“The New York Times has detailed ‘rumors’ of upcoming Windows ‘slates’ that will be shown off by Steve Ballmer at CES next month,” Charlie Sorrel writes for Wired. “Just like last year. And again like last year, it seems that Microsoft still hasn’t got a clue about tablets.”
“According to the Times, ‘Microsoft hopes these slates will offer an alternative to the iPad because they move beyond play, people familiar with the tablets said,'” Sorrel writes. “And how will Microsoft differentiate its brand-new slate offering from Apple’s hugely successful iPad? By using a tablet-optimized and touchscreen-centric version of Microsoft’s new… Windows Phone 7 mobile OS? Nope. By using a desktop OS, and slapping a skin on top. Again.”
Sorrel writes, “Microsoft’s future is looking a lot like IBM’s when Microsoft ate its lunch years ago: It’ll still be a big, big business company, but the general public will no longer be buying its wares (Xbox aside).”
Full article here.
M$ still acts like it’s the late 1990’s.
I really have to wonder whether the chair thrower has ever taken the time to learn how to use Windows and a “smart phone”?
Slates? Should call them Bricks.
but didn’t you guys know that Windows 7 has multitouch support??!
OMG ITS HORRIBLE!!! I have tried it on HP touchsmarts, and a glass tablet… something is OBVIOUSLY wrong with the interface. the windows touch pack tries to show off its potential… but its just one disappointment after another…
MORE POWER TO THEM I SAY!
Whats the common definition of “insanity” again? oh yah thats right…….
Sounds Great. I will buy a dozen.
Well the one thing you can’t say about Steve Ballmer is that he’s full of surprises. (Well not good ones anyway…)
Last years CES keynote was a hoot with the Chief Monkey Boy’s presentation a textbook classic on how NOT to conduct a keynote. Such delightful touch’s too like the Baby Huey effect red sweater, the ham-fisted device manipulation, the incomplete and inadequate product introductions and information, the feeling of seeing someone competely out of his core competence range blustering his way through and make other presenters look equally bad by hanging out with them (intead of politely leaving the stage) and embarrassing them by interrupting them with inane comments.
Let’s hope this year is more of the same!
MS SLATE = Steve’s Lame Attempt To Emulate
This is simply unbelieve that MSFT just plan to slap a touch UI layer on the top of a desktop OS and put it onto a tablet.
If I am a MSFT investor, I will be even more worry now…
MS SLATE = Might Surprise Statistically Lame And Tortured Engineering
Ballmer = always delightful
MS SLATE = Meritocracy Slips Stupendous Lunatic Aches To Explode
The photo with the article looks like the shadow demons from Ghost dragging Ballmer to his well-deserved hellish oblivion.
MS SLATE – Monkeyboy Steve Shovels “Little-Ass Table” Excrement
=:~)
Jeezus, next thing you know, Monkey-Boy’s gonna be walking out there with jeans and a black turtleneck.
Let’s face it. After Bill left Microsoft, Microsoft sucks now. The only thing that they have good is the Xbox 360. That was the only thing they got right on Balmer’s watch. Maybe once a computer tour de force is now only a video game maker? Vista and Windows 7 both suck. Windows XP was the last good OS they made. And this “Slate” that they are going to show off is going to be the same old crap. They will run Windows 7 with touch commands on top. Get with the program Microsoft. The only way for the Slate to be any good you need to write a whole new OS from the ground up. And they need to do that with Windows as well. Thank god that Apple realize that with the original Mac OS and went with a whole new approach with OS X. With their iOS they used the OS X backbone and created a whole new OS for their iOS devices. Microsoft has to think different. That is not going to happen though because all the people that was there either lost it or never had it. RIP Microsoft.
As I’ve been saying for a few years now, in 2020, Microsoft will be as relevant as IBM is today.
Which is to say they will still be around, they will still be big, but they will not be a major part of your daily computing experience.
> By using a tablet-optimized and touchscreen-centric version of Microsoft’s new… Windows Phone 7 mobile OS?
Hold on folks. Some of you (including the author) are not thinking about this logically.
Why would Microsoft follow the “Android” path? Windows Phone 7 is specifically designed (from the ground up) for phone-sized devices, not a tablet “computer,” just as Android is also a PDA-class OS designed for phones. They will not scale UP well to tablet-sized devices that will be considered “real” computers going forward.
Apple took the Unix foundation for Mac OS X, and scaled it DOWN for use on iPhone, and put a touch-based interface on top. To make the OS for iPad, they just scaled it down a bit less. Isn’t that similar to the approach this author describes as Microsoft’s plan for tablets?
In other words, Apple is scaling DOWN a more powerful and capable OS, NOT scaling UP a lesser OS. Think about it… For your tablet, would you rather have an optimized version of a “real” computer’s OS, or an over-taxed shimmed-up version of an OS intended for phones?
So we should NOT be criticizing Microsoft for their approach here. They are following Apple’s path (big surprise). They are optimizing Windows 7 for a less powerful device and “slapping a skin on top” (putting a touch-based user interface over the underlying OS foundation). That’s basically what Apple did to produce iOS.
So we SHOULD criticize Microsoft for their EXECUTION of this approach, which we will know more about in January. There will no doubt be plenty to criticize there.
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insanity // inˈsanitē
• extreme foolishness or irrationality
• doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Steve Ballmer- For as long as it takes baby.
