back to article Ballmer preempts Jobs with tablet slate trio

During his keynote presentation Wednesday evening at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a not-too-subtle message to that other Steve, Mr. "CEO of the Decade." Namely, that as the world waits in salivating suspense for what is increasingly certain to be a late-January unveiling …

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    1. Bilgepipe
      FAIL

      No need to compete

      Jobs doesn't need to compete with that thing. All he needs is a usable tablet with some compelling content, which by all accounts he will have at launch. Ballmers toy is an embarrassment, judging by the share prices of both M$ and HP, obviously cobbled together over the Christmas break. It's not even an effective spoiler tactic, which was almost certainly the intention.

      You can't just throw a touch-botched version of Windows on a screen and expect to define some new kind of market segment, you need a new UI suited to the device - like Apple did and will do - not a screen with a bloated OS on it. How are you supposed to use those tiny Windows controls on that thing? Answer - you don't, you make new ones. Fail.

      The only tablets Ballmer should worry about are weight loss tablets.

  1. Bilgepipe
    Gates Horns

    Objection, M'lud

    "Rank of popularity of PCs among "smart devices": 1"

    PCs might be the most used, by choice or otherwise, but I doubt they are the most popular.

  2. Thomas 18
    Thumb Down

    Applications?

    so they recon 20% of windows applications ONLY run on Windoze 7. Pretty hard to believe.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Yeah great...

    Where are the four buttons all Windows boxes need, on/off and CTRL,ALT & DEL?

    1. Dave 142

      battery

      they've gone for the solution Sony Ericsson and Nokia have used for years, you pull the battery out and put it back in a few times.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "Number of times Ballmer said "Bing" in a ten-word description of Bing usage: 6"

    Would someone be so kind as to dig up this sentence? Thanks!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Top Trumps

      This is what he said:

      Just bing "Bing", "bing", "bING or "BING" to find Bing!

      ***

      Steve Ballmers

      Power...75

      Speed...40

      Motivation rating...60

      Threat level...75

      Horror rating...70

      Lethalness...57

      Intelligence...61

      Guru status...13

      ***

      Steve Jobs

      Power...10

      Speed...46

      Motivation rating...67

      Threat level...15

      Horror rating...97

      Lethalness...67

      Intelligence...69

      Guru status...73

      ***

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Was there - and have it on tape

      "We Bing, we Bing, and we Bing: Bing, Bing, Bing!"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: "We Bing, we Bing, and we Bing: Bing, Bing, Bing!"

        Surely at least some of them bings must have been that other four letter word, f..k ? American censorship, land of the free and all that...

  5. uhuznaa

    Work?

    Every now and then someone comes and says "These things are totally useless for real work and will fail!". Now, who speaks of work? These things are for CONSUMERS. Right now about two thirds of the population uses computers at home and all of them are using computers that are designed for work and for offices. And what are these things used for? Not for work, believe me. There's a huge market out there that just waits for something. And this is not keyboardless netbooks running Windows 7.

  6. James Hughes 1

    Original use of the 'Slate' word

    I seem to remember, at least 20 years ago, reading a SF book where handheld devices like these were called slates. And I think the book may even have been 20 years old at that time!.

    It obviously refers back to the time when people used slate tablets (see how I did that!) in school instead of paper (which was too expensive). This was taken up by the author of the book I read (It may even have been Asimov, but I am unsure) but updated to electronic devices.

    So, both the use of the word tablet and slate in exactly these circumstances are considerably older than either Apple or Microsoft would lead us to think.

  7. Prag Fest
    Go

    @whiteafrican

    Mate, have a word. Ballmer spends 5 minutes showing off a clearly unfinished bit of kit, magically called a 'slate' while the web is ablaze with the talk of the imminent "iSlate". It's the most shameless bit of bandwagon jumping I've ever seen, nay, act of desperation. And this has sod all to do with fanboi this or fanboi that, it's just amazement that a company with MS's resources are making such a hash of things.

    You're right about one thing though, I've always thought the key element missing from the iPhone experience and what is potentially jeopardising Apples entire strategy, is the inability to run Corel Draw. And just imagine if it could run Lotus Notes too, dare to dream..

    1. whiteafrican
      Headmaster

      @Prag Fest

      OK, here's a word:

      1. Apple weren't the first (or even nearly the first) company to call a tablet computer a "slate". It has been used for years to describe Windows Tablet PCs that don't have keyboards. Here are some examples:

      - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabletPC#Slate

      - http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/laptoptabletpcreviews/gr/fujitsu5011dc.htm

      - http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=915

      - http://www.ozhardware.com.au/Notebook-Reviews/Fujitsu-Stylistic-ST5112-Slate-Tablet-PC-Review/All-Pages.html

      I could go on, but I'll stop there. If you're going to claim Apple are the only people who use a particular term (e.g. "slate") you might want to take a quick peek 'round the net and see if anyone else was using it first... Just a thought.

      2. Dare to read. I didn't mention Corel Draw. I said Corel Painter:

      http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1166553885783#tabview=tab0

      But you could extend the analogy to whatever software is most important to you. Want Dreamweaver? Want Office (or OpenOffice)? Want your favourite desktop sopftware? My HP slate runs those, and it does it right now. The (quite possibly fictional) iSlate is reported to be running the iPhone OS, and it doesn't exist in the real world yet. The iPhone OS has its own apps, and they're fine for what they do (mostly novel timewasters). But you're surely not going to argue that they're anything like the same league as full PC apps, are you?

