Microsoft exec says tablets like Apple's iPad may be just a fad - Page 4

I would argue there is no 'tablet strategy'. There is simply a personal computer strategy, you either have it or you don't. I don't believe Microsoft has a strategy for the personal computer: they have their successful history, they have R&D, and they have nerds invested and interested in certain kinds of technologies. But this is not a strategy.

From a business perspective, given past track records, anything that Ballmer touches turns to a giant steamy pile. So go the opposite direction, and you'll make money.

Again, they need to stick with perfecting their OS. It's only been 26 years since its launch, and yet its still a POS.

MS thanks the digital Gods each day for monopolies, or they would have gone the way of the Zune and Windows phone a long time ago.

That was awesome.

Good say man

Uncomfortable for companies and people whose businesses and careers revolve around PCs. Kinda like a successful horse and buggy salesman seeing the first Model T drive by.

Nope. They bought it. Just like DOS. They deserve credit for buying it and turning it into a successful product.

Microsoft may want to check it's vetting process for "Chief Strategy and Research Officer" ... shouldn't the chief of strategy and research kind of know whether tablets will be viable long term?

So I suppose he doesn't see the iPad being used in thousands of hospitals, doctor's offices, warehouses, factory floors, etc. not to mention average consumers, all of whom are downloading and running ... what's the count, 65,000+ apps now?

Ya, I'm sure it's a fad ... approaching sales of 20 million devices ... sure, a fad.

Well, this is why market share means squat. They may have sold a gazillion netbooks. But what was the margin on those things? As was stated in a story here earlier, even Acer is moving away from the market share approach.

Apple doesn't only sell a lot of iPhones and iPads, they bring in a ton of revenue and profit with them, as well. I'm not sure what the margin is on the iPad2, but I'm guessing it's pretty ok. And I know that the iPhone has a high margin.

As I've said before, I'd rather sell 10 units at $50 margin than sell 50 units at $5 margin.

Following on from Andy Lark addressing the technical press in Australia, Mundie was speaking to some committee also in Australia. Why? I believe they are trying to position Dell and MS in the mindset in Australia for the day, should it arrive, that the national broadband network is rolled out (http://www.dbcde.gov.au/broadband/na...adband_network).

The Commonwealth government and many departments in Australia whore after Dell and MS and are populist followers. (Please forgive me if you are amongst the enlightened in Australia, you know who you are!) Fortunately, the Australian population as a whole couldn't give a fig what these idiots have to say.

To add my two cents, semiconductor technology might have a role in the post-human condition that is the destination for humanity and technology. However, it won't be in the form of mobile phones! It will be fabulously low-powered and powerful, on occasions assembled in-situ in the body and pioneered by forward looking individuals and companies, neither of which describes Dell or MS.

Our progeny will look upon the mobile phone in a similar way perhaps to the way we view the fob watch or one day, wireless radio.

After the Dell guy now the micro$oft guy has some "insightful" prediction???
What he means to say is that he hopes that this tablet stuff is some nightmare he can wake up from, because they don't even seem capable to copy this one any time soon, even a bad copy that no one will laugh at! While WP7 looks more promising than the nerdroid OS its still Niche and beginning to look like the zune! LOL

While I love my iPad, I am not so sure that it represents a paradigm shifting device everybody thinks it is...

It seems all the "players" are hell bent moving everything to a cloud-centric universe where nothing is physically owned by anyone anymore, devices like the iPad could very well be a fad a couple of years from now.

I don't think Microsoft has any grandiose vision to bank on, but at the same time, I don't think anyone knows exactly what the future will hold.

Obvious MS Homebuilding Gamer.

Did you know the comments Mundie made about "a world where the room is the computer" and "there'll be a successor to the desktop [PC], it'll be the room" were actually made two years ago, not in the same context as the other comments made in this article?

Did you know Microsoft has been working on the "natural user interface" since the inception of Surface a decade ago?

Did you know the "touch screen" on the original Surface wasn't actually a "touch screen" but a matrix of cameras, and worked in a similar way that Kinect does?

Did you know that the interface in "Minority Report" (2002) that people often refer to when looking at Kinect actually came from the Microsoft Surface team? (they worked with Spielberg on the movie)


It's crazy to say "Kinect probably would not have even been on Microsoft's radar had the Wii HCI revolution not happened" when it has been on their radar for pretty much the last decade.

