold than a book (even a paperback) when lying down and reading. I cannot imagine holding something much bigger for extended periods.
I recently got an N900, and it feels surprisingly small given its much improved specs, but after all, it is a phone and sized like one. I think I'll keep the N800 for some time mainly as a reader, but I really wouldn't mind if the phone were slightly bigger for better readability.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The only reason that people ditched netbooks is that tablets fill that niche better. The market didn't disappear for a lightweight, long-battery-life computer, it just migrated.
On the other hand, I'm fine with Microsoft staying out of the market.
The current generation of (good) tablets, iPad and Android, are coming close to one of the Holy Grails of computing -- Alan Kay's Dynabook.
And MS continues to fumble the future on this one in an even more colossal fashion than another passing fad -- the Internet.
These aren't the desktop paradigm squashed flat! That was one of Kay's big hurdles trying to explain the Dynabook -- it was such a radically different concept from the computers that were in use (and being planned) at the time.
This is such a good article to compliment Dell's statement that the iPad is a fad and is going to flop with the Enterprise. Ah, how many Fortune 100 companies have ongoing projects using iPads? Didn't someone (like Steve) mention 80+? Hospitals? Schools? The iPad is now FAA certified for primary flight records -- what special features did Apple build in so that they could own that market? None? How is that possible, since all these other companies have been making (pseudo) tablets with all sorts of features "specifically for business." What "special business features" got SAS to go with the iPad?
It's not the desktop paradigm squashed flat! It's a different way of doing things! Here's a subtle clue -- "OnMouseOver" doesn't translate very well to tablets.
Give people a non-threatening, easy to use interface. Make it the antithesis of business - make it fun. Provide the creative types with a toolkit. Now get the hell out of the way and let people run with it!
MS needs another Bill Gates. A techie with at least a little vision, not a marketing guy.
In 2001 Bill Gates stated tablets will be the "Most Popular Form of PC". MS culture of design by committee simply could not get the OS right. They were also a little ahead of their time, and did not have the hardware to build a really compelling device.
Sad to see them 10 years later seemingly trying the same strategy in OS 8 that has failed the last ten years, instead of building from the WP7 OS. I hope I'm wrong, competition is good.
Once the hardware improves on tablets with more powerful CPUs that can run MS bloated software MS will like them.
I run Windows 7 on a HP Mini 110 that cost me $250. It's not a speed demon, but it's fantastic for browsing the web on my couch. It's way cheaper than an iPad, has a real keyboard, allows me to install most anything I want (even if it's underpowered for serious programs)
Why would you buy a device where most of the software you can get is going to overwhelm the system, rather than a computing device with tens of thousands of applications tailored to run really well on the device?
Basically you bought a $250 web browser and notepad (although a notepad that cannot lie open flat). I don't meant to fault that choice, I know that's enough for some people... but it seems like most people would be better served with a much broader range of ability for not much more money. Not to mention I'm guess an iPad will outlast the cheap laptop by a wide margin.
has a replaceable battery
I'd rather not have to worry about battery life by having a device that lasts much longer than I use it.
As for printing, you can print to a number of printers directly over WiFi or to any printer just by installing a simple server on a PC/Mac that's connected to the printer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Vegas needs new game....
Placing odds on the pundits, futurist..., I would bet on a few things just for fun or until I am band (for metaphorically counting) from betting.
One sector for technology, one for politics, one for market (%, direction, date) swings, one for what laws pass in congress and/or get signed by the POTUS....
I could win a few on technology (MS is wrong) tablets, netbooks, slates, slabs, eSheets/ePanes ... will be around widely in use for five to ten more years.
The republicans will continue to convince the naive/illiterate public that their elitist positions are right, and gain the WH and congress in 2016. I could be the loser....
Making money in the ungoverned lands of high-finance and investments, for long term retirement..., is no safer than betting in Vegas/Lotto.
Any law with corporate backing will pass. No brainer...Easy money bets
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
...once those netbooks sport mega-gulp cupholders for gatorade-style drinks.
Sport -- get it?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
But the guy is right. What we're headed for is a smartphone like device hooked up to a pair of eyeglasses via bluetooth (or whatever) that have a heads up display in them. Eventually the phone will go away and be part of the glasses... then eventually the glasses will go away and be replaced by contacts. It's only a matter of time.
Didn't they say the same thing about the internet, and are still playing catchup because of the shortsightedness?
( tho to be honest, i missed that boat too, never thought the average person would ever care... )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Tablets aren't exactly competing with netbooks. They're on different target groups.
