From the rip-off desktop background to the white and translucent plastics to the rounded corners, Microsoft’s ‘Athens’ prototype PC shouts “I wish I were a Mac.” However, this slab of plastic is incapable of running Mac OS X and is merely a prototype that is shipping nowhere.
“The goal is to make Windows-based computers more consistent, easier to navigate and able to provide a better computing experience, Gates said in an e-mail interview,” reports The Seattle Times.
(MacDailyNews: you mean like Macintosh?)
“‘The PC industry has been incredibly successful over the years, but hardware and software development have sometimes been a little out of sync,’ he said. ‘The best way to advance the state of the art is to work together even more closely, always starting from the customer’s perspective and focusing on the combination of hardware and software that works best to create an innovative and compelling next-generation PC,'” reports The Seattle Times.
(MacDailyNews: you mean like Apple?)
“To demonstrate the potential of this approach, Gates plans to demonstrate an advanced prototype office computer, dubbed ‘Athens,’ that Microsoft developed with Hewlett-Packard… If the industry embraces this new approach, Microsoft could have an even bigger role in shaping the evolution of PCs. It may also help the company fend off competition from Apple and freely shared software.” writes The Seattle Times.
“Coordinating development of machines and software they’ll run may lead to better-designed machines with more consumer appeal. That’s the approach taken by Apple Computer, which develops both software and hardware in-house and is credited with numerous innovations to the ire of Gates and other leaders in the Windows PC industry,” writes Brier Dudley for The Seattle Times.
Dudley continues, “It may not be a coincidence that the Athens PC resembles an Apple machine, with rounded corners, a translucent case and a flat, wide display. HP executive Louis Kim acknowledged the similarities, noting, ‘Apple is on a similar track in that they’re designing with the end-user in mind and they’re integrating hardware and software.’ But he said the Athens was designed for functionality, not fashion. ‘There was no intent to try and mimic Apple here,’ said Kim, HP’s worldwide director of marketing for business desktop computers.”
See the ‘revolutionary’ new ‘Athens’ PC prototype here. Closeup of the machine here.
Lastly, you might want to tack the ‘Athens’ example to the list in this article, “Apple leads; Wintel follows as usual” written by SteveJack last November.
What a joke! Tell it like it is MDN!
Nevertheless, 95% of the world will be wowed by Microsoft’s “innovation.”
Once again the Macolytes focus on looks over functions. This PC uggle phone calls, faxes, cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing. With a built-in camera, and phone headset, it senses what the user is doing and routes messages accordingly. Can your Mac do that? Uh, no.
Actually, Ken, add a cheap camera to a Mac and it can do all of the above and more. With Bluetooth and iSync, it would be a better experience and more useful on a Mac, as usual. You do need to get out more.
I think I liked it better the first time around … when it was called a GATEWAY PROFILE! LOL!!!
Silly fools, tricks are for kids. The E-machines iMac clones didn’t work either.
Ummm, Yeeaah, Ken… P R O T O T Y P E
Why did they have to use the name Athens? Microsoft is an American company so it can name its products after any one of the American cities. To use this name for a superficial imitation of Apple’s iMac is an insult to all us Greek Mac-heads.
They forgot the silver Apple logo on the front bottom bezel.
Ken is an example of the typical Microsoft brainwashed numbskull. He knows absolutely nothing about the capabilities of the Macintosh platform yet feels compelled to try and berate it. What’s even more idiotic, he tries comparing a no where near ready for primetime prototype to a deployed system. By the time the PC side gets any semblance of this thing out of the door, we’ll probably be miles ahead with OS 10.5!
I am a product designer and use Macs – as far as I can see there are so many opprtunities from a design perspective that HP/’Microshaft’ have missed – looks too top heavy and ‘brick like for my liking – very poor effort – I think this is a PR stunt to try and steal some limelight from Apple – to do so they will have to come up with something more innovative than this
If you are going to whore the Apple concept, at least fess up.
“Apple is on a similar track in that they’re designing with the end-user in mind and they’re integrating hardware and software.”
On a similar track? I think they layed the track that these unintuitive goons are now trying to build their trains to run on. Sad.
Isnt that a Mac desktop image they arte running on that monitor?
Otherwise all I see is a LCD monitor (with very fat cable and amateur alu stand) , wireless keyboard and mouse and two chino-clad 30 somethings (one with a sad attempt at designer stuble) What exactly is revoluntionary about this?
