6 ms·

Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet

41 points by ttunguz 14y ago

niels_olson 14y ago
Where'd all the comments go today? Great articles, no commentary? Is everyone on their way home from WWDC?
- SquareWheel 14y ago
  I stopped reading at the second paragraph. Microsoft is about to concede that Apple may be onto something. Microsoft has been wanting to do a tablet for a decade. It's not like Apple invented the concept.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    Maybe you should keep reading as you've completely misinterpreted the sentence. The author is stating the Microsoft has spent a long time trying to make a tablet by building software and leaving the hardware to others while Apple builds both the software and the hardware. Then the author states that maybe Microsoft is realizing they should build the hardware too.
- trimbo 14y ago
  Everyone was up all night dealing with EC2.
gfosco 14y ago
Unless they have a screen that can rival the Retina, this is dead on arrival.
- dman 14y ago
  What if its for 50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Or if it allows you to play Xbox games remotely over the internet? Or if it has great handwriting recognition? Or if you can program on it using any language you want?
  - gfosco 14y ago
    50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Then Microsoft loses an epic fortune and only has users without money. play Xbox games remotely over the internet? It's just unfeasible. Control schemes on a tablet do not translate to console games. great handwriting recognition? Then it's going to require a stylus, and many won't care. Not a good enough feature... The world has largely moved on from this desire. program on it using any language you want? Lol! We're talking about Microsoft here! It's going to be a WinRT walled garden!
    - cryptoz 14y ago
      You're missing the point that there isn't a single point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it. If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, then it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful metric to look at.
      - gfosco 14y ago
        The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a single point of failure, that's the one to bet on. Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market... even less so after the Retina iPad. Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition. I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a loss, and switched.
        14y ago
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  Yes, they will. http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8468.Scaling_2D002D002D00_Common_2D00_Sizes_5F00_5E732919.jpg http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit... From: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-different-screens.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-dif...
rlf 14y ago
Yawn...
Zirro 14y ago
Finally. One of the major reasons I use Apple-products today is that the hardware and software works together out of the box, which creates the feeling that they were made for each other. With clunky PCs, I've never experienced that feeling. Hopefully Microsoft can get it right this time, and make it feel like a quality product. While I enjoy using my Apple devices a lot, they do need some competition to fuel innovation. If Microsoft manages to pull this off the right way, with a feeling of great quality to it, I could even see myself buying one to try out Windows 8 properly.
- astrodust 14y ago
  This would burn so many bridges with their hardware manufacturers that some would defect and go with some other platform almost immediately. Microsoft thinks they're the king of the hill with Windows but it wouldn't take long for vendors to team up together and make Chrome OS, Android, or some other Linux variant into a viable alternative. All this alternate OS would have to do is everything that Windows XP does. The number of Windows 7 specific applications is shockingly low.
  - axefrog 14y ago
    Disagree. The hardware manufacturers aren't exactly rolling in high quality operating systems to choose from. What are their other choices? Linux. Many will of course argue that Linux is great and is an obvious choice, which would be a fair enough argument, but for the larger majority of the population who know Windows and don't want to learn something new, the manufacturers will need to stick with Windows or risk alienating those potential customers. Also, the argument is predicated on the assumption that this is a zero sum game. Microsoft's value proposition isn't suddenly going to be so amazing that no consumer will purchase a non-Microsoft PC. In the same way, I find it highly likely that if Apple's OS were available for licensing, a lot of PC manufacturers would license it without regard for the fact that Apple's hardware is probably superior.
    - astrodust 14y ago
      Microsoft's strength in the tablet space is anything but assured. People don't use proprietary Windows applications on them. They're not expecting to run high-end accounting packages or SQL Server or do .NET development. It's not even clear what Microsoft's value proposition is in this new space. If you look at applications on the iPad and Android, only a small portion of them are what you might term conventional by desktop standards.
kloc 14y ago
Designed by Microsoft and made by Nokia? This could be the very reason Nokia opted for Windows phone than choosing Android.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I think it's the other way around. MS partnered with Nokia, and then decided Nokia could do a tablet for them, too.
davidacoder 14y ago
I bet this is the mysterious project Dave Cutler has been working on lately! http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-cutler-father-of-windows-nt-now-working-on-xbox/11684 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-...
- Splines 14y ago
