Microsoft, HP introduce touchscreen 'slate PC' at CES - Page 2

Nope. Microsoft has been on that slide since April 4, 1975.

Here

http://www.pcworld.com/article/18617...pointment.html

This comment pretty much summed it up:

cameljockey says:
Thu Jan 07 06:24:00 PST 2010
Anything involving windows or Microsoft is poison. This company is for losers only.



I stand corrected!

I have to think the person responsible knew exactly what they were doing selecting this image and set Ballmer up. Being the astute genius he is he didn't notice.

The smart (and really only possible) move by Microsoft and HP, they introduced hardware with Windows 7 a present OS and release date of 2010. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy a laptop minus the keyboard using a complicated keyboard/trackpad based OS UI like Windows 7.

What they are waiting for IS WHAT UI APPLE IS GOING TO RELEASE and then copy it, like always. Since that will take some time, thus the year wait for release.

Thing is they will play catch up and follow the leader Apple, because they can't innovate correctly.

HP tried to introduce a new touch screen UI running Linux or some sort of front hack on Windows, but it failed.

The Courier is a CGI rendering, there's nothing to show. Just like that Pink phone thing.

I agree with what you say except that it was smart. They would have been better avoiding tablets IMHO so as to avoid exactly what has happened - really bad press and stocks tumbling. Regarding the copying of Apple's UI you are 100% correct but M$ will have a fun time trying based on the lousy underpinning they have to start with ... Google and Palm have a better chance. Also I think you need to remove the 'correctly' ... they simply 'can't innovate'. LOL

I think the slate PC idea is interesting, but the thing looks like a large iPhone running Windows XP.

Apple is sure to trump this device in the near future, but Apple's device will cost 2x as much and have at least one gotcha. Apple has had a number of "ugh" moments over the years. The MacBook Air is the most recent one that comes to mind. Amazing piece of hardware, but the price really hurt it in the beginning.

Perhaps I'm getting cheap as the years pass, but some days, I feel like Apple left me in the dust. Is it too much to ask for a headless iMac i7 that is under $1500? I'm happy paying the Apple tax, but you continue to miss the mark for some of us.

the courier?

that's hilarious, where are the microsoft fanboys today? taking the day off...

This. He even LOOKED embarassed, and rightly so. The cutting edge of Windows technology.

officially..

Actually, I found that the article was rather weak as to why the author thought the slates were not that great. If he had mentioned anything about the specs, or the input, or anything like that it may have helped his argument.

That said, a lot of the comments on there were downright hysterical. Some of my favorites include:



This one sums it all up:

It is such a rip off of the iPhone design Ive's should sue HP.

i have silver light installed on my ppc imac g5, running osx 10.4.11.

i think if you google silver light with the request that you are looking to install silverlight on a ppc running osx 10.4.11 you will find it after a little search.

So where's that guy that was on here yesterday with the centered text saying how impressive a product he hoped this would be?

I think this picture shows something else too which is how hideously *bad* MS is at designing anything.

Here we have a device for reading books, but it has a frame, around a frame, around a frame, around a frame, around a book. Simply by means of the crappy architecture of the GUI, it loses about 40-50% of the screen real estate to the UI and the controls.

If you have an electronic book, the ideal is to have the book itself appear edge to edge. Some frames are unavoidable (the device itself, the borders of the screen), but this GUI is just ridiculous and unnecessary.

This is just Windows' desktop on a small device running full screen apps. Big deal.

Try clicking the tiny "x" on the stupid yellow balloons that appear on a Windows task bar every few minutes with your big fat finger on that thing. It won't work. Try adjusting the volume on the task bar volume slider, and see it FAIL. It's hard enough adjusting the iPhone's software volume control which is literally twice the size.

You *will* need a capacitive stylus to operate this thing.

Exactly! They STILL don't get it. I want to hit Ballmer in the head like they do on those V8 commercials. They seriously need some new leadership. I'm rooting for Microsoft because more competition is better for the consumer. They are currently providing NO COMPETITION to Apple. Wake up idiots!

A headless iMac is a contradiction of terms, and the Apple tax is Microsoft FUD.

On the other hand, look how many pots they've got their hands in. It's astonishing. How can any company do good work when they're spread so far and wide?

I tend to like reading the live blogs from places like Engadget and Gizmodo.

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

First, there was some kind of power outage just before the keynote started. Not good. What happens when all your carefully pepped demo machines reboot?

Second, MS is much bigger than Apple and has it's hands in a lot more things. Ballmer showed off Bing, XBox (a decent sized ecosystem of its own), several in car products, mentioned Zune, and pushed WinMobile info off to Mobile World Congress. Apple doesn't have near the scope of products and markets that MS does.

Ballmer spent a LONG time talking about Windows 7. And in there he briefly showed off the HP slate. The keynote was a broad overview of several MS products and markets. The slate product didn't warrant a big introduction; it was obviously a bit player in MS's overall product space.

