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Ballmer Tells the BBC There's More MS Hardware On the Way
Microsoft has made hardware for quite a while, but not much of it as visible as the Surface; now, it looks like there's more where that came from. Dupple writes: "Steve Ballmer told the BBC: 'Is it fair to say we're going to do more hardware? Obviously we are... Where we see important opportunities to set a new standard, yeah we'll dive in.' The chief executive's comments came ahead of a Windows 8 launch event in New York, following which Microsoft's Surface tablet will go on sale. News other devices are likely to follow may worry some of the firm's partners. Mr Ballmer caused a stir when he revealed in June that his company was making its own family of tablet computers — one offering extended battery-life powered by an Arm-based chip, the other using Intel's technology to offer a deeper Windows experience."
Who. Fucking. Cares.
It's boring hardware with a boring OS from a boring company that's spamming Slashdot with boring Slashvertisements that're making Slashdot boring.
Stop it! Stop it now!
Microsoft was just a vendor of some software utilities. "Everyone knew" all the real money was for IBM, manufacturing the hardware.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Company that was focused on copying Sony and then turned to copying Google is now trying to copy Apple. If Chipotle captivates the stock market again, they'll start making burritos. Or maybe they'll start making coffee if Dunkin Donuts goes into a growth phase.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Thanks "DogFaces". Having read many of your insightful comments on Slashdot over the years, I always value your opinion.
Hang on, I was thinking of someone else. You're an MS shill who's created yet another new account for yet another pro-MS first post. Thanks for nothing.
They still make the mice, not sure about joysticks(which seem to have fallen off a cliff in terms of popularity of late, except for console thumbsticks), and said mice are still a decent deal. In OEM packaging they are substantially cheaper than the 'fancy' opticals; but the fit and finish are markedly better than the $3 "Inland" and other mystery mice.
What I'm more concerned about is the possibility that Microsoft's hardware plans are basically going to boil down to some unwholesome mixture of Xbox and Apple: reasonably well polished; but indifferent or downright hostile to anything except the firmware it shipped with and the increasingly tightly integrated set of first-party online services and 3rd party products officially blessed by the vendor...
For all its messiness, the seething pit of Wintel gear has(if at times only through apathy, and the need to make sure that WinXP doesn't freak out despite being a decade old) been a great boon to our ability to run free software on hardware with a useful price/performance ratio and good absolute performance without playing a risky cat-and-mouse game with an overtly hostile vendor.
It would be a great pity indeed to see MS start xboxing the Wintel world into a bunch of opaque appliances.
Anyone remember those old MS keyboards and joysticks? They were and are always quality hardware, so I'm happy with these news. Another great hardware manufacturer is Nokia, who are partnering too.
Anyone else think that that there is a massive difference between a keyboard and fully functioning computer device! I think the Xbox 360 is any measure of quality thinks are going to go badly!
Interestingly Nokia used to be a great Manufacturer in Finland[even had a meme], is now outsourcing everything to China. ...at least Microsoft and Nokia got to create third party patent troll!
Surface phones won't matter at all to anybody other then Nokia. HTC and the like have no real investment in the platform and don't care. They're just making phones mostly to shut up patent issues and to hedge their bets.
Nokia is all in, however. If Microsoft releases a Surface phone, it's a vote of no-confidence in their main Windows Phone partner's ability to get it done. Or in it's ability to survive, given how well WP7 went for Nokia.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I like .NET but ActiveX is an atrocity.
That wasn't a shill, that was a good troll. The clue is the use of ActiveX as an example of an innovative technology.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In a BBC interview today, Steve Ballmer said to his partners and customers further down the supply chain 'we've started competing with you in some small niches, but don't think we're going to stop there. We're going to keep expanding down the supply chain until we've completely destroyed your business model. Oh, and please keep buying Windows 8 licenses from us!'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't know if I would call them quality.... they were cheap in design, feature, and materials, but were more durable than other cheap peripherals.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
That's because most of it was made by Logitech under contract, who made quality hardware back then. Sometimes they were identical items, just with a Microsoft logo and different model number.
> Every company out there is looking for a way out from under the M$ thumb
Something tells me you've never worked in enterprise IT, anywhere. No one is, certainly not everyone.
After all, they're still flush with cash from Zune sales. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The phrase "deeper Windows experience" should probably never be used ever. Masturbating with a fist full of glass shards is all that comes to mind when I read that.
Fear is the mind killer.
