10 ms·

Perhaps for consumers, but enterprise/office-workers will never switch to tablets. Keyboard/mouse is just too damned efficient for data entry and manipulation.

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).

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).