Microsoft: to make a "major" announcement (Tablet)

RobertKaucher

Microsoft Manufacturing Tablet to Rival Apple iPad, Says Insider (Exclusive) | The Wrap Media

Any bets in advance about features or how it will actually measure up?

onesaint

I wonder if it will be like the windows phone campaign:

Windows Phone market share is so small, Nielsen doesn't even list it | Computerworld Blogs

demonfurbie

i personally think its too little too late

only way i see microsoft pulling it off is if it will run all programs even x86 based ones so they can market it that way

kriscamaro68

demonfurbie wrote: »

i personally think its too little too late

only way i see microsoft pulling it off is if it will run all programs even x86 based ones so they can market it that way

I am sure most people said that about the xbox to.

onesaint

"I am sure most people said that about the xbox to."

There was less domination in the console market. PS2 was great and Wii was fine, but there was no de facto standard like in the tablet market. Any large Android tablets that have tried to rival iPad have failed. Amazon/BN have only made headway because they made something different. Like demonfurbie said, there will have to be a catch significant enough to grab peoples attention otherwise, the iPad will still be king.

Roguetadhg

Xbox (Gen 1) came at a good time. Sega was spreading their money too thin, Nintendo had GameCube, Sony had Playstation 2. No one can argue the success of PS2, but the Xbox had things that GC didn't: Ability to use normal discs as well as games that made it a solid contender. Anyways, as far as tablets...


MS is a lot late into the mobility section of computing. I say this considering the modern smart phones as a "computer". Apple has the high-end share with the organic feel as well as fluidity to working. Android has the Other half.

Although, I'm anxious to see what Microsoft puts out. It has to be something end-users can use, cheaper, and isn't skimping. If given a choice of High-costing tablets, most people will pick the iPad, because it's got a huge base of users.

Nook/Amazon has the low cost tablets/e-reader section buttoned up. But if they can section the middle portion, I think they'll hit a sweet spot and should be able to survive in that niche.

bdub

I'm hopeful. It might actually be something useful instead of a 600 dollar paperweight, like the iPad.

N2IT

I also saw that Microsoft was going after Yammer. IMO this is a brilliant move. Getting into the social media game in the enterprise environment.

blargoe

If MS can put out something that is as stable as the iPad, more versatile, and can run some regular x86 Windows apps, they should get some share. I don't think they have to be the market leader in tablets right now to be a success. 20-30% of a growing market from almost zero would be a smashing success for them.

Coolhandluke

lets face it, Microsoft are a software company trying to break into another market. They came good with the xbox through raw power and their ability to provide developers with a great development platform. That said and done you get what you pay for, thats why you can pay £30-£50 for an xbox game, because right away Microsoft are taking a chunk of it. You buy a tablet with a microsoft operating system, your gonna pay for the OS right away (between £50-£100), then hardware costs on top .... it all adds up. Apple own the premium market and android has everything between that. You can buy an android tablet for £80 with ICS on it (and at that price its disposable) . That won't even cover the base cost of the OS with a Microsoft tablet so its fair to say that they will be in the region of £200-£300. Now what you gonna do, add the extra and go with apple who have a great track record .... go with android who have the biggest user base .... or go with microsoft who are entering the market and have less apps available than any of the above with no track record as yet ?

I'm not saying it won't be a great product, just saying that it will be tough (look at the playbook, no apps = no users).

whatever happens it will be interesting to see......

Iristheangel

If it ends up failing, maybe we'll see another HP-Touchpad-like firesale and we can port Android to it

MentholMoose

Wonder what they'll name it... Zune Tab, or maybe Kin Tab?

Mike-Mike

I love my Windows Phone, so I'm looking forward to a Windows Tablet. They are ditching the Zune name, and moving towards Xbox. Zune Pass has been renamed Xbox Music, I'd bet their Tablet has an Xbox-esque name

alxx

Trouble is none of the programs I need to run in metro mode yet. So if its a win rt tablet its a no go.
Plus no office for win rt until 2013.