Tablets are good for and targeted at people who want to mostly use the web and do some light work / playing around without all the hassle of maintaining a full-blown computer (or the hassle of learning how to use one). Thinking of people who would want to use the web but don't know jack about computers, an iPad is the ONLY device I would recommend them.
Netbooks haven't been that successful because they're not properly positioned on the market.
Their specs usually sum up to: small but a bit thick, underpowered cpu, questionable battery life, 1GB ram, WinXP
There are three distinct target groups netbooks could have reached:
- the above group (tablets). NOT happening with winxp or any other desktop OS, not by far.
- people wanting an ultra small/portable laptop with (most of the) performance. I can't think how the above specs would ever entice a good portion of them.
- people wanting an ultra cheap pc for basic net access or to get them started into computers. Given the average netbook specs + price, it seems a no-brainer to spend another $100 and get themselves a low-end laptop (with a decently sized screen) instead.
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
You may love or hate Bill Gates but when he was hands on at Microsoft very few things passed by Microsoft without notice.
Now, not so much. They messed up on Windows CE in the PDA market, they messed up on Vista and now they are missing the boat on tablets/e-readers.
They have amazing engineers but the vision and focus is slowly going away. At least it will not be like Apple when Steve Jobs retires. Steve Jobs IS the vision and focus of Apple and I doubt that Apple would survive long after Steve Jobs' eventual retirement. Unlike Apple Microsoft will be a major player in the IT field for many decades to come in spite of themselves.
Past success, like failure, is no guarantee at Apple or Microsoft for that matter.
These days the typical response for an Apple iWossname is like...
Annoucing Apple's new iWossname! - *cheers*
With zibben und oct nano propeller power! - *cheers*
And Ultrawidget App Mangler! - *cheers*
And for only 800 Zorkmids - in a 2 year shackled-in contract for 100 Zorkmids per month through WeaselTel! - *cheers*
While Microsoft lauch is more like...
Announcing Microsoft's new Potrzebie! - *cheers*
With Intellium Lotsacores Processor Technology! - *cheers*
And pre-installed with Widdles Zowie and a bunch of other stuff! - *umm... er...*
And for only 600 in Cold-plated-batmanium - in an VirtualPeasant contract for 100 Cpb per lunar cycle through KissenTel! - *cheers*
Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just like the internet was a fad and CD-ROMS were the wave of the future right?
If this guy thinks tablets are a fad, then he must be an idiot
Its a 10.1" netbook with a swivel screen that folds over to be a tablet.
The implementation isn't the best, but it works. And its available now.
640k is all users should ever need............
The one single thing wrong with tablets is - everyone knows what happens to a transparent surface when it's left open to the elements. It gets pitted, scratched, and ugly.
There may be materials that get past that, but that's the perception, folks. They need a cover.
They need to be isolated from dirty fingers, stray noodles, micrometeorites and orbital meatball impacts. Until the public thinks of clear screens as unbreakable, they'll need to think of them as disposable. That may be ideal from a supplier's viewpoint, less so from the buyer's. I don't want one.
If I were a nurse in a ward, my opinion might differ -- the fastidious might see them as "easier to disinfect".
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I don't see the tablet being a Fad in anyway, it is possible however that Apps may see a dip in popularity in the future.
If the competitors to the iPad can get just enough of a strong hold on the market to live more then a year, App developers may choose not to develop their app for 1 or more platforms, rather just make their App web based, or built into into the product.
Tab have limited use, and will always have limited use by the very nature. They will be great for checking email, browsing, using simple, low-power, touch-based applications. They will also make good front-ends for some workflow management systems and POS systems. I can't see how they would ever be able to fully replace an actual laptop. Laptops are just as compact (Air), more powerful, and many models offer equivalent battery life and vastly increased utility. Laptops run a full OS, with a host of legacy and professional applications available. The physical keyboard is very very important, because it actually provides shape, which improves your typing speed - you can touch type on a keyboard, you'll never touch type as fast on a surface that doesn't provide a tactile way of determining where the boundaries are.
What we need is a click implementation of a touch-screen, compact laptop. Tablet PCs don't do too badly, but they are often running Windows which has a mouse-based interface. MS should have a gesture mode in their interface that is fully designed with mutlitouch in mind, and then we should start seeing come compelling uses for tablets and touch-screen laptops.
I think you're right that that kind of modularity is coming, the "soon" part being what's up for debate.
It reminds me of the PowerBook Duo. I inherited one at work (a bastard stepchild bought as an experiment for an exec who didn't like it) and I loved it. As a laptop it was ideal for travel, especially compared to similar laptops of its era.
