4 ms·

>and it seems like the company as a whole (including the Surface lines) has absolutely no idea where it wants to be in five years I think they know exactly whe

by nivla 12y ago

>and it seems like the company as a whole (including the Surface lines) has absolutely no idea where it wants to be in five years I think they know exactly where things are going to in the next five years, yet they will try their best to arrive late. Remember the MS Courier? I believe the future is going to be a hybrid of mobile and desktop. Its already happening with the web and other OSes especially Win8 and Ubuntu (Ubuntu mobile that turns into a full fledged desktop when docked in). So technically MS is on the right track, they are just a bit too early - 70's Groovy in the mid 60's. The biggest gripe I have with them is that sometimes they make something very good and then mess up something very little in a very noticeable way. Seriously, I am starting to believe that these tiny screwups are their signature. I have the Surface Pro I and its perfect for my needs except when I am out of wifi or need directions. Just put in a GPS and 4G already. I have waited for 2 iterations now.

MBCook 12y ago
> Remember the MS Courier? It was never a product, it was a concept. This, by the way, is why it's a bad idea to show everyone your concepts. They will hold them against you for years.
- nivla 12y ago
  I was talking about MS have the right idea but failing to go though with it. MS Courier concept was introduced well before the iPad, suggesting someone there believed that it was going to be the future but they ended up killing it before the board din't agree to it. Similarly, they were already working on a voice assistant called "Tell Me" even before Siri was introduced by Apple [1]. A lot of people think MS doesn't come up with great ideas but its quite the opposite. They just fail to execute it in a timely manner or require a few iterations to get it perfect. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB6pWs46GY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB6pWs46GY8
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    Ideas are cheap, execution is everything. You said it yourself, "MS Courier" was a concept - it wasn't actually a product. Your average gifted 13 year old can come up with a lot of great concepts, the challenge is in actually creating them. Even Apple is running into this - Siri requires a rock solid Wireless connection, without it, Siri no longer works, which kind of defeats the purpose of a mobile voice assistant.
    - Shooti 12y ago
      'Courier was much more than a clever vision. The team, which had more than 130 Microsoft employees contributing to it, had created several prototypes that gave a clear sense about the type of experience users would get. There were still tough hardware and software issues to resolve when Microsoft pulled the plug. 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. "There was extensive work done on the business, the technology and the experience," said a member of the Courier team. "It was very complete, not a whim."' http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsof...
      - skc 12y ago
        This is so revisionist. That thing had two screens. How much would it have weighed? What would the battery life have been like? How much would it have cost. These things matter.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    > [...] but they ended up killing it before the board din't agree to it. The technology when they 'announced' it was one thing, I'm not sure that we have the technology today to make the Courier practical. Getting it thin and light enough at that size, but keeping good battery life would be a real challenge.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >I was talking about MS have the right idea but failing to go though with it. MS Courier concept was introduced well before the iPad, It was introduced before the iPad product -- but not before the iPad concept, which Apple was working on far before the iPhone's introduction. The Courrier (shown in 2008) was actually a PR envisioning of what the rumored Apple tablet will be. And, as something that came out after the iPhone, it wasn't that hard to think of. Heck, Apple had similar concepts from the nineties even -- including the "voice assistant" thing, but I don't think those count. Execution and brinding a solid offering to market counts.
  - NicoJuicy 12y ago