I can criticize Ballmer in that when he did talk about the slate he used an image with an apple prominently displayed on it, but I can't feel too bad that slate computers are a small niche in MS scope of offerings.

Here's the penultimate line from Engadget's live blog: "And... that's it? Wow. Incredibly boring. Incredibly incredibly boring. Really."

- Jasen.

If you need to install Silverlight then it's not worth watching.

I don't think you get the whole definition of "vapourware."

This most definitely means that the Courier is indeed 100% vapourware.

Even if they demoed Courier at the event on some kind of alpha or beta hardware/software basis, that would still indicate that it's not an actual releasable product. They announced it as a (near) future product, but it's basically just a pre-alpha concept video. This is almost the very definition of "vapourware"

So it took around nine years for this? MS might not want to be touting how long they have had "tablet" on their minds and in their R&D department... It was bad enough with the length of time for Longhorn, Vista, Windows 7 and what features were first touted versus what actually became reality.

Kind of like going from Courier to the HP Slate... MS is doing it all over again!

Here's Ballmer's dillema. He has to sit back and wait for somebody else to build the hardware, basically using Windows 7. Somebody else has to "innovate" the hardware. It's a catch 22 and real innovation can't happen. Could MS build the hardware themsleves? Of course, but then they would alienate and piss off their "partners" like HP for instance. So they sit there looking at each other, waiting for the other to do something. Do we finally begin to understand why Apple likes to build the whole enchilada, control the eco-system, and lock us in to their universe? Do we now understand why Apple is recogonized as a real innovator?

You have to respect Microsoft for the success they've had in the past but this keynote was really sad to watch. Apple's influence and presence was all over the place. It was palpable. It was embarassing.

Like someone else posted earlier, I hope they keep Ballmer around long enough to utterly destroy the company Gates built.

The more these things happen and the better I understand Jobs and his obsession for secrecy. If Apple wasn't as secret in product development as it is then they would basically do R&D for the whole of the Silicon Valley.

Sad day today. The biggest company on earth didn't announce anything significant or ready for sale right now, further proving that only one company is doing some serious R&D in user interfaces and devices.

Its safe to say, microsoft is on its way out in just a few short years at this pace, Apple will continue to shake up industries and innovate, eventually taking huge carvings of tech industry to grow and swallow up the inept microsoft. That presentation was quite awful and those windows junkies salivating at the courier video should feel that sharp pain in their heart right about now looking at those slate pc's.

It is quite sad indeed for Ballmer to even come on stage with zero products to show, only to chant and remind us of how supposedly good windows 7 is.

So if this slate pc was made by HP and not microsoft, where is the courier? I suppose M$ is waiting on the Apple product to hit the streets first so they can get started copying it?

OMG. Here are some of the comments.


Good find, digitalclips. These people are hysterical. They're accusing people of being Apple fanboys enmasse, and then acting the same way themselves. Can they be this dumb? The HP product looks like tablet with...GASP....multi-touch! It's pointless. It's a color Kindle.



I could not agree more. Ballmer's Keynote was absurd and sad in every respect. The man is SO FREAKING BORING. It's actually uncomfortable. Instead of creating excitement, he comes off like a used car salesman. "Come on over here and take a look at this nice little product....she's a real beaut!"

The problem for Ballmer is that he doesn't understand--no matter how hard he tries---that Apple is not a hardware OR software company. Their products go beyond products. The marriage of hardware, software and real ingenuity turns the product into symbol...a household name..an icon. The iPhone is just a smartphone with a touch screen that can run different Apps....it's more than the sum of its parts. It's an iPhone, and not just because the name says so.

Apple is all about the experience of the customer. They don't enter markets just to compete with a company. On the other hand, M$ does exactly this. They look at what Apple is doing with the iPod, iPhone, Mac OSX and think..."hey! we can compete with that!" Apple wants to compete, of course. But they do it through focusing on one thing: The customer's experience.

Let me close with the fact that I don't think Gates was as bad as Ballmer. He had more vision to be sure. He doesn't have what Jobs does, but he's smart enough to know why Apple is Apple. At least he had the honesty to steal ideas!

That's the problem. MS whoring its OS out to all takers regardless of the hardware it runs on. MS chose HP (or HP chose MS, whichever, LOL.) And HP produced THAT.

MS = HP.

Done.

I'm not angry, just incredibly amused.

While Project Natal was not announced or ready for sale (but a sale date was provided), I would say it is serious R&D in user interfaces & devices. And they did show off some decent integration between TVs and handheld devices.

Has anyone seen MS's in car offerings? Do they have any UI innovations?

MS may not be innovating in the same space as Apple. But they are innovating. Their innovations just get overwhelmed by the mundane stuff they're doing and some prominent screw ups (Vista).

- Jasen.

I was about to say that. I hate how large portion of the display is eaten by the device frame, Windows frames... etc. This was my criticism to the early Kindle as well. Too much UI space wasted.

