3 reasons Microsoft's Surface is no joke

Fortune ^ | June 22, 2012 | Don Sears

[SmokingJoe]

Many have scoffed at the idea that Redmond's tablet will succeed. But there are three crucial reasons to take the effort seriously. By Don Sears

FORTUNE -- Do not underestimate Microsoft's Surface tablet move. Its gambit to design and build its own hardware is a bold play to develop a thriving ecosystem of new products. It is centered on Microsoft's dominant property: the operating system. Monday's flashy Surface launch may have felt like an Apple event with its bright, pastel-colored keyboard, slick introductory videos and breathless hyping from little-known engineers. But, in fact, Microsoft's play is anything but Apple-like. The company is clearly trying to make tablets into hybrid PC-mobile devices, something its California rival has said is a bad idea. We don't yet know all of Surface's details -- battery life, pricing, official release dates are all to-be-determined for instance. But here are three important reasons Microsoft's Surface is likely to be anything but dead on arrival:

Reason #1: Microsoft can build an ecosystem

Microsoft (MSFT) has had success in the consumer market with the Xbox and most recently with the Kinect motion-control devices. The Xbox has become a household name with major brand extensions as an entertainment device. Microsoft disrupted gaming, and it can disrupt hardware.

Microsoft has serious engineering chops. Josh Topolosky, Editor-in-Chief of The Verge and not exactly a fanboy, was blown away by a visit to Microsoft's R&D in 2011. He wrote of that visit: "[MS] showed me a project … which would allow you to create a virtual window from one room to another, utilizing a variety of display, motion sensing, and 3D technologies… dubbed … the 'magic wall.' It was nuts. It was awesome. It was ambitious. The whole time, all I could think was: where has Microsoft been hiding guys like this?"

[OldEarlGray]

It’s wacky to observe that the same generation of Useful Idiots who gamed the system ala trillions of dollars in derivative A$$paper is the same generation who installed Comrade Chairman Odumbo in the White Hut?

Evidently they didn’t learn something from their GenerationX-Box.

[OldEarlGray]

Mark 12:30-31
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 

31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
NIV

How would you say the XBox teaches folks to follow these commandments?

 

Do you spend more time with your XBox than you do reflecting upon your Creator and His Word?

 

 

[antiRepublicrat]

Actually, according to most technology experts, the Zune was/is, technologically, a vastly superior MP3 player to the iPod.

What technology experts? The first Zune was just a run-of-the-mill rebadged Toshiba player. For the next three generations it was just playing catch-up with the iPod. It died because to knock the king off the hill, you need a BETTER product. At most it equaled the iPod, not a very good incentive for people to choose it over the Ipod.

even if the iPads and iPhones aren't really superior or extraordinary technology.

Yeah, that Retina display isn't superior to the other low-res displays out there. The iPad 3 doesn't have the most powerful graphics. The iPhone 4S doesn't have Siri. It's the iPhone that feels cheap and plasticky, not the Samsung Galaxy. Both the iPhone and the iPad were revolutionary when they came out, and Apple hasn't been sitting still. I'm sure the cool factor is there for some, but in the end Apple will remain a top-seller only so long as the products are top-notch.

My wife doesn't even like Apple, and I took her to see all the tablets on the market before showing her the iPad. She even looked at that Asus that converts to a notebook-like setup. She rejected each one of them before buying the iPad. Why? Simply, it was superior.

[antiRepublicrat]

A dictatorial micro-manager at the helm?

Let's see, dictatorial micro-manager genius who is so obsessive-compulsive that he won't let a product out until he thinks it's perfect. Someone who will infuriate everybody else by nit-picking the tiniest details, including the unboxing experience. Not a product that some geeks wanted to make, not a product some focus groups said would work, but a product -- no, a total user experience -- he'd be proud of to his grave. I certainly wouldn't want to work for him, or even know him, but I'm perfectly happy letting him churn out great product after great product. Let other people get paid the big bucks to put up with his tantrums.

So it's that vs. a chair-throwing monkey boy with no vision whatsoever. I wonder which one produces better products? Oh yeah, the one that's now the most valuable company in the world.

Microsoft Research has come out with some of the greatest tech innovations in the past 20 years:

Microsoft Research has done some great stuff over the years, and your link isn't even the best stuff (PhotoDNA to help police fight child porn certainly belongs in the top 10). But one example of the problem is that MR sometimes works like Xerox PARC -- great stuff, management can't do right by it. Take that gesture mouse from October 2009. Cool stuff. The same month, Apple came out with the beautifully engineered, gesture-controlled Magic Mouse.

Like I said earlier, Microsoft has some very smart people working there. Too bad management sucks.