A windows 8 tablet on x86 might be a goer, I need a replacement for my fujitsu st5011 slate pc.
Still looking at one of motion computing's or Asus slate pc's.

Need a tablet that can handle cad programs , xilinx (fpga programming) , compilers (pc and microcontroller -pic, arm, avr)
and has sd card slot, usb ports - minimum 2 (needed for jtag programmer/debuggers) , ethernet , bt 4, wifi n , touch and stylus
and minimum of 6 hours real battery life.

jibbajabba

I don't believe them anymore. I was working for a Microsoft OEM partner once and we were invited to an Hyper-V event when it was first introduced and only available as Alpha. They made it a massive "virtualiztion world changing" event just to reveal Hyper-V 0.1 or something .. We all know how bad it was but Microshaft insisted its the best thing on the marked.

"We dont support migration yet and you need for each VM a seperate LUN, but it is still better than VMware"

Microsoft under Balmer lives in a seperate universum I tihnk ...

RobertKaucher

In addition to the tablet theory, there was also a leaked document that gave details regarding the net gen of the XBOX! Xbox 720 document leak reveals $299 console with Kinect 2 for 2013, Kinect Glasses project | The Verge

MeanDrunkR2D2

I'm sure that the Zune Tablet will do to the iPad what the Zune did to the iPod.

tpatt100

Microsoft is in a good position in the corporate world to make a tablet that companies can easily integrate because Microsoft is willing to provide financial incentives to app developers to build the software end up. The problem I see is the iPad being "the tablet" that is mainstream is probably easier to entice app developers to rather than trying to convince companies to take a risk on a new product.

But Microsoft can do what they did with the 360 and bury the competition with cash by buying exclusive access in the hopes of building market share sooner or later.

demonfurbie

and here it is

Live coverage: Microsoft announces Surface tablet - Gadgetbox on msnbc.com

tpatt100

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpzu3HM2CIo

Microsoft needs to hire a better advertising agency.

I think the tablet looks pretty cool but I am trying to be an optimist but I am so not into the Metro UI.

N2IT

Looks pretty sweet. I might end up picking one up, if it can run all the Office apps.

Slowhand

I have to say, I'm digging the Pro version, but the RT version seems more like a stop-measure between the tablet and Windows 8 phones. Still, I'll probably pick up a Pro once they launch. It'll be fun to mess with my iPad-owning friends, running the full version of Adobe Photoshop, Steam, etc. on my little pad-device.

On a more serious note, though, that's going to be the factor that makes or breaks the Surface: if Microsoft can successfully market this as a "truly mobile version of Windows on a pad", complete with some "sexy" design-ideas to nab up people who care more about how the device looks in their hands than how it performs, it should do quite well. Microsoft doesn't need to create a revolutionary new type of device, they need to create one that does all the things its competitors can't.

demonfurbie

i think it will really rely on price and needs to be able to do something that all the others cant

id love to play mmorpgs on it but if it can only play games like angry birds and costs more than a mid priced android tab i dont see a point to it

the keyboard cover is interesting but the transformer does something like that already and you can get really nice keyboard covers for an iPad

for me it will need to run full x86 programs with a fair bit of speed and cost around 400 usd to even blip on my radar, for 500 usd i can get a iPad (the standard of tablets) and for around 400 usd i can get a good android tab. with how most enterprise programs are headed day to day type things they are switching to html5 and/or web based. the only reason i would want it is because it can run full x86 programs.

every thing most (non-it) workers do at my office and alot of offices i deal with is done via web browser so it can be done on anything. if i need something more than what the web browser can do i just remote into a vm that i have setup to run for my tablet at a lower res so it fits nicely in the vnc window.

now for personal use i prefer the smaller 7in platform and thats cheap .... really cheap so i dont thing ms with try to even go there

NightShade1

It looks cool... let see if the price is not sooooooo high

RobertKaucher

tpatt100 wrote: »

Microsoft needs to hire a better advertising agency.

I think the tablet looks pretty cool but I am trying to be an optimist but I am so not into the Metro UI.

