Microsoft, HP introduce touchscreen 'slate PC' at CES - Page 4

Agreed, what few if any analysts are doing right now is trying to parse out what products are part of a convergence in Apple's future development. The focus tends to be on the product itself - not where Apple is taking the consumer. But that is precisely what Apple is doing - first with the Mac, then the iPod, the iPhone and now - whatever it is that is next in line.

You see the same sort of convergence being discussed by Microsoft house devs as well. Except, Microsoft tends to focus first on marketshare and proprietary ownership, which may be their Achilles heel in all of this. The personal computing market is effectively saturated in the US. This is the primary reason why Microsoft is bleeding marketshare. Once saturation hits, the market driver is differentiation.

This is also why Dell and HP and Acer and everyone else making hardware were so successful earlier and now you see their market segments flattening out too. This is why netbooks were able to become popular - differentiation. The problem was that they are inexpensive and therefore a very low profitability. It is possible to look around the consumer marketplace and watch for telltails of where consumer interest is going to be, but a good company will drive market interest with compelling products. Apple has demonstrated they can do that with their previous products.

I agree with what you are saying, but one caveat. I don't think netbooks became popular because of 'differentiation' (is that word? ). I think they are popular because they are cheap, not because they do anything different. Back to what I said about slates and tablet, the netbook is just a laptop miniaturized with a low price point. Everyone I know who has bought one has bought it to use as a cheap device to check email and view websites, not to fill any specific need beyond a laptop.

If it runs windows, I don't want it. If I get a blue screen of death on the tablet, what the hell am I gonna do? Call HP in india, so that a guy I can't understand tells me that my warranty does not cover the OS, and redirects me to Microsoft in india. Where another guy tells me that its $35 to open a case and $135 to get the problem fixed in store. Forget it.

I really despise the statement "competition breeds innovation" when referring to Apple, as it assumes that it's companies like MS and the various PC manufacturers that are driving Apple to do what it does.

Anyone who is not suffering from MISS (Microsoft-Induced Stockholm Syndrome) can see a few glaringly obvious things regarding Apple:

1. Stating that "Apple needs competition" is in itself an admission that Apple is indeed ahead of the competition, regardless of it's market share numbers.

2. If the iPod and the iPhone has shown us anything, it's that the only competition Apple has right now is Apple. Look at the iPod over the years: the more successful it became, the better it got, eventually giving us both the iPhone and the iPod touch. The MacBook / MacBook Pro lines are arguably the best laptops on the market, Mac or Windows, and are the top selling laptops over $1000, period. Apple needs no help from competitors like MS to improve on their products; they do it all by themselves.

3. Given that in every market that Apple has entered late, it has dominated that market (yes, even in the set top TV box category AppleTV is the top seller), is it not Apple that is providing the competition to other companies? Yet these companies have failed to utilize that competitive pressure to make more innovative products; they've simply time and time again copied much of what Apple has done.

Try looking at the facts and being intellectually honest in the future.

You sure sound angry to me, as do a lot of other posters on this thread. People here are making a mockery of PC fanboys' "hysterical" posts on whatever outside site, but all I need point to are some of the ridiculous posts being spewed in this thread. Let's have some balanced perspective, shall we? Belittling the other side here at AI and going over there to troll makes you all look like 5 years olds (PC trolls are despised here at AI, but yet it's seemingly alright to go troll for Apple elsewhere). And Microsoft does not equal HP. Microsoft has become a spokesman for the PC industry, yes, but Microsoft has been and continues to be primarily a software company. Microsoft's "whoring" of its OS to the PC hardware makers is the nature of the PC industry. Why does it bother you so much? The Apple fanboys here constantly use the hardware+software vs. software debate in their defense of Apple/smearing of Microsoft, do they not? And yet here you are, as well as others, sneering and jeering at Microsoft because they didn't manufacture and deliver on a rumored hardware product that was only a concept in the first place. Perhaps it is the Apple mentality that concepts are expected to become the real deal, I don't know. If I earned a dime for every time product concepts didn't become reality, whether from other industries (automotive comes to mind), or even the tech industry, I'd be rich.