[cynwoody]

What's in it for you, except, a dislike for anything Microsoft?

Microsoft. Bah! Aren't they the ones who slanted the file separator wrong?

If I need an operating system, Ubuntu meets my needs just fine. Works fine in the cloud as a server. Works fine in the store doing the apps I need. Customizable and redeployable at will, via USB stick, with no license fees. Need a DB, use PostgreSQL. Forget SQL/Server. Forget Oracle.

If I need a personal computer, Apple is where I shop. Four pixels per pixel! Nice!

[cynwoody]

Tell the class who Anders Hejlsberg

In the mid nineties, Anders, at Borland, developed a positively excellent alternative (if you can stomach Pascal, that is — although, compared to VB there is no contest) to Microsoft's then main developer tool, Visual Basic.

Microsoft hired him away with a $1.5 million signing bonus, a base salary of up to $200,000, and options to buy 75,000 shares of Microsoft stock. At Microsoft, he went on to lead the development of J++, a futile attempt by MS to derail Java (which deserved derailing, but by something better, not Microsoft).

[cynwoody]

Microsoft Research has done some great stuff over the years, and your link isn't even the best stuff (PhotoDNA to help police fight child porn certainly belongs in the top 10).

Google image search is much better. Just drag a photo to the box, drop, and there are where it came from!

[zeugma]

Actually, according to most technology experts, the Zune was/is, technologically, a vastly superior MP3 player to the iPod. It failed in the marketing, with Microsoft and it's marketing arms not doing an adequate job. But, I'll admit, marketing is part of the overall drive to get products to be accepted, and, Apple has been good at that, even if the iPads and iPhones aren't really superior or extraordinary technology.

Yeah, Microsoft has a lot of difficulty when entering into markets where they can't use and abuse their monopoly marketshare of MS-Windows. I suspect that they'll do o.k. with this 'surface' thing though, because theycan depend upon legions of IT workers who think that because they can click "OK" on a bunch of dialog boxes, that they are some kind of "administrator", to push this in the enterprise because they will expect Microsoft to do all the actual configuration and integration for them. Along the way, any incompatibilities that crop up that make it difficult to interoperate with any other non-Microsoft solution will be someone else's problem.

[SmokingJoe]

[the best video game online system on the planet, which has been hugely successful,]
Only if you consider manufacturing a generation of Useful Idiot consumer game players to be “successful”.

I see you don't know much about video game cconsoles:

Question What is the best online video gaming system?
http://xbox-games.yoexpert.com/xbox-live/what-is-the-best-online-video-gaming-system-3850.html

Xbox 360 is Proven Best Online Console Experience
http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/06/28/xbox-360-is-proven-the-best-place-to-play-games-online/

“The same generation who voted Hope Change and Comrade Chairman Odumbo into the White Hut.
Ask the consumers what the purpose for governance is that’s specified in the American Declaration of Independence.
The Ameriquest Generation doesn’t have a clue - but they sure like to worship their toys.”

Huh?
All that chaff you just posted has nothing to do with video game consoles
Are you sure you are alright there, mate?
You may need to take your medication.

[adorno]

Yeah, Microsoft has a lot of difficulty when entering into markets where they can't use and abuse their monopoly marketshare of MS-Windows.

Yeah, just like they did with Xbox, and with browsers, and with PC OSes, where, they didn't even have a presence, before they became a contender, and then, the leader. Now, they don't even have a presence to speak of in tablets, and they're about to use that monopoly they have in tablets to become a bigger monopoly? Is that about right? Methinks that, you don't know what the heck you're talking about.

I suspect that they'll do o.k. with this 'surface' thing though, because theycan depend upon legions of IT workers who think that because they can click "OK" on a bunch of dialog boxes, that they are some kind of "administrator", to push this in the enterprise because they will expect Microsoft to do all the actual configuration and integration for them.

Something tells me that, you don't really know what the heck you're talking about in this area too. If administration is as simple as just clicking on a series of buttons and dialog items, WITHOUT the understanding the people MUST HAVE before doing that clicking and selecting, then, you would be correct. But, that isn't all that's required is it? Perhaps you need to investigate what the heck is required before being so dismissive about what it takes to administer a server system.

Perhaps we'll have systems that are as simple as you state, but, not yet.

Besides, isn't making things as simple as possible what the Apple fanboys keep telling us that Apple accomplishes so nicely. IOW, people who use Apple computers, do so because, they don't have to think, and things come to the intuitively. So, if Microsoft is doing the same, or attempting to do the same, why would it be such a negative when Microsoft does it? Methinks that, you're just exhibiting your hate for anything Microsoft.

