“A rumored play for Yahoo. The struggle to compete with Google in the booming online-advertising market. Microsoft’s claim that Linux and other free software violate more than 200 of its patents. The details of ‘Surface,’ (or Playtable) Microsoft’s long-rumored multi-touch, gestural-recognition interface technology. All these issues are at the top of our minds today as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer takes his seat on the D stage,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD.
Some excerpts from Paczkowski’s report:
• Walt Mossberg: You do seem to have a monopoly on brown consumer electronics. Ballmer: “It’s the dirt-bike market … we have high share there.”
• Ballmer begins demoing Surface for Walt… Walt notes Surface’s user-interface similarities to Apple’s iPhone and some new HP devices, and wonders about intellectual-property issues. “We’re confident in our IP,” says Pete Thompson, general manager of Microsoft Surface Computing. And, he adds, multitouch has been around for a long time… Walt asks if the user-interface will appear in other form factors. Microsoft plans thin-panel versions, vertical displays, etc.
• Walt asks if Microsoft will stick with Zune, given the seemingly impossible task of catching up to Apple’s iPod. Ballmer says Microsoft rarely backs off on products. “We’re firmly behind Zune.” Walt: Will Microsoft ever develop a phone? Ballmer: No. Ah, caveat. Phones need software, and that’s where Microsoft comes in. Walt wonders why a company like, say Samsung, would partner with Microsoft on phones when Microsoft essentially threw it under the bus with music (Plays For Sure).
Much more, including photos, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Gotta love Walt; he certainly doesn’t shirk from asking tough questions and making pointed comments throughout.
Related articles:
Apple’s answer to Microsoft Surface: real products – May 30, 2007
Microsoft launches multi-touch surface computer table for restaurants, hotels, stores, and casinos – May 30, 2007
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to make rare joint appearance tomorrow – May 29, 2007
“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer takes his seat on the D stage” Just dont sit in the front row, he might throw it…
“Walt wonders why a company like, say Samsung, would partner with Microsoft on phones when Microsoft essentially threw it under the bus with music (Plays For Sure).”
Rock on Walt. LOL
I hope Microsoft buys Yahoo!, they’re meant for each other. They’re both blah.
Ballmer must be sweating a up a tsunami. Grab your inflatables.
It will be available through their partners…
In other words, they aren’t user-oriented. Zune’s squirt feature is for partners, not users, because it turns every user into an advertising agent. No matter how attractive the product is to partners, if users don’t like it, the partners will go away.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/30/steve-ballmer-live-from-d-2007/
more complete coverage of his mindless yammering…
money quote: “We started a process to lay out a long term vision, here are some trends in tech we think are important, we can provide alignment without the central planning.”
translation: We have a plan to make a plan blah blah marketspeak blah.
wow.
Just read several places that Microsofts Surface unit uses cameras to see who is doing what on the surface. CAMERAS??? that must be super complex!! It sounds more like military hardware than a home user interface.
Also, that works for barcodes but why not go with magnetic strips and use a strip reader, or some such. Then you could program the strips or RDIF tags and have the unit display anything you want for each item, changing the programing for different efforts. Just a thought.
This looks like a super complex toy that you sell for tens of thousands of dollars to big companies. You sell hundreds.
Make it a finger touch screen, make it cheap, and sell it to everyone (or at least make it 600$ and sell it to artists and speciality people. Sell millions.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Just a thought.
en
“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer takes his seat on the D stage” Just dont sit in the front row, he might throw it…”
Heck, he might crush it!
Looks like they couldn’t get a flattering pic of Ballmer so had to commission an artists to draw him. The artist sure earned his money, that’s a real flattering pic of the turd, actually looks human.
Wow! And everyone was complaining about the price of the iPhone.
MW: born. As in “MS will take your first born as payment for a Surface.”
Toby
Yahoo blah? Are kiddin’ me? Yahoo has many great oferings and has the best email service. gmail looks and loads like a toad compared to Yahoo Mail Beta. Yahoo surelly knows how to use Web 2.0.
