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Microsoft To PC and Tablet Makers: You're Not Our Future

Posted by Soulskill on from the remember-when-companies-just-did-one-or-two-things dept.

snydeq writes "Microsoft's plan to build its own Windows 8 tablets puts longtime allies in peril — and it may be the right thing to do. 'In announcing the Surface tablets, due to be released this fall, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cited Apple's advantage (without mentioning Apple) of integrated software and hardware. "Things work better when hardware and software are considered together," he said. "We control it all, we design it all, and we manufacture it all ourselves." ... Like Apple, Microsoft will hire a few PC makers to do the actual production work. But the need for 20 brands of me-too laptops, tablets, and convertibles is low. Manufacturing sophisticated electronics is a skill requiring manufacturing innovation. But all those branded-but-otherwise-undifferentiated PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones just aren't needed in the vision Ballmer sketched out yesterday.'"

17 of 530 comments (clear)

  1. Make sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This maybe the smartest move microsoft made in the last 15 years

    1. Re:Make sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It certainly seems smarter than trusting their fate to likes of HP and Dell as they continue to ride out the death spiral of slapping their branding on cheap ODM crap.

    2. Re:Make sense by microbread · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As an owner of a Zune HD, I can attest to it being a great product let down by abysmal marketing and poor support from Microsoft. It was the only real competitor to the iPod Touch and one of a very small number of PMPs that has (had?) 64GB flash memory. If they'd released it properly in the EU and actually paid for advertising it might have fared differently.

    3. Re:Make sense by FearTheDonut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe this goes towards what you mean about advertising, but Microsoft let everyone else control the conversation about Zune.. Letting it be the butt of everyone's jokes.. At it's prime - it had THE BEST online service: curated rotating themed playlists, "School" for people who wanted to learn more about a specific genre, complete with different "guest professors", and a "Smart DJ" system before Apples.. What good is a product, with awesome features, if not a damn person knows about it, or has the completely wrong idea about it?

    4. Re:Make sense by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, they also wrote their own obituary with the way they handled the release. The main thing that sticks out is breaking "Plays for Sure", which pretty much told the consumer how much they could trust MS.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    5. Re:Make sense by lightknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, please. I have a new laptop, and despite the SSD and extra memory I shoved into it, it still can't hold a candle to my desktop.

      The people crying that the end of the desktop is nigh are those people who never needed a desktop to begin with, and would be happy with an iPhone for all their 'computing' needs.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
  2. Good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's good news for the customers, because in order to penetrate the market Microsoft will throw shitloads of money at the development of their new hardware toys and essentially give them away underpriced and possibly at a loss.

    All we need to find out is a way to hack them and install Linux on them, and there it is, your super-cheap Linux tablet. :-)

    1. Re:Good news by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If this occurs, then Microsoft has every reason to properly secure the bootloader, so that running other OSs is absolutely impossible.
      The golden dream for Microsoft in this is that there are two companies making and selling hardware - Apple and Microsoft.
      Two, to avoid anti-trust concerns.

      To make a secure device, you need perhaps $1 or $2 extra in hardware, and $100K or so spent on getting it audited by someone with a cryptographic clue.
      Microsoft has this money, and the incentive to spend this money.
      Your average tabletmaker doesn't care that much.

  3. Commodity hardware isn't going anywhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All of the recent commentary about MS rupturing their alliance with OEMs is overblown. Microsoft is stuck with OEMs because they don't have the resources to supply an entire computer market with their own hardware. OEMs are stuck with Microsoft because Apple won't license OS X and most consumers won't want linux for the foreseeable future.

    MS will make a flagship tablet, which will showcase Windows 8 in the way that they want to show it (without manufacturer bloatware etc). The OEMs will rush in and undercut MS with a range of comparable but slightly cheaper options, and life will go on.

    1. Re:Commodity hardware isn't going anywhere by Tridus · · Score: 5, Informative

      If the stories about WinRT costing $90 per copy for OEMs are true, they're not going to be undercutting anything unless Microsoft charges a ton for Surface. You can't make a cheap tablet when the OS costs that much.

      --
      -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    2. Re:Commodity hardware isn't going anywhere by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft is stuck with OEMs because they don't have the resources to supply an entire computer market with their own hardware.

      This is categorically false.

      You have no idea how big the electronics contract manufacturers are or what they are.

      They are the people who actually manufacture the devices for the OEMs. Microsoft can surely hire Foxconn or Flextronics to build their tablets. iPads and Surface tablets coming off parallel assembly lines in the same building at Foxconn. Don't think it can't or won't happen.

      --
      BMO

  4. Re:year of the? by w.hamra1987 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    year of the demise of the desktop...

    --
    my sig pwns your sig
  5. Re:Damn right, on some of it... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Funny

    7% of android devices are running ICS 7 months after it was released, compared to Apples 80%.

    Can you substantiate your claim that 80% of Apple's devices are running ICS? I thought it would take a lot longer than 7 months for that to happen...

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  6. Re:year of the? by MrMickS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    year of the demise of the desktop...

    Absolutely. We have moved into the age of the appliance. For the majority of people this is a good thing. They don't understand, and have no interest in understanding, the complexity of general purpose computers. They want access to the internet, an ability to manipulate digital media, and something to load useful apps and games onto. They want something that is protected from being rooted by malicious hackers. They want to be able to trust their device to not transfer all of their account details to someone able to install a keylogger or similar.

    --
    You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
  7. Re:year of the? by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, what you're describing is necessary in a more complex society. Do YOU understand how to fix your car? Or, are you like most people, in that you turn the key, and hope it starts?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  8. Manufacturers' end-of-the-world scenario. by goodmanj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear hardware manufacturers: You are now utterly dependent on your biggest competitor to supply you with the software you need to run your product. If MS thinks you have a better product at a better price than theirs? Oops, sorry, our Windows OEM licensing system is having technical difficulties. Oh, wait, it's working again, but we had to double the price. You can only build what Microsoft allows you to build.

    Unless you want to become a de facto division of Microsoft, you have only two choices: write your own operating system, or use one that's free.

  9. Re: The OS Warz have begun! by ag.restringere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dell Launches Laptops Pre-Loaded with Ubuntu Linux in 850 Stores Across India: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Dell-to-bring-Ubuntu-laptops-to-850-retail-stores-in-India-1620657.html This was announced on the SAME day that Microsoft announced the Surface RT and Surface Pro. It seems that the OEM industry is secretly betting that Linux Desktop will overtake Windows in the huge Asian market. This is interesting considering that Valve is releasing Steam for Linux and that EA and other game companies are interested as well. They are predicting that Linux will be a big win and replacement for Windows in the long term. earlier... Dell Launches Laptops Pre-Loaded with Ubuntu Linux in China: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Canonical-Dell-bring-Ubuntu-laptops-to-220-Chinese-retail-stores-1368347.html The OEM's are the BIGGEST CLOWNS for not jumping on Linux earlier to counter the Microsoft threat to their eco-system.