I'm wondering if it will come from Apple, though, at least while Jobs is alive. His obsession with form and design will make it difficult to see how an iPhone could be merged with an iPad on an ad-hoc basis without making it to heavy/thick, etc.
Ipods didn't replace desktops and laptops, so I don't see why Microsofts logic holds up?
Apple has been a niche player for almost it's entire life. It managed to get great profits from it's mac fad that has yet to really "catch on". It made megabucks on ipods, and then came to dominate the portable music player arena, but given the high end nature of most of their play (well till the nano and shuffle were rolled out) it didn't appear to me that total market domination was their actual goal, but rather a byproduct of making a good/profitable product that just worked, and sneaking in a little monopolistic spin along the way too (wonder who they learned that from...).
Heck, if Apple only ever slurped away 10% of the consumer e-widget market with their tablet, it would be plenty enough to make it worth their while. Unlike Microsoft they set themselves up to capture both the software and hardware profits (well, except with the Xbox, one of the few bright spots in MS these days). Apple realizes it is better to be a profitable well regarded 10-20% player with high margins than a big hulking 80% player in the throes of irrelevance and decline.
Look at the current Android-based tablets. What are they? Essentially, they're an Android phone, with a bigger screen, and missing the cell radio. Everything else is virtually identical. If you have a tablet and a cell phone, you're duplicating virtually all of the hardware and software, and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Sooner or later, someone will go ahead and take the next logical step... they'll put the cell radio in a tablet, and merge the two. Sure, you'd have to use a bluetooth headset, but that's alright. Then, they won't be "tablets" anymore, they'll be "phones". The tablet fad will have run out. :-)
Seriously. If my Archos 101 had a cell radio and a GPS receiver... my Droid 2 would be gone tomorrow.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
The business types were all enamored with the color though and insisted on it. Especially the people in sales and marketing, idiots. It's a fad, just wait and see.
BTW, isn't Microsoft the company that thought 640k was more than you'd ever need?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Tablets the MS way *are* a fad and will be going away into their niche soon.
Tablets the iPad way and - maybe, it remains to be seen - Android way are here with us to stay and will be a major market for the next few years.
That's because MS doesn't get it, hasn't for a long time. They can't step out of their "PC" mindset. To them, a games console is a custom-built PC with a custom windows version. And a smartphone is a tiny PC with a custom windows version. And a tablet is a notebook sans keyboard with a custom windows version.
But a console isn't a PC, it's a console. And a phone is a phone, not a mobile PC. And a tablet isn't a special kind of notebook. If you get that, you stand to win big in these years, like Apple already does. If you don't, you'll be left behind, and in a few years, when you finally hire someone who gets it, you'll spend a few billions catching up to where everyone else already is.
Then again, it's not as if MS hadn't done that before.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
nope, wrong. I keep my tablet on my bookcase next to my couch. It's the prefect reference device. it's on faster then a netbook. is light. It is now my go to dictionary, refernce tool. Thats all I pretty much use it for. I can keep it on the shelve for over a week with no charging. It's adoptable enough so when we get there, you can mount a 2d one on the fridge for recipes, fridge inv, calender. I know we have mounts now, but they are too expensive. This is more practical then a remote networked screens or adding a computer to the fridge because it would have to be a specialized device, that you would have to upgrade in a few years. Finally we have a device small and easy enough that with the right software you can put it anywhere and average person would know how to use and set it up. Much different from calling in help to setup a network then calling every-time it goes down, or buying a All-n-one-PC, that would still need to be set-up and the right software set-up. This is a important distinction from a techy device to a device Raphael supermarket will one day have a big enough market to develop a shopping app for with barcodes to scan from the fridge. But for now, it's easier to look stuff up on it then a smart phone. The screen is bigger. When I don't know what something mentioned on TV is, seeing a definition and 10 good sized pictures is much faster and more helpful to learning then a cell phone screen. It has other uses as well but what you can't do is pretend it's a keyboard-less laptop, it's something very else indeed.
Notably Mundie skates over the possibility of tablets replacing laptops. Fundamentally how is an iPad + bluetooth keyboard (on the occasions you need it) all that different from a MacBook Air?
I'm not saying a tablet could replace every laptop on the planet -- just as laptops didn't replace every desktop on the planet -- but it's shortsighted to think of the laptop as a fixed point in the technology landscape, forever unchanging. I'm seeing more and more people in a business context -- especially those who travel a lot -- using iPads for presentations, note-taking, email, and so on.
