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Microsoft Revives Its Hardware Conference

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-by-popular-demand dept.

jfruh writes Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC, was an annual staple of the '90s and '00s: every year, execs from Redmond would tell OEMs what to expect when it came to Windows servers and PCs. The conference was wrapped with software into Build in 2009, but now it's being revived to deal with not just computers but also the tablets and cell phone Microsoft has found itself in the business of selling and even making. It's also being moved from the U.S. to China, as an acknowledgment of where the heart of the tech hardware business is now.

12 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Frosty pasta! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    What the HEC is this?

    1. Re:Frosty pasta! by peragrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft had tablets and smart phones years before Apple.

      Apple made both easier to use, and with astonishing features like a decent web browser and Apps designed for such interfaces as opposed to Microsoft which is still working on a tablet edition of Office and outlook.(I haven't been paying attention as to whether or not it has been released).

      What is the point of a tablet computer if you have to use a keyboard and mouse to make it work? It took Apple to answer that question for Microsoft.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:Frosty pasta! by geekoid · · Score: 2

      No, MS had touch tablets years ago.
      It's took Apple to tell people they wouldn't be cool if they didn't have one.
      And I'm glad they did it, I love tablet computers of all sorts.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    3. Re:Frosty pasta! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      Microsoft had tablets before the Newton?

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    4. Re:Frosty pasta! by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft's 2001 era tablets were also almost 2" thick and wrapped in 1990's era gray plastic you might find on an old HP desktop. 2001-era touchscreen displays were thicker than an entire iPad or android tablet is today. Not to mention pixel density in the 640x480 range, and battery life left a lot to be desired.
       
      Enter the high PPI display, Gorilla Glass, modern Li-Ion battery technology and modern CPU (ARM) designs and now you can produce a tablet that's lighter and smaller than most text books.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    5. Re:Frosty pasta! by aztracker1 · · Score: 2

      I actually like Metro UI (for phone/tablet) ... it's horrible as a desktop UI, and the metro apps are pretty clunky.. but for a phone/tablet UI it's decent. Not as nice imho as even the WebOS' UI that Palm had done, which is still one of my favorite UIs for mobile devices, and Android and iOS have adopted some ideas from.

      Forcing Metro on the desktop versions of windows, and even into the XBox UI was a pretty big error imho. It is passable on a touch screen laptop but still not great. To this day, I think that Windows7's UI is one of the best desktop interfaces I've seen. I like Unity, but it's still really rough in some respects, and the menu interface for it is really bad if you're actually clicking through, for super+search it's okay. OSX is okay as well, but finder has its' own warts for power users. I'm currently running Windows 8.1 for my desktop with ClassicShell over it, and that's not bad. My laptop is OSX and I run Ubuntu's Unity on a couple machines as well.

      At least MS stopped trying to shove a desktop paradigm onto mobile users, now if only they could stop shoving the mobile UI to the desktop. I think that there are some really bright people at MS, but their management style has really hindered a lot of things over the years. That's now changing (somewhat) if only because they are now trying to adapt.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    6. Re:Frosty pasta! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 3, Funny

      Microsoft had tablets and smart phones years before Apple.

      Are you certain that Microsoft has smart phones? I'm pretty sure I'd have seen one being used by someone by now if this were true.

  2. Overseas? by TWX · · Score: 2

    It's also being moved from the U.S. to China

    I wouldn't take home any electronic swag...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  3. Re:Seattle to China by geekoid · · Score: 2

    East or West, your going to end up in the same place eventually!

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  4. Re:Let me guess - they bought out Tag Hauer? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

    At least a broken clock will be right twice a day.

    Not if you use the 24 hours format.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  5. Re:This was the point by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

    Yup, Microsoft is trying so desperately to stay relevant in a post-PC / tablet world.

    Apple currently gives away its OS. With Microsoft fleecing customers for $100 per OEM copy of Windows isn't winning over the hearts of the geeks over. Maybe if they weren't so greedy and lowered the price down to $20 that would do more to "buy" goodwill then the total damage the past 20 years has caused.

  6. Re:Let me guess - they bought out Tag Hauer? by SeaFox · · Score: 2

    Coming soon - the Microsoft Watch.

    It has a paperclip for it's face, and asks you really stupid questions ...

    Microsoft Watch: "Do you know what time it is?"