Microsoft’s History with Tablets

twenty two, which is a Friday. This is two thou twelve, and the reason why I say the date is the Monday of this week we heard an announcement from Microsoft about an upcoming product that definitely made some waves in the tech world. I saw some interest in places that I didn't expect, uh, and it was the Microsoft Surface tablet. Yeah, the the Microsoft Surface up until a few days ago, was a big table top touch screen device, a very cool tabletop touch screen device. I'm priced out of the

market for most of us. It was really meant for commercial uses, not for consumer uses. Yeah. Actually, it kind of reminded me in a way of Veneva Bush's uh Memex. This was of course envisioned in the nineteen forties as um uh basically a desktop workstation that would allow you

to uh photograph different documents and use them on microfilm. Um. And of course the lot of the computer and internet engineers since then has sort of taken that as a It ended up being a semi self fulfilling prophecy just because people like the idea and he said, well, yeah, it would be nice to have this. Well, the surface was actually a desk itself in a way, a table with a big touch screen surface, and you could have

different things on the screen and interact with it. You could, you know, if you were using it in a work setting, which it's not really designed to do, but you could have all your documents in your desk, you know, on the desktop literally and move things around. Very neat, but very expensive. And uh uh yeah. But they they repurposed the name. Yes, they changed the name of that device. Uh pixel s right, that's the new name for what was the surface and now the surface is a tablet.

And I've heard some people talk about how Microsoft is aping Apple, which I think is completely off base for multiple reasons. But we'll get into those and in order to really understand where I'm coming from about how Microsoft is not aping Apple, you have to kind of look at Microsoft's history with the tablet, which has not been a very smooth one. No, but it has been a

fairly long one, especially in tech terms. Yes, back in Microsoft released a version of Windows called Windows for pen Computing. And pen Computing was essentially the idea of using some sort of interface that would require a stylus to input data into a display. So it didn't necessarily mean it would have to be in a tablet form factor. It could be a screen on a wall, it could be your laptop screen or or desktop screen. But the idea was that there needed to be some form of support

for a different interface than just the keyboard and mouse. Uh. Now, that product didn't really take off, and in fact, the form factors didn't really take off outside of some niche markets. And part of the problem is that building uh software that can recognize handwriting is really really tricky, and in fact, Apple had already tried it, yeah, with the Newton, the Apple Newton, which was a message pad, Yes, a message pad. It was sort of a PDA right UM a personal

digital assistant right not public display of affection right. A p D a UM is basically a small handheld device um, that you would use the stylist to interact with it had a hum, it didn't have a the same kind of touch screen we use now, right, it didn't. It didn't necessarily allow you to use your fingers. You had to use the stylus, right, um. And and basically what it would do is I mean it was really at the time designed to be a business tool. Yeah, for

the enterprise market. You would keep your calendar in there and your your phone contacts and things. So it's a smartphone without the phone, yeah, sort of more or less so.

But but Microsoft was not looking at creating devices or marketing for devices that were, uh, this this kind of tier of electronics below computers, right, because you could think of a smartphone is like and a sub brand of computer, but it it doesn't have the full process and capability and uh, it's not as robust as a full computer

would be. Right. So Microsoft view was that, no, we want to support devices that are essentially computers, just computers that are in a different form factor than your big

desktop tower and display and keyboard and mouse. But again, developing the software to try and support that was very tricky and and it didn't really take off in the early nineties, it just nothing really happened, and for a while Microsoft kind of just put it on the back burner, although Bill Gates was still who was the head of Microsoft at the time, still very much determined to find a way to make this work because he saw that

as the future of computing. He said that, you know, eventually that the tablet form factor would actually outstrip other fact versions of computers like laptops and desktops. So in nineties seven, Microsoft hires a fellow named Dick Brass, who was a guy who was involved in designing electronic dictionaries in the eighties, and they hired him to kind of spearhead this approach of trying to think about pen based computing and and what would it take to make that successful.