But it's 88% of the PC (meaning both Windows and Mac personal computers) market. But I think back to when Steve J first came back to Apple. One of the first things he did was declare that the PC wars were over between Apple and MS. Remember when Bill Gates was on the screen during that one MacWorld keynote and everyone gasped?

Do you think that Jobs, all those years ago, knew where things were heading? Perhaps he was willing to declare the PC wars as over because he knew that several years down the road the PC market itself would be over? Why continue fighting MS over PC market share if the PC market wasn't the future?

Sure, Apple needs to continue making personal computers, that market isn't dead yet. But look how much time and effort they've put into moving beyond the PC market.

And then we see MS put their personal computer desktop OS on a tablet device. Apple has moved on. But MS is still clinging to the past.

Don't you love it when a PC head pulls Microsoft's market share out of their butt as evidence they are better?

I hope Microsoft's share stays big forever. They can have it and all the viruses and bullcrap that go along with it. I'm delighted to be a minority so no one bothers me.

Regarding Windows 7, I still use XP (sadly) but isn't the consensus that 7 is just a bug fix for Vista that should have been given out free with an apology, not a whole new OS?

Can't really disagree with any of that. However, I will say that the software on everybody's devices does have its downsides, even if "whoring" is excessively pejorative. Maybe "promiscuous"?

The form factors of all tablets thus far, have sucked the reason i was much looking forward to the Courier would be the new form factor similar to a laptop and would give me a reason to replace my laptop if it worked well. Now if you are gaming or doing some serious hardware accelerated work then im sure tablets are 100% out of the question.

While tablets seem to be the new "in" thing again for 2010, the problem i have is how am i going to integrate this into my life? It needs to REPLACE something in some way, not be another device for me to tote around.

Every feature these tablets have like media playback, web surfing, email and ebook reading are just duplicate features from either a iPhone or Blackberry (sole reason id never buy a Kindle...no point), so why if you have said smartphone is this even worth buying?

MS has their software on phones, cars, their own game system, Zune, PDAs, a wide variety of PC form-factors, and probably more things. How is that clinging to the past?

I really don't think MS cares all that much about the tablet/slate space. "Oh yeah, our OS runs on that, and this, and that, and this other thing, and.." What MS doesn't provide is a nicely tailored UI for all those different form-factors. I don't know if that's MS's fault or the hardware makers.

"Look! We got Windows 7 running on a 'slate'! Isn't that cool!?" Um, no. Because you didn't tailor the UI for that device. Then MS and the hardware makers point fingers at each other. MS says, "Hey, we have a decent Touch API in the OS, the vendors need to write a compelling user environment on their device." The vendors say, "Yeah, um, we don't do software so much."

- Jasen.

Forgive me for editing your post, but that right there sums up the situation perfectly.

Just have the OS on as many devices as possible, whatever the outcome, and win on sheer volume of unit sales. Quanity over design and attention to detail. MS doesn't really care about the Average User. It comes through in their awkward, poorly thought out keynotes. MS (ballmer and co.) talks to people as if they were IT managers at a board meeting. Apple talks to people as if they are people.

Erm...Apple haven't admitted to any tablet. It's all forum speculation...all of it. Apple aren't responsible for other people's hopes and dreams. However i bet they are watching all the frenzy with glee.

You mean like

"Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve"

Yeah right!!

Five hundred dollars!!!

Five hundred dollars!!!

Five hundred dollars for a picture frame without a keyboard!!!

Bwahahahhhaahhhaaahhhhaaa!!!

On the nose. Microsoft is trying to pander to the consumer market but still talks and designs for the business market. Although they are close to doing it right with the XBox 360 and the Zune HD (yes I love my Zune HD so sue me ), Ballmer still doesn't know how to properly capitalize on the consumer markets. And I have often wondered if it is a corporate culture issue where MS allows the different departments to do what they want versus Apple that has a clear 'buck stops here' man with Jobs. It is clear that some departments at MS actually know what they are doing while others have their heads lodged somewhere unnatural. And it all just clashes.

