12 ms·
Microsoft cancels the Courier, the Internet sheds a tear
- nexneo 16y agoWill be #1 on Vaporware 2010. Last year winner was Crunchpad.
- stcredzero 16y agoI think someone's already started on the iPad-ish take on Courier: http://www.popplet.com/ http://www.popplet.com/
- maukdaddy 16y agoTo be fair, MS never announced that Courier was a real product.
- nexneo 16y agoBut they leaked existence and now they required to leak its death. That is good enough to qualifies as vaporware. Aside from that. I like, "Microsoft Kills iPad Killer" perfect headline for this news. http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/04/29/microsoft-kills-ipad-killer/ http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/04/29/microsoft-kills-...
- rbanffy 16y agoOddly, it's leak was timed to coincide with one of the dates Apple was supposed to announce a tablet, in order to steal some press space. Nobody ever believed it would be a real product.
- megablast 16y agoPlenty of people believed it would be a real product, they were also very excited about it. It looked like something very innovative from Microsoft. Why produce such a slick looking video for vaporware? But just like Cairo with is object file system, Microsoft got us again.
- slantyyz 16y agoWasn't Duke Nukem Forever slated to run on a Courier? Damn, I guess it'll never come out now.
- stcredzero 16y agoI think this was based on Inkskein, which is not vaporware. I don't see why such a thing isn't possible. The iPad could support such an interface. Just divide the screen in two in landscape. This is what I'd want Evernote to become.
- JunkDNA 16y agoThe courier did its job. That and the news of the HP slate (on indefinite hold) were timed to try and get some free press out of the pre-iPad hype. The fact that no actual product was close to shipping didn't matter.
- SamAtt 16y ago"the news of the HP slate (on indefinite hold)" Where did you hear that? If you're referring to WebOS I don't think HP is going to cancel a product already in the pipeline for a product that is at least a year away
- nl 16y agoHewlett-Packard has killed off it’s much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter. http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/29/hewlett-packard-to-kill-windows-7-tablet-project/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/29/hewlett-packard-to-kill-win... Anonymous source of course, but still.
- glhaynes 16y ago"at least a year away" Where did you hear that?
- JunkDNA 16y agohttp://www.businessinsider.com/apple-doesnt-have-to-worry-about-the-hp-slate-anymore-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-doesnt-have-to-worry-ab... They are going to wait until the Palm deal closes. My guess is that HP wants more control over their platforms than a commodity Windows mobile provides. WebOS is just the ticket.
- cstuder 16y agoSpeaking of competition: How is Googles Chrome OS doing? I haven't heard anything about it either. Is there any competition to Apples iPad anywhere? Apart from dozens indistinguishable Android tablets, there seems to be close to no serious alternatives left on the market today.
- thejay 16y agoOnce again, we rejoice.
- slantyyz 16y agoGood news in the sense that it gives a WebOS based slate (which would be way more interesting than that thing HP showed at CES) a fighting chance. While the Courier wasn't something that interested me over an iPad, there were some interesting ideas in those mockups.
- brandonkm 16y agoI wouldn't take this news as the huge bummer that it looks like. One thing Microsoft doesn't have with the courier is the element of surprise. Windows phone 7 is coming out later this year, so I would think that they want to focus on that as much as possible and then consider how to scale that experience to something like a courier/tablet device. As amazing as the concept video looked, something even better could be on the horizon.
- j_baker 16y agoThis is the first time I've heard of the Courier...
- paulgb 16y agoSame here, at first I thought the title was referring to Microsoft's Courier New font. I guess someone at Crunchgear made the same connection.
- SamAtt 16y agoThe funny thing is we were just having a discussion at work trying to figure out where Microsoft's $9.5 billion R&D budget goes (that's per year). I wonder how much of it was spent on this last year?
- necubi 16y agoAnd this is surprising to who exactly? Microsoft has shown repeatedly in the last few years that they excel at creating pretty renders and hype for products that never appear on the market in comparable form. Anybody remember the Origami project? If not, here's a reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXHKCS28z1s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXHKCS28z1s. The same is true of the original Longhorn videos (which were revealed to be shockwave animations) and to a certain extent surface. Contrast this with Apple's approach, which is to show absolutely nothing until they have a shipping product. Microsoft drives hype; apple makes products. All that being said, I do hope somebody takes the ideas in those videos and makes a compelling product from them. I doubt the technology is there now, but it will be in a few years.
- MichaelGG 16y agoI get your point, but Origami did ship, didn't it? They even have a list of hardware: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/umpc/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/umpc/def... Of course the experiences never match up. In the videos, you get nice clips of some perfect UI. In reality, you get some crappy apps still designed for a mouse and keyboard.
- necubi 16y agoHence my qualifier "in comparable form." Origami did ship, but when it did it was twice as expensive as promised (initially: "as much as a good mobile phone", when released: $1200+) and was an unusable mess (read some reviews). The devices shipped bore no resemblance to those in the video, either in terms of interface or hardware. So while Microsoft's partners did ship UMPCs, it would be highly misleading to suggest that Microsoft shipped "Origami," at least as presented in the videos.
- CamperBob 16y agoAll that being said, I do hope somebody takes the ideas in those videos and makes a compelling product from them What, actually make something? Sounds like a good way to get hit with a patent suit.
- 16y ago
- chaostheory 16y agoNot surprised. Just like UMPC and Surface, it's just another fancy mocked up commercial for Microsoft. History repeats itself.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- tzs 16y agoSurface is just mocked up? That's going to come as a big surprise to the many establishments that have them installed and are using them.
- rbanffy 16y agoHow many?
- chaostheory 16y agoWhat I meant was that the commercials show a lot more of the device's potential that just isn't really there. btw UMPC's exist too; they just sucked like Surface. Have you interacted with a Surface device or UMPC? Did the features and possibilities match the commercials? From my experience, the answer is no.
- Malic 16y agoI own an iPad would have given the Courier a serious look. I have to wonder if Microsoft wants to go in a different (even better?) direction?
- mortenjorck 16y agoI think what killed it was that it didn't run Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7. Which is really too bad, because the former was obviously inappropriate for it, and the latter was subtly inappropriate. WP7's UI looks really promising as a phone interface, but the courier wasn't about any of the tasks that phones do. It was about one thing only, and that was information collection for creatives. I don't think I'd have liked a courier that booted up to something that I had to "launch the Courier app" from as much as I would one that simply became Courier every time I woke it up.
- raganwald 16y agoWhy Apple Doesn't Do Concept Products: http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/ http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/
- cstuder 16y agoAnd of course: "Real artists ship."
- danw 16y agoWould make a nice iPad app, especially combined with a Pogo Stylus.
- jsz0 16y agoMy guess is this goes back to Microsoft internal battles. Both the Windows client & Office groups were getting their turf encroached on here. The less powerful Windows Mobile & Zune groups probably had no love for it either. In ~5 years we'l probably see a lot of these ideas implemented by the big players inside of Microsoft.
- emehrkay 16y agoAm I the only person who wasnt impressed by the courier? It seemed overly complicated
- sambeau 16y agoI'm a terrible Apple fanboi but I thought that the courier demonstrated some really interesting ideas. I especially liked that the proposed device seemed to be a digital diary and notebook rather than a general purpose computing device. It was a very different concept to the iPad. I could see real potential for this kind of "digital filofax".
- thought_alarm 16y agoIt goes to show that most people on the "internet" don't understand software development.