So what Brass ended up doing was he ended up working with a carpenter of all things, to put together a rough looking model of what a tablet could look like. And um, it was a wooden model, had a flat base and a keyboard and a flat screen, and uh, the screen could be separated from the keyboard. So this was still a device that when it was put together, would resemble a computer in some sense. But then you could detach the screen and have that as a separate device,

which sounds very familiar. We've seen a lot of devices over the last few years that have some sort of laptop tablet hybrid approach. Right, See, that'll come into play later. Uh. The so in in November of two thousand, we're skipping a ad a little bit at the Comdex event. Now Comdex is no longer a thing, yes, but at the time it was a big computer trade show. Yeah, it was the largest computer trade show in the world at

the time. Now uh c E s UH formerly known as the Consumer Electronic Show, Yes, and still that's what it stands for, but they want to be called C E s UM. That's basically UM TVs UH, portable music players, car stereos, stuff that you and I are going to buy for uh daily everyday stuff. Yeah, there's also some tablets and some phones and things. But really that's not

a whole lot of computers. I mean laptops. You see a lot of laptops, like especially this last CS two thousand twelve, that was when the Ultra books were really launched. But in general it is not a computer showcase. No, no, and neither is is E three the Electronics Entertainment XPO. That's a video game showcase right right. Sometimes a hardware showcase as well, but those are very specialized kinds of hardware. Right. You see computers there, but they're you know, specifically oriented

towards gaming purposes or showing off gaming stuff. You might see video cards. You know, hey you got a new graphics card. Uh. Was the boring part of computers? Well yeah, kind of? I mean was It was really a geeky year side of the industry, get right down to it, and a lot of it was, you know, personal computers meant for home business. I don't think personal computers for

all different applications. But really, I mean the the image most people have as a bunch of a bunch of guys wearing short sleeve button up shirts with ties, sitting in a big auditorium and drooling over the latest specs of the next next year's models of personal computers. Um, which is an unfair characterization, but that's often what people think about. So at the two thousand Condex event, which took place in Lost Vegas, Bill Gates came out and

had a keynote speech. He actually said some really interesting things in that speech some stuff that I think you could almost say everything you said turned out to be wrong, at least at least in the short term. Well, you know, that's the trouble with being a visionary and and Bill Gates and uh, you know many of his contemporaries are

and we're visionaries. Um, but you know, different people have different visions, and that things in the market also has a saying this of course, right, and sometimes the future turns out differently than the way you expect. And he said, for example, that the browser is dead. Yeah, he said, the browser era is over in two thousand, which you know, when you think about it kind of died for a while.

It did, it did, and that and that was just before the dot com bubble bursts too, so there was some there were danger on the horizon already, but that was pre web two point out right. But the browser obviously is not dead. He also thought that people would not want this sort of shared computing experience, the idea of having uh, your computer essentially be a dumb terminal attached to some sort of smarter computer device that would

do processing and storage. Well, it turns out cloud computing has really taken off and so that's essentially what he was talking about was cloud computing. It was just before people were referring to it as cloud computing. I think of it more as the old time share. Well, yeah, the timeshare model and the the the dumb terminals that you would see in college campuses where you had a mainframe and you would connect to the main frame. Uh,

people at the time did want desktop computers. You wanted to be able to operate your computer where you were in your house instead of having to go to a computer lab and work on the mainframe. Right. So yeah, and it's it's funny to say that because, um, now in retrospect, it looks I mean, we're I feel like we're kind of teasing Bill Gates, because a lot of the things he said, you know, turned out to be sort of semi false at the time. In the context, what he said sort of came to pass, and then

it reinvented itself in a different way. And there were a lot of limitations on on the world when Bill Gates made these these predictions. For instance, we didn't have the broadband connections that we have now, so so having a cloud computing infrastructure back in two thousand was not a reasonable expectation. It wasn't feasible because you couldn't be You wouldn't be able to access the data you would

need in a timely manner. It would take so long to transfer the data that it would negate the the benefits of having off site storage and all that kind of stuff. So at the time his predictions made perfect sense. But he also predicted that the tablet PC was going to be huge, that this was going to be the next revolution in UH in in computers and UH. Microsoft software architect Bert Keeley came out and he specifically talked

about the tablet PC at that event. UM Now, the information he gave was that the device would weigh less than three pounds, and that would run Windows based software applications, and you would use the stylus to make notes on images and office documents which would then get incorporated into UH files. So that let's say that you're looking at a picture of something. Let's say that you're working with an advertiser, for example, on an AD, and the advertiser sends you a mock up of what the ad is

going to look like. You can make digital notes on the ad using this tablet device and send it back and say like, all right, you know this the product isn't featured prominently enough for whatever you know, or or I don't like the color of this this background because it's it's masking the product. That sort of stuff. Um, that was kind of the idea. And beyond just those