    --> They just fail to execute it in a timely manner or require a few iterations to get it perfect <-- You nailed it, it's kinda like when a Windows version came out. 2000 and Millenium were bad. XP was great. Vista was bad, SP1 was better and SP2 was great. People just remember Vista without the SP's. Windows 7 was what i needed, but that seemed like SP3 for Vista, only they named it Windows 7. Then you have Windows 8, which will probably go a similar way like Vista did.
    - asveikau 12y ago
      2000 was great. When XP came out a lot of people complained about how they added bloat and pointlessly screwed with the shell. (By this I mean explorer, not how Unix users understand the term "shell".) I felt that way too. XP got a little better as hardware improved and SP2 fixed some issues, then Vista made everyone forget what they hated before and suddenly XP was the "lean" one. (Actually the more likely explanation is that the 2000-using XP-haters and the XP-using Vista-haters are not the same people. Maybe the former group gave up and no longer cares about Windows.)
- grkvlt 12y ago
  I don't know, it seems to work for the car industry. Almost every new vehicle floats around the major shows as a 'concept' to gauge public reaction and perception before making it into production having taken onboard a large number of changes.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Well, I'm still annoyed at Peugeot for not having produced the Moovie :)
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    Almost every new vehicle floats arount as a concept, but at the same time almost every concept that floats around the major shows never makes to an actual production vehicle - because even if the people like it, they often are too impractical to make or too expensive for their target market&competition.
reiichiroh 12y ago
Why didn't they catch these issues before they committed to manufacturing them?
- niels_olson 12y ago
  Why the hell didn't they bring this guy in as a design consultant? His desires reflect exactly what's missing from the market: a high res tablet with precise input for the mobile artist. I have been waiting for such a product since at least 2004 (bought my first Intuos 3 in 2005). I've actually been googling "penny-arcade surface pro 3" waiting for this review. And please, please don't tell me about the iPad's wonderful art apps. My feature request became the first commit when Inkpad (easily the best iPad vector drawing app) went open source. Give me a computer with the input resolution of 0.3 mm pencil, or 0.05 mm pen, on high quality paper. I actually use pens under a microscope. Input resolution, Apple. Do you hear me? I think Microsoft has winning hardware in this machine. Can I load Ubuntu?
  - sdrothrock 12y ago
    Have you seen the Wacom Cintiq Companions? What do you think about them? Every now and then I think about buying the Android version since it can also be used as an actual Cintiq, unlike the Win 8 one.
    - danudey 12y ago
      I have a few coworkers who have them. The hardware itself is pretty nice, but the support has been awful when she's tried to deal with a problem she had with the power adapter. Her power adapter connection was too loose and wouldn't charge the device; her coworkers' power adapters worked perfectly in hers, though, so it was just the AC adapter. She spent about a month arguing with them and not being able to use the device because she couldn't charge it. They kept saying it was a software issue and to reinstall, even though she could wiggle the power adapter and get it to connect. Other than that, the hardware is good, much better than the Surface from an artist perspective (and several of our artists have shelled out over two grand for a Companion after seeing hers, and none have bought a Surface).
silverbax88 12y ago
Except Windows 8 is a bad user experience for Desktop. Great for mobile, and even though it is a 'full-fledged OS', it actually makes things HARDER for users, so much so that they continue to lose Desktop market share, even in corporations. They have got to get it through their heads that a mobile/desktop hybrid does not mean 'One UI for all possible devices'. That seems obvious to me, but it sure hasn't happened. And Microsoft was trying to push a tablet YEARS before the iPad came along and wowed everyone. They just did it really, really badly and didn't market their efforts well. Kind of like what is happening with Windows 8. If history repeats itself, Apple or Google or Someone New will come along, present the public with the SAME CONCEPT as Windows 8 but do it right and everyone will again claim Microsoft was late to the party. They've never had a lack of vision, but always have had problems with execution.

