9 ms·

The inside story of how Microsoft killed its Courier tablet (Part 1)

165 points by desigooner 15y ago

cryptoz 15y ago
It's incredible that parts of Microsoft were considering a tablet without email, and excellent of Ballmer to go get Gates to tell him no (though odd that Ballmer couldn't figure that one out himself). Then RIM launched a tablet with no email, and....yeah. Not such a good idea.
- rrrazdan 15y ago
  I don't get your comment. Web based email. All I have ever used in my life.
  - shabda 15y ago
    I have an iPad and I have never used mail.app. I use Browser+gmail, so I agree with you statement. Tablet without email is reasonable IMO.
    - cryptoz 15y ago
      Does this mean you never get email notifications? In order to check your email, you have to pick up your tablet, turn it on, unlock it, open the browser, navigate to gmail.com, log in, and then see? On the Xoom, it notifies me if anything happens and my email is a home screen widget - the process seems significantly smoother and faster this way.
      - paganel 15y ago
        > On the Xoom, it notifies me if anything happens and my email is a home screen widget - the process seems significantly smoother and faster this way. If I were to have a tablet I think I'd only use it at home, among family members and enjoying my free time. In that case NO email is that important to require immediate action, and for the few, inevitable exceptions (web-server going down, payment system not working etc.) I've instructed my boss to call me on the phone directly.
      - philwelch 15y ago
        Email was never intended as a real-time, synchronous medium.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        cryptoz 15y ago
        Time changes all things.
        philwelch 15y ago
        I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that, if you're a manager, you should keep on top of your email. If your work involves coordinating other people, you'll spend most of your time in email anyway. But that's as far as it goes. I'm not a manager. When I'm at work on my computer, I want my email client to not pester me. Instead, I will go to it once or twice a day when I've reached a natural pause in my work. When I'm at home on my tablet, I want my email client to not pester me. Instead, I want to read the news, watch a movie, or otherwise enjoy myself unmolested. If something is urgent, I can receive calls and pages on my phone. My phone has an email client. I don't want it to pester me, either.
  - zmonkeyz 15y ago
    Yeah. I wonder if these same people bitching about no email client still use Eudora.
- cavalcade 15y ago
  the lack of email integration was the least of RIM tablet's problems...
  - commandar 15y ago
    How do you figure? The same basic hardware is remanifesting as the Kindle Fire, so that's not where RIM screwed up. When I talked to non-tech types about the Playbook, one of the common themes was "it's a Blackberry without email? That's stupid." I mean, to the average consumer Blackberry is largely synonymous with email and BBM. What made the move particularly bizaro is that RIM tried to sell this anti-feature as a corporate security thing... for a device whose primary appeal was to end consumers. Either way, it was a stupid waste of the Blackberry brand.
    - cavalcade 15y ago
      From RIM's marketing and positioning, Playbook was a companion device for the Blackberry and aimed squarely at the iPad. So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems.
      - commandar 15y ago
        >So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. I don't know a single person that uses a tablet that doesn't use it for email. >I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems. You're looking at it from a technical perspective, and the Playbook's failure was a complete lack of demand from consumers. When the people that actually buy tablets react to your marketing strategy with "that's stupid" and in turn refuse to buy your device, it doesn't matter if you have the best developer tools in the world; you've still set yourself up for failure.
        cavalcade 15y ago
        >So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. >I don't know a single person that uses a tablet that doesn't use it for email. Didn't say it CANNOT do email. webmail and email apps were welcome, and i didn't say that it wasnt a mistake (it was) but i think RIM went for an MVP (BB style email must've had a big time-to-market cost) to get to market faster. >I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems. >You're looking at it from a technical perspective, and the Playbook's failure was a complete lack of demand from consumers. When the people that actually buy tablets react to your marketing strategy with "that's stupid" and in turn refuse to buy your device, it doesn't matter if you have the best developer tools in the world; you've still set yourself up for failure. We are on the same page (hence the "direction") part. Playbook was a misguided attempt, instead of zagging. it wen t and battled with iPad squarely without the 10x improvement or any unfair advantage. In summation, i think the rank of problem of RIM's tablet strategy are: 1st: Wrong angle of attack, 2nd: platform friction , (close)3rd: key features weren't in the MVP.
- alecperkins 15y ago
  It's not that the Courier wouldn't have email, but that its reason for existence was not going to be hooking in to Exchange and Outlook.
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    Yeah, I realize as I kept reading that the conclusion I reached may be the same as Gates but for entirely different reasons. I would fear any tablet that launches without email because (for me and everyone I've ever met) Emailing is Use Case #1. It sounds like Gates feared the launch because it didn't align with current revenue.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
cavalcade 15y ago
I remembered how the Courier appealed to me more than the iPad when i saw that video. The moleskin form factor is also a big plus over iPad since it was less fragile and more compact (perfect for traveling). I don't understand why they couldn't pursue both, similar to the iPad & Macbook-pro dynamic.
tjogin 15y ago
How do you kill something that was never alive in the first place?
- Sembiance 15y ago
  Did you read the article? The Courier was VERY MUCH alive. Over 130 employees working on it with custom hardware prototypes and many systems very far along. It was certainly... killed.
  - sambeau 15y ago
    I guess this comes down to a when-does-life-begin argument. The courier was busy being born when it was killed.
funkah 15y ago
It looks like a big mess of jumbled ambitions. Microsoft needs to learn to keep it simple and design things that will actually be useful.
saturdayplace 15y ago