  Speaking of Cutler, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the book "Show Stopper!", which describes the early days of Windows NT. http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717 http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr...
greyman 14y ago
I am looking forward to this. Currently, I am using my wife's iPad now and then, and while the display and smoothness of interaction is top notch, I can't say I like the operating system... iOS isn't bad as an application launcher, but I find it too restricting for a tablet. I can't do basic things like configure something like startup script for an app, forward the output of one program to another one, etc. etc... While a lot of people seems to like iOS, something like Windows with touch seems much more appealing to me. Moreover, I could then have one system in both my PC and tablet, which is also (at least theoretically) great. I also own an iPhone, and there I think iOS is great, since I want my phone to be an application console, and nothing more. But in tablet, I'd like it to be more like a computer, so iOS is not adequate for me here.
- mc32 14y ago
  I'll have to wait and see. I'm wishing against hope that they'll bring to life some of the features in the Courier concept: Infinite journal, clip and paste, touch+stylus (stylus for writing ideographs --which are cumbersome by finger). Dual screen? Maybe as an alternate model. One of the main ideas is that it would not just be a presentation medium but also a production medium.
raganwald 14y ago
This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Windows cash flow stream, trying to get their organizations funded. You’d think they could just leave and found their own companies, but no, they’d have to make something people wanted relatively immediately, instead of being able to mouth platitudes about being “strategic” and “building moats” to “protect” Windows and so on and so forth. Or if you prefer, there is a Windows Tax, and these divisions are like government projects, each trying to justify their existence and draw upon the tax revenues. Like government projects, they are not accountable to the people who pay the taxes, just faceless mandarins at the top.They only lose if they are silly enough to cause a scandal with their foolishness and embarrass the company into firing them and defunding their projects. Building Kin, then killing it, then getting into bed with Nokia, then building their own tablet... Reminds me of the way the city contractors tear up my street, then pave it, then tear it up again, then pave it again, and so forth. As long as the bureaucracy is in control, and as long as the tax dollars keep flowing, it’s a game of who has the best PowerPoint.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- brudgers 14y ago
  Because Gates managed to more or less bootstrap Microsoft, he and Ballmer have maintained a significant degree of control. This allows them to orient the company toward the long term, rather than chasing this quarter's advice from Wall Street analysts. Microsoft has always approached relationships with a B2B strategy - the mea culpa following the red ring of death shows the way in which that culture extends into the consumer side of the equation. Management's job is to make sure that there are dividends going to all those pension funds which own their stock, not to entertain bloggers. If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Releasing their own hardware also brings the Windows RT restrictions regarding BIOS into a sensible light - not that dearth of consumer interest in Linux tablets made all the whining sensible. I suspect that Microsoft has looked at the existing tablet landscape and sized it up pretty accurately as people want eReaders and iPads, and believe that the best way to expand the market is to get telemetry on how tablets are actually used. Unlike your local paving company, Microsoft is gambling their own money, not driving up profits by looking for change orders.
wmf 14y ago
They could call it the Zune tablet.
grecy 14y ago
If this is true, is sounds a lot like Microsoft's foray into the portable digital music player market.... It reeks of trying to play catchup, but not quite ever getting there.
brudgers 14y ago
Microsoft has been looking at making a tablet since the Courier which was previewed in the run up to Apple's release of the iPad. What their ultimate strategy is remains to be seen but my guess is that if they are branding and distributing the hardware it's as a result of lackluster interest among consumer electronics companies in manufacturing such a device. Such disinterest, if it is the case, isn't particularly surprising given the consumer market's acceptance of Android driven tablets, and it may be reasonable to see Microsoft choosing to take on the hardware side for the sake of conducting research (ala' KIN). Alternatively, a Windows 8 tablet under the XBox brand makes a lot of sense given the success of that franchise and the level of acceptance that console competitors have achieved with portable gaming devices...e.g. Gameboy and PSP. A gaming focused marketing strategy has a lot going for it - "Mom, I can even do my homework on it because it comes with Word" and integration with XBox Live is already part of the Windows Phone 7 Gaming Hub. I suspect that a gaming focused device would match up pretty well against the iPad (and Android) because XNA offers a way of facilitating cross platform development. On a larger front, integration of a tablet with Kinnect would offer the potential for some really interesting applications out in the workplace.
DrJosiah 14y ago
I thought folks already knew about this? I know at least a few tech folks who have seen the Microsoft tablet demo'd, and been plied with free drinks to forget the experience. I can't believe that me, a tech guy in Los Angeles, heard about this (and saw a MSoftie in our shared office showing it to some folks) before people in NYC, SV, or Seattle. Wow.