Well, there's always going to be sneering and jeering at AI, but when the last entry of the keynote coverage of your event from one of the top tech sites in the world reads:


you have to think your presentation was a bit of a flop.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/l...-2010-keynote/

As far as the "rumored hardware product that was only a concept" that you seem to be dismissing - I really hope that isn't so. The creatives I worked with thought that was a far more interesting product than a slate form factor. We've been working with Cintiqs for years (so "slate" computing is old hat to us) and having a portable product with an extra screen would be a HUGE selling factor for the creative market. Among my associates, we are very disappointed today, and we're all pretty much agreed we're not buying in to the Apple slate as a professional product until we see if the Courier shows up in the next year. So your "only a concept" is the only MS product any of the Mac-head creatives I work with really, really want.

I would say to MS, stop trying to make everyone somewhat happy with every product and try and get your hardware manufacturers to make a few people extremely happy with a few products. There's nothing like a few zealots who can't stop talking about their gadgets to spread the word. If you don't have people who "get it" and "love it" you're not going to inspire passion in your products.

Tablets are a terrible form-factor for productivity and media creation.
But they are an ideal form-factor for media consumption.

Apple have figured out that there are a lot of professional users of computers. And for that market they make the MacBook Pros and the like.

But Apple also know that there are a lot of computer users - who do little more than watch media, browse the web, and do a little light face-booking.

For this audience, the full-blown OS / Notebook OS is entirely the wrong product. Mac OS X is wrong. Windows 7 is wrong. Ubuntu is super wrong. So how about a computer, purpose built for that audience.

Yes you can do some of this on a phone. But I would never read a book on a phone or want to watch a full length movie on a screen the size of a business card.

C.

Because they put a desktop OS, including it's interface, on a "slate" device. That is the pretty much the definition of clinging to the past.

Some of the other devices you list (Zune, etc) at least had some innovation in the UI. But why in god's name would they run a Windows 7 UI on a 10" screen?

Answer: Because Apple hasn't yet showed them what a good UI for such a device looks like. Once Apple shows their device, you can get MS will begin working on a new interface for these types of devices.

Anyway, the point of my post was that Apple has for many years, probably longer than any of us would suspect, been working towards the day when the personal computer as we currently know it is gone.

Microsoft has nothing new to show. Its been that way for a while now. That isn't news. Microsoft isn't the one Apple should be concerned about, its Google.

Every company has its dark times, clearly Microsoft is in those dark times. Its not like Apple hasn't had theirs and you know what hey say about being #1, there is only one place to go.

I remember when Apple had to struggle to get 2% market share on any of their products. Apple is doing very well now but it would be foolish to think its always going to stay that way. Steve Jobs isn't going to be at Apple forever and in history their have been alot bigger and stronger companies then Apple have have gone downhill fast. AIG and GM come to mind.

You must be out of your mind to compare ford/Aig to Apple, good luck with your microsoft stock.

I thought of the PC brands HP was actually passing up Dell.

Still, I have to agree that this is just sad. Sad, sad, sad.... It looks fairly sleek but that commercial didn't give me a hint of anything significant. It's as if it was saying to me, "Look, I can do the same things you can do on an iPhone, except mine is huge. I'm split between whether I want to be a Kindle or an iPhone, I'm so confused!"

Lame, just lame. They totally need to fire their ad agency cause from that commercial I'm more likely to jump to the conclusion that it's just a glorified digital picture frame that can browse the web.

Really? It wasn't that long ago Apple stock was worth 60% less then it is today. I know in your tiny mind that can never happen again but the fact is it can. I don't own MS stock so stop making stupid statements.

You clearly have no clue what you are talking about when it comes to understanding how the end user benefits from competition. Apple isn't the one that needs competition the end users is the one the benefits from it.

Oh, but you do sound angry, bitter, quite a bit scared as well. No idea why, though.

and slate computers have been around for ages. They typically used pen input as touchscreen tech was pretty poor back in the 90's

M$ even had "windows for pen computing" back on Windows 3.1 to support that market

how long before the release of the iPhone did Apple demo it?

not angry, but definitely stupid

ya notice all of those PC's on the stage with the monkey? they are not all HP computers... MS did not choose HP, but *USED* HP

One problem that MS has, however, is that they lack a unified code base ready to be customized for new devices. So for intermediate devices like a mid-sized slate, manufacturers have to choose between a widget-y but compact WinCE based OS or full blown Windows with some touch bells and whistles.

