5 ms·

>Microsoft is trying to win the few who want a tablet interface at the expense of the vast majority who want a PC, mouse-oriented interface for their...PC's and

>Microsoft is trying to win the few who want a tablet interface at the expense of the vast majority who want a PC, mouse-oriented interface for their...PC's and laptops. Interesting, I thought the wisdom here was that the post-PC era is upon us and PC are going to die? In that case MS is definitely going the right way.

roadnottaken 15y ago
Perhaps for consumers, but enterprise/office-workers will never switch to tablets. Keyboard/mouse is just too damned efficient for data entry and manipulation. And, I always thought that office-work/enterprise was MSFT's bread-and-butter.
- Splines 15y ago
  I think MSFT is worried about a future where IT workers bring in their personal tablets for consumption work - at some point they're going to become "good enough" for their creation work and replace the desktop PC (similar words were probably said about the mainframe). If they play a reactive role it may be too late.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  I think the idea is that you carry your tablet with you, then plug it into a dock with a keyboard/mouse when you are at a desk.
  - oakgrove 15y ago
    Yeah thanks. You just took me from having two devices before, e.g., a tablet and a desktop, and gave me one devices that does neither of the previous unit's respective job as well. Yay future.
  - huggyface 15y ago
    This notion gets a lot of play but I'm not buying it -- at least until several years down the road. Of course there are people for whom tablets are perfect -- inventory, front-line customer service, sales, etc -- however there are many where it is of questionable value. A major issue at many corporations is asset management, with laptop theft or loss being a massive problem. Now take all of those desktops and replace them with roaming, fragile tablets?
    - jiggy2011 15y ago
      I think possibly the corporation doesn't supply them. Employees simply provide their own hardware in the same way they buy their own cars. The difficulty here is of course with security etc, but most of the corporate apps are probably web based and hidden behind a firewall anyway and none of the data is cached on the users device.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Why would you need to? Most of your data is probably stored in "the cloud" anyway so switching between using 2 devices should be simple. All you do is save on the cost of having an extra CPU in the desktop system and this is partly offset by power considerations (since you can have a faster chip in the desktop).
randomnonsense 15y ago
Wisdom "here?" You can do better than to listen to the Y-Combinator-funded "geniuses who are attempting to re-implement poorly the protocols which worked fine 20+ years go. Oh, and they STILL work, too.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Well, I think people are re-implementing everything to run over port 80 with all the baggage that entails to get past firewalls. This will work until somebody comes up with web specific security software, then we'll rebuilt it all to work across twitter or something (think "packets" of 140 characters).
jiggy2011 15y ago
Depends what you define as a "PC" , if you mean an intel x86 CPU in a box with a MS operating system and a "C drive" as the dominant platform with 90%+ market share then probably yes. I don't really see this as PCs vs tablets where only one can be left standing, I think we will see a diverse range of devices and software come to market over the next few years. The ones that actually suit peoples needs will survive.
tomkin 15y ago
Heh. I think they are going the right way, too, but they're up against the types of those who think Facebook or YouTube should never change the UI and leave it alone forever. Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, when they should really have created an OS that ran alongside the PC market until the proverbial train tracks merged. This way, everyone melds into a comfort zone rather than being shoved into it (not comfy). I don't know if Apple initially figured this out intentionally but they are surely proud of it today, because people want iOS features on OSX – least to a degree. Apple incentivized the experience through the needs created by developers. Microsoft is not answering these needs (API) directly, instead, just supposing they should exist and that will translate into useful applications.
- lloeki 15y ago
  > Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa). Microsoft says their strategy is the Windows Everywhere convergence, and stitches the desktop and Metro side by side with no overlap. It's interesting to see that their approach is the exact opposite of one another.
  - tomkin 15y ago
    > Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa). I agree. But I think you think that this mentality is set in stone, just as console gaming must have a standard controller, or personal computing must have a physical keyboard. Touch is the marvel of today. Voice may be the marvel of tomorrow. Eventually a keyboard and mouse will be the old way of doing things. Your knee-jerk reaction to that sentence is also mine. I can't see a world without keyboard and mouse, but that is because nothing better currently exists. Remember: Unreasonable men with unreasonable ideas.... Touch only supplants certain features of the keyboard and mouse. Apple was unreasonable. Nintendo was unreasonable. What technology will be the next to pull us out of our comfy habits? The technology that improves upon the existing infrastructure wins, not the one that asks us to change our habits or do more work. Microsoft is asking their users to do just that – more work. Does it work in Metro? Standard? With iOS, I don't have to ask. I know. It is too underpowered to handle intensive applications. I don't have to look it up in the "app store" to find out. I don't have to look for "designed for X" stickers or buttons. I immediately know because my technological emersion and knowledge of what is possible makes this argument for me.
sliverstorm 15y ago
No no, the post-PC era has already arrived and the PC is all but dead already. MS is years late. (sent from my PC)

roadnottaken 15y ago

Perhaps for consumers, but enterprise/office-workers will never switch to tablets. Keyboard/mouse is just too damned efficient for data entry and manipulation. And, I always thought that office-work/enterprise was MSFT's bread-and-butter.