The main point is that MS has not really figured out how to turn any of this into a successful and profitable long term strategy.

With the iPad, Apple clearly is developing an entirely new platform that is not directly dependent on the legacy of the personal computer. MS has no clear strategy or new platform paradigm that is not directly dependent on the legacy of the personal computer.

MS needs to stop messing around and release MS Office for iOS. That is where MS really makes the bulk of its money.

I would believe that the Kinect wasn't a response to the Wii, if the Kinect had come before the colossal success of the Wii.

Whether or not it's a paradigm shift of real significance or not, you're right: we won't know for a while.

But I know that, for me, in the short time I've had my iPad2, it's already changed a lot of how I operate on a daily basis. Just one example: I wanted to read "Jane Eyre" before the movie comes out. Instead of going to the library or to Borders (which is closing anyways, any day now), I clicked on iBooks, searched for the title, downloaded it, and was sitting there with a vodka on the rocks, reading away within a couple minutes.

Microsoft has been trying to create a market for tablet computes for over a decade. Now that Apple has actually managed to do so, they want to claim that there is no future for tablet computers. Meanwhile they are trying to get their partners to build tablet computers with the tablet version of their OS.

Make sense to anyone?

Apparently, it makes sense to the execs at MS.

Nice and succinct summary of Microsoft's stance. It must burn them up inside, one would imagine.

I disagree and say the iPad is the paradigm shift everyone thinks it is. The shift has only begun.

We have to use some physical device to access the information in the cloud. What would replace tablets and smart phones?

That's not the "main point" at all, it's a totally different point.

We can talk about how much money Kinect is going to make Microsoft (probably not very much - long term) or we can talk about Kinect and the WiiMote being the same thing (they aren't).

This isn't anything new and definitely isn't something that Microsoft pioneered either. Five years ago I was doing graduate work on a retinal display meant for fighter pilots and funded by DARPA. This technology is farther along than most people know. I honestly don't think it is even 15-20 years out.

However, this is still a technology which solves one problem, but not another. Retinal display is great for personal device usage, but does nothing for the person that needs to share something. For instance, just today I loaded up over a thousand pages of manuals on a six-axis robot that we are programming onto my iPad and took it down to the floor. Just a year ago, before I got my iPad, I would of had to printed out certain pages and ran from the production floor to my office and back when my electrical tech needed to reference a schematic from inside the control panel. Today I just pulled up the schematic, zoomed in on the relevant section, and handed it in to him.

I apologize to Microsoft, but a laptop wouldn't have worked for this (I guess a netbook could have), a "room as a computer" would not have worked for this, and even a smartphone would not have worked as well. But a tablet worked perfectly for this.


Can you tell me who the #1 buggy whip manufacturer is? Didn't think so (oh and Googling it doesn't count).

My company was one of the big players in mechanical indexers over a decade ago. It used to be a very lucrative market. Now that market is fast becoming a niche as servo motors become cheaper and easier to implement. The higher ups saw the writing on the wall a while back and started offering value-added services to their indexers, which eventually led to our company moving more into automation services. We still sell indexers, but they aren't the bulky of our business anymore. That is future planning. There will always be a market for mechanical indexers, but being the #1 in a market that is only 1% of what it used to be isn't that good of a thing.

Of the three companies that you listed I only see one that seems to have a comprehensive strategy and a corporate environment apparently capable of achieving it, and that is HP.

Microsoft has the resources, but from inside sources (meaning I know some people who work for MS) their corporate structure is set up all wrong for them to truly create a comprehensive strategy capable of dominating in the future. Basically, the teams don't work together and jealously guard every advance that they make to ensure that their department does better than the other departments.

Dell is a sinking ship. Their entire business model is quickly becoming irrelevant and they don't seem to have any clue which way that they should go, nor the resources to move in the direction when they stumble upon the correct one.


I agreed with pretty much everything that you said. However, the biggest error in your post was the assertion that machine controls (and I assume you are talking PLC or PAC here) are on the cheaper end of the spectrum. The machine controls for a small and simple machine will run you about the cost of a mid-range iMac, a medium sized machine will run you about the same as a tricked out Mac Pro, and a large machine can easily run you more than a server setup for a small company.


I love my iPad, but when asked by people about it, that is the first thing that I tell them. It is not a laptop replacement if you are needing to do much creation. The touch interface is just too cumbersome for most task involved in creation of documents.

