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This is crazy talk. Microsoft needs a Windows compatible OS so they can leverage the millions of windows applications already written. To start from scratch wou

This is crazy talk. Microsoft needs a Windows compatible OS so they can leverage the millions of windows applications already written. To start from scratch would give up one of their main advantages. Best to stick with Windows, and focus on optimizing Windows 8 and Office 2012 for the tablet form factor. I love my iPad but I'd be willing to take a half-step back to a Windows tablet if it meant I could run Microsoft Office and other applications I need for my workflow. I think MS Office is much better positioned for tablets than most people realize. Ribbon strips provide friendly finger-sized buttons that are perfectly sized for tablets. If they can add media center and some sort of X-Box gaming they'll have a killer device. Granted, Apple will still own the "consumption device" market but there is a big need for "business tablets".

shortformblog 16y ago
Their history with Windows is not an advantage if the design of it is cumbersome and full of compromises. Which, more than anything, is what the point of the article is getting at. Microsoft has had a decade of chances in this market to pull off the "business tablet" market you're suggesting. And, well, they just haven't done it yet. If this is such a competitive advantage, why wasn't the iPad put on a Mac OSX architecture? Sometimes, an interface reboot is downright necessary. The Xbox 360, I'd argue, is the most successful non-Windows-related product they sell because it's clear that the interface design was tailored for the product. That's their problem. They don't know when to let go of their legacy and start fresh.
- andrewf 16y ago
  That Apple pulled off the interface reboot is, I think, the most astounding thing about the iOS devices. You can't beat the PC for breadth, depth, and availability of specialised apps. They've been evolving for 30 years now. But when the iPhone SDK became available there were 0 applications, and in less than 30 months the industry's grown an entire replacement software ecosystem that covers a great deal of what users want to do.
- contextfree 16y ago
  You could have made the same argument in 1989 about MSFT attempting to graft a GUI on top of the PC and DOS, though. They tried it a couple times with Windows 1 and 2 and largely failed, meanwhile Apple made a fresh start with the Mac and has been exciting everyone for five years, clearly MSFT's approach is inherently doomed to failure and they should either develop a brand-new HW/SW system from scratch or give up on GUI OS development and focus on Mac applications.
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    That's a really important point, I think. Looking back over the past 25 years, what has Apple consistently done better than any other technology company? Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. What has Microsoft consistently done? Just as you say, they consistently deliver a couple of turkey drops, and then start to get it right in version 3. It's not clear what "version 3" of MS's tablet strategy really is, or whether their product-development effort has reached that level yet. But if history is any guide, we'll know it when they ship it. Most likely, it will happen around the same time that Apple's proprietary, grasping nature starts to become self-defeating.
evo_9 16y ago
The problem with this is that they don't have a really solid established UI standard - or at least they make much less effort to promote or enforce it. I've used a lot of shareware and small developer type apps on osx, windows and linux, and the osx stuff is noticeable better in the UI department; it's pretty brutal how little effort most small dev's put into the UI or even graphic design. Even large developers have trouble creating well designed Ui's; I'm thinking of Quicken, which has always struck me as amateurish and dated though I haven't used it in a while so maybe it's improved. Point being, if you simply put a desktop OS on a tablet, most developers aren't going to do anything to make the experience great. This is something clearly lost on Ballmer as well.
kiujhyghjkl 16y ago
Windows apps like powerpoint ? I just installed an iPad for our sales guy - the iPad acts like a giant remote control for powerpoint (or whatever the apple eqivalent of powerpoint is). It shows you thumbnails of all the slides, lets you click between them and read notes - all while the iPad displays the main presentation on it's video port. You can even make edits with the on-screen keyboard - while the presentation is running. Compare that with any conference you have been to with Powerpoint on a PC. During the 5mins of trying to make powerpoint appear on the non-primary display of the laptop you then get introduced to the owners desktop, the photos of his kids, all the little popup reminders from explorer, the cell phone sync software, the corporate login complaining that it can find the domain controller. Then if they need to switch to another slide you have to drop back into edit mode, and wait while they navigate through powerpoint to the slide and restart the view again. If I was presenting to anything more important than a parent-teacher conference, the iPad would be worth it for that alone.

shortformblog 16y ago

Their history with Windows is not an advantage if the design of it is cumbersome and full of compromises. Which, more than anything, is what the point of the article is getting at. Microsoft has had a decade of chances in this market to pull off the "business tablet" market you're suggesting. And, well, they just haven't done it yet. If this is such a competitive advantage, why wasn't the iPad put on a Mac OSX architecture? Sometimes, an interface reboot is downright necessary. The Xbox 360, I'd argue, is the most successful non-Windows-related product they sell because it's clear that the interface design was tailored for the product. That's their problem. They don't know when to let go of their legacy and start fresh.

andrewf 16y ago
That Apple pulled off the interface reboot is, I think, the most astounding thing about the iOS devices. You can't beat the PC for breadth, depth, and availability of specialised apps. They've been evolving for 30 years now. But when the iPhone SDK became available there were 0 applications, and in less than 30 months the industry's grown an entire replacement software ecosystem that covers a great deal of what users want to do.
contextfree 16y ago
You could have made the same argument in 1989 about MSFT attempting to graft a GUI on top of the PC and DOS, though. They tried it a couple times with Windows 1 and 2 and largely failed, meanwhile Apple made a fresh start with the Mac and has been exciting everyone for five years, clearly MSFT's approach is inherently doomed to failure and they should either develop a brand-new HW/SW system from scratch or give up on GUI OS development and focus on Mac applications.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  That's a really important point, I think. Looking back over the past 25 years, what has Apple consistently done better than any other technology company? Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. What has Microsoft consistently done? Just as you say, they consistently deliver a couple of turkey drops, and then start to get it right in version 3. It's not clear what "version 3" of MS's tablet strategy really is, or whether their product-development effort has reached that level yet. But if history is any guide, we'll know it when they ship it. Most likely, it will happen around the same time that Apple's proprietary, grasping nature starts to become self-defeating.

evo_9 16y ago

The problem with this is that they don't have a really solid established UI standard - or at least they make much less effort to promote or enforce it. I've used a lot of shareware and small developer type apps on osx, windows and linux, and the osx stuff is noticeable better in the UI department; it's pretty brutal how little effort most small dev's put into the UI or even graphic design. Even large developers have trouble creating well designed Ui's; I'm thinking of Quicken, which has always struck me as amateurish and dated though I haven't used it in a while so maybe it's improved. Point being, if you simply put a desktop OS on a tablet, most developers aren't going to do anything to make the experience great. This is something clearly lost on Ballmer as well.

kiujhyghjkl 16y ago

Windows apps like powerpoint ? I just installed an iPad for our sales guy - the iPad acts like a giant remote control for powerpoint (or whatever the apple eqivalent of powerpoint is). It shows you thumbnails of all the slides, lets you click between them and read notes - all while the iPad displays the main presentation on it's video port. You can even make edits with the on-screen keyboard - while the presentation is running. Compare that with any conference you have been to with Powerpoint on a PC. During the 5mins of trying to make powerpoint appear on the non-primary display of the laptop you then get introduced to the owners desktop, the photos of his kids, all the little popup reminders from explorer, the cell phone sync software, the corporate login complaining that it can find the domain controller. Then if they need to switch to another slide you have to drop back into edit mode, and wait while they navigate through powerpoint to the slide and restart the view again. If I was presenting to anything more important than a parent-teacher conference, the iPad would be worth it for that alone.