Typically the form-factor seems to dominate discussions of the Courier, but the really interesting thing is that it was intended to be a content creation device. Contrast that with the iPad which excels at providing consumption. We could have had two radically different tablet categories, each excellently tailored to one specific intent. Microsoft really could have had a hand in shaping the landscape where now they're catching up.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- roc 15y ago
  The reasons cited by people who claim the iPad "can't do content creation" is the virtual keyboard, which precludes efficient typing and the lack of legacy apps, which precludes existing workflows. The courier would be in that exact same position. And let us not forget that there are already two radically different tablet categories. One tailored to typing and legacy apps and the other tailored to all-new touch-focused apps. The market simply couldn't care less about the ones with keyboards and apps that were designed for mice.
  - rsynnott 15y ago
    And do remember that the "creation versus consumption" thing is a talking point originally introduced by... Microsoft! People somehow seem to have adopted it as a simple truth, but it's really a piece of marketing.
    - chollida1 15y ago
      > And do remember that the "creation versus consumption" thing is a talking point originally introduced by... Microsoft! Really? I didn't know that. When did they create this distinction?
      - culturestate 15y ago
        In a competitive analysis back in January. http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/01/24/what-microsoft-really-thinks-about-the-ipad/ http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/01/24/what-microsoft-re...
nextparadigms 15y ago
This confirms what I've suspected for a while. Microsoft is very afraid of disrupting its main business, which may actually lead to their downfall, if the process hasn't already started because of their slow reaction to the touchscreen devices market. Contrast this with Apple or Google, who aren't afraid to build another OS that is more forward looking, and may even end up replacing their main one down the line (iOS in Apple's case, Chrome OS in Google's case).
- lukejduncan 15y ago
  except Google and Apple don't make money off of an OS. For MS Windows is the product. For Apple it's the experience, and for Google the OS is a means to get you to their website/services without interference.
- frou_dh 15y ago
  How would Chrome OS replace Android? Android might adopt "omg webapps" but that seems about it.
- macspoofing 15y ago
  >Microsoft is very afraid of disrupting its main business Maybe, but this was a shitty idea.
schrototo 15y ago
Of course, Microsoft's real problem is not that they killed the product, but that they made it public at a time when it wasn't clear it would really go to market.
- colin_jack 15y ago
  Don't agree, to me the real problem is actually that they failed to make it or any other similiar consumer product.
  - roc 15y ago
    If it wasn't working in practice, not making it is a virtue, not a problem.
    - colin_jack 15y ago
      Don't really follow, what makes you say it was not working in practice?
      - roc 15y ago
        I said if. Microsoft killing it is only a problem if it was turning into a great device. Which we don't know any more than we know whether it was turning into a bad one.
- Hoff 15y ago
  Microsoft has a long history of commencing marketing well before a product is ready. How long was the run-up to Windows Cairo? (Ki-Rho; XP) That can be a very effective way to reduce or eliminate competition, and it's a technique that's helped Microsoft acquire dominance in a number of markets. With the current fondness for years of lead time for some Microsoft products and the occasional failure to release, Microsoft's competitors can target Microsoft's products well prior to release, and the inevitable critical reviews can gain visibility in the market. The actual Microsoft product releases - when the products are available to consumers, and the profits commence and the reviews and the competitors have all adapted and retargeted - have become anti-climactic.
bradleyland 15y ago
I know a lot of people were in love with the Courier idea, but I really appreciate Bill Gates' call on this one. What looks cool in a demo doesn't always translate to practice. There are a lot of uneasy questions here: * How big is the market for a content creation tablet in Allard's vision? * Is it safe to assume that architects, artists, etc would use such a device for their core work, or would it simply be a "for fun" device? "For fun" devices that sell at high price points are a big risk in my view. * With Allard bucking the notion that the product needed to align with Microsoft's core software line-up, how wise would it be to bet the future (post-PC world, yada yada) on a product that diverges from the company line, rather than converges? If Microsoft did anything with the Courier tablet, they should position it within their entertainment division along with the XBox. The issue with that is that they'd essentially be cultivating competing businesses within Microsoft. XBox + Courier becomes the "post-PC" business unit, while the Windows cash cow is forced to compete. I'm not sure that makes sense either. There is not an easy play here. I think Metro is a huge step forward for Microsoft, and they're making some interesting plays with regards to traditional Windows integration. It certainly looks a lot like what people have been screaming for: a tablet that can run a post-PC operating system, but can switch back to their tried and true Windows desktop when needed. The question is whether or not the compromise will deliver a sub-par experience.
- roc 15y ago
  When's the last time a dual-UI delivered a good experience? Microsoft's been down this road a few times and it hasn't worked yet. Just look at Tablet XP. How many great tablet apps are there? Ones that really leverage the stylus or were written to run efficiently and intelligently to start quickly, resume sessions, auto-save documents and preserve precious battery life? And how many were lazy ports with, maybe, enlarged controls and piles of inefficient legacy code lurking within? Code that just didn't map well to actual mobile use, where every second of delay feels like an age, and add up very quickly to a complete waste of time (compared to just walking over to a desktop). The only way I can see Windows 8's metro interface really working, is if the mode shift to classic Windows UI and apps is tied to a 'docking' situation. So, metro on the go, classic windows when you dock it into a proper display, keyboard, mouse and external power. That would give developers the right incentive to ensure they have something that works great while the user is out and about, designed specifically for that use case, while still keeping the full flexibility of legacy apps when the necessary peripherals (and plenty of electricity) are available.
Hov 15y ago