Have you bothered to learn how to use it? Once you know how it works, even on a laptop it's pretty easy to use. Once I took the time to figure out how to use the UI it was not the suckfest I initially thought.

RobertKaucher

demonfurbie wrote: »

for me it will need to run full x86 programs with a fair bit of speed and cost around 400 usd to even blip on my radar, for 500 usd i can get a iPad (the standard of tablets) and for around 400 usd i can get a good android tab. with how most enterprise programs are headed day to day type things they are switching to html5 and/or web based. the only reason i would want it is because it can run full x86 programs.

So you are expecting twice the features at less than half the price and then it will be acceptable to you?

tpatt100

Man that thing is "wide". That is a problem I am having with my Galaxy Tab 10.1 is it is a bit wider than my iPad so typing is awkward on it unless I use a keyboard app that splits to the sides.

Iristheangel

I would put more money down if it could run regular x86 programs flawlessly.
I think the best way to innovate the portable market would be to have an OS and hardware that can run the same programs interchangeably regardless of the device you are on. For example, instead of having to buy apps for my phone/tablet and then buy software for my desktop/laptop, I could just buy one piece of software that would work interchangeable between all of them. Plus they wouldn't run into the issue that HP had when they developed their WebOS: No apps.

I'm actually optimistic about MS producing the hardware as well. One of the shortcomings of all the Android devices out there is that it's on a variety of hardware platforms and they're not optimized for the hardware that's running it. That's one thing Apple has done REALLY well with and it's one of the biggest reasons that the iPhone/iPad/etc can slightly outperform their competitors even with the opposition has superior specs.

It has potential. Especially if it runs regular programs. If it did that, it could sink Apple's hold on the market or force them to step up in their next implementation of OSwhateverthehecktheyreonnow/IOS

tpatt100

I am hearing on different tech podcasts and blogs that Microsoft is probably going to buy Nokia. Google bought Motorola and hasn't done anything drastic "yet" but it looks like Google might be taking advantage of the Android handset manufacturers eventually abandoning the handset market due to no or low profits. Samsung seems to be the only one making a real profit along with the bottom feeder free or almost free phone builders.

If Microsoft buys Nokia and makes that the preferred manufacturer for Windows phones and tablets. Google focuses on Motorola and Samsung. The market will tighten up and the choices will develop more clearly rather than the mess Android has right now with all the manufacturers trying to make their phone stand out and load it up with bloat ware in an attempt to get some on going profits besides the initial phone purchase.

I think Google will just let the tablet builders go at it and let the builders give up eventually. With the rumored 7 inch Nexus tablet Google probably sees a better profit potential going after the Kindle Fire demographic that wants a little more than a Fire but not the 500 dollar iPad price tag.

DevilWAH

I am not so sure it will be he break they need/want.

In all honest how does it better the ipod or android for he average user?

Its not like its the same OS as peoples desktops as most people run windows7/vista so until windows 8 is a desktop standard its still a learning curve.

the features people talk about are all great, but not what the average users wants or needs. Might be great to have a full install of photoshop on it, but can a slimmed down device managed the workload and have he input devices that will make it useful. For photo shop you need a mouse and full size keyboard to make full use of the program and allow you to work. And why buy a tablet then tie it down with accessories.

All the major websites are android/ipod friendly now, with such a large user base already, are the going to invest in fine tuning for yet another device?

The way I see it is that this is just another tablet, and no doubt a very good one. But its a bit like there search engine "Bing", look under he surface and BING has some great features, but nothing so outstanding that i am going to change my default search engine to it. Google works just fine.

Its a strange business plan to go after such a successful market, when there is already such a clear leader. Its a bit of re inventing he wheel, ow does this put them in a position where the product is original, and is it hat far ahead that the likes of apple can't catch up?

tpatt100

Microsoft has the advantage of having the majority of desktop users out there and the Xbox. Microsoft is going to push this heavily into the Xbox experience somehow. I know they announced iOS and Android apps for Xbox so I am sure Microsoft will throw **** trucks of cash at the entertainment industry to setup partnerships with this tablet in mind. I know my iPad is well integrated with my Apple TV and my wife's iMac.