You had me going until your bought up .NET and ActiveX. .NET is really a failure. It wide use isn't in the .NET but in the quality of Visual Studios.
ActiveX is worse. Much worse, very bad. My mild mannered self in public will open ridicule anyone who thinks ActiveX was a good idea. ActiveX was a blatant attempt to take the thunder away from Java Applets. They touted it faster but that is just because it was for Windows and Intel Platform and IE only. in essence it is a windows application that runs in the browser. ActiveX opened the door to a lot of very bad and serious malware. It locked businesses into using IE for application and once IE had too many security flaws they were still stuck, because there were too many idiot vendors who were MS shills that put their technology in their systems.
I am fine with most of Microsoft products. but ActiveX is the choice of Idiots.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In a BBC interview today, Steve Ballmer said to his partners and customers further down the supply chain 'we've started competing with you in some small niches, but don't think we're going to stop there. We're going to keep expanding down the supply chain until we've completely destroyed your business model. Oh, and please keep buying Windows 8 licenses from us!'
Yeah, and your point being?
What I see is Ballmer moving MS to copy Apples's business model or as much of it as possible.
You will start seeing MS hardware fine tuned to their OS. A Windows 8 app store and probably more lock down.
Dell, HP, etc ... well, eat shit and die! It's their wake up call. Move your shit to Linux or die.
Dude, it's been *7 years*. The standard life cycle since the Atari days was 5 years, and you haven't even ANNOUNCED a new console generation yet. And frankly, the 360 is looking a little long in the tooth.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Sitting alongside all those Microsoft shills who have been forced to endure years of, having Apple and Android dominate the news with compelling interesting devices. Iproclame like mr First Poster this is the greatest news ever!!! Finally Microsoft have finally stepped up to take on the opposition, by promptly stabbing its OEM [and other] partners in the front...AGAIN :)
I'm astonishing after the launch of surface plans of "Super Ninja" devices using new input methods, or reinventing old ones, or hell putting Linux/Meego/Other on it and offering real support. Anything other than being Microsoft Bitch [and the world knowing it]. They need to show Microsoft that Hardware and differentiating themselves from the opposition is what is important. Steve Jobs proved that at least.
Now they didn't wake up from the launch of Microsoft's Surface ...so Steve Baby is going to give it to those OEM partners a little harder!!! Colour Me surprised. They have to break soon...you can only watch Microsoft [with Steves sweaty face] take your slither of hardware margin, while they roll around on a bed of money from new Crazy OS prices, and high margin immature market money.
God Bless Computing.
..there's less difference these days than you might think.
Computers are largely SOC designs with RAM and flash added. The packaging makes the product, and the biggest variable on quality is the components used to regulate power. Microsoft has a good understanding of both those - on a positive, from a design perspective, and .. well, you've heard about xbox power supplies. :)
..don't panic
The XBox was a loss-leader to sell games. It had to be cheap. The new tablet isn't cheap.
I think Microsoft has a weird advantage here. They're "competing" with their customers. If they create a flagship device to set the bar high, it keeps the market from becoming a race to the bottom.
All sales profit Microsoft, so it doesn't matter if *their* hardware doesn't get deep marketshare, as long as the combined market is large. Currently, the race to the bottom hasn't done well for PCs, creating shovelware minefields and overall bad user experiences.
That said, I'm sure Ballmer will find a way to screw up. He always does.
It wasn't innovative. ActiveX was basically COM, and COM was just a standard for vtable layouts, of which there had been dozens of others. It had very weak introspection support (equivalent to C++ dynamic_cast, which already existed, far weaker than other component models that let you query and enumerate the available methods).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Many forget that one of Microsoft's hot products in the 80s was actually a piece of hardware called the Softcard. It was a card that allowed Apple II users to run CP/M software on their computer. the card was so popular that it was widely cloned by other companies.
Input: "Where we see important opportunities to set a new standard, yeah we'll dive in."
Output: "We'll copy any product if it's a chance to make money. And if we can figure out how to squirt Windows into it, we'll do that, too."
The IBM Blue Ballmer Project is an artificial intelligence computer system capable of translating statements made in the unnatural language of Microsoft Chief Executive Orificer Steve Ballmer.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
If you think the Apple vs Samsung patent battles are bad. You ain't seen nothing yet. The more Microsoft tries to become Apple the bigger a target it will draw on itself.
Me, until lawfirms go public and issue shares, I'm investing in popcorn.