So...two screens. Meaning this thing was going to be both heavy AND a battery hog. How was this ever going to be a good idea?
k-mcgrady 15y ago
Although this could have been a really good product Bill Gates made the right call. This would have just fragmented Windows further by the sounds of it. Sinofsky's plan for Windows 8 to essentially make it work on PC's and Tablets looks good. And it is something MS has wanted to do for a long time. They've been putting full Windows on tablets for years but he has finally delivered an interface that will make it work.
brudgers 15y ago
This is one of those stories in which the facts are construed to fit the conventional wisdom regarding Microsoft, e.g. no mention of WP7 which was announced and previewed in the quarter immediately prior to the Courier's cancellation, no mention of the investment Microsoft made in development of the Metro interface, and of course no mention of the manufacturing costs inherent in a dual screen device or the energy such a device would consume with mainstream technology. Instead, there is the criticism that Microsoft is not enough like Apple (and a focus on personalities). When manufacturers don't see a way to build and sell dual screen tablets at a profit, Microsoft won't sell much of the software to run them. It is not as if Microsoft doesn't have the enough experience as a hardware provider to evaluate the economics of going it alone versus partnering with the electronics industry. And partnering with the electronics industry rather than competing as a manufacturer has - with the exception of the XBOX in a market dominated by proprietary hardware - been a highly successful course. Finally, it is not as if the design decisions underlying the courier are dead - a viable dual screen tablet is still as plausible today as it was when the iPad started shipping and there is no reason such a device could not run with a Metro interface or that the technology developed as part of the Courier project could not be incorporated. What was killed was a project which required forking the Windows roadmap in ways analogous to past Microsoft decisions and which led to Windows Mobile becoming a dead end overnight - never mind that a mobile device without email probably would have been stillborn.
- wanorris 15y ago
  You raise some good points here. I think ultimately it's clear that as cool as the Courier may have been, a "real" Windows tablet like the Win 8 Metro that's been previewed is the product Microsoft can really build around. In a perfect world, we'd have both devices, but there's an enormous danger in releasing an interim niche product before your real product arrived -- for example, the press surrounding the Kin phone was devastating, and almost certainly hurt the release of WinPhone 7. Even if the Courier turned out to be a success, it could have confused the marketplace. It's often said that one of Steve Jobs' greatest strength was his willingness to kill products before the light of day unless they were the right products and they were good enough. It's interesting that Ballmer leaned on Gates to make this decision, but I think Gates's decision was the right one for Microsoft.
shimfish 15y ago
I don't see how this was even a dilemma to Microsoft. The market for what is essentially a digital scrap book could have in no way justified it. Seriously, what percentage of the population would actually benefit from this functionality? Companies like Microsoft don't get into a market unless it's worth billions.
emehrkay 15y ago
To me the courier was a cool device, very confusing because some "pages" were browsers, some were note pads, some were image editors -- there were no clear boundaries, but it was still cool none the less. I feel that Steve Jobs would have went along with the idea of courier and not worry so much about their flagship os. Well, thats what happen with IOS. This makes me wonder how Gates and Jobs would have run Apple and MS if they were put in charge of the opposing team in 2005.
- suivix 15y ago
  Well iOS has been around in public since 2007, and it is certainly a flagship OS. Unlike whatever would go onto the Courier, iOS is arguably Apple's most important OS.
iradik 15y ago
Why did they work on the Courier in the first place? Couldn't Bill have asked if it supports e-mail before the project had hundreds of people assigned to it?
crikli 15y ago
This quote made Brook's law echo in my head: "But an employee who worked on Courier said the project was far enough along that the remaining work could have been completed in months if the company had added more people to the team." [Emphasis mine]
- huxley 15y ago
  Yeah, I basically agree except Brooks himself said in the Mythical Man-Month that Brooks' Law is "an outrageous oversimplification." Not every job is comparable to "nine women having one baby in one month." There can be sweet spots in staffing, and sometimes projects really don't have enough staff to achieve their goals.
- thought_alarm 15y ago
  But an employee who worked on Courier said the project was far enough along that the remaining work could have been completed in months Yeah. All they needed to do was bring in some programmers to start implementing the thing.
extension 15y ago
I would love to see the WTF look on Jobs' face when he first saw this device. What was Microsoft thinking? The iPad works because it gives you a simpler way to do the simplest things you would otherwise do at your desk. It fits into your life quickly and effortlessly and it's priced to be a discretionary purchase. This is all essential for a new product category. Microsoft thought that architects were going to pay probably over $1000 for this bizarre device to do work on it?? Highly trained people doing specialized work don't usually alter their workflow unless there is an obvious need and a proven solution. If they focussed the entire product on a single vertical then maybe they could sell a few. But an all-purpose creativity device with no 3rd party apps? That pie is in orbit. EDIT: don't agree then?
- gnaffle 15y ago
  I think you're spot on. Microsoft seems almost obsessed on demoing and talking about these lofty products, the Surface is another example. Real artists ship, as someone said.. What's interesting is that while Apple had the perfect pitch for the iPad (simple web browsing device), the form factor and touch screen made it possible to use it for almost anything. Now you see pilots, doctors and musicians use the iPad in their work. It's obvious that it's not limited to content consumption. Here's an idea: Make an app (or a framework) allowing two iPads to be connected over WiFi or with a special "dual iPad" cover that would make the app span the screens of both iPads. With this, you could recreate the Courier experience on a shipping device, priced at $800. If the iPad can do screen mirroring to an Apple TV, why not to another iPad? (Because Apple says so, of course. :) Stuff like this is starting to happen in a small way with WiST compatible music apps.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  What I found most ludicrous? Ballmer relying on Gates' taste to select one device or another. It's hard to fathom the absurdity of this. He did the right thing - this whole idea of making something for creative people, "for architects", is beyond ridiculous. But then how can a project go so bad (I am remembering the Kin) and nobody notices until there are 130 people working on it for a year? Here, when we have a stupid idea, it's usually killed at the 5-people-involved stage. Could it be Microsoft lacks adult supervision?
