Microsoft and Google won’t have a price advantage with iPad, so they’ll have to actually make a better product
Last week Microsoft kinda-sorta announced its new Surface tablet computer. This week will come a Google-branded tablet. Both are pitted against the mighty iPad. Both companies see opportunity because of what they perceive as a Steve Jobs blind spot. And both companies are introducing tablets under their own brands because they can’t get their OEM’s to do tablets correctly.
For all the speculation about why Microsoft or Google would risk offending hardware OEMs by introducing name branded tablets, the reality is that neither company really had any choice but to make the hardware. In the commodity PC market, no one company is likely to be willing to make the investment necessary to compete with the highly-integrated iPad. Samsung tried, and even then it didn’t pay off for them. Taiwan Inc + Dell just don’t seem to run that way. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to make a product when you control the operating system. You have the experts right there. You don’t have to go through support channels to fix stuff. So ultimately, Microsoft and Google should be able to make much better products than their licensees.
Enterprise IT will kick Microsoft Surface to the curb
What a week! Just when I thought Microsoft could never be as cool as Apple, bang! Here comes Surface (no, not that Surface) to shatter my preconceptions about the weather in Seattle and its effect on product innovation.
Surface is sleek, sexy, and, dare I say it, kind of cool. It’s got this rockin’ kickstand thingy at the back, a neat-o magnetic keyboard/cover and is made from some cutting-edge alloy straight out of a Star Trek episode (specifically, Voyager -- DS9 would never stoop so low). In short, Surface has all the ingredients of an iPad killer. But while it may achieve some success in the consumer space, enterprise IT shops won’t touch it with a 3-meter pole.
Microsoft Surface is all style and no substance at all
Microsoft’s Hollywood announcement Monday of its two Surface tablet computers was a tactical triumph but had no strategic value for the world’s largest software company because the event left too many questions unanswered. If I were to guess what was on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s mind it was simply to beat next week’s expected announcement of a Google branded tablet running Android. Microsoft, already playing catch-up to Apple’s iPad, does not want to be seen as following Google, too. So they held an event that was all style and no substance at all.
This is not to say that Microsoft shouldn’t make a tablet and couldn’t make a good one, but this particular event proved almost nothing.
Windows Phone 8 won't be available on anything out today, but that's okay, right?
Microsoft revealed its plans for the next generation of Windows Phone on Wednesday, which includes broadening hardware support, revising the user interface, and adding a couple of new features that bring Windows Phone up to speed with the Android platform.
Unfortunately, though, no current Windows Phone devices will receive an upgrade to the new operating system. Instead, they will receive the graphical overhaul of the new Start screen in a sub-update called "Windows Phone 7.8."
Microsoft Surface gets a positive response from this Windows developer
After seeing the latest information about Microsoft's new Surface tablet computers and also reading Joe Wilcox's latest article about them, I finally get Microsoft's mindset -- and I am impressed. So what does this Windows developer think of Surface? Need a tablet to appreciate what it is all about.
I don't have deep pockets, so I try to use my computers as long as possible, but after hearing about Windows 8, I knew I needed to get a tablet as soon as possible. Something big was afoot! Fortunately Microsoft made is easier for me when the Microsoft Store had an amazing deal on an ExoPC Windows tablet for only $399. I jumped on that deal, and I think it was the right one.
Surface is Project Origami's revenge
Surface isn't just about the future. The tablet is also about the past, and Microsoft bringing to market a vision quashed by its hardware partners. In 2012, Surface is all about Apple and Microsoft securing a fast foothold in the emerging cloud-connected device category. But the tablet also encompasses something sought six years ago: Project Origami.
It's no coincidence that Project Origami's launch was, until yesterday, the last time Microsoft held a super-secretive media event that generated big buzz. Surface and the other share much in common, and not just buzz. Before there was iPad, Microsoft developed Ultra-Mobile PC -- or what Project Origami came to be branded. The idea: To bring to market a sub-$500 touchscreen computer. The software giant sought this product category four years before iPad stormed the media tablet market. Surface is Project Origami's revenge, against Apple and Microsoft's hardware partners.
IDC will finally count Windows tablets with iPads and Androids
Hopefully, Gartner and other analyst firms will show as much sense.
Windows tablets have gotten the shaft from IDC and other analyst firms for far too long. They count the devices as PCs, not tablets. Last year, after Gartner's tablet forecast failed to include Windows, several prominent bloggers fanned the flames of misinformation, wrongly concluding Microsoft's OS would have no share by 2015. Today, IDC issued a new forecast that still ignores Windows tablets, but changes are promised.
