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Nvidia CEO: We Are Working On Next Generation Surface
UnknowingFool writes "CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has told CNET that Nvidia is working with Microsoft on the next generation of Surface tablets. While sales of the first generation have been poor, Huang believes the second generation will be more successful with the inclusion of Outlook."
The public did not like our original turd sandwich, but they will like our new turd sandwich. It is on rye bread.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Right, because the NVidia Tegra based Surface sold so damn well. No one wanted an ARM version of Windows and Microsoft's recent financial results showed that. I see no reason for that to change given that the tablet market has only become more saturated in the past year.
They could go with an 86 based processor and couple it with a low power NVidia GPU through some sort of Optimus technology. It doesn't make as much sense as a full blown SoC, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than redoubling their efforts on a venture that resulted in a 900 million dollar writedown.
Another Tegra based Surface is a disaster waiting to happen.
Saying that "it didn't have outlook" is nothing more than a scapegoat.
Yay, Outlook
Hang on, the surface can't do e-mail properly? Just how bad was the built in mail app if they think Outlook is going to contribute massively to sales?
I guess all those commercials with people playing badly choreographed percussion games with their surface's makes more sense now: it's the only thing you can do with the damn brick.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
That excuse may be the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.
Microsoft's problem with ARM is that their software is proprietary. ARM systems integrators with Linux get to try out various configurations in a simulator before the silicon even gets wet. All of the various peripheral vendors have Linux drivers that work in the simulator - they make these drivers in parallel with device development because the open nature of the OS lets them test their device in private, and then submit any changes to the OS they need before they make the device public. But most especially having drivers that work in the simulator allows them to be considered in devices with a quick time to market. Proprietary software just doesn't work that way. You have to have NDA's, and meetings, full disclosure about your plans, bilateral patents agreement in place. It's a big legal tangle with lawyers and business people who play golf and have to schedule things months in advance, not engineers who don't play ever and want to see their creations exist NOW. It takes years and years.
Microsoft's problem with Surface is that we don't do things like they do things any more. They still live in the bad old days when progress was slow. They have to buy their development platforms at retail, and by the time they've got their software fit to publish on it that's legacy hardware and we've moved on. They can't keep up because they aren't even in the game. That's without considering that they have to put in some special hardware to make sure you can't make the device useful with good software one they blow it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And what is its one intended use? Email? Outlook does more than just email. I'd list all the other features like calendering and how well it works when integrated properly into Exchange, but it's starting to sound (for the millionth) time like someone wants to bash a Microsoft product without using it. No wonder Slashdot isn't taken seriously anymore.