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Ballmer: An iPad Killer is Job One
- wrs 16y agoOh man. There's nothing wrong with a fast-follower strategy, but the basic requirements are to (1) be fast, and (2) understand the thing you're trying to follow. SteveB is missing the boat on both here.
- typedef_void 16y agoAnyone else ironically hoping MS creates a better iPad just for the opportunity to install Linux on it?
- noelchurchill 16y agoI'd imagine a windows tablet would come mostly at the expense of an android tablet market share.
- SwellJoe 16y agoI think you accidentally a word.
- stcredzero 16y ago"This sentence no verb!" --Douglas Hofstadter
- sprout 16y agoI really think tablets aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're just touchscreen netbooks with a sub-par input method. (Touch keyboards cannot match hardware.) I'm quite content with my Dell Mini running Ubuntu. It does everything I need it to.
- slantyyz 16y agoNetbooks (and laptops, for that matter) and slates have two different use cases. For their intended use cases (primarily consumption), slates are excellent. I spend most of my "productive" time with a laptop formfactor, but the rest of the time, my iPad gets heavy use, for those uses, I consider the iPad superior to my much more powerful laptop.
- powrtoch 16y agoHe should avoid using words like "urgently". Causes me to expect they're going to rush it out prematurely and embarass themselves.
- rbanffy 16y ago> they're going to rush it out prematurely and embarass themselves. like they did with Vista? Seriously: they have ample capacity to embarrass themselves even without rushing things.
- robg 16y agoLike the iPod killer? Or the iPhone killer?
- RodgerTheGreat 16y agoIf you start by marketing your product as an "X-Killer", you've just shot yourself in the foot.
- byoung2 16y agoExactly, because if you just injure instead of kill, you've failed.
- dman 16y agoHopefully they will let a small team of specialists handle this challenge instead of throwing a lot of people and money at the problem.
- protomyth 16y agoThey had that (multiple times). Their obsession with putting "Windows" everywhere is killing good things. I (not a Microsoft fan) thought the Courier would have been a great product in the $300 - $500 price range. I could easily see people buying it and ditching their daytimes.
- protomyth 16y agoIf I have to install ant-virus software on a tablet, then they have failed. They really need to figure out a way to take some of the current lessons from iOS and Android to heart and build something that is dead simple, integrates well with Exchange, easily managed by IT Admins, and doesn't require maintenance.
- stcredzero 16y agoEither MS makes a tablet that's actually cool, or they make a tablet I can install Ubuntu on, or I have another chance to laugh at MS. Any way you slice it, I win! EDIT: Microsoft has XBox. They should be able to murder Apple with their resources and an installed base like that. They could make sure that putting Apple and "Digital Hub" in the same sentence implies a joke. The fact that this isn't imminent is a sign of massive internal disfunction.
- protomyth 16y agoI would submit to you that the installed base of iTunes is a lot higher than XBox. I believe the days of thinking of Apple as the little guy are just about over.
- stcredzero 16y agoMy point is that XBox has for a freakin long time been occupying the perfect real estate for the "digital hub!" If Microsoft could execute on decent "me too" offerings, they should have been able to murder Apple from that position. They had the fortified high ground with the heavy artillery and troops sitting on it, and they still let Apple surround and bypass them. C'mon! Zune + Plays for Sure. Vista. Kin. Microsoft Home Server is a potential gold mine! Inkskein/Courier could have revolutionized personal computing in deeper ways than iPad. Singularity could have leapfrogged OS X, leaving it hopelessly in the dust. Clearly, Microsoft has been dysfunctional and could not execute.
- protomyth 16y ago
- credo 16y agoIt is unclear whether Microsoft's future tablet will be successful or not, but most of Ballmer's comments seem fairly reasonable and he never uses the phrase "iPad killer"
- jeremymcanally 16y ago"Ballmer: Catching Up Is Real Hard" FTFY. :)
- elblanco 16y agoQuote from the same guy who presided over the nixing the Courier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier sigh Has anything come out under this guy that wasn't always going to anyways by sheer force of market inertia?