Now, that being said. I believe that Apple has already thought about this and is why they seem to be working towards melding OS X and iOS into a single operating system. Think about this. If OS X and iOS were the same underlying program and all that really changed was the user interface from touch to mouse, then what is to keep a program from functioning in both/either mode depending upon availability or necessity?

For instance, in four years I can forsee the day when I can open up a Pages document on my iPad while I am sitting in a restaurant and type out some things with the touch interface. Then when I get home I link the iPad to my bluetooth mouse and the program automatically shifts from the touch interface to the mouse interface and suddenly I can do things like cut and paste much easier than I can with my fingers. Then when I need to resize a graphic and drag some margins, I can click a button to switch back to the multi-touch interface which is much better for this type of operation.

To me, this is the genius of where Lion and Apple seem to be taking us. I can easily see the version after Lion being an OS that can be used with either a mouse or touch as necessary and being capable of running on a Mac or an iOS device.


Computer vision has been researched for a very long time. It isn't like Microsoft was even the leader in this field. What I believe though is that if it hadn't been for Nintendo and the Wii that Microsoft would never have thought to integrate their vision research that they have been working on for years, but seemingly having no clue how to monetize, into the XBox and gaming consoles.

Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to. Ford and Chevy trucks have been the top selling vehicles in the US for many years now. It's weird how few people know that.

It does to me... and I'm starting to feel a little left out!

Maybe that's because I know Mundie didn't say "there is no future for tablet computers" he said "personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not."

He then went on to talk about smartphone devices in the lab that can project HDTV images directly onto your retina... this guy is obviously talking timeframes in 10 to 20 years, not now.

When you see his job title, "Microsoft chief research and strategy officer", it makes more sense. This guy lives in lab, and thinks in terms of a decade or more in the future.

I suppose you could question who was in his position 10 years ago and why they didn't forsee the success of mobile devices like the iPod/iPhone/iPad!

In any case, all he is saying is that he doesn't know for sure if tablets will be around forever... and when he is looking at timeframes when your smartphone will be connected wireless to technology like this, can you blame him?

What if everyone had one of these and your "screen" was shared?

There is nothing stopping 2 or more people from looking at and interacting with the same screen.

You wouldn't have even needed to take the device to him. Just "Facetime" him and you're both looking at a shared screen. You bring the documents in and show him what you want done.

He could even record the entire conversation and play it back later on if he forgets.



The first I saw of this kind of stuff was about 10 years ago. I think some MIT guys were doing vision overlays with laptops and goggles!

I always assumed it would be the "next big thing" in the consumer world... but that the timeframe was more like some time beyond 2020.

I love new toys, so I'm not going to argue with you! If someone can bring it before then I'll be happy.

That is the point of this article. You are the one trying to make a different point


Splitting hairs. The Wii has been killing the 360 in sales, if MS was already working on Kinect why has it taken so long to come to market. Giving the Wii years of sales?

That doesn't sound appealing or desirable in any way.


Considering Apple has been working on iOS since 2004, what the hell was Microsoft doing all that time is a great question.

I wasn't commenting on the article, I was responding to KazKam.

He's a Microsoft guy talking about tablets, which happen to be getting really hot right now and happen to be a gaping hole in Microsoft's lineup, so it's a bit disingenuous to imagine that his musings about how such tablets might not be around forever are just sort of lab guy big picture thinking. Windows won't be around forever, or Office, or the machines that software runs on. The Xbox and video game consoles will be supplanted by something different, as will the current control schemes such as Kinect.

But he didn't mention any of those things, he just skipped ahead on tablets to something else that happens to be more in keeping with some of the stuff MS feels they can do.

1. Good, but bad UI.
2. Buggy, crashy, bad UI
3. Unique, yes! Good? I suppose, but its not on the level of iOS and Android.
4. Not innovative. It was merely an evolutionary product - an evolution that was quickly pushed aside by the specs of the Playstation 3
5. That is a brilliant bit of kit! Microsoft didn't invent it though, they just licensed it and slapped their name on it.
6. You trolin'?

I think it's very interesting what he said, and shows a fundamental (not superficial) disagreement with Apple.

Apple clearly thinks the future is some kind of small computer you wear or is implanted and you have it on you all the time. They are headed in that direction with the iPhone which uses touch (one step closer to a direct interface than interaction intermediated with a mouse), and is portable (one step closer to being with you all the time than a PC). They are on the cutting edge of minimization and UI design. And they have even renamed their OS to iOS, a perfect name for the OS of yourself, i.e. all the computers you permanently wear.

