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Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

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Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#2

Post by Oculus »

Kind of reminds me of the Windows tablet being way before the iPad, yet the iPad blowing it out of the water. Microsoft had all these great ideas, but failed to execute. It really reinforces the 'ideas without good execution are worthless' motto.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#5

Post by saurik »

Oculus wrote: post #2

Kind of reminds me of the Windows tablet being way before the iPad, yet the iPad blowing it out of the water. Microsoft had all these great ideas, but failed to execute. It really reinforces the 'ideas without good execution are worthless' motto.

FWIW, Windows Journal was epic, and nothing on the iPad even comes close (nor really can it, due to the inaccuracy of the input compared to an active pen digitizer). I provided some more details on this a long time ago on Quora (which kind of sucks, but it at least saves having to go into a long description ;P).

http://www.quora.com/Tablet-Devices-and-Tablet-Market/Why-do...

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#7

Post by acchow »

Ideas are worth nothing. A 15 minute conversation with any expert in HCI 15 years ago would cover 95% of these ideas.

Execution is everything. Microsoft tried to execute on some of these ideas, but the result was always too cumbersome/confusing.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#9

Post by Maarten88 »

But they did build a lot of that video. A few things even succesfully, like Lync/Skype (video conferencing) and SharePoint (document sharing)

However, they failed at most things:

- they were too early and the market and technology was not ready for it (Pocket PC)

- they were too late (Zune, Windows Phone)

- plans were blocked by companies who's support they needed but who were scared of them (music/movies/mobile phone industry)

- execution sucked and products were not good enough (Windows Mobile, home server, media center, everything speech)

- their reputation with consumers was tainted and the press wrote very negatively without really understanding much (hailstorm, drm)

- they made it cost money and other offered it for free, ad supported (MapPoint)

- negotiation power and influence in the market diminished after the monopoly abuse trials

- it took a long time before they understood their problems

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#10

Post by seanmcdirmid »

saurik wrote: post #5
Oculus wrote: post #2

Kind of reminds me of the Windows tablet being way before the iPad, yet the iPad blowing it out of the water. Microsoft had all these great ideas, but failed to execute. It really reinforces the 'ideas without good execution are worthless' motto.

FWIW, Windows Journal was epic , and nothing on the iPad even comes close (nor really can it, due to the inaccuracy of the input compared to an active pen digitizer). I provided some more details on this a long time ago on Quora (which kind of sucks, but it at least saves having to go into a long description ;P). http://www.quora.com/Tablet-Devices-and-Tablet-Market/Why-do...

Pen and touch computing are not competing technologies: you could have one or the other, or both, and the experiences would be complementary. Touch seems to have led to a much larger market than pen, which is still quite useful, just not something that everyone would wind up using like touch.

Would love to see Apple get into Pen computing, and this is one area where I think Surface could have really distinguished itself (including a digitizer on a low-end Surface RT, for example).

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