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Posted on 01/26/2011 6:36:27 PM PST by Swordmaker
Earlier this month, technology enthusiasts around the world awaited Microsoft's opening keynote address for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), with the anticipation that CEO Steve Ballmer would talk up a new generation of Windows-based tablets that would take on Apple's surging iPad. Instead, Ballmer ignored some of Microsoft's key consumer brands, and he didn't use the word "tablet" until his closing remarks.
Disappointing, sure. But a year after Ballmer and company promised a strong response to the iPad and explicitly noted it would do to the tablet market what it previously did with netbooks—come from behind for the win—Microsoft's tablet strategy is still in shambles. At CES, the company talked up plans to migrate its dominant PC OS, Windows, to a new class of "system on a chip" (SOC)-based devices, which will include tablets and even smaller devices. But Microsoft Vice President Steven Sinofsky said this Windows version was still "two to three years" away.
So what's Microsoft's answer to the iPad today?
Based on a set of leaked internal slides, not much. In an internal December 2010 presentation that ZD's Mary Jo Foley got her hands on, Microsoft is relying on a familiar, if tired, message: Windows-based tablets offer "choice," better security, and compatibility with familiar enterprise applications, when compared with the iPad. And although Microsoft recognizes some key iPad strengths—long battery life, simplicity, and so on—it claims that Windows still retains the lead for the tasks that matter to information workers.
Microsoft, I'd like to introduce you to reality.
In reality, Apple sold tens of millions of iPads last year and is on track to sell tens of millions more next year. In reality, people are buying iPads. In reality, they're not buying Windows 7-based tablets. And in reality, they never will.
Furthermore, businesses are buying iPads, too, and piloting them in ever faster numbers. Part of the lack of resistance here, no doubt, is the three-plus years Apple spent making the iPhone more acceptable in enterprise environments. That learning went into the iPad, and businesses are openly interested in this new device out of the gate, and not waiting for future revisions. They're certainly not waiting on Microsoft.
And the problem for Microsoft isn't just one of timing. Windows, for all its utility, is a decades-old product that is bogged down by years of often-obsolete technology and UI conventions that were invented in the 1980s; it's just not optimized for the multi-touch compatible devices of today. So the company can add multi-touch features to Windows, as it has done, but the product isn't optimized for such usage, and neither are the devices that use Windows.
If time could just stand still for Microsoft! 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. Wait a few more years, and that system will be available on smaller, more efficient SOC devices. But time isn't standing still. By that point, the iPad will be firmly entrenched. Many other competitors—including those based on Android, the HP webOS devices, the Research in Motion (RIM) PlayBook, and more—will be in the market as well, and every one of those systems is based on a lean, mobile-focused OS, not a sprawling desktop-class OS that was designed during the Reagan presidency of the 1980s. This year, millions of people will choose tablets. Virtually none of them will run Microsoft software.
Combined with the other evidence, this suggests that Microsoft's dithering, this time, is going to lead to defeat in this market and, perhaps, ultimately in the market for mainstream computing. This will have long-term ramifications for the company, including diminishing the chances of ongoing success of the product it's trying to protect the most: Windows.
Microsoft knows all about the consumerization of IT. In fact, it's been talking up this trend for the past year. The problem is, the consumerization of IT could be the start of Microsoft's downfall if it doesn't start moving more quickly. In the past, Microsoft could always rely on its corporate customer to bolster earnings when consumers were staying away from its software. But what happens when businesses turn their backs on Microsoft, too?
It's a future that's difficult to even contemplate. But it's also becoming a very real concern.
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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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
I wish Microsoft would just stop trying to copy Apple. It’s embarrassing. Just look what happened with the Zune.
It would be so cool if the name of the product actually WAS “Microsoft’s IPad Response”.
Well, Microsoft’s search engine is “BING” (Because It’s Not Google.)
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.
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.
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?
Unfortunately, it's likely to be "Microsoft's Lame iPad Response".
And don't forget the packaging!
that’s pretty funny. shortened to Response.
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.
Sexy like a brown Zune.
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.
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.
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.
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