Given the drift of things in the CE industry, it looks like most manufacturers are electing to forgo WinCE in favor of Linux variants or Android, so that leaves Windows 7 as the default OS for when you want to make claims to having "a real OS."

That distinction-- between light-weight but somewhat limited OSes for small devices on the one hand, and the entirety of Windows whether you want it or not-- represents a huge competitive advantage for Apple, IMO. They don't have to try to fit 100 lbs of potatoes into a 10 pound sack, and they don't have to try to make a potato into a meal-- they can use exactly the components that are called for, with the UI that works best, for each and every machine they make, all of it drawing from the same code base.

Of course, some people are going to confuse that with "crippling" OS X to fit a form factor or performance envelope, but then again some people can't understand what Apple could possibly do to make a tablet more desirable than the Windows running devices that have been around for a while.

I really don't understand majority of people here.

Apple keeps announcing pretty much same phones, ipods, laptops and desktops with small tweaks and updates for the last few years, and yet everyone here is really excited because new iPod Mini now has useless camera - what a huge step forward.

Then HP comes out with their first multi-touch Windows 7 tablet and some sort of Amazon/Kindle deal and everyone see it as judgement day come for both MS and HP, and probably rest of PC industry.

What gives?

While HP Slate is definitely not Courier, with decent battery life and good screen resolution I can see myself using it; recently majority of my laptop usage was about reading books too complex for iPhone screen, comics, occasionaly having a flick or TV show episode in bed, before sleep, review a document I did in the office and do some minor editing... I know that on this device my CDisplay, VLC, Word, PowerPoint and other software will work well with advantage of having less than half of a notebook bulk in a firm, single-piece unit.

Revolutionary? No.

Useful? Hell yes.

Sure I'd like to see something really breathtaking, like Courier might be. I'd also like to win LOTTO. Some things don't happen when we want them. Some things don't happen at all. Is Courier dead, or MS is again "following" Apple with keeping their lips sealed? Time will tell.

Untill then I'm waiting to see in-depth review of HP Slate, before I make my final judgement, and also see infamous Apple tablet. I'm hoping that it will really come out and be more than oversized iPod Touch. Having resemblance of iPhone's simple GUI would be nice, but if I can't do above mentioned things, whole exercise for me would really be pointless.

I wonder what price apple will charge for their picture frame without a keyboard

What gives?
This new HP device still runs Windows. HP should choose another operating system and give consumers a real choice, now that would dazzle me. That would be revolutionary.
I agree with you that as this product is it's far from revolutionary, but since it's a Windows machine being useful and working well is still light years away.

One of the PC makers that I think does have some good ideas is ex-IBM/Lenovo,
and all their good stuff consists of disconnecting Windows.

The (IBM) ThinkVantage technology is nice for a PC, providing backup and recovery tools that live outside of Windows - even including a browser that connects to their support site when Windows won't even boot.

And there was something recently about a detachable Lenovo tablet that runs Windows when in laptop mode and seamlessly transitions into a non-windows system when you detach the screen.

Lenovo have found the key to differentiation in the PC market, which is to understand that Windows is unfit as an operating system and must be treated more like a flakey app within the system.

( But even with ThinkVantage, I gave up and switched to a Mac ).

I'd say the MSI dual-screen device is the closest to the Microsoft Courier:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/m...ader-hands-on/

The problem Microsoft has is they can't risk competing with their strong partners so I can't see how the Courier could ever have materialized.

To be perfectly honest, I actually like the slates that have been introduced including the HP one. Sure the UIs that are running aren't very good but they can be improved before shipping. I don't expect them to match the UI that Apple has because their UI is deeper than how it appears on the surface.

Apple anti-alias text system-wide, double buffer graphics contexts, hardware accelerate vector rendering - they do so many things you can't add by just copying layout and their gestures make sense.