gamble 15y ago
> A new survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that more than 40 percent of current tablet users in the United States want a tablet that runs Windows. That number jumps to 53 percent when non-tablet owners are included. The reason: familiarity with Windows, which still runs nearly 90 percent of all PCs sold. Here, in a nutshell, is why Steve Jobs was right when he said that it wasn't the customer's job to know what they want. Not many people have the balls to risk cannibalizing their own product and launch a product that their marketeers are convinced the public doesn't want.
- culturestate 15y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but Henry Ford figured that out long before SJ was a twinkle in the valley's eye. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    To be fair, Jobs himself acknowledged this. Still, Ford made cars. What was interesting about Jobs taking that stance is that he was in a position to do something about it in tech, upending a lot of established dogma. And making a lot of money in the process.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    I always hate this quote. You should always ask people what they want, you just shouldn't literally deliver what they ask for when you can do much better.
    - WalterBright 15y ago
      It helps by reframing the question. Instead of asking people what they want, ask them what kinds of problems are they having with their existing solution. Often, they will tell you solutions, and you'll need to work backwards a bit till you discover what their pain points are. Once you thoroughly understand the problems they're having, you have a much better shot at crafting a great solution.
  - 15y ago
jasongullickson 15y ago
What a depressing read. If you have an iPad you might be interested to know these guys are trying to bring a taste of the Courier to Apple's tablet: http://tapose.tumblr.com/ http://tapose.tumblr.com/
larsberg 15y ago
This article sounds as if nobody on the Courier team had been prepped for a MSFT exec review. There's internal training you go through (Precision Questioning and Answering) that teaches you what BillG's email question was: A test of whether you thought your product through. The question could have been e-mail, browsing, orientation, lefties versus righties, market segmentation, price points, or compatibility with RTL languages, but doesn't really matter. It sounds as if Allard didn't have a full answer to the very obvious email question. And that was project death, back in old-world MSFT. Read some of the old examples from Joel on his BillG review; he was mainly checking to see if you had your product completely buttoned up before letting you ship. Because if the Courier team couldn't really answer how these "creatives" integrated email into their workflow in detail, 1) how can you be certain of their other decisions and 2) they probably would have shipped a half-baked V1 that would have taken two or three years to fix, by which point you would have been ready with Win8 tablet. Sure, it's possible that he was harping on tablet email the way he threw GC skepticism at DevDiv reviews Every. Single. Time. But, given that it was email and not OneNote (the by far most-loved tablet app, IIRC), I suspect that the Courier team was having trouble turning from a fun hippie prototype team into a shipping organization with all of the details necessary to produce a solid V1 product buttoned down and BillG called them on it.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  But J Allard has been through plenty of BillG reviews. He did the XBox and Zune. And was one of the instrumental people that pushed Microsoft to the internet. He was one of the rising young stars at Microsoft. He must've had Bill's ear on a regular basis in the past. I suspect this wasn't the first time he heard or got that feedback from Bill. Bill probably gave him the rope in the past, hoping that J would do something stunning. And when the story didn't come together the way he hoped, Bill hung him with it. Ironically, J's market failure, the Zune, will end up being the motivating UI force for WP7/Win8 which killed his Courier.
  - larsberg 15y ago
    > He did the XBox and Zune. I'm not sure on the timing, but these may have been in 2002 or more recent. At least from my experiences in DevDiv, that's around the time that BillG pretty much checked out. I think that point and the first versions of both of those products prove my point. The former really took a full generation before they figured out the market. Zune has a fantastic music service and the sharing gimmick worked quite well, but they never really managed to figure out a way for the device itself to become more than me-too in the eye of the consumer. I somehow love the idea of SteveB asking 2012-BillG to channel 1998-BillG and him just tearing into Allard, old-school review style. Particularly for some of the hippie free love divisions that don't have any former BillG TAs or the exec review culture, it would've been a bloodbath.
cheald 15y ago
It makes me kind of sad that we won't see something like the Courier. The biggest problem with the current tablet market is that it's the iPad and a bunch of devices that are emulating the iPad - they're all dumb-terminal content-consumption devices, basically. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it isn't a full computer-replacement experience (no matter how much Apple wants you to believe it is). A tablet form-factor device geared at content creation would fill a major gap in the tablet market, I think. My iPad is great for watching Netflix in bed or for reading Flipboard feeds on the can, but using it to create anything longer than a 2-sentence reply to an email is just a chore. A "digital notebook" would be a really welcome addition to the market space. Something that would let me take notes, write easily, capture and annotate photos, tinker with design tools, or maybe even write code on the go, which could then be easily transferred back and forth between my workstation and "notebook" would get my money in a heartbeat. The closest analog is the Macbook Air, not the iPad, but I think there's a place between the Air and the tablet that we could see some neat progress in.