those use cases as well. I mean pretty much anytime you could think of needing to make a note on a digital file, that's when it would come into play, right, Um, But it was just an announcement and a demonstration of the prototype. There was no product to show off yet. In two thousand one at Comdex, Compact came out and showed off a prototype tablet PC running Windows and at that time Gates then predicted that within five years, tablets would be the most popular form factor of computers sold

on the market. And here's where I'm gonna take a little break here. So we've already talked about how Microsoft's got a long history and tablets. That doesn't have anything

to do with the iPad. Right, here's where I am going to mention the iPad, Because even though the iPad doesn't come out for another nine years, you know, we see the iPad unveiled in UM Steve Jobs decided to approach the iPad in a fundamentally different way than the way Gates was looking at the tablet PC, and that Gates was looking at a way to create create a computer that was in the form factor of a tablet. Jobs was looking at building up a smartphone like device

or iPod like device into the tablet form factor. He was looking at scaling up smartphones, not scaling down computers, and in fact, that was jobs main point. He said that his competitors were all trying to make computers into tablets and that that was the wrong approach and that it would not succeed. Well, this is kind of what Jobs was talking about. Microsoft has a history of trying to make computers fit into the tablet form factor, and

historically they have not met with very much success. And this compact prototype was one of the first ones that sort of showed off what a Windows based tablet would be capable of doing. But it ultimately did not really make a huge impact, and again Gates's prediction about tablets being really popular would ultimately be true. It was from a completely different approach than the one Microsoft was making.

So moving ahead, So November seven, two the tablet PC gets unveiled by Gates, who says he has anticipated this moment for many, many years. And uh, they talk about how they're going to be seven different computer makers that will create tablets that run Windows software. So this is not a Microsoft machine. It's Microsoft supporting the tablet form factor by building an operating system specifically designed for that. Yeah,

that was the Windows XP Tablet PC edition. That's exactly right. Um, yeah, it's it's exactly the way that Apple doesn't do it. Um, you know that people talk about that. Uh you know how Apple is a closed system because it manufactures both the hardware and writes the software for it. So uh, you know they do both sides of that equation. Microsoft offt um keeping ourselves in this timeframe. Microsoft doesn't make hardware.

They make software, lots of different software, and they work with many, many different hardware partners to build the machines that run the operating system. And as a matter of fact, this uh Windows XP Tablet PC edition was only available to O E. M's original equipment manufacturers. So if you were Compact or HP or you know one of the other manufacturers that was was working with them, you could

buy this software and preinstalled on the tablets. You wouldn't be able to find it on the shelf at shelf at your local computer store. Hey, they still had computer stores back then. Yep, and and uh. There were some other things that really set this apart from what the you know, the tablets that would come down the line several years later. One is that a lot of the tablets quote unquote tablets that came out in two thousand three was when they really started hitting store shelves. All

those tablets were really hybrids. They were laptop hybrids. So you had the kind that would either have a screen that would swivel and then fold back down over the keyboard, so you would have a really thick tablet because there would be a keyboard section folded underneath. It's basically, uh, the same form factor as a laptop with a closed case. You know, it's it's just got the screen flipped around

and closed exactly. Or you would have the other type of hybrid where you could detach the screen from the base of the keyboard and it would just become its own little computing device with a touch screen interface, again mostly using stylus, not necessarily using your fingers. Um Gates was very uh optimistic about the chances of this in

the market. He thought that at least half a million would sell in the first year, and they'd spent around four hundred million dollars on the technology to develop the tablet PC operating system and to support that form factor. Um. The manufacturers that were included in that list of seven, among them were HP, Samsung, Tshiba, and a ser But there were a couple of notable missing persons on that list, the two being really Dell and IBM, huge names and computers,

especially at this time in the early two thousand's personal computers. Yeah, so back in the early two thousand's, these two companies famous for making computers, we're kind of holding back in order to see if the tablet form factor truly would succeed, because there was a lot of skepticism in the market. I mean, there's a lot of optimism on one side, but there were some companies saying, you know, this is

really risky. Do we really want to pour millions of dollars in research and development and production to build something that we are not convinced people want yet, And so they decided to wait. And also these devices they ranged in price between around eighteen hundred dollars. They were computers exactly. They were full price computers. They weren't a tablet in the sense that we think of today, where they're running

on lower power processors and using specialized operating systems. These were Windows computers in a form factor of a tablet. So the tablets had problems. They their screen resolution wasn't the best, they tended to have really short battery life, and the handwriting software, recognition software had lots of problems. In fact, they had a lot of problems during the