Along the way, any incompatibilities that crop up that make it difficult to interoperate with any other non-Microsoft solution will be someone else's problem.

Actually, the bigger, or biggest, fear that MS server administrators have in mind, is the attempt by MS to simplify matters so much, that, the admin jobs will no longer be needed, and, the OS might end up being capable of taking care of most, if not all, administrative functions. When the total system gets to that point, there won't be a need to worry about incompatibilities, since, the system will have become a lot "smarter", and it will be able to recognize differences between the different components and systems and OSes and hardware attached to the network. That is one of the directions for the cloud, where, no matter what hardware and/or software is communicating via the network, the network will handle all of them, including systems and hardware and software from all different vendors/manufacturers.

Basically, I see no problem at all with trying to get all computers to be able to talk to each other seamlessly, and that's the direction which Windows 8, and perhaps even iOS are trying to take us. Perhaps you prefer the old days of old technology, where you do all the thinking and setting up of all the painstaking details, in order to get things done.

Perhaps the times have left you behind, and you are in dire need of upgrading your thinking and technology ideas.

[adorno]

Yeah, Microsoft has a lot of difficulty when entering into markets where they can't use and abuse their monopoly marketshare of MS-Windows.

Yeah, just like they did with Xbox, and with browsers, and with PC OSes, where, they didn't even have a presence, before they became a contender, and then, the leader. Now, they don't even have a presence to speak of in tablets, and they're about to use that monopoly they have in tablets to become a bigger monopoly? Is that about right? Methinks that, you don't know what the heck you're talking about.

One huge matter you're forgetting about, is the application side, where, as far as I can recall, people still have to design them, and develop them, before they become part of the overall system. Microsoft has, as of yet, not figured out a way to replace the development side of the computing equation. Perhaps you're one of those that believes that, all apps that were and will ever be needed, already exist in the app store? Administratively, applications need to be handled too, and, it means, administrators who understand the functionality and purposes for those applications.

I suspect that they'll do o.k. with this 'surface' thing though, because theycan depend upon legions of IT workers who think that because they can click "OK" on a bunch of dialog boxes, that they are some kind of "administrator", to push this in the enterprise because they will expect Microsoft to do all the actual configuration and integration for them.

Something tells me that, you don't really know what the heck you're talking about in this area too. If administration is as simple as just clicking on a series of buttons and dialog items, WITHOUT the understanding the people MUST HAVE before doing that clicking and selecting, then, you would be correct. But, that isn't all that's required is it? Perhaps you need to investigate what the heck is required before being so dismissive about what it takes to administer a server system.

Perhaps we'll have systems that are as simple as you state, but, not yet.

Besides, isn't making things as simple as possible what the Apple fanboys keep telling us that Apple accomplishes so nicely. IOW, people who use Apple computers, do so because, they don't have to think, and things come to the intuitively. So, if Microsoft is doing the same, or attempting to do the same, why would it be such a negative when Microsoft does it? Methinks that, you're just exhibiting your hate for anything Microsoft.

Along the way, any incompatibilities that crop up that make it difficult to interoperate with any other non-Microsoft solution will be someone else's problem.

Actually, the bigger, or biggest, fear that MS server administrators have in mind, is the attempt by MS to simplify matters so much, that, the admin jobs will no longer be needed, and, the OS might end up being capable of taking care of most, if not all, administrative functions. When the total system gets to that point, there won't be a need to worry about incompatibilities, since, the system will have become a lot "smarter", and it will be able to recognize differences between the different components and systems and OSes and hardware attached to the network. That is one of the directions for the cloud, where, no matter what hardware and/or software is communicating via the network, the network will handle all of them, including systems and hardware and software from all different vendors/manufacturers.

Basically, I see no problem at all with trying to get all computers to be able to talk to each other seamlessly, and that's the direction which Windows 8, and perhaps even iOS are trying to take us. Perhaps you prefer the old days of old technology, where you do all the thinking and setting up of all the painstaking details, in order to get things done.

Perhaps the times have left you behind, and you are in dire need of upgrading your thinking and technology ideas.

[adorno]

Microsoft. Bah! Aren't they the ones who slanted the file separator wrong?

If I need an operating system, Ubuntu meets my needs just fine. Works fine in the cloud as a server. Works fine in the store doing the apps I need. Customizable and redeployable at will, via USB stick, with no license fees. Need a DB, use PostgreSQL. Forget SQL/Server. Forget Oracle.

If I need a personal computer, Apple is where I shop. Four pixels per pixel! Nice!

Did you have something to contribute to the discussion at hand? This was not about Linux vs Windows/MS vs Apple/iOS. This discussion was/is about tablets, and Microsoft's expected entry into that market with the Surface(s) tablets.