by nivla 12y ago

MBCook 12y ago

> Remember the MS Courier? It was never a product, it was a concept. This, by the way, is why it's a bad idea to show everyone your concepts. They will hold them against you for years.

nivla 12y ago
I was talking about MS have the right idea but failing to go though with it. MS Courier concept was introduced well before the iPad, suggesting someone there believed that it was going to be the future but they ended up killing it before the board din't agree to it. Similarly, they were already working on a voice assistant called "Tell Me" even before Siri was introduced by Apple [1]. A lot of people think MS doesn't come up with great ideas but its quite the opposite. They just fail to execute it in a timely manner or require a few iterations to get it perfect. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB6pWs46GY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB6pWs46GY8
- ghshephard 12y ago
  Ideas are cheap, execution is everything. You said it yourself, "MS Courier" was a concept - it wasn't actually a product. Your average gifted 13 year old can come up with a lot of great concepts, the challenge is in actually creating them. Even Apple is running into this - Siri requires a rock solid Wireless connection, without it, Siri no longer works, which kind of defeats the purpose of a mobile voice assistant.
  - Shooti 12y ago
    'Courier was much more than a clever vision. The team, which had more than 130 Microsoft employees contributing to it, had created several prototypes that gave a clear sense about the type of experience users would get. There were still tough hardware and software issues to resolve when Microsoft pulled the plug. 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. "There was extensive work done on the business, the technology and the experience," said a member of the Courier team. "It was very complete, not a whim."' http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsof...
    - skc 12y ago
      This is so revisionist. That thing had two screens. How much would it have weighed? What would the battery life have been like? How much would it have cost. These things matter.
- MBCook 12y ago
  > [...] but they ended up killing it before the board din't agree to it. The technology when they 'announced' it was one thing, I'm not sure that we have the technology today to make the Courier practical. Getting it thin and light enough at that size, but keeping good battery life would be a real challenge.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >I was talking about MS have the right idea but failing to go though with it. MS Courier concept was introduced well before the iPad, It was introduced before the iPad product -- but not before the iPad concept, which Apple was working on far before the iPhone's introduction. The Courrier (shown in 2008) was actually a PR envisioning of what the rumored Apple tablet will be. And, as something that came out after the iPhone, it wasn't that hard to think of. Heck, Apple had similar concepts from the nineties even -- including the "voice assistant" thing, but I don't think those count. Execution and brinding a solid offering to market counts.
- NicoJuicy 12y ago
  --> They just fail to execute it in a timely manner or require a few iterations to get it perfect <-- You nailed it, it's kinda like when a Windows version came out. 2000 and Millenium were bad. XP was great. Vista was bad, SP1 was better and SP2 was great. People just remember Vista without the SP's. Windows 7 was what i needed, but that seemed like SP3 for Vista, only they named it Windows 7. Then you have Windows 8, which will probably go a similar way like Vista did.
  - asveikau 12y ago
    2000 was great. When XP came out a lot of people complained about how they added bloat and pointlessly screwed with the shell. (By this I mean explorer, not how Unix users understand the term "shell".) I felt that way too. XP got a little better as hardware improved and SP2 fixed some issues, then Vista made everyone forget what they hated before and suddenly XP was the "lean" one. (Actually the more likely explanation is that the 2000-using XP-haters and the XP-using Vista-haters are not the same people. Maybe the former group gave up and no longer cares about Windows.)
grkvlt 12y ago
I don't know, it seems to work for the car industry. Almost every new vehicle floats around the major shows as a 'concept' to gauge public reaction and perception before making it into production having taken onboard a large number of changes.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Well, I'm still annoyed at Peugeot for not having produced the Moovie :)
- PeterisP 12y ago
  Almost every new vehicle floats arount as a concept, but at the same time almost every concept that floats around the major shows never makes to an actual production vehicle - because even if the people like it, they often are too impractical to make or too expensive for their target market&competition.

reiichiroh 12y ago

Why didn't they catch these issues before they committed to manufacturing them?

niels_olson 12y ago
Why the hell didn't they bring this guy in as a design consultant? His desires reflect exactly what's missing from the market: a high res tablet with precise input for the mobile artist. I have been waiting for such a product since at least 2004 (bought my first Intuos 3 in 2005). I've actually been googling "penny-arcade surface pro 3" waiting for this review. And please, please don't tell me about the iPad's wonderful art apps. My feature request became the first commit when Inkpad (easily the best iPad vector drawing app) went open source. Give me a computer with the input resolution of 0.3 mm pencil, or 0.05 mm pen, on high quality paper. I actually use pens under a microscope. Input resolution, Apple. Do you hear me? I think Microsoft has winning hardware in this machine. Can I load Ubuntu?
- sdrothrock 12y ago
  Have you seen the Wacom Cintiq Companions? What do you think about them? Every now and then I think about buying the Android version since it can also be used as an actual Cintiq, unlike the Win 8 one.
  - danudey 12y ago
    I have a few coworkers who have them. The hardware itself is pretty nice, but the support has been awful when she's tried to deal with a problem she had with the power adapter. Her power adapter connection was too loose and wouldn't charge the device; her coworkers' power adapters worked perfectly in hers, though, so it was just the AC adapter. She spent about a month arguing with them and not being able to use the device because she couldn't charge it. They kept saying it was a software issue and to reinstall, even though she could wiggle the power adapter and get it to connect. Other than that, the hardware is good, much better than the Surface from an artist perspective (and several of our artists have shelled out over two grand for a Companion after seeing hers, and none have bought a Surface).

silverbax88 12y ago

Except Windows 8 is a bad user experience for Desktop. Great for mobile, and even though it is a 'full-fledged OS', it actually makes things HARDER for users, so much so that they continue to lose Desktop market share, even in corporations. They have got to get it through their heads that a mobile/desktop hybrid does not mean 'One UI for all possible devices'. That seems obvious to me, but it sure hasn't happened. And Microsoft was trying to push a tablet YEARS before the iPad came along and wowed everyone. They just did it really, really badly and didn't market their efforts well. Kind of like what is happening with Windows 8. If history repeats itself, Apple or Google or Someone New will come along, present the public with the SAME CONCEPT as Windows 8 but do it right and everyone will again claim Microsoft was late to the party. They've never had a lack of vision, but always have had problems with execution.