165 points by desigooner 15y ago

It's incredible that parts of Microsoft were considering a tablet without email, and excellent of Ballmer to go get Gates to tell him no (though odd that Ballmer couldn't figure that one out himself). Then RIM launched a tablet with no email, and....yeah. Not such a good idea.

rrrazdan 15y ago
I don't get your comment. Web based email. All I have ever used in my life.
- shabda 15y ago
  I have an iPad and I have never used mail.app. I use Browser+gmail, so I agree with you statement. Tablet without email is reasonable IMO.
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    Does this mean you never get email notifications? In order to check your email, you have to pick up your tablet, turn it on, unlock it, open the browser, navigate to gmail.com, log in, and then see? On the Xoom, it notifies me if anything happens and my email is a home screen widget - the process seems significantly smoother and faster this way.
    - paganel 15y ago
      > On the Xoom, it notifies me if anything happens and my email is a home screen widget - the process seems significantly smoother and faster this way. If I were to have a tablet I think I'd only use it at home, among family members and enjoying my free time. In that case NO email is that important to require immediate action, and for the few, inevitable exceptions (web-server going down, payment system not working etc.) I've instructed my boss to call me on the phone directly.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      Email was never intended as a real-time, synchronous medium.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - cryptoz 15y ago
        Time changes all things.
        philwelch 15y ago
        I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that, if you're a manager, you should keep on top of your email. If your work involves coordinating other people, you'll spend most of your time in email anyway. But that's as far as it goes. I'm not a manager. When I'm at work on my computer, I want my email client to not pester me. Instead, I will go to it once or twice a day when I've reached a natural pause in my work. When I'm at home on my tablet, I want my email client to not pester me. Instead, I want to read the news, watch a movie, or otherwise enjoy myself unmolested. If something is urgent, I can receive calls and pages on my phone. My phone has an email client. I don't want it to pester me, either.
- zmonkeyz 15y ago
  Yeah. I wonder if these same people bitching about no email client still use Eudora.
cavalcade 15y ago
the lack of email integration was the least of RIM tablet's problems...
- commandar 15y ago
  How do you figure? The same basic hardware is remanifesting as the Kindle Fire, so that's not where RIM screwed up. When I talked to non-tech types about the Playbook, one of the common themes was "it's a Blackberry without email? That's stupid." I mean, to the average consumer Blackberry is largely synonymous with email and BBM. What made the move particularly bizaro is that RIM tried to sell this anti-feature as a corporate security thing... for a device whose primary appeal was to end consumers. Either way, it was a stupid waste of the Blackberry brand.
  - cavalcade 15y ago
    From RIM's marketing and positioning, Playbook was a companion device for the Blackberry and aimed squarely at the iPad. So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems.
    - commandar 15y ago
      >So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. I don't know a single person that uses a tablet that doesn't use it for email. >I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems. You're looking at it from a technical perspective, and the Playbook's failure was a complete lack of demand from consumers. When the people that actually buy tablets react to your marketing strategy with "that's stupid" and in turn refuse to buy your device, it doesn't matter if you have the best developer tools in the world; you've still set yourself up for failure.
      - cavalcade 15y ago
        >So in that POV, the playbook was for the people who already had email and bbm. >I don't know a single person that uses a tablet that doesn't use it for email. Didn't say it CANNOT do email. webmail and email apps were welcome, and i didn't say that it wasnt a mistake (it was) but i think RIM went for an MVP (BB style email must've had a big time-to-market cost) to get to market faster. >I think the high developer friction (poor tools, poor stores, etc.) and the wrong direction were among the bigger problems. >You're looking at it from a technical perspective, and the Playbook's failure was a complete lack of demand from consumers. When the people that actually buy tablets react to your marketing strategy with "that's stupid" and in turn refuse to buy your device, it doesn't matter if you have the best developer tools in the world; you've still set yourself up for failure. We are on the same page (hence the "direction") part. Playbook was a misguided attempt, instead of zagging. it wen t and battled with iPad squarely without the 10x improvement or any unfair advantage. In summation, i think the rank of problem of RIM's tablet strategy are: 1st: Wrong angle of attack, 2nd: platform friction , (close)3rd: key features weren't in the MVP.
alecperkins 15y ago
It's not that the Courier wouldn't have email, but that its reason for existence was not going to be hooking in to Exchange and Outlook.
- cryptoz 15y ago
  Yeah, I realize as I kept reading that the conclusion I reached may be the same as Gates but for entirely different reasons. I would fear any tablet that launches without email because (for me and everyone I've ever met) Emailing is Use Case #1. It sounds like Gates feared the launch because it didn't align with current revenue.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

cavalcade 15y ago

I remembered how the Courier appealed to me more than the iPad when i saw that video. The moleskin form factor is also a big plus over iPad since it was less fragile and more compact (perfect for traveling). I don't understand why they couldn't pursue both, similar to the iPad & Macbook-pro dynamic.

tjogin 15y ago

How do you kill something that was never alive in the first place?