Currently, the race to the bottom hasn't done well for PCs, creating shovelware minefields and overall bad user experiences.
Enough with the race to the bottom. That is called capitalism, and on the whole it worked. I have a cheap great PC, and I use Linux. Lets be honest even Apple computers are awfully similar. To be fair very little goes wrong with computers, apart from the OS. Even dirt cheap OEM machines just work.
Microsoft takes all the profit, but without them taking chances they deserve everything they get.
"Microsoft shamelessly copies Apple Storeconcept", why would they stop there?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
My first impulse after reading the title.
The Xbox 360 had serious manufacturing or design issues. Most people think the reason was that MS launched it like software: Release it even though it had bugs and fix them later.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
you might want to run that by the enterprise finance guys.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Agreed. MS's .NET / C# is a competitor to Java. Using that huge runtime for native C/C++ coding is a bit silly, esp. when cross platform alternatives exist (GTK, Qt, etc), but a failure .NET is not.
In the '80, Microsoft created the MSX computer platform. I never actualy seen one of those for real so I can't tell if they were any good.
This is definitely satire.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
ActiveX was a CORBA implementation, so it was hardly Microsoft alone that was responsible for it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They don't need to announce a new generation of consoles.
Nintendo aren't competing with Sony and MS any more - the specs of their new console won't interest "hardcore" gamers, but will be fine for casual gamers and Nintendo franchise fans.
Sony are on the brink - their company is worth a mere $12 Billion, and lost $6.4 Billion last year. They went from having the all-time best selling console (PS2) to the worst selling 7th Gen console (PS3). They can't afford another technological arms race, and must be dreading the next generation console launches.
Microsoft have been booking a healthy profit from the Xbox 360 in the last couple of years, and will continue to do so until the next-gen Sony and MS consoles are launched. They have no reason to launch early, unless they are willing to pay $$$ to kill PlayStation completely - unlikely given MS's past anti-trust woes.
IMO MS and Sony (if they are smart) have privately arranged to launch as late as possible, and at similar times, maximizing profits for both companies.
Its not that I care but don't let the figures get in the way of any facts http://www.vgchartz.com/ pegs Xbox360 at 69.1Million against Sonys PS3 67.4Million That 3% difference may make you happy as a fanboy, but from what I see there is precious little in it.
As for you comparing Sony's Financials vs Microsofts I would love to know how you did that,
Having a look at http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY13/Q1/default.aspx Microsofts Profit for the last three months have been 18 Million note that is Millions with Sony in there financial statements post a loss of 45 Million not that is Million again, not good but not awful.
Like I said is you are trying to make out a massive win for Microsoft over Sony its simply not happening. In fact by measures of financial or market share their is very little in it.
Microsoft has a good understanding of both those - on a positive, from a design perspective, and .. well, you've heard about xbox power supplies.
Note to Sheldon: that was sarcasm.
Free Martian Whores!
At least he's getting paid- the Linux chumps are pushing shitty GUIs and syntax MANGLED with bad puns for free.
Microsoft's finest products are all hardware. I use one of their peripheral devices (an optical multi-button wheel mouse) at home, and it's great. It works right out of the box, no hassles, no need to hunt down any drivers or anything, with every OS I've tried since I bought it. (Currently I'm running lenny.) It tracks on pretty much any surface, and the buttons don't stick or anything. For the level of quality, it was priced very competitively. Microsoft makes great hardware.
It's their software I Do Not Want.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Windows 9! Soon to incorporate User Interface with wooden mallet and trombone.
Keep Doing Good.
Valve, what do you think the future might be for Intel/AMD Gaming? Oh... hedging your bet and trying to cater for Windows/Mac/Linux so whatever happens, you continue to rake it in with your Steam platform and own games?
I see.
Once everybody gamed on a commodore... or atari (freaks) and laughed at the dos crowd.
Things change.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The fact that this is modded insightful shows the groupthink of anti-MS hatred without even looking at the facts. .NET is wildly successful, even if you believe it not to be true.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
.NET is quite nice for implementing Windows clients. But it's not my weapon of choice for application server side stuff. Here Java wins by sheer third party support.
.NET platform arguably drove innovation for Java. It got dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
The existence of the
That being said, APIs are have and forever will be Microsoft's Achilles heel. Also it took too much time to get WPF right. Development infrastructure is also on the costly side when compared to Java. Java offers so many tools for Free and free that I prefer to use it when in doubt.