development phase. I read one story about how they back at Microsoft, while they were developing the tablet pcos, they had an entire team switch from laptops to tablet PCs to really test them and see what's going on and see if they could do their work on a day to day basis using them. And they found that whenever they were making notes on a digital file, if they had to make multiple notes, often the tablet PC operating system wasn't really sure where those notes should go and

sometimes would combine them to make nonsensical sentences. It was combining different notes into a run on sentence that has no real meaning, like a bunch of sentence fragments just crammed together. So they actually removed that feature before shipping it because they realized that that would do more harm than good. In fact, Apple had seen very similar problems when they developed the Newton a decade earlier, so it

wasn't unique to Microsoft to have these problems. Um. But another problem was that the adaptation of the operating system and more more importantly, the applications that rested on top of the operating system, they didn't really work so well with a touch screen user interface. They you know, it was it was trying to put software that was meant to be used with a keyboard and mouse and put it into a different form factor with a different user

interface without allowing for that difference. So a lot of the applications were not intuitive, some of them were downright unusable because they just weren't designed for that kind of interface. So you had a product that had a lot of horsepower to it, especially compared to you know, the computers of the day. It was fairly equivalent to them, but it just the software couldn't match up to the hardware

because the user interface wasn't there. So you would have a big, heavy, expensive piece of electronics that couldn't do what you needed it to do. That seems like a waste of money, It does seem like that. Around that same time, Microsoft also partnered with Fujitsu and view Sonic to create smart displays. These were displays that linked to a PC through WiFi. So you would still have a home base PC and this device would hook to it.

You would have a smart touch you know, display case where you could use it as if it were a tablet, the processing being handled by the computer that it's hooked to through WiFi. But these were still pretty expensive, like around a thousand dollars or more, and it didn't really succeed, so Microsoft ended up killing that project within about a year of its starting. Then there was a Project Origami, Yes, Project Origami, Yeah, that was for handheld PCs and touch

screen interfaces. Yeah, exactly, Uh, including the ultramobile PCs. Do you remember that term? Yes? I do. It's not one you run into very much anymore, but yeah, ultramobile PCs that that was sort of the predecessor to both tablets and netbooks, um, but in a way also a predecessor to ultra books. Uh. They still had a lot of problems, mostly because again the operating system wasn't fully optimized for a touch screen interface, and also they tended to have

really lousy battery life. UM, not not a great experience. Now that's not to say that these devices didn't work and that people didn't use them. Um. There were a couple uh industries really that took to them medical industry medicular, Yes, the medical industry, um followed their own advice and took two tablets and called Microsoft in the morning. Yeah, no,

but they did. And I actually still see that at some of the doctor's offices that I've been to in the past few years, they're still using, um, the traditional you know, Microsoft tablet design. I mean, it's very useful for that kind of thing, especially because um they're using the same software uh to register and track patient records that they would use on a desktop computer or laptop computer typically, So it's very compatible with that, and it

has been very efficient for that. And it's good because they can carry this around in the tablet form factor, so they can carry it under their arm, uh you know, drop it down where they can make notes and they can talk to you and and and take notes on this on this tablet device, but UM they had a specific need to have something like that, So I think that's one of the reasons why it um it took off in that particular market. Sure, yeah, and for home

users not not like that. That's one of the things that Microsoft has always pushed is the idea that these are devices that can run the applications you're used to on your computer, things that that the other form of tablet, Apple's version of tablet can't do because the upbrake system isn't robust enough to support all the features and functions

of the software. So for example, they're specifically one note which is part of the Microsoft Office Suite for Windows UM, this Note taking software, which I like very much actually UM, and they made sure that that was that in particular, in addition to the Office applications or Office compatibility, they made sure that was available for the tablets. So you

can see where Microsoft is coming from. It's just again they've had this these difficulties, and some of it is beyond their control because again there they're creating the software and the hardware is being designed by other companies. That doesn't excuse the problems with how the software isn't fully optimized for touch screens. Obviously that's something that's very important. And again Apple got that they designed their interface with touch screen from the ground up. They didn't try and

scale something down and then adapted for touch screens. So it's a different philosophy. That doesn't mean that Microsoft's approach won't ultimately work. It's just that they've had a really long, hard, uh journey and it's not over yet. Because we haven't talked about the two things that came out in two thousand eight. We mentioned one of them because we mentioned Project Surface, which was the table top device you were

talking about. Surface used cameras inside the device pointed up at the screen in order to detect where touches were being placed upon the screen surface. It could do multiple touches at once, so you could have um several people all playing on a surface at the same time, and

it could track all those movements. It also meant that you could do something like take a piece of paper with something written on it, place it face down on the surface, and copy it to the surface, so suddenly you have a digital copy of the physical document you had in your hands. And it's because there were these cameras underneath that could look up and and see what was being pressed against the surfaces. Surface would have been yep.