41 points by ttunguz 14y ago

niels_olson 14y ago

Where'd all the comments go today? Great articles, no commentary? Is everyone on their way home from WWDC?

SquareWheel 14y ago
I stopped reading at the second paragraph. Microsoft is about to concede that Apple may be onto something. Microsoft has been wanting to do a tablet for a decade. It's not like Apple invented the concept.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Maybe you should keep reading as you've completely misinterpreted the sentence. The author is stating the Microsoft has spent a long time trying to make a tablet by building software and leaving the hardware to others while Apple builds both the software and the hardware. Then the author states that maybe Microsoft is realizing they should build the hardware too.
trimbo 14y ago
Everyone was up all night dealing with EC2.

gfosco 14y ago

Unless they have a screen that can rival the Retina, this is dead on arrival.

dman 14y ago
What if its for 50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Or if it allows you to play Xbox games remotely over the internet? Or if it has great handwriting recognition? Or if you can program on it using any language you want?
- gfosco 14y ago
  50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Then Microsoft loses an epic fortune and only has users without money. play Xbox games remotely over the internet? It's just unfeasible. Control schemes on a tablet do not translate to console games. great handwriting recognition? Then it's going to require a stylus, and many won't care. Not a good enough feature... The world has largely moved on from this desire. program on it using any language you want? Lol! We're talking about Microsoft here! It's going to be a WinRT walled garden!
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    You're missing the point that there isn't a single point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it. If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, then it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful metric to look at.
    - gfosco 14y ago
      The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a single point of failure, that's the one to bet on. Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market... even less so after the Retina iPad. Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition. I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a loss, and switched.
      - 14y ago
recoiledsnake 14y ago
Yes, they will. http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8468.Scaling_2D002D002D00_Common_2D00_Sizes_5F00_5E732919.jpg http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit... From: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-different-screens.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-dif...

rlf 14y ago

Yawn...

Zirro 14y ago

Finally. One of the major reasons I use Apple-products today is that the hardware and software works together out of the box, which creates the feeling that they were made for each other. With clunky PCs, I've never experienced that feeling. Hopefully Microsoft can get it right this time, and make it feel like a quality product. While I enjoy using my Apple devices a lot, they do need some competition to fuel innovation. If Microsoft manages to pull this off the right way, with a feeling of great quality to it, I could even see myself buying one to try out Windows 8 properly.

astrodust 14y ago
This would burn so many bridges with their hardware manufacturers that some would defect and go with some other platform almost immediately. Microsoft thinks they're the king of the hill with Windows but it wouldn't take long for vendors to team up together and make Chrome OS, Android, or some other Linux variant into a viable alternative. All this alternate OS would have to do is everything that Windows XP does. The number of Windows 7 specific applications is shockingly low.
- axefrog 14y ago
  Disagree. The hardware manufacturers aren't exactly rolling in high quality operating systems to choose from. What are their other choices? Linux. Many will of course argue that Linux is great and is an obvious choice, which would be a fair enough argument, but for the larger majority of the population who know Windows and don't want to learn something new, the manufacturers will need to stick with Windows or risk alienating those potential customers. Also, the argument is predicated on the assumption that this is a zero sum game. Microsoft's value proposition isn't suddenly going to be so amazing that no consumer will purchase a non-Microsoft PC. In the same way, I find it highly likely that if Apple's OS were available for licensing, a lot of PC manufacturers would license it without regard for the fact that Apple's hardware is probably superior.
  - astrodust 14y ago
    Microsoft's strength in the tablet space is anything but assured. People don't use proprietary Windows applications on them. They're not expecting to run high-end accounting packages or SQL Server or do .NET development. It's not even clear what Microsoft's value proposition is in this new space. If you look at applications on the iPad and Android, only a small portion of them are what you might term conventional by desktop standards.

kloc 14y ago

Designed by Microsoft and made by Nokia? This could be the very reason Nokia opted for Windows phone than choosing Android.

mtgx 14y ago
I think it's the other way around. MS partnered with Nokia, and then decided Nokia could do a tablet for them, too.

davidacoder 14y ago

I bet this is the mysterious project Dave Cutler has been working on lately! http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-cutler-father-of-windows-nt-now-working-on-xbox/11684 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-...