20 minutes into the future
That RT tablet looks awfully slick and polished. It looks like they threw top talent at the problem. Also they realized how much a detachable keyboard adds to a tablet.
I got myself a Transformer Prime(warts and all; I knew most of the problems beforehand and bought it nevertheless) and I find I use my laptop less and less. sometimes I don't even bring it with me on business trips.
The tablet come ultrabook strategy is a sound one. Pity RT/8 are not binary compatible.
20 minutes into the future
As I commented, the success of .NET isn't in .NET it is in the quality of Visual Studios. .NET The speed of Java but only runs on Windows. Microsoft could had released an updated VB7 and C# without using .NET added additional libraries. And our apps will be faster, without the .NET overhead. It is the fact that Visual Studios when got upgraded went to .NET leaving us in the cold if we did other languages
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
While it is an OLE update/rebranding. However by adding support in IE, it was meant to derail Java Applets. Advertisments pointing out the speed, and additional features that Java didn't put in for good security reasons. It was an attempt to make a quick Java Applet replacement once they realized that at the time Java Applets were gathering attention.
It was rebranded to solve a real problem... They didn't like Java, and the fact that it ran on non MS systems, that was the problem, and ActiveX was the solution.
As for the Ajax. We couldn't have just done that via addition to javascript so we don't need to put that extra line of code if you are using IE do it this way, on every other browser on the planet we follow the standard.
The fact that we Wanted Javascript to call a page and load data, wasn't a new idea. Microsoft broke standards just so they can implement it first. But the standards would have gotten there in about the same time where good developers would actually use it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You get some special software that lets you build your calender in any windows machine. The calender could be exported from Outlook too. Then issue the comand "download data to watch".
Presto!
The screen displays a series of bar codes. The watch's reader can decode it and store it in the watch. They are partnering with Timex for this project. They are planning to call the project "DataLink" . This is going to change everything! Watches with Microsoft brandname! Mobile Device! Bar code optical reader. It got every trending thing man!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
No, .NET is simply there, as part of a decent IDE, and little else.
By itself, it was/is a way to quickly get a job as a programmer without having to learn all that fluff like design, efficiency, portability, or flexibility. Aside from Miguel D'Icaza (who seriously drank the koolaid on that one), I doubt that any serious programmer who knows more than one language would consider it as the top choice.
Visual Studio is great for writing code in C/C++. OTOH, .NET on its own is rather bloated, shifts drastically over time, seems determined to generate carpal tunnel syndrome, is severely limited in platform scope, and has its upgrade treadmill dial set to '11'.
Thanks but no thanks.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
And how is this brand new UI going to work out for MS. The average user will find KDE more familiar than what's about to be dumped on them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Aside from workstations and those orgs who are Microsoft partners, can you point to an example of an enterprise which prefers Microsoft solutions?
Even Intel is shifting away from the damned thing. When I worked there, we released all of our SDK/PDKs as Linux VMs. Three reasons why: One, licensing costs dropped to $0.00. Two, it was a hell of a lot more efficient to give a customer a perfect copy of a 'golden box' to compile on and make further copies of, than to try and wet-nurse them through setting up a working VS.NET box to compile their projects on. Three, building drivers and firmware demands efficiency, which .NET certainly does not have.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No I don't remember them because MS never really made hardware themselves before the XBox. The keyboards, mice and joysticks were made by Logitech and simply rebadged just as Dell and a host of other companies did. This is a blatant case of astroturfing.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-tablet-2/ *drool
This is a great point and a reason Google must make use of that moto mobility purchase ASAP. My personal view of Android is that a "pure" install is fine, but the hardware + software that most devices have is crap. If google sets the bar high, they can compete with apple and i might have a choice next time i buy a phone.
Microsoft benefited by seeing what went wrong with the android licensing approach in this space. They're far behind, but they got to see what not to do too. I can't wait to see tablet data 6 months from now. We'll see if the iPad mini took off or just cannibalized iPad purchases. We'll see if surface or windows RT is a success and we'll see what Google can do with Moto. Interesting times.
While I like apple, I think we're in apple II land with the iPad and Windows 1.0 is just around the corner (either windows rt or future android releases). Apple's hold on the tablet world isn't going to last and what we have 10 years from now isn't even going to look like today's tablet. History is repeating itself right now.
ActiveX was a CORBA implementation, so it was hardly Microsoft alone that was responsible for it.
