Tag Archives | Microsoft. Windows

Will — And Should — Microsoft Sell Its Own Tablet?

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 8, 2011 at 5:53 pm

Digitimes — a site with an erratic record record on scoops — is claiming that Microsoft may be in the process of considering marketing its own tablet that would launch sometime next year. This would be around the same time the company would be debuting its somewhat-tablet-centric Windows 8 operating system.

The Redmond company has supposedly called on Texas Instruments and several Taiwanese manufacturers to make the device a reality. And why not? What better way to market your brand new OS and highlight its features than your own device?

Now, is it a good idea for Microsoft? That’s up for debate. To date, the Xbox 360 is the only success that the company has had at retail outside of accessories such as mice and (of course) software. The Zune music player and the Microsoft Kin phone are two of its most notable failures.

If Digitimes’ rumor is the real deal, I think Microsoft should launch this device alongside Windows 8 to give it the most pop. Here’s my suggestion to Redmond: bring this device to Windows 8 launch events. The launch of the OS is going to be a big deal — akin to the 95 and XP launches — so make sure that Microsoft staffers are demonstrating the hot new  Windows 8 features on a Microsoft tablet. In other words, build buzz not only about the OS itself, but the product you created to show it off.

I think it’s a good idea, but it needs to be done right. Can Microsoft do it?

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Windows 8: It’s the Applications, Stupid!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 3, 2011 at 10:45 am

Word for Windows 1.0, 1989

In the end, operating systems are merely a means to an end. Nobody runs Windows to run Windows, or OS X to run OS X, or Linux to run Linux. They run them to get stuff done, and they get most of that stuff done in applications.

I’ve been pondering that fact as I’ve been processing the news about Windows 8, which Microsoft showed in public for the first time this week at the D9 conference. It’s got both a radically new touch-centric interface and the one I already am thinking of as “Windows Classic”–a duality that brings to mind the days when most people ran both DOS apps and Windows 3.x ones.

Windows 8 is a giant-sized, risky, fascinating bet–but in the end, it’s the apps that are going to matter.

During the D9 demo, both Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher brought up Office. Would it be reimagined for Windows’ new look?  Windows interface kingpin Julie Larson-Green, as you’d expect, didn’t confirm or deny anything. She said “They may do some things in the future.” and “I’m sure the Office team will look at what we’re doing.”

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Windows 8 is Windows 3.0, and Windows 7 is…DOS

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 2, 2011 at 12:37 am

Analyst John Pescatore: “Other thank cloud computing, what’s the riskiest bet you’re currently making?”

Steve Ballmer: “The next release of Windows.”

–exchange at Gartner conference, October 2010

Looks like Ballmer wasn’t just blustering. “Windows 8,” or whatever it ends up being called, has a radically new interface–a sleek, touch-centric look that draws more on Windows Phone 7 and general trends in phone and tablet design than it does on a quarter-century of Windows history. Anyone writing about the operating system at this point needs to insert a disclaimer that we’ve only seen bits and pieces of it in action for a few minutes; that’s way too little to come to any firm conclusions pro or con. But we do know that Microsoft is going to attempt something big here.

In my post yesterday evening, I said that Windows 8 looks like the most radical change in Windows’ interface since Windows 3.0. It’s possible that that’s understating matters. By providing both the new interface and apps to go with it, plus the old interface and apps, Microsoft is asking  users to live in two worlds in a way it’s never done before.

Except it has. This situation sounds a lot like the computing lifestyle that PC users lived with from 1990-1995 or thereabouts, when the commonplace state of affairs was to run Windows 3.x on top of DOS.

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Windows 8’s Look and Feel: It’s New. New, New, New, New, New!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 1, 2011 at 5:41 pm

Well, gee whiz. At the D9 conference this afternoon, Windows honcho Steven Sinofsky presided over the first good look anyone outside of Redmond has gotten at “Windows 8.” And it turns out that it has a strikingly new user interface. Maybe the most strikingly new one it’s gotten since…well, Windows 3.0 back in 1990. (Windows has added plenty of new features over the past twenty years, but the basic metaphor has barely budged at all.)

In short, Windows now has a touch-first user interface that looks a lot like Windows Phone 7, which means that it draws on ideas that originated in the iPhone without mindlessly mimicking them. The Windows 7 keyboard-and-mouse world is still in there, but it’s subsidiary. That’s Microsoft’s apparent intent, anyhow.

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Using a PC? You Definitely Have Annoyances

Posted by Steve Bass on May 28, 2011 at 8:05 am

Mac users must be sworn to secrecy; they rarely complain about their computers. A friend, plied with alcohol, reluctantly admitted that his MacBook suffered from random shutdowns. Like, no!

PC users, on the other hand, seem to be proud of their computing annoyances. Online bragging matches are common, with each participant trying to top all the other PC disaster stories.

You think I’m kidding about Mac and PC users? Try this on for size: Mac people vs. PC people: Top 5 differences. (Thanks to TechBite subscriber Gil.)

This week’s story is a collection (okay, a hodgepodge) of ways my PC annoys me, with, of course, work-arounds.

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Analysts: Microsoft Not Tardy for the Tablet Party

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 27, 2011 at 1:08 pm

Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 with "Slate PCs"

Microsoft may still have time to make its mark in the tablet market, some analysts are saying. Although Apple still has the lion’s share of the business at the moment, it’s still so new that there’s plenty of room for growth.

Citigroup research analysts said in a recent note that it expected the next version of Windows to ship between January of next year and March 2013. It noted that Microsoft could ship the tablet version first, enabling it to garner significant share in 2013 and beyond.

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The Case Against the Chromebook

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 16, 2011 at 4:05 pm

Mobile Opportunity’s Michael Mace has a wonderfully hard-nosed post up about Chromebooks and Google Docs and why he thinks that Chrome OS isn’t remotely ready to take on Windows:

In fairness, there are some things Google Docs is great at.  It’s fantastic for collaborative editing; using Docs plus a Skype session can be a thing of beauty for brainstorming and working through a list of action items.  But as a replacement for Office, the apps are so limited that using them is like watching a Jerry Lewis movie: you keep asking yourself, “why is this happening?”  I tried very hard to use Google Docs as the productivity software for my startup, and eventually I gave up when it became clear that it was actually destroying my productivity.

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