Splines 14y ago
Speaking of Cutler, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the book "Show Stopper!", which describes the early days of Windows NT. http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717 http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr...

greyman 14y ago

I am looking forward to this. Currently, I am using my wife's iPad now and then, and while the display and smoothness of interaction is top notch, I can't say I like the operating system... iOS isn't bad as an application launcher, but I find it too restricting for a tablet. I can't do basic things like configure something like startup script for an app, forward the output of one program to another one, etc. etc... While a lot of people seems to like iOS, something like Windows with touch seems much more appealing to me. Moreover, I could then have one system in both my PC and tablet, which is also (at least theoretically) great. I also own an iPhone, and there I think iOS is great, since I want my phone to be an application console, and nothing more. But in tablet, I'd like it to be more like a computer, so iOS is not adequate for me here.

mc32 14y ago
I'll have to wait and see. I'm wishing against hope that they'll bring to life some of the features in the Courier concept: Infinite journal, clip and paste, touch+stylus (stylus for writing ideographs --which are cumbersome by finger). Dual screen? Maybe as an alternate model. One of the main ideas is that it would not just be a presentation medium but also a production medium.

raganwald 14y ago

This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Windows cash flow stream, trying to get their organizations funded. You’d think they could just leave and found their own companies, but no, they’d have to make something people wanted relatively immediately, instead of being able to mouth platitudes about being “strategic” and “building moats” to “protect” Windows and so on and so forth. Or if you prefer, there is a Windows Tax, and these divisions are like government projects, each trying to justify their existence and draw upon the tax revenues. Like government projects, they are not accountable to the people who pay the taxes, just faceless mandarins at the top.They only lose if they are silly enough to cause a scandal with their foolishness and embarrass the company into firing them and defunding their projects. Building Kin, then killing it, then getting into bed with Nokia, then building their own tablet... Reminds me of the way the city contractors tear up my street, then pave it, then tear it up again, then pave it again, and so forth. As long as the bureaucracy is in control, and as long as the tax dollars keep flowing, it’s a game of who has the best PowerPoint.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
brudgers 14y ago
Because Gates managed to more or less bootstrap Microsoft, he and Ballmer have maintained a significant degree of control. This allows them to orient the company toward the long term, rather than chasing this quarter's advice from Wall Street analysts. Microsoft has always approached relationships with a B2B strategy - the mea culpa following the red ring of death shows the way in which that culture extends into the consumer side of the equation. Management's job is to make sure that there are dividends going to all those pension funds which own their stock, not to entertain bloggers. If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Releasing their own hardware also brings the Windows RT restrictions regarding BIOS into a sensible light - not that dearth of consumer interest in Linux tablets made all the whining sensible. I suspect that Microsoft has looked at the existing tablet landscape and sized it up pretty accurately as people want eReaders and iPads, and believe that the best way to expand the market is to get telemetry on how tablets are actually used. Unlike your local paving company, Microsoft is gambling their own money, not driving up profits by looking for change orders.

wmf 14y ago

They could call it the Zune tablet.

grecy 14y ago

If this is true, is sounds a lot like Microsoft's foray into the portable digital music player market.... It reeks of trying to play catchup, but not quite ever getting there.

brudgers 14y ago

Microsoft has been looking at making a tablet since the Courier which was previewed in the run up to Apple's release of the iPad. What their ultimate strategy is remains to be seen but my guess is that if they are branding and distributing the hardware it's as a result of lackluster interest among consumer electronics companies in manufacturing such a device. Such disinterest, if it is the case, isn't particularly surprising given the consumer market's acceptance of Android driven tablets, and it may be reasonable to see Microsoft choosing to take on the hardware side for the sake of conducting research (ala' KIN). Alternatively, a Windows 8 tablet under the XBox brand makes a lot of sense given the success of that franchise and the level of acceptance that console competitors have achieved with portable gaming devices...e.g. Gameboy and PSP. A gaming focused marketing strategy has a lot going for it - "Mom, I can even do my homework on it because it comes with Word" and integration with XBox Live is already part of the Windows Phone 7 Gaming Hub. I suspect that a gaming focused device would match up pretty well against the iPad (and Android) because XNA offers a way of facilitating cross platform development. On a larger front, integration of a tablet with Kinnect would offer the potential for some really interesting applications out in the workplace.

DrJosiah 14y ago

I thought folks already knew about this? I know at least a few tech folks who have seen the Microsoft tablet demo'd, and been plied with free drinks to forget the experience. I can't believe that me, a tech guy in Los Angeles, heard about this (and saw a MSoftie in our shared office showing it to some folks) before people in NYC, SV, or Seattle. Wow.