- rbanffy 16y agoWell... According to this http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/30/steve-ballmer-on-the-ipad-the-transcript/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/30/steve-ballmer-on-the-... theirs will even print. I can't imagine how Apple will be able to compete with something so revolutionary.
- stcredzero 16y agoIsn't there an app for printing?
- rbanffy 16y agoDunno. It wouldn't violate the store TOS...
- Samuel_Michon 16y agoThere are actually dozens of apps for that. Here's a few: ActivePrint http://prmac.com/release-id-13473.htm http://prmac.com/release-id-13473.htm iPrintApp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351954,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351954,00.asp Air Sharing Pro http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351933,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351933,00.asp HP iPrint Photo http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351934,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351934,00.asp Canon Easy Photo-Print http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101602canonprintapp.asp http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101602canonprintapp.asp
- watmough 16y agoI sure hope they waterproof it. Sorry Steve. I'm laughing my ass off at his answers though. "I relish the competition. I relish holding up those couple of machines today that I wanted to hand you. It's not today. I'll relish doing it tomorrow. Bring on ‑‑ particularly if with the application base, with the tools that we have, with the user understanding and momentum and everything going on, we can't compete with ‑‑ particularly whatever the weird collection of Android machines is going to look like, shame on us." I hate to even hint at politics here, but does he not sound like Sarah Palin in that response. Unfocused and just blabbering on for the sake of it. Microsoft's real problem is that they just have too much management, and they deeply miss the commercial and technical instinct of Bill Gates. As a result, they just can't iterate quickly on any meaningful scale. Microsoft's best hope for a decent tablet is to bang hard on the Windows Phone 7 stuff, but they are way behind, and may end up being 'niched', though unlike Palm with WebOS, they have the deep pockets to pour money into Win Phone 7 forever. Just one screenshot of a Norton, Symantec or Macaffee dialog demanding an anti-virus subscription, and the Windows 7 tablet is toast.
- elblanco 16y agoI was going to supply quotes here from the article, quotes that Ballmer made demonstrating his complete lack of competency in understanding the playing field, but then I realized that was all of them.
- geophile 16y agoHey Steve, what's Job Two?
- Samuel_Michon 16y ago"Job one" is singular, "Steve Jobs" is plural :)
- tlrobinson 16y agoWhen was the last time something described as a "X killer" actually killed, or took significant market share away from, X?
- sielskr 16y agoWell, Microsoft did kill Netscape Navigator. Only conflict within Microsoft between those who wanted to protect the revenue streams from Windows and Office against web apps and those who wanted keep on improving Internet Explorer even if the improvements erode those revenue streams allowed competing browsers to get the beachhead they have now.
- Samuel_Michon 16y agoWhen Adobe InDesign was released (1999), it was soon called the Quark XPress killer. http://www.macworld.com/article/21336/2001/02/indesign.html http://www.macworld.com/article/21336/2001/02/indesign.html A couple of years later, most print shops had switched to InDesign. (EDIT: The print shops I was working with had all switched to InDesign by 2002. I'm sure that it took longer in other parts of the country. Be that as it may, it has definitely become the layout package of choice.)
- bradleyland 16y agoIt took a hell of a lot more than a couple of years.
- ja27 16y agoWhy not innovate instead? Or go after Apple where Apple is weak? AppleTV is a great target. Microsoft could own the home theater PC market a lot easier than they could catch iPad.
- endtime 16y agoI haven't used it, but I've heard that Windows Home Server is actually pretty good. Not particularly well publicized, though. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowsh...
- slantyyz 16y agoThe fact that Ballmer is talking Windows 7 makes the whole idea doomed to fail. Why not Windows Mobile 7 (or whatever they're calling it these days)? I have never been a fan of Windows Mobile-- each WM phone I had prior to the iPhone, I wanted to smash into the ground. Windows Mobile 7, however, actually looks pretty nice, and it seems like a fresh UI (even though it is Zune-like). It's not my taste in design, but it seems much more well suited to a slate interface than Windows 7.
- unclebob 16y agohahahahahahahahahahahahaha (Sorry but I couldn't resist)
- warmfuzzykitten 16y agoMicrosoft "innovation": Three rotten product generations followed by an Apple clone.