So I was pretty cool. But the other thing that the other project that we became aware of in two thousand and eight, really in two thousand nine was Project

Curve Ear. Yes, this was an internal project of Microsoft, and it was led by a couple of different people, one of whom was uh, someone who came from the Xbox division of Microsoft, a division that did really really well in the sense that it went into a uh an industry that already had some dominating companies and it mostly mainly Sony and Nintendo and created carved out of space and was very successful in that space, at least especially in the United States by creating the Xbox. If

you think about it, it's uh. It also provided a valuable lesson for Microsoft. And I've never seen this written down. It just occurred to me. Um. Up until this point, Microsoft didn't make hardware, but the Xbox showed him that they could, and it probably you know, again, again, I've never seen anybody say this or hurt anybody say this, but I would imagine that probably gave him a little bit of confidence to say, hey, you know, we can

do this, we can be a hardware company too. And also keep in mind the iPad had yet to debut. The iPad doesn't debut till so at the same time that we know Apple is working, or at least we suspect Apples working on a tablet, we also hear about this Microsoft project. And the thing that said the Courier apart was that it was a two panel tablet. It was hinged in the middle, and it had two displays, so it's like a booklet or a bigger version of the Nintendo DS form factor where you had two screens

when you open it up. And there were videos that leaked on the web that had showed the Courier's concept where you would be able to make notes and read the information and create content, and so it was all about content creation, not just content consumption. And it seemed to have a customized operating system based upon the videos that or at least it would have a customized operating system because the videos were all pretty much prototype, concept

level stuff. It wasn't necessarily a working model, and so there was a lot of interest in this among geek circles anyway, but in Microsoft killed off that project and part of that might have been that the approach to the Courier was closer to what Apple was doing. It was more about taking a simpler computing device and giving it some interesting features and functions rather than trying to take a computer and put it into a tablet form factor.

And ultimately, I think Microsoft decided that that the Courier did not really reflect what Microsoft is as a company. And it also didn't support two of Microsoft's flagship software UH products being Windows and the Office Suite. So since, you know, since it didn't do that, Microsoft like, why would we produce a product that doesn't support our other products that are the foundation of our company. And ultimately the cur you'r died UH. And in two thousand nine,

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows for tablet PC. It's UM. I think that actually this might be a good time to mention UH something that we haven't before. And this dates back again has its roots in in years before UM. Microsoft did, however, make a an operating system for PDAs called Pocket pc UM and it was a very successful competitor to the Palm uh P d A s, which were immensely popular with enterprise, but they were they were both aimed at business customers and then you know, it

did the same kinds of things. But as the uh first with the Trio and some of the other smartphones, um Windows uh well Pocket PC became Windows Mobile, it migrated over to smartphones and that was the operating system. And of course we we now have Windows Mobile eight um.

But yeah, I mean they were they were starting to use uh you touchscreen devices, making the software for other companies to use on their phones, so that you know, they are working on software that will do that will operate a device like a tablet what we think of now as a tablet, um, but it wasn't on what

they were creating as their tablet products. So the surface, I mean, I'm sorry, the courier is probably using something along more along lines and Windows Mobile as it's operating system than it would be a more fully developed, fully functional, went traditional Windows computer operating system. And part of the reason for that is that going with the smartphone model, smartphones and mobile devices tend to use lower power processors than a computer does. They use like arm based processors,

and that's done for a couple of reasons. That they're smaller and they are more energy efficient, so that means you have a longer battery life, and they're cooler in a lot of cases to um, which is important when you have a device that doesn't necessary really have an internal fan, Yes, especially if you're going to put it in your pocket. So, uh, for the Microsoft, for Microsoft Windows to run, it really needs a pretty beefy processor. You know, it can't be it can't just it can't

just be you know, a little dinky process here. So you know, there were some tough choices for Microsoft to make in order to pursue this. So moving on in Balmber was at CS and he showed off the Steve Balmer. Uh sorry, I just I think of him as the bomber Um. He showed off the HP Slate tablet at Windows at CES it was running Windows seven, so again you know, moving away from the Windows XP tablet PC stuff into Windows seven. But another problem, Windows seven not