MS SLATE: My Stars, Should Losers Attempt Tablet Engineering?
I wonder where Ballmer will put the plastic buttoned keyboard?
Bring back the Big Ass Table!
The big ass tablet…..
Couldn’t care less what Microsoft or Google are up to.
As long as Apple stays focused on out-innovating everybody, I’m happy.
Although Apple did scale down the MacOS, they understood that fundamentally, how you interact with the device will be a very different experience and they pursued that direction.
Historically, Microsoft tried to retain the desktop experience by changing the connecting device without essentially changing the experience. Unfortunately, I wonder if the Windows Mobile 7 will suffer the same fate as the Zune – both are nice products now but late to the market that is picking winners and losers.
I don’t know that there will ever be “final” winners in the smartphone game, only those that survive, and those that don’t. New players will come along, old players will drop out, and the market pie will probably look different every few years.
Consider how people will keep purchasing new phones every couple of years, that (for most people) their previously-purchased apps aren’t sufficient to bind them to a given platform, and that the new world is increasingly web/cloud-centric and thus your data and applications will generally work on any device.
So yes, Apple will thrive in the smartphone market, and yes, it’s quite likely Microsoft will do well enough to make a dent.
ken1w,
You need to understand how IOS really came into existence, and not make up some lame excuse why Microsoft has failed at its attempts.
Yes, IOS is taken from “aspects” of unix in OSX but that is as far as it goes, its code base is a “COMPLETE REWRITE” and cannot and Will Never be confused as a slimed down version of OSX Snow Leopard, Tiger, or any other base used by Apple’s Desktop Systems.
This is a Misconception that has been thrown around by those that what a simple answer on why their favorite Vendor has failed to come forth with a valid Touch based OS to competed with Apple’s 10 year lead.
Don’t Forget, Apple has invested R&D in the Portable IOS field 5 years longer then any other Vender, And with the accumulative knowledge acquired by working and production of the Newton it has leap forged them beyond this scope, many cant even imagine.
No Kenw1, Apple did not scale down OSX to an IOS version and put on a interface as you say. Stop putting out this type of false B.S.
Lets Make it Very Clear, IOS is Built From the Ground Up, It uses API’s to link to OSX but it is NOT OSX.
I Don’t have Time to Educate Fool’s Like you Ken1w, But This Site sure has Allot more intelligent readers to be aware of what a fool you just made of yourself.
@ken1w
I think you get it wrong related to Apple scaling down OSX for the iPad. That work was done for the iPhone, but for the iPad they just adapted the UI for the new resolution, adding some widgets were necessary. All the APIs are the same for iPhone and iPad.
@larryennis18466
Bill Gates did not know any more about technology than Steve Ballmer. Gates’ daddy taught him to wrote predatory contracts, partnerships, and licensing agreements as well as predatory monopolistic behavior. That’s what built microsoft, and that tactic ran out of steam ten years ago. Microsoft’s CEO chair has been been filled by a technologically illiterate for its entire existence.
While the xbox is making money on a current basis, microsoft spent so much money on product development and below-cost player sales, they will likely never break even.
Goog God… er… last comment was directed to ken1w, not @ken1w, but I’m starting to think that it can address both of them… and @ken1w, even if you have a point, your comments comes out more trollish than the one made by ken1w, who may be wrong but his comment was not at all trolling.
@ Ungenio
Maybe… but Apple did scale DOWN the software foundation of Mac OS X to create iOS. The exact sequence is not relevant. iOS for both iPad and iPhone (and iPod touch) is based on the OS for a VERY capable “big” computer, with optimizations to make it work more efficiently on a hand-held device, and an interface that is based on touch.
BUT Android is an OS specifically created for a phone-sized device. So is Windows Phone 7. This author suggests that it would be better to scale up an OS intended for a phone for use with a tablet computer. That is illogical. And that’s my point.
(And my side point is that Android-based tablets are using an OS that is designed for phones. Even a later version of Android will still have that heritage. Does anyone REALLY think that is a good thing…?)
@ken1w
Who cares, proof will be in the pudding.
Some dark corner of my soul wants to say “get a life”. It’s a non argument, full of non sense. You nor I get to decide what will happen, so what’s the point in debating it? Life to short, let’s not debate hypothetical what ifs.
Nothing to see hear…
@ Ddraig
Who cares? You must care, since you bothered to reply…
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^^^ This is my message to M$.
@@ken1w,
Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?
Microsoft succeeds with Xbox because it controls the software and hardware. Microsoft fails when it only controls the software. Strange that after all these years it turned out that Apple’s business model was the correct one.
But I knew it all along.
How can Ballmer know anything about the target he’s missing when he won’t use, and also attempts to ban anyone at MS’s or his families use of the competition’s stuff?
He doesn’t even know what his products are missing.
Q: What is micro and soft?
A: Ballmer’s dick!
(right, Ballmer’s Left Nut?)
Is the rumour true that Ballmer has pulled the plug on Windows Phone 7?
Did MS miss the obvious? A computer that in one orientation has one OS, and them swaps out another OS when you change it’s orientation.
Didn’t Apple patten that idea a few months back? I seem to remember seeing a patten where an iMac used osX when vertical, and then switched into the iOS when rotated horizontally.
Did MS miss this?