Sembiance 15y ago
Did you read the article? The Courier was VERY MUCH alive. Over 130 employees working on it with custom hardware prototypes and many systems very far along. It was certainly... killed.
- sambeau 15y ago
  I guess this comes down to a when-does-life-begin argument. The courier was busy being born when it was killed.

funkah 15y ago

It looks like a big mess of jumbled ambitions. Microsoft needs to learn to keep it simple and design things that will actually be useful.

saturdayplace 15y ago

Typically the form-factor seems to dominate discussions of the Courier, but the really interesting thing is that it was intended to be a content creation device. Contrast that with the iPad which excels at providing consumption. We could have had two radically different tablet categories, each excellently tailored to one specific intent. Microsoft really could have had a hand in shaping the landscape where now they're catching up.

deleted 15y ago
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roc 15y ago
The reasons cited by people who claim the iPad "can't do content creation" is the virtual keyboard, which precludes efficient typing and the lack of legacy apps, which precludes existing workflows. The courier would be in that exact same position. And let us not forget that there are already two radically different tablet categories. One tailored to typing and legacy apps and the other tailored to all-new touch-focused apps. The market simply couldn't care less about the ones with keyboards and apps that were designed for mice.
- rsynnott 15y ago
  And do remember that the "creation versus consumption" thing is a talking point originally introduced by... Microsoft! People somehow seem to have adopted it as a simple truth, but it's really a piece of marketing.
  - chollida1 15y ago
    > And do remember that the "creation versus consumption" thing is a talking point originally introduced by... Microsoft! Really? I didn't know that. When did they create this distinction?
    - culturestate 15y ago
      In a competitive analysis back in January. http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/01/24/what-microsoft-really-thinks-about-the-ipad/ http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/01/24/what-microsoft-re...

nextparadigms 15y ago

This confirms what I've suspected for a while. Microsoft is very afraid of disrupting its main business, which may actually lead to their downfall, if the process hasn't already started because of their slow reaction to the touchscreen devices market. Contrast this with Apple or Google, who aren't afraid to build another OS that is more forward looking, and may even end up replacing their main one down the line (iOS in Apple's case, Chrome OS in Google's case).

lukejduncan 15y ago
except Google and Apple don't make money off of an OS. For MS Windows is the product. For Apple it's the experience, and for Google the OS is a means to get you to their website/services without interference.
frou_dh 15y ago
How would Chrome OS replace Android? Android might adopt "omg webapps" but that seems about it.
macspoofing 15y ago
>Microsoft is very afraid of disrupting its main business Maybe, but this was a shitty idea.

schrototo 15y ago

Of course, Microsoft's real problem is not that they killed the product, but that they made it public at a time when it wasn't clear it would really go to market.

colin_jack 15y ago
Don't agree, to me the real problem is actually that they failed to make it or any other similiar consumer product.
- roc 15y ago
  If it wasn't working in practice, not making it is a virtue, not a problem.
  - colin_jack 15y ago
    Don't really follow, what makes you say it was not working in practice?
    - roc 15y ago
      I said if. Microsoft killing it is only a problem if it was turning into a great device. Which we don't know any more than we know whether it was turning into a bad one.
Hoff 15y ago
Microsoft has a long history of commencing marketing well before a product is ready. How long was the run-up to Windows Cairo? (Ki-Rho; XP) That can be a very effective way to reduce or eliminate competition, and it's a technique that's helped Microsoft acquire dominance in a number of markets. With the current fondness for years of lead time for some Microsoft products and the occasional failure to release, Microsoft's competitors can target Microsoft's products well prior to release, and the inevitable critical reviews can gain visibility in the market. The actual Microsoft product releases - when the products are available to consumers, and the profits commence and the reviews and the competitors have all adapted and retargeted - have become anti-climactic.

bradleyland 15y ago

I know a lot of people were in love with the Courier idea, but I really appreciate Bill Gates' call on this one. What looks cool in a demo doesn't always translate to practice. There are a lot of uneasy questions here: * How big is the market for a content creation tablet in Allard's vision? * Is it safe to assume that architects, artists, etc would use such a device for their core work, or would it simply be a "for fun" device? "For fun" devices that sell at high price points are a big risk in my view. * With Allard bucking the notion that the product needed to align with Microsoft's core software line-up, how wise would it be to bet the future (post-PC world, yada yada) on a product that diverges from the company line, rather than converges? If Microsoft did anything with the Courier tablet, they should position it within their entertainment division along with the XBox. The issue with that is that they'd essentially be cultivating competing businesses within Microsoft. XBox + Courier becomes the "post-PC" business unit, while the Windows cash cow is forced to compete. I'm not sure that makes sense either. There is not an easy play here. I think Metro is a huge step forward for Microsoft, and they're making some interesting plays with regards to traditional Windows integration. It certainly looks a lot like what people have been screaming for: a tablet that can run a post-PC operating system, but can switch back to their tried and true Windows desktop when needed. The question is whether or not the compromise will deliver a sub-par experience.

roc 15y ago
When's the last time a dual-UI delivered a good experience? Microsoft's been down this road a few times and it hasn't worked yet. Just look at Tablet XP. How many great tablet apps are there? Ones that really leverage the stylus or were written to run efficiently and intelligently to start quickly, resume sessions, auto-save documents and preserve precious battery life? And how many were lazy ports with, maybe, enlarged controls and piles of inefficient legacy code lurking within? Code that just didn't map well to actual mobile use, where every second of delay feels like an age, and add up very quickly to a complete waste of time (compared to just walking over to a desktop). The only way I can see Windows 8's metro interface really working, is if the mode shift to classic Windows UI and apps is tied to a 'docking' situation. So, metro on the go, classic windows when you dock it into a proper display, keyboard, mouse and external power. That would give developers the right incentive to ensure they have something that works great while the user is out and about, designed specifically for that use case, while still keeping the full flexibility of legacy apps when the necessary peripherals (and plenty of electricity) are available.