    2. ThomH

      Corel Draw?

      Corel Draw? I was under the impression that people were shifting to Adobe Illustrator due to its integration with Photoshop and InDesign. That said, Corel had an OS X port of Draw up to, I think, version 10. So they could possibly revive it.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    So many Apple fanboys

    Flocking to naysay. Give up and get a life!

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    FAIL

    If you want old try this

    The Convergent Technologies Workslate

    http://www.computercloset.org/ConvergentTechnologiesWorkSlate.htm

    IIRC the term was also used in some of the Niven/Pournelle novels.

    It's a form factor I like but the units to date have been heavy, expensive and *thick*.

    The question is wheather Windows will ever be the right OS to support this. At one point this looked like Penpoint could have been it but guess what MS managed to stuff that. We'll see if monkey boy is any more succesful this time round.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    It's not going to the big ground breaker.

    The problem with the tablet/slate thing is that it is not going to be the answer for the great majority of users. Certainly, there are applications, and I have programmed some industrial systems with touchscreens, but apart from the slate's portability, I don't see where they are a big commercial winner for most users particularly in the office.

    The next BIG game changing thing will be machines that you can talk to "naturally" and have it understand you in a manner which sufficient for the purposed that you need it (I mean other than phone speed dial and the like of course) which will pose some interesting issues when working in an office environment.

    Speaking is what comes most naturally for us for communication.

    Anyone that can crack that nut is onto a huge winner.

  11. raving angry loony

    difference between "announce" and "exists".

    It's not who announces things first, it's who has actual products AVAILABLE first. Microsoft has a long, LONG history of "announcing" things that don't turn up until much later, just to screw over those who actually have product.

    So, where can I buy this Microsoft "slate" that they "announced"? Oh right, I can't. Whereas when Apple announces THEIR product, I should be able to buy it within a couple of days. (I won't, I've gone off Apple, but at least these days when they announce a product it bloody well exists!)

  12. h 6
    Jobs Halo

    What's he holding?

    When he shows the cover of the Twilight ebook?

    http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hp-tablet-2.jpg

    Two hands cupping an----apple!

  13. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Stop

    RE: No need to compete

    Dear Fanboi, there is no "new kind of market segment", it's just a rehash of the old PC tablet. I know the seriously deluded amongst the Church of St Jobs actually believe Jobs created everything first, but the truth is there is nothing new here. Unless iSlate has some really unique and valuable content (please expand on this "amazing content" as no-one else seems able to, including Jobs), it's just a PC tablet running MacOS - big deal. The iPhone was going into a very lucrative and competitive phone market, there just isn't a tablet market, just a niche.

    The only area I can see is if the new iSlate really is good at being a sketchpad for the crayola brigade in marketing departments and the like. Otherwise I just can't see the appeal to anything other than the fanbois.

  14. Mikey

    I do wonder...

    If Apple is releasing what is effectivly a giant iPhone... will it be released in multiple versions over time in order to add the missing functionality which should have been present at the beginning, much like the iPhone itself?

    Also, will it be able to multi-task, or will they have that functionality also locked to their own software and no-one else? Will it be compatible with other machines other than those running the apple OS? The ever-present issue of battery replacement also resurfaces. I'm also going to bet, unless they're willing to take a hit in their profits, any apple tablet will cost more than the equivilant non-apple variety.

    I wonder... have any of the rabid commentards used Win7 on any form of tablet yet, or are they just assuming it'll be shite and thats that? As with all things, lets wait and see, shall we?

  15. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    You wants peach wreck ignition? Well,

    If you want speech recognition, it was included in XP Tablet PCs, apparently in a better version in Vista, and I assume in Seven. But in the first generation of Tablets, built for battery life instead of data-crunching power - and light on RAM - it was painfully slow to respond, and inflexible. On machines in 2010 it may be more useable than ever before, although again the fashion is for less processing power on your portable device and longer battery life. Maybe someone 'll set up speech recognition in the cloud, voice decoding as a servvice across the Internet... isn't that scary!

    Then again, back in the day I was solemnly assured that every fax message sent in Britain (ask your parents) was duplicated at the national spybheadquarters, GCHQ.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    New Marketing

    I have a 5 year old Tosh M200 pen-enabled tablet sitting in front of me which has given (and continues to give) me great service. It has an accelerometer and runs Windows XP. It's great for notes, audio recording, research, on the road presentations and general brainstorming, amongst other things.

    Yes, it weighs a little too much, gets hot as hell and battery life could be better, but as a digital slate tablet it delivers. The same product built with today's technology and running W7 would undoubtedly hit the spot for this particular niche market. And it is still a niche market. I still get people looking over my shoulder and expressing interest, curiousity and enthusiasm for a properly used tablet. With the right marketing and today's improvements in technology, I'm sure that more people would adopt this form factor.

    This iSlate thing sounds like new marketing, rather than new technology, but Apple is good at marketing, that's for sure and I'm certain that the market niche can be expanded - just try not to swallow the innovation line whole without a little prior analysis.

  17. Master Luke

    Why "Slate"?

    Is it because it is running Windoze 7, so you'd be better off switching it off and writing on it with chalk?

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