Microsoft's IPad Response Is Too Tepid, Too Late

Paul Thurrott's Windows Supersite ^ | January 26, 2011 | Paul Thurrott

[Swordmaker]

Hell must have frozen over... quick someone stick a thermometer into it and check! Paul Thurrott has written a positive article about the Apple iPad and is criticizing Microsoft's response to it—PING!

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Discuss technical issues, software, and hardware.
Don't attack people!

Don't respond to the Anti-Apple Thread Trolls!
PLEASE IGNORE THEM!!!

Apple iPad Ping!

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[SamAdams76]

Furthermore, businesses are buying iPads, too, and piloting them in ever faster numbers.

I am seeing that in my company, which up to recent times never considered deploying Apple product.

We are now testing the iPad for our field technicians (which will replace Windows XP laptops).

With the iPads, our technicians will be able to easily access technical manuals, parts catalogs, email, technical bulletins, etc. They will also be able to receive, dispatch and close service tickets while using GPS to get to their next service call. They will also be able to access service histories and other data to help them resolve the issue.

In my opinion, we are only in the beginning of the tablet revolution. While the current version of iPad does not have all the features of a laptop, it is only a matter of time before future generations of tablets render the laptop obsolete. Soon the standard laptop will seem as antiquated as the typewriter.

[dayglored]

The REAL problem with the way Microsoft is proceeding is stated in the title:

"Microsoft's iPod RESPONSE is too tepid..."

Why is Microsoft "responding" instead of innovating and leading? THAT is the problem.

They lost their way about 10 years ago and have never recovered. I sure wish they'd get their act together and start doing things FIRST instead of only "responding", whether quickly or late.

Very disappointing. I lay the blame at Ballmer's feet.

[JerseyHighlander]

Interesting article.

I just bought my first touchscreen device. It runs Win7.

Check out the UI for multi-touch screens that MSI developed in house, it is very very nice... has the groundwork for everything needed to compete against iPad. Albeit just groundwork, it’s not polished and surely not optimized... the UI is a RAM and power hog.

MSI Wind Touch UI

[Greysard]

It's not surprising. MS is a one trick pony. Their "Windows Everywhere" push was pushed not because it makes sense but because they don't have anything else. WinCE and its descendants are nothing but a disjointed pile of pieces (I worked with them some time ago) and is much worse than Android and iOS. It's on the level of Lego blocks; that might be OK if you design a printer, but it's not OK if you design modern gadgets. The lack of imagination is apparent in all Windows products starting from ... Windows NT, perhaps? And all Windows releases (except Win7 - must be an oversight) are slower and take more space.

I personally don't like Apple for their elitist policies, but aside from that, technically, their iPad/iPod/iPhone products appear to be excellent. Android devices aren't as good yet, but eventually they will be competitive. Windows will never be competitive; Windows is the new OS/360 - a system that is locked into a legacy mindset, runs legacy stuff, is good at that, but is utterly useless for anything else (like the new stuff that people want to do today.)

I have one older Windows Vista based tablet, and I'm now seriously considering installing Linux on it, or perhaps Windows 98. This is because the tablet has a slow CPU, and Vista takes about 10 minutes to boot up. This is the future Ballmer wants to push down our throats. I'm using this tablet only to read books in bed, and do last minute FR checks, so either Linux or Win98 would be fine.

[dayglored]

> ...and do last minute FR checks, so either Linux or Win98 would be fine.

If you put Win98 on it, please use a hardware firewall. Putting Win98 directly on the internet is like tossing a kitten into the tiger's cage at the zoo.

[Vicki]

I wish Microsoft would just stop trying to copy Apple. It’s embarrassing. Just look what happened with the Zune.

[Question Liberal Authority]

It would be so cool if the name of the product actually WAS “Microsoft’s IPad Response”.

[Richard Kimball]

Well, Microsoft’s search engine is “BING” (Because It’s Not Google.)

[dayglored]

> I wish Microsoft would just stop trying to copy Apple. It’s embarrassing. Just look what happened with the Zune.

For the past 10 years, all they can do is copy. They've lost their ability to do anything else. Why do you think their mantra for the last decade has been "innovate"? Because they're whistling past the graveyard, hoping that if they say "innovate" enough, it will happen. They've turned into a cargo cult, with the appearance but no substance.

I've been a Microsoft customer since the 1970's. They used to make some great stuff! They used to be able to come out with successful products first. They haven't done that since the 90's.

