If Microsoft keeps introducing the tablet, will they finally get it right?  We’re about to find out. At next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, MS will present what, by our count, is its fourth tablet.  Not v. 4 of the same tablet, mind you – the fourth of four different machines.

The presentation will be made by MS’s CEO Steve Ballmer, and this time the company does expect to get it right.  The only problem is that another Steve got his tablet out first and has a multimillion unit lead.

Presumably by next month there will be a name for Ballmer’s device. The first, launched about a decade ago, didn’t really have one.  Then came the HP Tablet, released less than a month before the other Steve released his, but the HP flopped.  Then came the Courier. Came – and went. In April 2010 Microsoft announced that it would no longer support the Courier.

How will the No-Name differ from its Apple rival?

The device, manufactured by Samsung, is “similar in size and shape to the Apple iPad, although it is not as thin,” writes Nick Bolton of the New York Times.  “It also includes a unique and slick keyboard that slides out from below for easy typing.” It will run on the Windows 7 OS “but will also have a layered interface that will appear when the keyboard is hidden and the device is held in a portrait mode.” One source speculates it will run on something called Windows 8.

The marketing strategy may tilt in the direction of business applications. Has Apple left that niche open? “The company believes there is a huge market for business people who want to enjoy a slate for reading newspapers and magazines and then work on Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint while doing work,” said one observer.

If it feels like you’ve heard this story before, well, you have. Read Microsoft Snoozed its Way through Tablet Revolution.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.

From TechNewsWorld
First Blood Spilled in the New Tablet Wars by Renay San Miguel

“Two in-development tablet devices that seemed intriguing as details were slowly revealed over the last few months have apparently died in the womb. Microsoft said the Courier is not to be, and HP has hit the brakes on the tablet PC Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer showed on stage at CES in January… In a one-two punch to Microsoft and Windows, various technology blogs and websites reported late last week that Microsoft has ended plans to make its Courier dual-screen tablet, and HP (NYSE: HPQ) has hit the brakes on production of the tablet computer that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off in prototype form at January’s Consumer Electronics Show.”

Our Courier dreams are shattered. However, manufacturers including Microsoft feel there’s still time to produce a tablet but they want to get it right. Ace in the hole is Android-based tablets  (See What Would a Google Tablet Look Like? Here Are Some Clues).

So, the first round goes to Apple. If there’s a round #2 you’ll hear about it.
RC

Nilay Patel has posted on Engadget a preview of the excruciatingly long awaited Microsoft Courier tablet. It could well give Apple’s iPad a run for the money.

” We’re told Courier will function as a ‘digital journal,’” writes Patel, “and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed. That’s a lot smaller than we expected…The interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments…Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft’s e-book device, with a dedicated ecosystem centered around reading.”

No news on price or release date except a vague “Q3/Q4″. Below is a video demo. For the full Engadget article click here.

RC

I’ve often said that the e-book revolution will not reach its tipping point until there’s a tablet under the arm of every student on campus. Though the Apple iPad is the first significant advance in that direction, however, tablets have been around for about a decade.

The first one I ever saw (pictured right) was made by Microsoft, and it created a storm of excitement with a really slick demo showing doctors making hospital rounds with tablets (they still do – one of the few applications that got picked up) and pianists reading a score on a tablet propped up where the sheet music usually goes.

Year after year I waited for Microsoft’s tablet to sweep the country but it never happened. And now I know why. You will, too after reading a New York Times op-ed column by Dick Brass, a former vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004. Brass describes himself as “the fellow who tried (and largely failed) to make tablet PCs and e-books happen at Microsoft a decade ago.”

Though his piece is ostensibly about how MS dropped the ball when it had a chance to tablify the world early in the new century, it’s really about “why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.”

What happened? “Unlike other companies,” says Brass, “Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation.” Bizarrely, Microsoft remains one of the world’s leading technological companies, having made a $6.7 billion profit in the last quarter alone. Yet even that may not be enough. “While the company has had a truly amazing past and an enviably prosperous present,” concludes Brass, “unless it regains its creative spark, it’s an open question whether it has much of a future.”

You can read his analysis in its entirety in Microsoft’s Creative Destruction. It may explain why Microsoft’s introduction of the HP tablet early in January – predating the release of the Apple’s iPad by three weeks – seems to have laid an egg. Here’s PC World’s take on it: “The HP tablet is basically a color e-reader running Amazon Kindle software, with few other details besides a sub-$500 price point and an estimated arrival on the market by mid-2010. So disappointing was the release that Microsoft and HP’s shares fell yesterday according to BusinessWeek.” (Another HP tablet is being used by designers on Project Runway to good effect. Check out the HP Touchsmart tm2 tablet PC.)

The sad thing is that the original tablet PC could, with some refinements, have evolved into the gold standard for the tablet. Instead it looks like it’s become the…um…Brass standard.

And yet…Microsoft has a chance to redeem itself with the forthcoming Courier, which Gizmodo leaked just recently. Maybe MS will not only get the tablet right this time, but will find the fire in the belly that Brass says has been missing from the corporate culture. Check the below video (actually a series of videos) and determine for yourself.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.