Funny thing happened this week….
Office Depot opened 3 weeks ago. This week I was in and saw 2 zunes on their clearance table marked down to $16.00 each. (I have no idea how much they sell for)..
I love apple just like the rest of you…
however, surface does look very kewl. bill says cameras are used to detect positioning.
I do wonder if there are any patent violations.
but the product does look really kewl.
multi touch device the size of a table is the best they can come up with!!?
iphone – bitch!
Ballmer! ROTFLMAO! LOL! BALLMER! Bwaaaahahahah!
Stop it! ROTFLMAO! BALLMER! I can’t take it! LOL LOL!!!
The more Microsoft expands it’s product offerings the less I trust them. Why do they have to be THE solution for everything? I think about where they want to be in the next ten years and I envision a big brother type scenario. It’s friggin scary.
Ballmer is afraid to “miss” the next thing. Just like they miscalculated the internet and had to play catchup with IE, after seing how Nescape was the dominating browser. Recently they miss the advertising revenue that was waiting to be snatched up and Google took home the bacon.
Now MS is carpet bombing every market they think can make them money.
Like the scene from Predator when Mac just sprays bullets into the forest in a
wasteful, paniced effort to kill the hunter. That’s how MS works today.
Why is there an advertisement for a Sony Vaio on this page?
OBill-Wan
You got it right, these pcees will be scattered everywhere with 6 cameras watchin you and listening to you, it is Big Brother Ballmer.
this table thing seems to me like a frantic attempt to put something in front of opinion-makers to show that microsoft can create something high-tech… it doesnt seem to have much of a market, so why make such a fuss of it? Much will now depend on whether microsoft can maintain their earnings growth. a decline in growth, or worse, a decline in earnings and the whole house of cards will come down…
The title to this presentation could really have been:
Beleagured Microsoft Grasps at Straws…
Well, ok, not quite beleagured yet… But looking that way…
Microsoft have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of home users – Apple have a head of steam in that market which is going to prove difficult for Microsoft to dampen – and the Mac will continue to gain market share there.
And while Microsoft are probably not under threat from Apple in the corporate space, watch the SME space – particularly the businesses with 20 or fewer employees and no internal IT manager. After 15 years with Microsoft server products, I have had 6 months with OS X Server (Tiger) and, let me tell you, it walks all over Small Business Server for ease of use, speed of configuration and loses nothing on functionality. And there is SO MUCH FANTASTIC FREE software to run on this platform.
I have been in this industry for 30 years this year. And if you think Microsoft cannot fall, I say you are wrong. This company smells of death.
From the conference:
Search is plagued by user-interface problems, Ballmer notes. “We believe there is an opportunity for innovation here. We have a lot of things we need to do–things we need to do to improve the technology and things we need to do to just catch up.”
Note that, for Microsoft, “innovation” means “fixing bugs.”
MDN: really !!
a reader over on Robert Scoble’s blog foresees what people will really be doing with Surface…
quote:
“You know what would be funny? If a bunch of people like my dad did nothing but play Solitaire on it!”
http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/30/more-on-microsofts-surface-computing-initiatives/
Credit where credit’s due – I thought the demo of Surface with the way they were looking at photos and getting them off the camera was pretty darn cool.
It may have been cool but you were looking at a $10,000 piece of Microsoft technology.
Microsoft can’t even make a Microsoft mouse pointer move in Windows with any degree of accuracy.
Once you get past the gee wiz, can you do any constructive work with it?
the funny thing is.. when you look at things like the maps applications, etc.. its actually less effective than using a pda or iphone.. it’s a step backwards..
the menu application? ok… again, no restauranteur is gonna see the cost/benefit in that.
notice how he said when you put your drink down, ads could emanate out of it? Dude.. that’s brutal. Romantic dinner with a huge PEPSI ad in my face. sweet.