optimized for touch screens. So there were several tablets that came out that ran on Windows seven. They did not do very well because a lot of the reviews said, this still is not a very satisfactory experience when you're using a touch screen interface. It's just it wasn't made for that. And there and it shows yeah, I mean you you it has clarified. It has touch screen functionality, but it wasn't optimized, right, It wasn't designed for a

touch screen. It was designed for a traditional computer. And while it had elements of touch screen interface design in it, it wasn't that wasn't the primary purpose. There were people making touch screen PCs all in ones. I remember HP had a line. It was very much the same style of computer as uh the imax of now where you have everything baked into a basically looks like a big monitor with a keyboard. You know, no no side computer, you know, our tower computer. It's all built into that.

And it said you know, hey, you can use this as a touch screen, and yes you you could, but it it didn't have things like the pinch to zoom and the swiping and the the same kinds of effects. So things that built in really intuitive little gesture commands and things just weren't part of it. And that was a problem. Well, now we're up to and Microsoft has introduced the surface tablets, which are going to run two different versions of Windows. There's two two main categories of

these tablets. There's the Windows r T version and Windows RT is again an O E M version of Windows just as tablet the tablet PC Windows XP was um, it's optimized for more mobile processors. So again that now we're looking more like the the Apple tablet in the sense that it's going to be on ARM based processors, so lower power, more efficient, cooler, but less um less capable of running really chunky programs. Right, So that's one version.

It's the consumer model Windows are T version. Then you have the Windows eight pro version, which will come out about three months after the debut of the Windows our T version. According to Microsoft, now this one is going to be having It will have an Intel Core processor, uh, and it will run Windows eight Pro on it, so it will have a more fully fledged operating system. And Windows eight was an operating system designed with touch screen in mind, at least as far as the metro design

of Windows eight goes. Because there's there's different model modes of Windows eight, but one of them was specifically designed with touch screens in mind. And when it first premiered, Microsoft didn't show it off on a tablet. They were showing it off on computers, and people were thinking, well, does this mean Microsoft working on a tablet or they're working with other manufacturers for tablets, and as it turns out,

Microsoft was making a tablet. You might ask yourself, well, why is Microsoft doing that now instead of partnering with the manufacturers that does for computers and other devices, And they're possible months of possible reasons. One of them might be that Microsoft wants to make sure that a tablet is made quote unquote the right way. Yes, Microsoft is making a tablet. Why are they making a tablet? Thank you Captain Kirk. The Captain Kirk is climbing the mountain

and look it up on YouTube. So the the the question would be I think the answer here is that Microsoft wants to design a tablet around that that really takes advantage of this operating system. They know what the operating system can do, They've got the people who can build the tablet itself. They want to be able to do this to show off the operating system, and it's not necessarily going to be a line of products that

will continue forever into the future. It may even be that these two models are the only two Microsoft ever produces, and that they let everyone else build tablets from here on out. I don't know that Microsoft wants to get

into the manufacturing business. That has been rumored. In fact, um, some of that has been going along in the the tech media in the past few days since the announcement is that uh uh, that's one of the things is that maybe Microsoft is doing this as a a proof of concept and they will get in but not uh jump into the market completely. And once they have proven that this is a thing and then it will work,

they will let everyone else take the lead. Because, um, as with Google's acquisition of Motor Motor Rolla Mobility, if Google gets into the hardware business, everybody said, well, wait, they're gonna be competing with all these other hardware manufacturers that they have been working with. Well, Microsoft is going to be in the same type of vote, competing with their partners. So um, you know, there are people who who really do believe that that is they're they're showing

it off. But of course, as Apple has proven uh time and time again, Yes, a closed system is closed, but the manufacturer has much more control over the environment when the system is closed, because they can make it work exact actually the way they think it should work, and they don't necessarily include anything else that wasn't intended for example, again with the Google Android platform, if you buy a Google Android device with only a few exceptions,

you're going to get extra stuff that you do not necessarily want or need. Uh. Some of those things don't make sense if you catch my dress. Some of those things are impossible to remove without without your rooting your device. So you know, this is one way to get around that as well. Now we don't know if it's going to succeed, we'll have to wait. But still, really a computer that's been put into the tablet form factor, it's it's again that philosophy is building scaling down as opposed