Say what? I've worked with both CORBA and ActiveX. If you think ActiveX is a Corba implementation then you must see a big flashing "I'm a moron" when you look in the mirror. Maybe if they had kept developing COM+ and ActiveX they would have become a CORBA implementation, but as it was--not even close.
Logitec? When did they finally set up their own factory?
The Xbox 360 had serious manufacturing or design issues. Most people think the reason was that MS launched it like software: Release it even though it had bugs and fix them later.
No, the Xbox 360, for about a year of production, had the exact same problem a ton of consumer electronics had -- a shift to lead free solder lead to some dynamics related to heat and failure that wasn't expected. That happened with DVD players, TVs, and a slew of other hardware at the same time.
Just like every other company at the time, the manufacturers of the 360 figured out how to manage heat and solder components properly to not have surface mount parts come loose.
I am a linux nerd, and well Windows RT looks damn attractive to having an office-friendly tablet in my household....because really that's about as far as Microsoft will ever get in my house.
But damn, I want (wife needs) one more than I think I need another droid device in my house. Pretty slick indeed.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Funny how iDevice leave me completely cold whil that Microsoft thing makes me nursing a semi.
/sdcard/dos/mom.
Quick! Start tablet. Fire up file browser. Ah! There ain't no place like
Any platform that gets dosbox/ScummVM ported to shall henceforth be considered a success. Mame and UAE are also important. Does it run Xenon2 on an Amiga emulation? Does it support a run of the mill bluetoothed game controller? Android does that. iThings don't. Therefore iThings stink. Does RT stink?
20 minutes into the future
Well being ARM it's going to be a brave new world but at least there will be build tools and APIs to support RT and x86 one supposes. Consider me optimistic about Win8 and positively enthused when it comes to the MS tablet.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Compared to the lost hours of productivity changing to a new version of Windows, switching to Linux seems like a much better alternative where you know you won't need to be retraining people every couple of years.
That was before they were corrupted with MS-DOS, but I'll grant to you that Microsoft has been in the hardware business for quite some time. Microsoft branded mice and keyboards have been around for decades as well, along with other kinds of equipment.
The difference is that Microsoft is now becoming a competitor to what was their bread and butter customer base (computer manufactures imposing the "Microsoft tax" upon future computer users). For whatever reason, Microsoft is deciding they don't need those other computer manufactures any more for future profit streams.
BTW, you should also be aware that the "floating-point BASIC" used on the Apple II computers was also written by Microsoft, under license by Apple Computer. Steve Wozniak wrote the initial "Integer BASIC", but the more commonly used "Applesoft BASIC" really was a Microsoft product. It is interesting where that relationship went over time :)
This isn't really the same as peripherals, and nokia is probably the biggest victim of this move as it's completely dependent on wp8 sales for its smartphone division.
COM had its own introspection - IDispatch offered the ability to query for the type of an object, and then you could use typelib APIs to enumerate members and dynamically invoke them. It's just built in layers on top of basic COM (which is simply IUnknown).
There are many programmers who consider it a better choice than Java. And in many respects it is, if portability is not a concern.
Visual Studio Express editions are free. True, they don't offer all the fancy features of the full suite, but they're sufficient for most small-to-medium sized projects.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
.NET on its own is rather bloated, shifts drastically over time, seems determined to generate carpal tunnel syndrome, is severely limited in platform scope, and has its upgrade treadmill dial set to '11'.
Says someone who's obviously never developed in it. There have only been about 5 major releases (1.1, 2.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5) with one lesser release (3.0) across three runtimes (1.0, 2.0, 4.0). The API is stable - 2.0 code will compile with very few changes on 4.5. C#, for all its detractors, is a rather elegant language that has helped drag Java into the new millennium. Plus, the IntelliSense support in Visual Studio is unmatched (in my experience).
So you know, I've spent my entire career so far working with .NET, from v2.0 onwards.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
By comparison, guess how many releases of C -or- C++ have occurred over the past 40 years? ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Not a fair comparison - not even close. You're comparing language specs with APIs.
You'd be much better off asking about the number of versions of GTK+ (28 significant releases to date) compared to .NET (at most 8).
And I'll head off anyone mentioning .NET Compact - that's separate, and has had 4 major versions. I'll also head off .NET Micro (at most 3), Silverlight (5) and WinRT.NET (1).
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I don't remember DVD players and TVs having a failure rate between 25% and 50% based on different estimates. Some of big chains claim about 30% failure rate. Again can cite number where TVs and DVD failed at that same rate?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.