But here is Microsoft with an alternative vision: the computers will stay in the buildings, out of our bodies. They will watch us 24/7 and use Kinect like software to understand our body's movements and what we might want or wish for at given moment.

Who is right? Maybe it depends what people are less uncomfortable with: having a computer permanently on their body, or being watched 24/7 by cameras everywhere. Or maybe it just depends on which arrives first, certainly miniturization is advancing very rapidly, so that would seem to be in Apple's favor. Whereas the limitations on the Kinect House type idea are more AI limitations, which has always advanced more slowly. And Apple is faster moving in general. Maybe both will happen.

To those who say this is way off, pie in the sky, I would agree if you project linearly based on the past. But of course technology begets technology, tech growth is exponential, so things are always closer that you think based on linear projections. It took 174 years to get from Babbage's Analytical Engine to the iPad 2, but it may only take 10 more to be actually wearing computers.

No offence intended, but that all sounded like some conspiracy nut's wet dream. I think you need to stop reading those 1950s sci-fi novels and think realistically. The biggest "conspiracy nut" moment in your post was about iOS. 'perfect name for an OS about yourself inside you' (to quickly paraphrase). No. the lower case letter 'i' came from the original iMac in 1998. The 'i' stands for Internet - the Internet Mac. Not 'i' as in me.

It's only a "conspiracy nut's wet dream" if you think that wearable computers or a computerized house is somehow sinister, which I do not believe and did not say. If that is what you read in to it then, no offence intended, but the conspiracy nut you are seeing is yourself.

Personally I think human beings essentially survive by thought/our brains, and a permanent computer on your body is a logical thing for such a being and could bring great benefits and enhance our lives. Likewise Microsoft's house could see when you have a heart attack or some such emergency.

And of course I know the history of the "i," having been a Mac enthusiast for over a decade. Even my account here is over 6 years old if you didn't notice. I was just suggesting that maybe Steve Jobs (who is a genius) had *just that much* foresight. Geniuses do things like that you know.

To be honest, I think that is the spin of it that Microsoft would have people believe.

Yes, they have this long term vision of 'the house as computer' etc. But are they not spitting chips that they aren't getting anything out of this tablet "fad"? Of course they are.

By claiming that they have fears, uncertainty or doubt over the longevity of the tablet market they are admitting what everyone already knew - they can't get a competitive product out, they've missed the boat.

Well people can own their own mini cloud. Home servers etc.
The ipad paradigm shift is this: our kids, parents and even grandparents can use this thing with no training. Windows on the other hand? It took a year for the old lady down the street to understand defrag and even scroll bars or minimized vs closed applications. She could use an iPad in 5 minutes.

Yes the future is hard to predict, but I can tell you that PCs are a mature product, meaning also that that's not where the growth is.
It will be more than a couple of years before you see the iPad becoming a fad, and if it does, you can be sure it's because something newer came along not because people will say "the heck with this, I'm going back to the pc to read my news.... Or I will have the paper delivered so I can read yesterday's news.

A conspiracy doesn't have to be sinister to be a conspiracy. A better term to use would be "fringe theory". It just sounds like you were stating that this was all going to happen because of scret plans, the way you mention iOS is what made it sound that way.

That's right. I don't necessarily think the house is their vision for ideological reasons, they just know where their strengths lie. I'm sure if they had Apple's skill set they would think wearable computers are the future and Kinect was a fad.

Why do you say that? Seems to me that an iPad is as good as anything else for accessing cloud data and running web apps.

Apple has high margins on their devices because they have vast swaths of the supply chain locked up, and because of subsidies from telcos on the iPhone.

In fact, Apple could charge nothing for the iPhone and still be profitable. The subsidies are so sweet that they can afford to drop prices, essentially, on other product lines: even those not going down in price are having new, more expensive features dumped into them--sort of the reverse of food producers who charge the same but sell you less than a half a gallon of orange juice and hope you won't notice.

Every launch that produces frenzied queuing and drooling press cements Apple's position at the expense of everyone else's margins. Will it last forever? Nope. But Android can eat Apple for lunch in market share and never, ever approach Apple's margins.

This sounds very similar to when Steve Jobs basically said "there's no future for smartphones" a year before the iPhone came out.

It's simple execs at companies like MS and Apple talk up the products they have on offer and talk down the ones they dont.