to scaling up some other lower powered electronic device. Um. The other big thing that I saw everyone going gaga about is the cover for the surface. Ah. Yes, Now it is very much like the smart cover introduced with the iPad too, because it has a magnetic uh clasp on it so that when you you cover your surface tablet, it will the magnets will snap to the the case of the device and it will hold it closed. Yeah. But it also has a keyboard built into it, and

there are two different types of the keyboard. There's a pressure sensitive keyboard where the keys are not raised or anything, but you can you know, designated certain keys, and then there's actually a click keyboard where they're the keys are raised slightly so it's more like a touch keyboard. Um. And also they work uh uh, they have a variety of colors. They work on Bluetooth to connect to the device. Um,

it's kind of interesting. They also the surface itself has a little kickstand in the back of it that you can flip out so it stands up like a laptop screen would. In fact, a lot of people have said that this is really just another version of the laptop tablet hybrid. It's just that this is one that is closer to the tablet side than the laptop side. And I don't that Microsoft would argue that because they really

want you to think of it as a PC. And the Microsoft presentation where they unveiled this, they referred to it as a PC repeatedly. Yeah, which is exactly in line with their their previous tablet effort and exactly an opposite alignment of Apple's approach, where Apple was jobs would say this is not a PC, this is a this is a tablet. It's for the post PC environment, right right, where whereas uh, the iPad, and it has been criticized more times than I can account, certainly by people who

say it's a consumption device. It is a consumption device that people began writing productivity software for. It's sort of one people's hearts and minds by being a consumption device primarily at first, but it is shown also well, the software developers have shown that you can use it for productivity and creativity and creation as well. And and Microsoft isn't approaching it as a h well, this is a scaled down productivity device that you can also use to

consume with. So it's it's really I mean that both devices will do both, but it's two different and different approaches to the same converging point, right, because that's why this is all about his convergence, because you know, you can't go an entire episode without me saying the word.

So that's a that's a that's an example there. Yeah, and and you know, just so you guys know, I mean, there have been several tablets that have run on various versions of Windows, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows seven all had tablets. Uh, it's just they didn't do so well. And so you know, in terms of sales in terms of sales. UM, So we'll see if the Surface could perhaps buck the trend. You know what. I think we're actually getting to the point where people are curious about this.

They really think, well, if Microsoft can make a truly compelling product that can really run these rich applications that are beyond the scope of something like an iPad or an Android tablet, it perhaps there's a place for it. And that might very well be instead of buying a laptop, maybe I'd buy a surface next time because it has all the capability of a laptop but has the portability and other functions of a tablet. Why would why not get that? UM? I think it's really going to depend

heavily upon the price of the surface. We don't know what that's going to be yet. We don't know exactly what processors they're going to put in it, right, Yeah, we don't have the specific details. We do know that the RT one will have an ARM based processor that's what Windows RT was optimized for, and that the Windows eight pro version will have some sort of x A D six based processor, although and we don't know specifically

which one it will be. UM, we know that there's going to be a couple of different flavors of each of these. You know, there's certain bubery don't have the different levels of storage space, you know, thirty two gig versus sixty four gig versus twenty eight gig, that kind of thing. But we don't really know what the price ranges are going to be. It may very well be that the Windows eight Pro one hundred twenty eight gig version is that could that could happen. We don't know that.

That's the thing about a tablet, regardless of what system it's running, you might say, is what you're giving up to make it work and what price point you've got to hit? So you know, you have to make sure it's it's not going to run the battery down. You've got to make sure that it's energy you know that it's energy efficient, that it it looks nice even though it has a nice screen on it, and it's functional. But then you go, okay, well what software am I

gonna run? You know what, Obviously you're not going to be able to run something like a Final Cut Pro on an iOS device or Adobe full version of Adobe Photoshop CS on a surface because there are certain things you need the screen space, you need. So what are you going to give up? What are you gonna take out? What are you gonna put in? And that's that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about the philosophy that we're approaching it at Because, um, the forum factor

has been established as a success. You know, it's it's a good These are good sizes for the device. Um. As a matter of fact, you have the surface is very similar in size to the iPads versus the the Android tablets, which vary in size sixteen by nine screen size, and you know they're smaller or bigger than you have a tablets, the fablets, the fablets, the half phone half tablet. I like saying that the Galaxy Note being one of the first makes the term makes Jonathan squirms, So it's

not a big fan of the term fablet. I still want a Galaxy Note, by the way, I don't own one one, But I do think I do think that Microsoft has uh it's on the right track, definitely, And if anybody can do this, it's going to be Microsoft. You know. Obviously Google and Apple have already proven that they can do this. But I can't think of anybody else getting into the field. Uh and just when I go, there's Paul, these guys. That's right, they still have o s.

