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Microsoft: No Tablets Until It's Distinctive

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the build-up-them-forearms dept.

BogenDorpher pointed us in the direction of a pocket-lint story saying "Microsoft’s UK managing director and ex-BBC man Ashley Highfield has exclusively told Pocket-lint that the company won’t produce a tablet device, and therefore follow in the footsteps of Apple and Google, until it's got something to shout about. 'We won't do anything in the tablet market unless we can be distinctive,' he told us." Have you considered making it light enough that your arm doesn't ache after 5 minutes?

10 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. In other words... by Nimloth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We're looking for an idea but we ain't got squat.

    1. Re:In other words... by nschubach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Shouldn't it be:

      We are waiting for another company to come up with something cool so we can buy it and put our name on it.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    2. Re:In other words... by ProppaT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For once? They've done that twice recently, once with the Zune and again with Windows Phone 7. Their biggest problem is having a piss poor marketing department. The Zune was a great player, yet the marketing made it look very unattractive for most. Windows Phone 7 is just suffering from a lack of any kind of decent marketing at all.

      IMO, the Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of yesterday. Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, and Zune are all fantastic platforms that are extremely stable and show a lot of forward thinking with the user interfaces. The tablet market is about to get really stiff with iOS, Honeycomb, and WebOS making a solid splash. If Microsoft can't bring something unique to the table, why lose money trying? They've already learned their lesson on bringing hardware (Xbox 360) and software (Windows Vista) to the market before they're ready for prime time.

      --
      Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
    3. Re:In other words... by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Different size controllers?
      Those things were unusable for all but sasquatch. I would not call killing off online play for Halo2 robust and stable. I and many others still play the original counterstrike online for a timeline comparison. DLC has existed in computer gaming for a lot longer than the xbox existsed same with online market places and online play. Microsoft copied from the pc gaming market and brought that to consoles.

    4. Re:In other words... by Voyager529 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      HP hasn't bombed as badly as you think. Yes, it's not ideal for the average consumer, and yes their WebOS tablets mean that they'll essentially be directly competing with themselves, but they're really not. From the get-go, anyone with a brain stem was able to figure out that the HP Slate was not a tablet for the masses. It's a tablet to serve a niche market - the group of people who need a tablet that runs Windows. Believe it or not, that market does exist. It's small but viable, since HP has been making swivel tablets for most of the past decade. There are applications like OneNote and Illustrator that simply lend themselves to the form factor. Sure, the device is a bit 'off' for playing Angry Birds or to use as an eReader, but the industrial market is a reliable one. Windows Mobile still runs many, many inventory management devices, barcode scanners, and specialty hardware.

      Just because the Slate hasn't captured the consumer market the way the iPad has, it doesn't mean that the device hasn't sold at all. In fact, there was a good several months that they were drop shipping the things right to customers, and at that there was a 3-6 week backlog. It's a sleeper, but it's not a load of crap to the market it's designed to serve. You're simply not a part of that market.

    5. Re:In other words... by HermMunster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, it's considerably like the Apple. It has a screen about the same size. It runs apps. It uses touch input to select icons. It's used to make phone calls. It's a personal information manager.

      If you mean it's not as good then fine. If you mean it doesn't have near the offerings then fine. If you mean it has problems with updates then fine. If you mean it doesn't have multitasking then fine. If you mean it is barely a smart phone then fine.

      But, I've seen it. My niece has one. I used it for a while to get the feel. It's pretty sharp. It's also confusing and quite a bit more primitive than most other phone OSes. I'd never buy one myself. I'm sure it's a competent phone, as far as being a phone.

      --
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  2. M$ fired the guys who had already designed one by ehack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier

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  3. Wow by dingen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So not only are they late to the party, they're not even sure what to bring and whether they'll come at all.

    That's some solid vision you're showing there, mister Ballmer.

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    1. Re:Wow by dingen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But that's not what TFA is about: there it talks about a tablet operating system. MS won't make one until they've got a clue on what to make, which apparently they haven't. For a software company like Microsoft, that's a pretty sad state to be in, given that fact tablets have been "the next big thing" for at least a year now.

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    2. Re:Wow by c · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > ... that's a pretty sad state to be in, given that fact tablets have
      > been "the next big thing" for at least a year now.

      Well, no.

      A sad state is to have been shipping tablet/touch/PDA operating systems on and off for almost 20 years, and suddenly admit you don't have a clue what to do when tablets suddenly take off.

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