Hov 15y ago

So...two screens. Meaning this thing was going to be both heavy AND a battery hog. How was this ever going to be a good idea?

k-mcgrady 15y ago

Although this could have been a really good product Bill Gates made the right call. This would have just fragmented Windows further by the sounds of it. Sinofsky's plan for Windows 8 to essentially make it work on PC's and Tablets looks good. And it is something MS has wanted to do for a long time. They've been putting full Windows on tablets for years but he has finally delivered an interface that will make it work.

brudgers 15y ago

This is one of those stories in which the facts are construed to fit the conventional wisdom regarding Microsoft, e.g. no mention of WP7 which was announced and previewed in the quarter immediately prior to the Courier's cancellation, no mention of the investment Microsoft made in development of the Metro interface, and of course no mention of the manufacturing costs inherent in a dual screen device or the energy such a device would consume with mainstream technology. Instead, there is the criticism that Microsoft is not enough like Apple (and a focus on personalities). When manufacturers don't see a way to build and sell dual screen tablets at a profit, Microsoft won't sell much of the software to run them. It is not as if Microsoft doesn't have the enough experience as a hardware provider to evaluate the economics of going it alone versus partnering with the electronics industry. And partnering with the electronics industry rather than competing as a manufacturer has - with the exception of the XBOX in a market dominated by proprietary hardware - been a highly successful course. Finally, it is not as if the design decisions underlying the courier are dead - a viable dual screen tablet is still as plausible today as it was when the iPad started shipping and there is no reason such a device could not run with a Metro interface or that the technology developed as part of the Courier project could not be incorporated. What was killed was a project which required forking the Windows roadmap in ways analogous to past Microsoft decisions and which led to Windows Mobile becoming a dead end overnight - never mind that a mobile device without email probably would have been stillborn.

wanorris 15y ago
You raise some good points here. I think ultimately it's clear that as cool as the Courier may have been, a "real" Windows tablet like the Win 8 Metro that's been previewed is the product Microsoft can really build around. In a perfect world, we'd have both devices, but there's an enormous danger in releasing an interim niche product before your real product arrived -- for example, the press surrounding the Kin phone was devastating, and almost certainly hurt the release of WinPhone 7. Even if the Courier turned out to be a success, it could have confused the marketplace. It's often said that one of Steve Jobs' greatest strength was his willingness to kill products before the light of day unless they were the right products and they were good enough. It's interesting that Ballmer leaned on Gates to make this decision, but I think Gates's decision was the right one for Microsoft.

shimfish 15y ago

I don't see how this was even a dilemma to Microsoft. The market for what is essentially a digital scrap book could have in no way justified it. Seriously, what percentage of the population would actually benefit from this functionality? Companies like Microsoft don't get into a market unless it's worth billions.

emehrkay 15y ago

To me the courier was a cool device, very confusing because some "pages" were browsers, some were note pads, some were image editors -- there were no clear boundaries, but it was still cool none the less. I feel that Steve Jobs would have went along with the idea of courier and not worry so much about their flagship os. Well, thats what happen with IOS. This makes me wonder how Gates and Jobs would have run Apple and MS if they were put in charge of the opposing team in 2005.

suivix 15y ago
Well iOS has been around in public since 2007, and it is certainly a flagship OS. Unlike whatever would go onto the Courier, iOS is arguably Apple's most important OS.

iradik 15y ago

Why did they work on the Courier in the first place? Couldn't Bill have asked if it supports e-mail before the project had hundreds of people assigned to it?

crikli 15y ago

This quote made Brook's law echo in my head: "But an employee who worked on Courier said the project was far enough along that the remaining work could have been completed in months if the company had added more people to the team." [Emphasis mine]

huxley 15y ago
Yeah, I basically agree except Brooks himself said in the Mythical Man-Month that Brooks' Law is "an outrageous oversimplification." Not every job is comparable to "nine women having one baby in one month." There can be sweet spots in staffing, and sometimes projects really don't have enough staff to achieve their goals.
thought_alarm 15y ago
But an employee who worked on Courier said the project was far enough along that the remaining work could have been completed in months Yeah. All they needed to do was bring in some programmers to start implementing the thing.

extension 15y ago

I would love to see the WTF look on Jobs' face when he first saw this device. What was Microsoft thinking? The iPad works because it gives you a simpler way to do the simplest things you would otherwise do at your desk. It fits into your life quickly and effortlessly and it's priced to be a discretionary purchase. This is all essential for a new product category. Microsoft thought that architects were going to pay probably over $1000 for this bizarre device to do work on it?? Highly trained people doing specialized work don't usually alter their workflow unless there is an obvious need and a proven solution. If they focussed the entire product on a single vertical then maybe they could sell a few. But an all-purpose creativity device with no 3rd party apps? That pie is in orbit. EDIT: don't agree then?

gnaffle 15y ago
I think you're spot on. Microsoft seems almost obsessed on demoing and talking about these lofty products, the Surface is another example. Real artists ship, as someone said.. What's interesting is that while Apple had the perfect pitch for the iPad (simple web browsing device), the form factor and touch screen made it possible to use it for almost anything. Now you see pilots, doctors and musicians use the iPad in their work. It's obvious that it's not limited to content consumption. Here's an idea: Make an app (or a framework) allowing two iPads to be connected over WiFi or with a special "dual iPad" cover that would make the app span the screens of both iPads. With this, you could recreate the Courier experience on a shipping device, priced at $800. If the iPad can do screen mirroring to an Apple TV, why not to another iPad? (Because Apple says so, of course. :) Stuff like this is starting to happen in a small way with WiST compatible music apps.
rbanffy 15y ago
What I found most ludicrous? Ballmer relying on Gates' taste to select one device or another. It's hard to fathom the absurdity of this. He did the right thing - this whole idea of making something for creative people, "for architects", is beyond ridiculous. But then how can a project go so bad (I am remembering the Kin) and nobody notices until there are 130 people working on it for a year? Here, when we have a stupid idea, it's usually killed at the 5-people-involved stage. Could it be Microsoft lacks adult supervision?