Tablets are the convenience platform for reference material. They are the replacements for books. And notice I used the plural because everyone will have more than one. Mobile screens with information that we don't change that often, just keep looking at. I never liked pdf files but finally we have a platform to view them on.
I don't know if including the cellular chips will hold out, More than likely they will become an addon feature since the device is more of a load and go thing and using it around your house or the coffee shop. It's the new form for books! With a gps reciever the devices should have more than enough storage for maps.
With tablets I think it's more than likely we will start seeing airlines having special check ins for large laptops and people using tablets on planes instead. Maybe even having laptop rental at cars rental shops for basic business laptops. I mean do you really need YOUR particular laptop to do word processing or spreadsheets?
Just like the smartphone the tablet is a niche device. It doesn't replace anything, it just fits a particular need. And I think we all will have multiple tablet devices. With wireless charging desktop mats these things are a killer app.
1995: The Internet isn't going to be big.
2000: Security problems are going away soon.
2005: Spam is going away soon.
2011: Tablets are going away soon.
Hmmm.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
"The Internet? We are not interested in it"
- Bill Gates, 1993
"Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority."
- Bill Gates, Jul, 1998
Yeah, tablets are here. I doubt they are going anywhere.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a 'reference design' and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures Otherwise I'd advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you'll see." (January 2007)
Will tablets replace netbooks? I don't know... I bought a tablet with that premise, and while it was certainly handy, it's nowhere near a netbook when I need to type some text of any length (like all those Slashdot comments). External keyboard? Sure, but the combination is more bulky than a netbook, so what's the point then?
Regardless, Apple has been selling tablets like hot cakes for, what, over a year now? into second generation already, and sales only keep climbing up. Fad or not, but the $$$ is quite real and keeps coming, and that's what ultimately matters.
"Uh, yeah, we were wrong about the ipod, and the ipod touch, and the iPhone and the iPad, and the Kin and Windows Phone 7, but we really know what we're talking about this time."
So what if it is a fad? Why not make some money while it lasts? I don't see the strategy here. Sit around and do nothing and not make money?
I've always viewed tablets as a huge fad, but now that Microsoft is saying so, perhaps I should reconsider...
Now wait a minute, didn't Balmer say just a couple months ago that Microsoft was going to be a big player in the tablet market? And didn't he even have some mock-ups at that speech? And now it's a fad? What changed?
What changed, I think, is that developers sat down with product managers and told them it couldn't be done. That the reason there wasn't a tablet running Windows is because Windows is completely unsuited to tablets. And Microsoft has nothing else to run on tablets. They'd have to start from scratch and it's too late to do that.
I've got to say, I expected Microsoft to flog Windows Tablet Edition for a longer period of time before giving up. This is actually a good move for them, as it saves unnecessary expense and public humiliation.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If Microsoft really believes that the tablet market is a fad, their inaction makes perfect sense. They are a slow company. Their xbox products cost them many years and billions of dollars before it became successful. Windows, both consumer and NT, took years to be successful. SQL server took years to be successful. IE took years to be successful.
So if they really believe that the current incarnation of tablets is a fad, they'd be stupid to pursue the tablet. Unlike companies like Apple and Google, their development cycle is so long that, to their thinking, the market will collapse before they have a competitive product.
Tablets aren't a fad. Got it.
Apple learned from Microsoft's mistakes, and that's why the iPad is a runaway hit. They didn't try to shoehorn their desktop environment into a tablet, they designed a new UI that was appropriate for touch-screen input. Microsoft, meanwhile, is still trying to polish up "pen windows" and pretend it's a viable competitor.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sort of surprised at MS sometimes.
tablets are not a fad. They are best extension of a desktop you could ask for. Large screen for viewing stuff, don't need to have bulky storage when it uses SD & wifi. Don't need a keyboard for it, because it's not for doing heavy work.
Need to read reports/mags/ebooks/docs/email? Perfect.
Need to run around the office checking on stuff, but might need to access some info while you are doing it? Perfect.
Watching the big game, but the food gave you the runs? Perfect (you know, streaming the game to the device so you can watch it on the toilet. Don't tell me this hasn't happened to you before, because i'm pretty sure it has).
Anyways, you get my point.
MS will play catchup, like they always do.
Be seeing you...