Apple is the new Compaq
Surely we can blame Tim Cook for that. Wait. You're too young to remember Compaq? Well, Apple's CEO worked there in the 1990s, and his leadership brings some decidedly bad Compaq habits from Texas to California. So for those of you thinking Apple is different under Cook than Steve Jobs, most definitely.
See, my eyes buggered when reading in iFixit's terrific MacBook Pro with Retina Display tear-down: "Unlike previous generations of MacBook Pros, the MacBook Pro with Retina display is guarded by Apple's proprietary pentalobe screws". Proprietary screws? That sounds familiar. Oh yeah. Compaq!
Will you buy Apple's 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display?
I ask because one of my colleagues already has ordered one (shipping time is a couple weeks), and I got into an interesting Google+ debate about display technologies earlier today.
Apple announced the new laptop yesterday during its Worldwide Developer conference. The new MBP is thinner and lighter, which are nice-to-have features but nothing remarkable. The 2880 x 1800-resolution, IPS screen is really what sets the portable apart from other notebooks, whether Macs or Windows PCs. Apple has raised the standard of art, but the technology isn't gamechanging, as some bloggers or reporters claim. Apple is a laggard with respect to high-res displays, which on Windows PCs have outclassed Macs for years.
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I'm still confused about Asus Open Cloud Computing
Computex is underway in Taipei, and Asus has a slew of mobile announcements we'll get to in other posts today. I'm scratching my head trying to grok the computer maker's cloud strategy, which looks good in this video but far removed from the reality I live in, or you. It's an idealized future of everywhere sync and help holograms that's more Star Trek than today's tech.
But the concept has meaning, and so there's no misunderstanding: Windows 8 plays an important role in Asus' cloud strategy. Microsoft issued Windows 8 Release Preview on May 31 and anticipates new PCs shipping with gold code for the holidays.
Techies, June will be the most amazing month EVER
Save your greenbacks now. During these thirty days you'll hear about lots of innovative and imitative products coming for the holidays. There's no coal in Santa's stocking this year, just too much tech to fit your gift list.
Not since the late 1990s, when seemingly every day some vendor announced a new PC that was ever-so-better than the one you bought the week before, is there so much new tech coming so close together. The cloud connected-device era ushers in a storm of tech. Save up now so you don't break the bank account or exceed credit card limits later.
Say, iPad idolaters, don't write the laptop's epitaph just yet
May you live in interesting times. It’s an ancient curse. Or is it a blessing? There are volumes devoted to that age-old issue. In my world, though, there’s nothing gray about this topic. I get paid to answer questions, so interesting times are a blessing. Straight up. When clients don’t have any questions, now that’s a curse.
These are blessed times we live in, my friends. At least it is in my world. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two years since Apple sold the first iPad. The year before, the tech world marveled at the vitality of the PC. Incredibly, shipments grew in 2009, defying gravity at a time when the rest of the economy seemed to be in a free-fall. My, how things have changed.
Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook is good enough for you
I enjoyed occasional point-counterpoints with Scott Fulton when we worked together at BetaNews. Unexpectedly, I find myself in position to rebut him working somewhere else. It's something I rarely do, but in this case must. Scott's "Why the new Chromebook still doesn't cut it" asks but fails to answer many questions -- it's a FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) piece. Clearly from those questions, and most everything else about the post, Scott hasn't used the new Chromebook Google and Samsung launched two days ago. Had he, no reporter of his vintage and experience could so dismiss the laptop in such manner.
The first question Scott should have asked: Why do so many tech writers who last year dissed Chromebook praise its successor? CNET's Scott Stein doesn't love the Chrome OS followup, but most other tech writers heap praise -- and for a reason. Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook is good enough for everyday computing. Most "actual consumers and businesses", as Scott describes them, will find the computing experience satisfying, though I wouldn't say that Chromebook is for everyone. But it could be for most anyone, with caveat really being Microsoft Office. Do you require it? The answer will be yes for businesses dependent on back-end Microsoft server software leveraging Office on the desktop.
PC shipments rally for big (cough, cough) 2% growth
Well, if fourth quarter PC shipments were bad (and they were), Q1 was not so bad, according to preliminary data Gartner and IDC released today. Woohoo, break out the sparklers, IDC put year-over-year growth at 2.3 percent, but only 1.9 percent by Gartner's estimates. Somebody cue up "Nearer My God To Thee", because the Titanic tragedy's centennial anniversary feels timely. Is the PC market suddenly sinking?
IDC already called 2011 the worst year for PCs since 2001, when recession robbed manufacturers and retailers of Christmas and set off a chain of profit warnings, including Apple and Microsoft. There are no profit warnings this time around, just plenty of misery. Well, unless your business is selling so-called Post-PC devices, like smartphones and tablets.
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