I don't know that we'll ever. I mean, technically it's not dead dead yet. Uh. Now it will, I think depend very heavily on the price, because people now have an expectation of how much tablet should cost, not thinking this is don't think of it as a tablet, think of it as a PC. That's that's really hard because now we've already established what a tablet is and what it can do and what it cannot do. And perhaps if you think of it, oh, well, this is a tablet,

it can just do more than this other tablets. Yeah, but is more value. That's so I think it's really gonna play down to how does Microsoft price it. Microsoft could end up pricing it very very competitively, so that they're essentially taking a loss in the hardware. But if they do that, then they're shooting themselves in the foot in another way, because they've set an expectation for all their partners, and then if their partners are forced to sell at it, you know, it doesn't make sense for

the partners to sell at a huge loss. If that if that's how they may their money is through the hardware, which is already a very low margin area to make your money off of anyway. Um, so Microsoft has a very delicate balancing act. They can't price it so competitively that they have knocked all their partners out of the market, and they can't go too far over the established price of tablets because then everyone's gonna balk at the expense. Plus uh. I think this is very important for Microsoft

to try for one very important reason. Um, there has been a halo effect on Mac sales from the success of the iPhone and the iPad. Now, of course you're going to say that the Mac still trails Windows by a huge margin. Yes, that's true, but there has been an increase in Mac sales and they have been selling better.

Now there are rumors, of course that with the Chrome operating system, that Google could be getting into the desktop market and and it I think it is important to for Microsoft to establish a beachhead in the tablet front to keep people, to give them an option in to keep everybody in the Windows ecosystem as it is. Well, I have to say Windows eight Mobile, you can have you know, the Windows RTU tablet and you can have

your Windows eight desktop. I have to say that I'm not surprised about the Halo effect thing, because you know, as we all know, Bungee used to develop games just for the Mac and that was where Marathon came out of, and the Halo games are sort of a spinoff of Marathon, and those went over into not that Halo effect. The Halo effect actually refers to, hey, I like this, and well, you know what, that looks very much like this. I

think I'd be comfortable trying it out. And yes, people who have been trying out uh, Macintosh computers, people who didn't necessarily use them because they bought an iPhone or an iPad and said, hey, you know, the operating system looks pretty similar, I want to try it, and they find out they worked very well together. Again, that's sort of the benefit of the closed system. Just have a benefit, have Halo on the mind because I get to play Halo four in two weeks. Okay, all right, so I'm excited.

But well, that was the reason that Microsoft sold so well. Office and Windows go so well together, and of course Internet Explorer as the browser. Um, you know, that was the focus of the whole antitrust thing is it part of the operating system? Is it not part of the operating system? Do people have a choice? But it makes you wonder about the whole, like the any there's an any trust thing brought up against Microsoft, but not brought up against Apple and the iPad where Chess, Safari and anyway.

So these things I think are being redefined. Yeah they are. I agree they are being redefined. So we're going to wrap up this discussion on the history of Microsoft and tablets and the discussion about the Surface, which I'm sure we'll talk more about once it once it actually becomes

a real reality. It's a retail reality as opposed to just the the versions that we've seen and where we have more details and we can kind of I think it will be fun to talk about it maybe a year after the debut, to see what impact it had, if any, on the industry as a whole. Well, that's a that's a good point too, because as we know, BlackBerry and Palms tablets lasted for a very very brief

period of time on store shelves. Yeah, I think the Surface has a much better chance of making it long term and being a real competitor to the iPad than um those devices did, Yeah, I agree to. I think they'll be around. Well, well, we'll see. I mean there was a lot of initial excitement at the announcement at

any rate, so that hopefully will propel this. And competition is always a good thing, So I want to see this succeed, at least as far as it will make other companies like Google and Apple and the various partners really press to innovate and and continue to bring cool features to consumers, so we'll all benefit in the end. Well, that wraps up this discussion. Now. If you guys have any suggestions for topics that we should cover in future episodes of text Stuff, please let us know. You can

send us an email. Are and just tex stuff at Discovery dot com or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled there is tech stuff hs W and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot Com? Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you