Posted on 10/05/2010 1:45:22 PM PDT by WebFocus
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has promised a Microsoft Windows tablet computer to join the burgeoning market led by Apple’s new iPad.
"You'll see new slates with Windows on them. You'll see them this Christmas," he told an audience of students, staff and journalists Tuesday at the London School of Economics.
Microsoft has been heavily criticized for its inability to effectively penetrate the smartphone market as well as being slow to respond to the immediate success of the iPad -- despite record sales of Windows 7. IT research firm Gartner expects 10 million tablet PCs to be sold this year as consumers begin embracing such devices, which include Dell's Streak and the Eee Pad from Asus.
The Apple iPad alone sold 3.3 million in its first quarter. Selling at a rate of approximately 4.5 million units per quarter, the iPad has now earned the prestigious title of fastest-selling electronics device of all time. And until now, Microsoft has had no answer.
The tech giant abandoned the Courier, an innovative dual-screen tablet that technology fans eagerly anticipated, in light of the successful release of the iPad earlier this year.
Other tablet initiatives, like the HP Slate Ballmer unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, never came to fruition, complicated by HP’s acquisition of Palm. The smaller company gave HP access to a fully fledged mobile operating system instead, called WebOS.
And while Microsoft has finally confirmed the launch date for its Windows Phone 7 operating system -- stick with FoxNews.com for the big event on October 11 -- a recent video discovered by Engadget of an alleged HP Slate prototype hints that the experience still hasn’t been streamlined for touchscreen operation.
Ballmer admits Windows 7 isn’t fully optimized for the tablets.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No doubt they've come up with some good stuff, but still .... late to the game.
How about a Windows Vista “iPad”?
You could use it as a doorstop or throw on the ice during hockey games.
Now that was funny.
I hear that it will not have the Blue Screen of Death, it will have a Silver Screen of Death so that you can also use the device as a mirror.
Thanks for the post. This is directed at wherever it sticks, not at you.
“So you got a Mac. That don’t impress me much.”
Dang! I was just comfortably reading along on FR, getting psyched to kick some socialist butts, and the macho-men of on this thread just pissed me off. Wrong timing or you would have escaped this.
So gosh. I will reply, and then let you posers beat yourselves into apoplexy that anyone would disagree, and then I won’t even reply back! Ha!
I’ve programmed computers since the 1960’s, bought my first Mac in 1984 with borrowed money, ran a business operated with Macs, written and sold software on both Macs and PCs, own an iBook, own an iPod Touch (actually used for business, not music), own an iPad 64 GB 3G, and own several hot up-to-date PCs. I use them all for business (mainly), communications, photography, video, games, music, and development every day. I am also developing software for iPod/iPad, and right now an writing this on one of my PCs (that I built from components) on which I run Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. And that’s no big deal — millions of people do similar things. I almost never say this kind of stuff on FR, but every 5 years of so I get sick of some of you, and want to make it clear that I know the turf and I am well positioned to criticize you.
Did you know that many people, just like me, watch these threads like this, and just ROLL OUR EYES (for years) at certain macho posers even when we don’t say anything back?
Most of you guys bashing Microsoft and Windows remind me of big fat softies sitting at home watching “real” pro wrestling and cheering for “the butcher” because he’s so much prettier to you than “the mad dog,” while all the while you are too flabby to even walk upstairs to your bedroom without getting out of breath. You are posers.
Apple and Microsoft are both great American companies. Nothing is perfect. Apple products are LOADED with dysfunctional frustrating crap, just like Microsoft products. But there is also a lot of greatness in both. FREE MARKETS. Iterative development. Of course it would all be better if developers did not have to make provisions for the lowest common denominator in their target audience, but it pays well to keep you happy.
I look forward to new Microsoft products as well as new Apple products. I hate some, I like some. Many improve with time and the free market. But I don’t get my self-esteem from either company or product.
In these threads, try some actual discussion of the possibilities instead of just making unsupported little statements with your fake asterisked cusswords about Microsoft.
What would you like to see improved on the iPad? Hmmm? Maybe some competition for iPad will help. It is currently pathetic as a general computing platform, but GREAT for portable consuming and communication. People who know how to drive a stick-shift are totally cramped by it at times. I want a real multitasking flexible operating system on an iPad-like tablet, not a glorified copy-protection scheme where the critical piece of the operating system revolves around selling online music. Competition will help.
So I say, Go Apple! Go Microsoft! For that matter, Go Linux! Go America! And down with “real pro wrestling” loving wannabe posers getting all macho about their pet turnkey product.
iWad
I suspect that it's another status device like the Iphone.
RE: I suspect that it’s another status device like the Iphone.
It will be a status device like the cell phone in the late 1990’s, and then it becomes so ubiquitous that people shrug their shoulders and say — “who cares”.
Remember Gordon Gekko in the first Wall Street circa 1987 ? He had the first mobile phone and it was a status symbol (he’s rich and successful). Well, Wall Street II comes along and the first scene showed Gekko being released and his big fat mobile phone being returned to him. That drew a big laugh from the audience.
I would personally NEVER, EVER be the first to buy any new technology product that comes out. I was not the first to own an iPhone ( I waited over a year to even consider owning one ), nor was I the first to purchase an official copy of Windows 7.
I have never regretted WAITING while the fools in New York City lining up at 12 Midnight part their dollars to buy a buggy new product.
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