In their current incarnation, yes. However, as this whole mobile computing movement matures, tablets/slates will be a featured piece of the puzzle. Cloud computing, cloud storage, web-apps, tablets, smartphones, laptops, and even desktops are all converging toward future where people have a laptop or desktop at their homebase for local file storage and heavy processing. The industry is kicking and screaming but will eventually concede to the idea that people's main connection to the Internet will be through tethering with their smartphone. People will carry around a less feature rich smartphone that has better battery life and a tablet. The tablet will be tethered to the smartphone via wifi as will their other internet connected devices like their laptops, desktops, game consoles, etc. People will access their data whether it be in the cloud or on device at their homebase through this tethered internet connection.
A fad?!? Uh, yeah, and so are mobile phones.
Okay, so technically speaking pads are halfway between laptop and PDA.
But practically speaking, they're a different tool.
I've already seen iPads used in a variety of ways that neither laptops nor PDA's are suitable for. And this is just the beginning.
Tablets may be a fad, but:
- displays you can touch are here to stay
- multitouch is here to stay
- displays you can pick up and walk around with are here to stay
- computers you can use without peripherals are here to stay
- download-only software installation is here to stay (hey look! the rest of the world finally caught up with *nix!)
All that's really missing is a "docking station". And all that's really missing from the concept of a "docking station" is plugging in to not just extra peripherals and power, but extra processing power as well.
The stand-alone tablet may be a fad, but I think we'll soon enough see the concept of working at a desktop, but taking a smaller, stand-alone, but fully-featured version of the "same" computer with you when you stand up.
I don't think tablets are a fad. What are we going to use to read all our digital newspapers and books then? Laptops? Laptops are inconvenient for reading because you can hold them properly and the keyboard is mostly useless for a lot of tasks and takes up to much space. In the end tablets and e-readers will merge into one device (i.e. tablets with fast, color e-paper).
Tablets are very useful as personal media players, book/paper readers, etc. Maybe they'll even replace the TV sets some day.
Since the Intellimouse Explorer 3, this is probably the second Microsoft decision I agree with. I have a phone for calling, texting, listening to music, maybe take a pic one in a while and quick browsing, and a laptop for everything else. I don't need a tablet.
What I want to see in a tablet is a full host USB port. Without it, the tablet is an ACCESSORY. With it, you have a computer.
Archos have it, but running android means you don't get to write drivers for it so easily (java DETESTS anything that has the least bit "machine dependent" in it, which is why you don't need "unsigned", 'cos, like, writing a binary file always wants signed integers...).
But a genuine USB port (or a few) would be essential IMO, for a tablet.
Agreed. An N1000 tablet that's basically a pairable device with a 6-7" screen (with rotation, even if it has to be a switch) using the OLPC technology would be perfect. A mobile phone will get used as a mobile phone and synching the address book, calendar and scribble notes between the two means you have a useful small mobile phone (which you can keep updating) for when you want a phone, but if you want a mobile tablet, put that phone in a pocket, whip out the tablet where you can see what you're looking at.
At 6-7" in portrait, it becomes a good book reader. At 6-7" in landscape it becomes a small media player or a web browser. At 6-7" it's too damn big for a phone (so get rid of the damn electronics for that: it ups the cost by £100). And smartphones with a 3.5" screen are really at the top end of the size of a phone, where you can't get away with a real number pad any more, but 4" is too small for anything other than casual web work and pretty useless for anything other than spot work in the media or book reading department. 3.5" or less? Don't bother.
The N800 was the better idea than the N900.
MS did the tablet thing years ago. They basically tried to take a laptop and turn it into a tablet. What they got as you might expect was a heavy tablet that was a tablet lite. What Apple did recently was leverage the popularity of their iPhone and rather than make a tablet out of a laptop they made their iPhone bigger. In this way you get something that is very thin and light, and has a long battery life.
Current available technology then and now had something to do with it as well, so MS was a bit too far ahead of the curve. While apple using the maturing technology of its iPhones and iPods was in a good position to make them right.
Remember generally speaking MS makes software not hardware or devices. Apple makes devices (or has them made specifically for them anyway).
I wonder if tablets will go the way of the Internet fad that prevented Microsoft from developing IE until they figured out that the Internet was here to stay.
One of two things are going on. Either he is clueless or they have fixed it so that tablets will stay priced above notebooks.
In the first case, fire him. In the second case, sue.
> How long until we're seeing a "computer" for sale from a major
> manufacturer which is fully componentized for modular use?
As mentioned in another comment, Always Innovating already offer modular
components in their Smart Book. http://alwaysinnovating.com/
I guess they may not be a "major manufacturer".
Randall - Whizman Software Solutions
Tablets are a fad ... just like that intertubes thingy.