gamble 15y ago

> A new survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that more than 40 percent of current tablet users in the United States want a tablet that runs Windows. That number jumps to 53 percent when non-tablet owners are included. The reason: familiarity with Windows, which still runs nearly 90 percent of all PCs sold. Here, in a nutshell, is why Steve Jobs was right when he said that it wasn't the customer's job to know what they want. Not many people have the balls to risk cannibalizing their own product and launch a product that their marketeers are convinced the public doesn't want.

culturestate 15y ago
Not to be pedantic, but Henry Ford figured that out long before SJ was a twinkle in the valley's eye. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
- danilocampos 15y ago
  To be fair, Jobs himself acknowledged this. Still, Ford made cars. What was interesting about Jobs taking that stance is that he was in a position to do something about it in tech, upending a lot of established dogma. And making a lot of money in the process.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  I always hate this quote. You should always ask people what they want, you just shouldn't literally deliver what they ask for when you can do much better.
  - WalterBright 15y ago
    It helps by reframing the question. Instead of asking people what they want, ask them what kinds of problems are they having with their existing solution. Often, they will tell you solutions, and you'll need to work backwards a bit till you discover what their pain points are. Once you thoroughly understand the problems they're having, you have a much better shot at crafting a great solution.
- 15y ago

jasongullickson 15y ago

What a depressing read. If you have an iPad you might be interested to know these guys are trying to bring a taste of the Courier to Apple's tablet: http://tapose.tumblr.com/ http://tapose.tumblr.com/

larsberg 15y ago

This article sounds as if nobody on the Courier team had been prepped for a MSFT exec review. There's internal training you go through (Precision Questioning and Answering) that teaches you what BillG's email question was: A test of whether you thought your product through. The question could have been e-mail, browsing, orientation, lefties versus righties, market segmentation, price points, or compatibility with RTL languages, but doesn't really matter. It sounds as if Allard didn't have a full answer to the very obvious email question. And that was project death, back in old-world MSFT. Read some of the old examples from Joel on his BillG review; he was mainly checking to see if you had your product completely buttoned up before letting you ship. Because if the Courier team couldn't really answer how these "creatives" integrated email into their workflow in detail, 1) how can you be certain of their other decisions and 2) they probably would have shipped a half-baked V1 that would have taken two or three years to fix, by which point you would have been ready with Win8 tablet. Sure, it's possible that he was harping on tablet email the way he threw GC skepticism at DevDiv reviews Every. Single. Time. But, given that it was email and not OneNote (the by far most-loved tablet app, IIRC), I suspect that the Courier team was having trouble turning from a fun hippie prototype team into a shipping organization with all of the details necessary to produce a solid V1 product buttoned down and BillG called them on it.

kenjackson 15y ago
But J Allard has been through plenty of BillG reviews. He did the XBox and Zune. And was one of the instrumental people that pushed Microsoft to the internet. He was one of the rising young stars at Microsoft. He must've had Bill's ear on a regular basis in the past. I suspect this wasn't the first time he heard or got that feedback from Bill. Bill probably gave him the rope in the past, hoping that J would do something stunning. And when the story didn't come together the way he hoped, Bill hung him with it. Ironically, J's market failure, the Zune, will end up being the motivating UI force for WP7/Win8 which killed his Courier.
- larsberg 15y ago
  > He did the XBox and Zune. I'm not sure on the timing, but these may have been in 2002 or more recent. At least from my experiences in DevDiv, that's around the time that BillG pretty much checked out. I think that point and the first versions of both of those products prove my point. The former really took a full generation before they figured out the market. Zune has a fantastic music service and the sharing gimmick worked quite well, but they never really managed to figure out a way for the device itself to become more than me-too in the eye of the consumer. I somehow love the idea of SteveB asking 2012-BillG to channel 1998-BillG and him just tearing into Allard, old-school review style. Particularly for some of the hippie free love divisions that don't have any former BillG TAs or the exec review culture, it would've been a bloodbath.

cheald 15y ago

It makes me kind of sad that we won't see something like the Courier. The biggest problem with the current tablet market is that it's the iPad and a bunch of devices that are emulating the iPad - they're all dumb-terminal content-consumption devices, basically. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it isn't a full computer-replacement experience (no matter how much Apple wants you to believe it is). A tablet form-factor device geared at content creation would fill a major gap in the tablet market, I think. My iPad is great for watching Netflix in bed or for reading Flipboard feeds on the can, but using it to create anything longer than a 2-sentence reply to an email is just a chore. A "digital notebook" would be a really welcome addition to the market space. Something that would let me take notes, write easily, capture and annotate photos, tinker with design tools, or maybe even write code on the go, which could then be easily transferred back and forth between my workstation and "notebook" would get my money in a heartbeat. The closest analog is the Macbook Air, not the iPad, but I think there's a place between the Air and the tablet that we could see some neat progress in.