But, consider this: if Apple do decide to make an iphone OS device with an intuitive UI, will you use it to write office documents - doctors, students etc? There are no text editors for the iphone OS. Will you use it to watch all your DivX/XVid/Mkv/Video-TS movies on the sofa? There is no Perian or VLC for iphone OS. If you want to do some work like design a website - no Photoshop, no FTP apps, no code editors. What if you want to play WoW in comfort? You can't.

Apple are vulnerable to failure like the other companies even if they are less vulnerable. If they make a great looking device that runs a great UI but you can't do half the things you use a laptop for, the question remains - why not buy a netbook at half the price running the full OS X? Sure it may be a nice kindle competitor but I personally don't own a kindle because I don't need what it offers. I have an iphone so iphone apps + ebooks on a big screen isn't enough.

I think plenty of people will install different operating systems on the HP slate. Its relatively easy to change OSes on anything that runs Windows. I think Apple's the one that won't let you install their OS on any other system, the iPod Touch requires you to jailbreak it to mod it, and I bet Apple won't let you install a different OS on their (alleged) tablet. I'm betting the HP slate isn't a closed system at all.

Just say no to Windows pre-installed.

How many people do you see lugging around 10 inch screens for media consumption? Portable dvd players have pretty much been killed by PMPs like the iPod and Zune and whatever else there is. Now that smartphones have the same capabilities coupled with web surfing and email these tablet features would only appeal to someone who either doesnt have a smart phone/PMP or a laptop.

Ebook readers seem more like a new fad than anything right now. I see them occasionally from time to time at the Resort but if i head out to the local "reading" spots like Panera or Starbucks they are none-existent. I believe mac daily said that Amazon has sold only roughly 3 Million Kindles since its launch in 07 and i doubt any other company is remotely close in sales. For a specific feature device i guess thats decent but hardly setting the industry on fire and is shifting the world towards this.

Ebook readers have zero value to most people unless your an avid reader in which the device will pay for itself over time. If your just the average Twilight/Harry Potter junkie well a 300 dollar ebook is a hard sell, especially if your just trying to READ. A possible 5-700 dollar ebook reader with the same features as my phone is an even harder sell in my eyes for just content consumption.

All I have to say is...

The real motive behind this tablet announcement was for Microsoft to 1up Apple, and they failed miserably at it! (They also failed the tech community yet again) I am of the opinion that Microsoft is bloated with vaporware at this point. This announcement itself is evidence that the iSlate is indeed coming...

I don't think Microsoft is developing anything truly viable to compete at the level of the "iOS". Even if Windows 7 (or any win flavor) is multi-touch capable, the significance is minimal when the iPhone interface, app store, Mac hardware and user community is so tightly unified. Assimilate the iSlate into the ecosystem and you have an established quality product right out of the box. More importantly a product developers will have confidence to succeed in. Far more feasible is this scenario than anything Microsoft honchos and pundits can regurgitate against Apple's strategies.

Whether the iSlate will end up being a "Macbook Air" for mobile devices outside favorable pricing tiers remains to be seen. Still who wouldn't agree that the Macbook Air is a unique and beautiful peace of tech, and that one could expect the same level of quality in the iSlate.

P.S - Does Microsoft think it can still succeed by throwing it's OS onto any device and expect it to be a compelling contender in the slate market when they can barely achieve a contender against the iPhone?

I saw that MSI device, seems the closest but i want the Courier UI. Ill pass on anything else.

This is where MS agitates me. Not making hardware for PC is fine, they dont need to there are plenty that do and cheaply. Not making hardware for phones is pretty stupid but i can deal with it (Zune phone would be pretty amazing in my eyes but not to MS i guess).

Not capitalizing on a dead and weak sector with your own hardware is just stupid. Just because its a touch PC with windows means nada. No vendor has been successful at all in this market because they've been slapping just Windows on it and calling it a day. Its been that way for 9 years now.

Your points about the Apple Tablet are spot on, while a nice UI is to be expected, if i have to spend a higher price tag i need to get at least OS X on it.

And I demoed a perpetual motion machine back in 1997. I never did produce it, though.

just like microsoft did not produce a tablet.

however, lots of other companies did, using microsofts XP tablet edition

how did your perpetual motion machine go for being produced by others?