In this case, they produce the "Surface Table-PC" and think they've invented the touch surface, but Apple comes out with the successful product and wipes the floor with them.

Yes, it's damned embarrassing.

[RegulatorCountry]

For the past 10 years, all they can do is copy

Past ten? Bill Gates' intial objective with Windows was to make it just like a Mac. Yes, the "buttons" and such were backwards and there were other oddities, driven primarily out of patent workarounds, but that it was, as much like a Mac as it could be, particularly beginning with Win95. They've been making hay out of being a cheaper version of Apple from the outset.

[truthfreedom]

I have a MSI mp3 player that I really like.

You’ve gotten this device, the MSI Wind Touch US, played around with it?

it’s a tablet, how does it do with flash? Presumably, it’s fine. this is a real computer, right, with all the standard connectors?

[dayglored]

> It would be so cool if the name of the product actually WAS “Microsoft’s IPad Response”.

Unfortunately, it's likely to be "Microsoft's Lame iPad Response".

And don't forget the packaging!

[truthfreedom]

that’s pretty funny. shortened to Response.

[dayglored]

> Past ten? Bill Gates' intial objective with Windows was to make it just like a Mac. Yes, the "buttons" and such were backwards and there were other oddities, driven primarily out of patent workarounds, but that it was, as much like a Mac as it could be, particularly beginning with Win95. They've been making hay out of being a cheaper version of Apple from the outset.

That's not quite fair, I'd say.

Apple stayed with the single-user, toy operating system approach until OS-X, many years after Microsoft came out with WinNT, arguably the most advanced operating system available to normal human beings at the time (I was already a long-time Unix fan back then, but Unix has never been for normal human beings, until OS-X).

Yes, Microsoft used Dave Cutler from DEC, and yes NT was modeled on VAX/VMS; well, so what, OS-X is modeled on NextStep... stand on the shoulders of giants and see farther.

If Microsoft had dropped the DOS-based line (Win1/2/3/95/98/ME) at Win95, and forced the switch to NT in the mid-90's, they would have been way ahead of Apple by the time OS-X came out.

But they kept farting around with DOS, and not dealing with the internet until it was too late, and not dealing with security until it was too late...

They blew it. But it's not fair to say that Windows was only a cheaper version of the Mac OSes through the 90's. NT was way ahead of the old MacOS, and Microsoft could have driven Apple into the dirt between 1995 and 2001, if they'd had their act together.

[martin_fierro]

The company will arrive eventually at Windows 8, which will reportedly feature an alternative, tiles-based UI that closely resembles the superior, modern, and multi-touch-friendly Windows Phone 7 UI.

Sexy like a brown Zune.

[truthfreedom]

whatever that thing is, I don’t like it. And Windows really should start refocusing on keeping the people who know how to use computers happy. I like windows pretty much but it seems like they have a tendency to add features i don’t want and take away ones i do. I’m capable of putting files in folders myself, I really don’t need or want “my” anything. That “My” stuff is Apple way of thinking.

[JerseyHighlander]

I wasn’t clear,

I picked up a MSI All in One PC with the Wind Touch UI. It’s a multitouch screen all in one PC... Pretty darn cool so far.

I saw that MSI has it’s new tablet coming out this month, but I have concerns about using multitouch software on top of the Z530 or N525 CPU... too much processing required.

My original plan was to buy a micro-ITX pc or nettop with Intel Atom n525 and use a vesa mount to connect it to the back of a standalone multitouch monitor. Apparently there isn’t an Intel Atom cpu that can handle processing multitouch monitors yet.

SO I compromised on the MSI All in One with the Core i3 350M. Excellent little PC for light computing.

Regarding the new MSI tablets coming out this month...

The The MSI Wind 100W is the Windows model, and it has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, 2GB of RAM, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. And from what I heard and read from CES hands on demos, it truly sucks terribly. Albeit the demo model did NOT use the Wind Touch UI on the floor model at CES.
Still, every single review gave it a thumbs down so far.

THe Andriod model might be nicer as it’s a much smaller OS.

[RegulatorCountry]

Gates certainly did set out to emulate the look and feel of the Macintosh, dayglored. “Copying” has been in the Microsoft DNA from the outset. You can tout their success in the enterprise all you want and you’d be correct as to the strong point of differentiation and past departure between the two, but the derivative nature of Windows is well established, in both lore and fact.