Splines 15y ago
I think MSFT is worried about a future where IT workers bring in their personal tablets for consumption work - at some point they're going to become "good enough" for their creation work and replace the desktop PC (similar words were probably said about the mainframe). If they play a reactive role it may be too late.
Symmetry 15y ago
I think the idea is that you carry your tablet with you, then plug it into a dock with a keyboard/mouse when you are at a desk.
- oakgrove 15y ago
  Yeah thanks. You just took me from having two devices before, e.g., a tablet and a desktop, and gave me one devices that does neither of the previous unit's respective job as well. Yay future.
- huggyface 15y ago
  This notion gets a lot of play but I'm not buying it -- at least until several years down the road. Of course there are people for whom tablets are perfect -- inventory, front-line customer service, sales, etc -- however there are many where it is of questionable value. A major issue at many corporations is asset management, with laptop theft or loss being a massive problem. Now take all of those desktops and replace them with roaming, fragile tablets?
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    I think possibly the corporation doesn't supply them. Employees simply provide their own hardware in the same way they buy their own cars. The difficulty here is of course with security etc, but most of the corporate apps are probably web based and hidden behind a firewall anyway and none of the data is cached on the users device.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Why would you need to? Most of your data is probably stored in "the cloud" anyway so switching between using 2 devices should be simple. All you do is save on the cost of having an extra CPU in the desktop system and this is partly offset by power considerations (since you can have a faster chip in the desktop).

randomnonsense 15y ago

Wisdom "here?" You can do better than to listen to the Y-Combinator-funded "geniuses who are attempting to re-implement poorly the protocols which worked fine 20+ years go. Oh, and they STILL work, too.

jiggy2011 15y ago
Well, I think people are re-implementing everything to run over port 80 with all the baggage that entails to get past firewalls. This will work until somebody comes up with web specific security software, then we'll rebuilt it all to work across twitter or something (think "packets" of 140 characters).

jiggy2011 15y ago

Depends what you define as a "PC" , if you mean an intel x86 CPU in a box with a MS operating system and a "C drive" as the dominant platform with 90%+ market share then probably yes. I don't really see this as PCs vs tablets where only one can be left standing, I think we will see a diverse range of devices and software come to market over the next few years. The ones that actually suit peoples needs will survive.

tomkin 15y ago

Heh. I think they are going the right way, too, but they're up against the types of those who think Facebook or YouTube should never change the UI and leave it alone forever. Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, when they should really have created an OS that ran alongside the PC market until the proverbial train tracks merged. This way, everyone melds into a comfort zone rather than being shoved into it (not comfy). I don't know if Apple initially figured this out intentionally but they are surely proud of it today, because people want iOS features on OSX – least to a degree. Apple incentivized the experience through the needs created by developers. Microsoft is not answering these needs (API) directly, instead, just supposing they should exist and that will translate into useful applications.

lloeki 15y ago
> Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa). Microsoft says their strategy is the Windows Everywhere convergence, and stitches the desktop and Metro side by side with no overlap. It's interesting to see that their approach is the exact opposite of one another.
- tomkin 15y ago
  > Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa). I agree. But I think you think that this mentality is set in stone, just as console gaming must have a standard controller, or personal computing must have a physical keyboard. Touch is the marvel of today. Voice may be the marvel of tomorrow. Eventually a keyboard and mouse will be the old way of doing things. Your knee-jerk reaction to that sentence is also mine. I can't see a world without keyboard and mouse, but that is because nothing better currently exists. Remember: Unreasonable men with unreasonable ideas.... Touch only supplants certain features of the keyboard and mouse. Apple was unreasonable. Nintendo was unreasonable. What technology will be the next to pull us out of our comfy habits? The technology that improves upon the existing infrastructure wins, not the one that asks us to change our habits or do more work. Microsoft is asking their users to do just that – more work. Does it work in Metro? Standard? With iOS, I don't have to ask. I know. It is too underpowered to handle intensive applications. I don't have to look it up in the "app store" to find out. I don't have to look for "designed for X" stickers or buttons. I immediately know because my technological emersion and knowledge of what is possible makes this argument for me.

sliverstorm 15y ago

No no, the post-PC era has already arrived and the PC is all but dead already. MS is years late. (sent from my PC)