“Do you remember Microsoft’s top secret Couriet tablet project? It was a dual screen, book-like tablet first leaked well before Apple unveiled the iPad, created by J. Allard, the mind behind Microsoft’s fantastic Xbox console,” John Brownlee reports for Cult of Mac.
MacDailyNews Take: It was vapor. A 3-D animation. As we told you the very day it “leaked.” Buzz Lightyear is more real; at least there are plastic dolls and stuffed toys – physical objects claiming to be him that actually exist. But, we’ll play along.
Brownlee continues, “So what happened to the Courier? Why wasn’t it released? It all came down to the fact that Bill Gates had an ‘allergic reaction’ to the project because it didn’t run Outlook.”
“Allard at least had a cohesive vision for the Courier: it wasn’t about being a laptop or smartphone replacement, it was about being a device for media consumption and creation,” Brownlee writes. “Sound familiar? Allard had identified the core tablet idea that Apple ended up embracing for the iPad… and Microsoft axed the project, even though if Allard had been allowed to continue, Microsoft and Apple might have reached market with similarly exciting devices at the exact same time.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Brownlee must be taking advanced yoga to be able to stretch like that. Regardless, his timeline is severely warped. There’s no way Courier could have debuted alongside iPad.
The video of vapor classified as “Courier” was “leaked” to Gizmodo on September 23, 2009. (By the way, ex-Microsoftie Robbie Bach has since confirmed that ‘Courier’ was vaporware.) iPad was unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 27, 2010.
No company, Microsoft especially, can go from a vaporous video “leaked” in a sad attempt to freeze a market that they knew Apple was about to create (the extent of which was unknown even to Apple) to a shippable (even with Microsoft’s low standards) product in four short months. Microsoft couldn’t even do it in four years. At Microsoft, you’ve performed a miracle if you can get a font change made on a trade show handout in four months. To top it all off, Steve Jobs himself said that iPad was conceived long ago, years prior to iPhone’s 2007 debut, and put on hold while Apple concentrated first on iPhone (and iPod touch) before returning to tackle the iPad.
Nothing could have saved Microsoft from iPad, certainly not a freaking video that Microsoft in their laughable hubris thought would be able to freeze a market while they waited, as usual, for Apple to show them what the hell to do next.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Nothing but love for Ballmers strategy. Long may the strategy continue.