The best bit of design in the image is the tolomeo table lamp inn the background. Now there is a modern design classic. Looks right at home next to my 15″ SD!
I like the line about Microsoft being the innovator, “Microsoft has to show the leadership; who else is going to?” said Roger Kay. Let’s see… We innovate by being three years behind the leader? Do I have that right? Or how about this one… bill Gates reportedly said, “Our future success depends on our ability to stay focused on our customers.” Let’s see if i have this right. You focus on your customer using 3 year old hindsight, and usinng spyware to watch what they do? is that right?
“‘Apple is on a similar track in that they’re designing with the end-user in mind and they’re integrating hardware and software.’ But he said the Athens was designed for functionality, not fashion. ‘There was no intent to try and mimic Apple here,’ said Kim, HP’s worldwide director of marketing for business desktop computers.”
Don’t worry too much folks, every time the PC world mimics, they get screwed. I saw it this morning on TV from my local news channel and after I saw it (not knowing who made it), I just said, “Oh look, another computer…”
But let’s take a look at all the BS from the WinTel ‘tards:
Apple on a similar track?! Microsoft is on the “similar track”! Just because MS is bigger does not mean they own the track that someone else has already been on!
More functionality?! HA! Alright, iLife has gotten high reviews now and then. Sony, Microsoft, and the other WinTel clones could not bring together the proper suite in design software, they got screwed! So you can game on a PC, but it will always stay slow and stupid in every other category.
“There was no attempt to mimic Apple” Cut the crap. If you can say that, prove it. If you can’t say there aren’t similarities you are more than just mimicing.
Once again, MS blows away a billion dollars, but it won’t hurt them anyhow.
Man, I am so glad I bought a “real” mac last week (17″ 1Ghz iMac). Screw Microsoft.
Regg
aka Windows Network Engineer 🙁
1) Apple IS on the same track – 10 miles ahead!
2) If BG3 can see it, he WILL copy it.
3) Prototype = one year away.
4) Focused on customer = SpyScopeXP
5) BG3 ‘innovates’ thru mimicry. It makes him rich, with barely any effort.
“Why did they have to use the name Athens?” Named after Athens, GA of course
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Hey Ken, I don’t want a PC with a crappy built in camera. I also happen to live in the 21st century so I shouldn’t need a fax machine and I don’t even own any phones with cords. I don’t want a buggy OS trying to sense what I am doing. Who videoconferences?, I know I don’t, maybe some execs do to make it look like they are saving $$$ on plane tickets.
People who want a nicely designed machine with a stable operating system buy macs. People who want to buy hardware and software from the same company already have macs.
Geez….the arrogance of Apple users (not all but most that I’ve seen posting here) is truly something else. I use both, sell both, and see great merit in both. I love to tinker, and that’s not nearly as possible with Apple as it is with PCs. But that’s not the point. They’re both computers, so get over yourselves. Apple has been a great innovator in the computer world, so nobody should be surprised if anyone else, including Microsoft emulates, regardless of whether or not the Redmond giant wishes to admit it.
Ken, you’ve fallen into the trap…people on both sides of a debate like this like to turn it into a dick-wagging contest. Keep it in your pants and don’t bother to stoop to that level.
Mac’s have no w�here the performance of PC’s. The 3400+ Barton / 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 dominates the Mac in any application, all there’s a lot more applications for the PC as well.
The only application where Mac has an edge is Photoshop.
doesnt Billgoats have enough money ?
Noticed how they appear to be using an Apple standard background on the screen?
From an electronics engineer’s viewpoint…
1. If this is suppose to emulate a real PC, the fat cord is probably an all-in-one power cord. It would have to supply the power from a power brick on the floor (out of view).
2. All of the network and interface cords are missing. As shown, they may be presuming that all peripheral interfaces are via BlueTooth and the networking via 802.11g (requiring an Airport-like device somewhere nearby). But, if the antenna is in the case, the RF noise from the computer’s motherboard might interfere. Apple avoided this problem by placing the antennas near the monitor which is away from the motherboard.
2. Speakers? Perhaps they are using some sort of wireless ones… somewhere no where near the user.
3. CD must be slot-loaded on the top or left side (out of view)… an Apple concept.
4. Floppy drive missing? An Apple concept.
3. The camera is the WORST design element!! It’s slapped onto the side like a 1950’s pickup truck mirror. Even a good quality CCD chip for video can easily fit into the top of the monitor’s frame. It would have a pencil-eraser-size lens, and be surrounded by 2 concentric knurled rings for focus and zoom which lie flush with the frame.