They never announced the courier. A presentation of the concept was leaked. I don't think a product can be vaporware without an announcement. We know that Microsoft has thought about concepts like the courier, but they have never promised or even suggested that it will ever hit the market.

My take: A Microsoft project leaked in its early stages of development to gauge consumer support for such a device, but not vaporware.

I think both positive and negative responses are much ado about absolutely nothing. You can't really compare Apple and Microsoft because Apple produces OS and hardware and Microsoft (except for the Zune) produces only OS.

So what can Microsoft really do as they're at the mercy of the hardware producers, like HP, that happen to use their OS. I think the difference between this presentation and whatever Apple comes up with will be similar to the difference between simply displaying an e-Book on a tablet and the Sports Illustrated prototype demo. The problem is that Ballmer probably doesn't understand that difference -- he probably simply screamed, "we're going to CES. I'm giving the keynote. Give me something I can show."

There is lack of innovation across the industry. We can easily see this as virtually every phone company and now the tablet and slate companies are producing product that at least on the outside, look like an iPhone. If they don't even have enough creativity to design an alternative to Apple's look on the outside, how can we expect them to innovate the UI and/or development tools? I think this demo says more (negative) about HP than it does about Microsoft.

I don't think anyone would argue that Jobs, Ive and team have a certain design aesthetic. At the very least, they are totally aware that it's necessary to have that design aesthetic in both hardware and software design. Does Mr. Ballmer have a design aesthetic (aside from the fashion faux pas of a very large man wearing a red sweater)?

I do agree with the Microsoft defenders in one regard: it's unfair to compare an existing product to one that doesn't yet exist.

The fact is that if Apple releases a ground-breaking but very expensive new product and other manufacturers release a much less expensive product that does more than the Kindle and others readers like it (but presumably less than what the Apple does), they both will win - they'll be room in the marketplace for both.

In my case I have a Mac laptop and an iPhone. If I started travelling extensively again, I'd probably want an e-Book reader, but I don't think I want a $1000 device no matter what it does. But of course, I don't really know yet what new ground Apple is going to break.

C'mon, dude. Don't get upset. Although the ridiculous keynote Microsoft is a great company and you can buy all its software and live happily. Yes, you can. Take a deep breath, calm down and just go to pcworld or wherever your friends are.

I love Apple Products as much as next guy on this forum, but...

Let's talk about the hypocracy about this forum's reaction to this HP device. Now, it may not be an apple product, but it's everything you've been dreaming of in the iSlate/MacPad; but, it is using a MS OS. I can assure you that you fanboys/girls out there would be singing a very differnet song if this was what Apple unveiled.

Sadly, i don't see this new Apple iSlate being anything like this. I've been reading the forums regarding the Apple tablet for about 2 years now. Everyone has thier wish lists out there, and the general consensus is that most of the fanboys/girls want a MBP but in tablet form. Again, i don't see that happening with the new product, but we'll see.

Granted, Windows has a bad UI and track record...i get that.

I just wanted to call all of you people out for crapping on a product that is everything you want, except for the OS. I can't wait to hear the fanboy/girl reaction to the new Apple tablet when it doesn't have OSX on it...the wining and all that.

for shame!

Those devices he demo'd all look too heavy and too big. I want something light and ultra-thin that I can easily hold with one hand without getting tired in a hurry.

If it is a 10" screen then most of what I see better be an active display area. Forget a half inch black border around the display - that's just ugly. Razor thin on the device thickness. Good luck with that M$ since I won't be buying one of those.

Right. And then there was some kind of "leak", or possibly misunderstanding, or overanxious minion, or something, that got that mention in the NYT that MS intended to show a slate that maybe possibly might be a move against Apple.

The rest of it was all overheated speculation. I think taking MS to task for some kind of failure or faux pas is like the teeth gnashing over Apple having "failed" when they don't announce some rumored product that they never said a word about, as if the hysteria of the tech press and commentariat were some kind of mandate.

If you leave out speculation driven by an old concept video that clearly was nothing but a concept video, MS did a pretty typical presentation of where they're at and what they're selling, with completely to be expected boosterism. No, there weren't any paradigm changing or ground breaking wares to show, but as far as I know nobody at MS ever said anything about that.

MS fans did the company no favors by chanting "Courier" over and over again, and MS may think twice in the future before they "leak" any conceptual material. They probably assumed that people would look at it and go "cool, MS is working on cool stuff" and move on, forgetting that the faithful are getting a little desperate for something innovative in the mobile space out of Redmond.

Uh, it isn't. And the fact that it has Winblows on it (yuck!) is only part of the problem (instead of a slick, mobile-optimized version.)

In any case, the one thing that MS didn't want has come to pass:

The tech world is now waiting on Apple.

I'll put that slate on the MS coffee table thingy (whatever happened to that?) and let it collect dust.