Your argument is a complete tangent, with you professing your love fo all things Linux. However, most people, outside of the server market, use Windows, so, you are in the very lonely and tiny minority.

When it comes to market share, as a developer, I would target the biggest player in the market, and, of course, that would be the Windows marketplace.

When it comes do databases, if they're neutral in the target OSes that can work with them, I'm with you, and, I will use a DB framework that plays well with all platforms, and, believe it or not, the one that I use, is, Postgresql, and the web application which I've been designing, is using Postgresql.

So, other than your tangent on OSes and your adoration for Linux, you had one salient point, that being about the open source Postgresql.

[adorno]

You know, I do battle with the ignorant leftist all the time, and one of the areas where I have heated discussion with them on, is religion. But, I try to avoid that part of politically charged religious discussion.

One area that liberals accuse conservative about being fanatical about, is religion, and about how, conservatives tend to have wacky views on religion and how it should impact our daily lives.

While the religious fanatics amongst conservatives tend to be very few, you are the kind that gives the rest of us a bad name. There is no need at all to bring religion into every discussion, and, if you feel that, there MUST be a religious connection to anything and everything, including XBoxes, then, you are certifiably out of your mind. "One flew over the cuckoos nest", and apparently, he is you.

[raccoonnookkeeper]

All manner of things that are good of themselves can be treated as idols. And the point? We should all live like Amish? (Only to idolize your best cart-horse?)

[adorno]

Siri? A useless aspect of the iPhone.

The iPhone and iPad are nice gadgets, but, they're still, mostly, in the toys category of computing gadgets. Even the Xbox is mostly a toy, but, a whole lot more useful, where people can actually do gaming and entertainment and a whole bunch of other things that, "computers" can do.

Look, nobody is going to take away your iGadgets, and, if you and your wife are happy with them, then more power to you.

The discussion is about the MS introduction of its tablet, the Surfaces. What they've proposed, are, without argument, superior in capabilities to any tablets out there right now, including iPads and Android tablets. If I have a choice between 2 tablets, that can perform very nicely, I'd choose the one that gave me more features for the same price. Then, if one of them gave me PC-like capabilities and the other didn't, and the prices weren't considerably different, then I'd be nuts to choose the one with the lesser capabilities. It's that simple. No need to argue about it. If you feel committed and fanatical about Apple stuff, then, go ahead and stick with Apple stuff. But, I prefer to make my choices a bit more intelligently. ;)

[OldEarlGray]

It’s not about the console, it’s about the generation who essentially worships it.

[OldEarlGray]

Your moral framework came out of an XBox, did it?

[OldEarlGray]

>>Microsoft hired him away with a $1.5 million signing bonus

Correctomundo. MS couldn’t produce anything better than VB, so they had to pirate the competition’s talent.

[OldEarlGray]

"Since 2000, he has been the lead architect of the team developing the language C#."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg

[antiRepublicrat]

Siri? A useless aspect of the iPhone.

Strange that Google and Samsung are trying to copy it. Of course they are years behind. Now this isn't exactly an Apple invention, but Apple was smart enough to pick a company to buy that had great technology.

The iPhone and iPad are nice gadgets, but, they're still, mostly, in the toys category of computing gadgets. Even the Xbox is mostly a toy, but, a whole lot more useful

That iPad replaced her laptop. Can an Xbox do the same?

What they've proposed, are, without argument, superior in capabilities to any tablets out there right now, including iPads and Android tablets

Whenever they come out, whatever specs they actually have at the time, and whatever specs the competition will have at the time. Do you realize that all of the "hands-on" reports by journalists are pretty much lies. One of the journalists spilled the beans, they were allowed to touch under close supervision by Microsoft. Any attempt to stray from the pre-ordained demo program got the unit instantly yanked from the reporter's hands. They may as well have been watching a rendered video.

And, you see, "capabilities" depends on what's important to each individual. For example, can Surface use the App Store and iCloud? iTunes Match? No? Well, then it's worth a lot less to me. Others may not care about that. They may care about an HDMI port that's worthless to me.

I'd choose the one that gave me more features for the same price

I don't believe in feature lists. I'd choose the one that works best for me.

Think cars. Mustang with 440hp V8 and all the comfortable amenities vs. an uncomfortable, bare-bones Caterham with 200hp four-cylinder. Oh, look at the specs, the Mustang must be better! It's got everything and it's top speed is way past the Caterham's! Not necessarily better. Do you like to cruise comfortably with friends, going really fast in a straight line? Then the Mustang's for you. Are you hard-core and like to try snapping your neck when accelerating, braking and making hairpin curves? Well, then the Caterham is the superior option.