4. It is top heavy. Although the aluminum stand is more than sturdy enough to support it, there will be little (if any) ability to adjust the monitor’s position. This completely undermines the purpose for using a thin, light-weight, LCD monitor, and makes it non-ergonomic.
4. The keyboard is non-ergonomic, probably taken from a notebook computer.
5. Yes, the background image is very similar to the desktop image “Aqua Blue.jpg” on OS X, albeit, not identical.
Conclusion:
Not only is there absolutely nothing innovative about this design, it blatantly shows design elements stolen from Apple, as well as being designed by no one with any level of creativity or imagination.
The use of that particular desktop image is an indication of a deliberate attempt to make it look very similar to a Mac.
If this were produced today, it would be technologically over 2 years old.
Actually folks, I use both a Mac (duel boot OS 9 and X) at work and Windows XP at home. Both have their pros and cons. But you people might want to educate yourselves a little before yapping your traps about how much “more elegant” and “better” the Mac is. Don’t kid yourselves into thinking that Apple has a monopoly on innovation. I mean, take a look at OS X. Which OS had the taskbar first? Protected memory? Or the folder navigation model? WebDAV support? On-the-fly memory configuration? Internet sharing? And don’t knock Windows stability unless you’ve actually used it in the last three years. Windows 2000 and up have been rock-solid. Mac OS 9 wasn’t so stable either. Sure, iTunes is nice, but it came out years after Windows users had their choice of MP3 players (by Steve Jobs’ own admission, Apple was late to that party). Ditto on this “revolutionary” new music store.
More specifically, on Microsoft’s prototype PC, its not the design that’s revolutionary, but the communication features in it. It’s not some “crappy” camera, but an integrated system for juggling e-mail, instant-messaging, videoconferencing and voice-mail. If you people can’t see that, you need to look beyond the pretty hardware. For once.
Does Apple do a nice job? Sure. Apple’s strength is refining what others have done, and it does a darn good job at it. But don’t kid yourselves about Apple’s so-called leadership. It hasn’t had that role for years.
Actually, d-force, the Photoshop comparison isn’t even true anymore. It’s faster on Windows.
http://news.com.com/2100-1045-994070.html
Ken, a few comments:
“Which OS had the taskbar first?”
The OSX dock came from the NeXT dock (which predates the Windows taskbar by a few years).
http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/
The *nix GUIs probably got there before Windows, too.
“Protected memory?”
Well, it wasn’t Windows. Again, NeXT was there first, and OSX is just as much (if not more) a child of NeXT than a child of OS9.
“Or the folder navigation model?”
What? If you mean “column view”, that was NeXT, and Windows doesn’t even have that. If you mean spatial navigation, Windows *still* doesn’t have that.
“On-the-fly memory configuration?”
*nix again. Yes. this was a dismal failing of OS9, but don’t imply Windows was there first.
“And don’t knock Windows stability unless you’ve actually used it in the last three years.”
I have.
“Windows 2000 and up have been rock-solid.”
YMMV – mine does. I could *reliably* bluescreen about half of the Win2K PCs in our office.
“Mac OS 9 wasn’t so stable either.”
Comparing OS9 with W2K is unfair; IME OS9 was more stable than Win95/98, and about the same as NT; OSX is more stable than W2K and WXP.
“Sure, iTunes is nice, but it came out years after Windows users had their choice of MP3 players […] Ditto on this “revolutionary” new music store.”
You don’t get it, do you? With both those examples, the revolution was “Look how easy this can be”. iTunes and iTunes Music Store have brought music library management and online music purchasing to those who have no interest in spending ages fiddling with computers. The same with iMovie and iDVD; you could edit movies before, but it wasn’t so easy that granny could do it.
“More specifically, on Microsoft’s prototype PC, its not the design that’s revolutionary, but the communication features in it. It’s not some “crappy” camera, but an integrated system for juggling e-mail, instant-messaging, videoconferencing and voice-mail.”
Non market-speak citation, please?
“you need to look beyond the pretty hardware. For once.”
Oooh, handbags. Good design is about form as well as function.
“But don’t kid yourselves about Apple’s so-called leadership. It hasn’t had that role for years.”
ZeroConf? 802.11b? Firewire? USB? Bluetooth? LCDs? *Big* LCDs? Easy-open cases? Highly flexible display positioning?