Ballmer has plans for more Microsoft own-brand hardware Steve Ballmer has re-iterated Microsoft’s commitment to making more hardware. Promoting Windows 8 ahead of today's launch in New York, Microsoft’s chief executive has repeated the undertaking he gave shareholders in October. Asked the obvious by enquiring technology minds at the BBC – whether his software giant would make …
...after Microsoft gave the BBC Journo's Surface Tablets. To keep.
This is industry standard. Remember the 'Celebrity' 'Changing Rooms' of the 2000s? The one where the 'Celebrity' got a free new kitchen/bathroom/whatever they wanted just so long as they lent their 'celebrity' to the camera crew?
It's the same at the BBC. People are people. You scratch their back, they'll scratch yours. BBC journo's are no different (apart from a shared predisposition to voting Labour).
I've always thought that MS have made some pretty decent hardware. For many years, they and Logitech were the only names I would look at for mice and keyboards. Whilst I've never owned (nor intend to own) an XBox, that Kinect (sp?) thing looks like some neato tech too.
Based on that, I would expect surface to be a damn fine tablet.
It's just a pity that you can't say the same about their software that I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole.
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I never had much joy with MS keyboards. They felt "wrong", and that's before they started going glitchy after a couple of years (non-entries and double-entries). Low-end Logitech keyboards, on the other hand, are the best you can buy for little money. I actually prefer the cheap ones to some of their expensive ones that I've tried, and they seem to last very well.
I agree, MS mice are as good as Logitech ones, and both beat the rest hands-down. The choice mostly boils down to whether you like your mice fat (MS) or thin (Logitech).
MS 5000 wireless mouse with a tenkeyless Filco FTW :-)
(PS not entirely sure why the Filco's are so expensive, but luvely none the less. Also the MS mouse has really nicely balance - I suspect due to the two AA batteries it needs).
(PPS I really don't want greasy marks over my screen when working. People touching the screen to 'point things out' have annoyed me since the year dot - mainly because its a pain getting rid of their crisp fat/nicotine brown encrusted smears).
~I agree, MS mice are as good as Logitech ones, and both beat the rest hands-down. The choice mostly boils down to whether you like your mice fat (MS) or thin (Logitech).~
I've dissected a few M$ keyboards and mice to find Logitech imprinted on the circuit board. I'm not sure if Logitech builds all of MS's KB'S and mice (or if they are the current supplier), but it's the same stuff from the same factory in China.
Kinect was developed and built by another company. I think Asus had something to do with it. Worked with some blokes that hacked a non-MS copy of the Kinect to use for enhanced vision on a robot. Really cool kit.
I can't wait for a tear down report on the Surface to see who is building it.
With proprietary Microsoft hardware knowing APIs within Windows that other brands won't know about thus giving it an advantage, it might force other manufacturers to look around for a replacement O/S product.
After all, if you were a H/W manufacturer competing against Microsoft, you'd have to be pretty pissed of methinks.
Android IS Linux under its skin.
As for why Google might ever do "Desktop Android for Business" ... certainly not to give the penguin a helping hand. It would be because they thought businesses were looking for something that could replace MS Windows and MS Office, and they thought that they could make a profit out of supplying it. Odds: 3:1?
IBM is the other giant with the means to take on the MS desktop stranglehold. Whether they have a motivation is quite another matter. They don't sell desktop hardware (having sold the Thinkpad business to Lenovo). However, if the business really is like an elephant, they won't have forgotten being shafted by Microsoft over OS/2, and revenge is a dish best eaten cold .... Odds: 12:1?
> Google will see its way clear to do Android Desktop for businesses?
Doesn't need to be Google. The code is available, you could do it yourself...
I won't be. I like my Android phone, but I wouldn't want an Android desktop (although Android widgets on the desktop might be cool).
Vic.
I hereby offer a quarter-scale model of an Emperor Penguin, lovingly hand-crafted from genuine Swiss Emmentaler cheese to the first person to get Apple iOS6 running independently on a Microsoft Surface Tablet.
It's not that it should be done; it's not that I'd want to use it; it's just that it would piss off both Microsoft and Apple, puzzle the Linux fans, and give me a laugh.
If only there was some way to annoy Google too.
Any suggestions, commentards?
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"The thing getting everybody excited is the Surface tablet, which follows the various iterations of Xbox as the second Microsoft-built and -branded piece of equipment for running its software."
Uh, what about Zune? Easy to forget -- in fact, some people have willed themselves to forcibly forget it -- but it was around before the Surface and it wasn't even a MITIGATED success.
To be fair, from a hardware point of view, it was an excellent device; compare a Zune HD to an iPod Touch on any measure at all (except "is it for sale in Dixons") and the Touch looks like a PoS with bad sound and a stupid interface and rightly so.
It was just way too late and not marketed at all.
Don't worry - 'more hardware' means 'we gonna make a MSPhone! '
The world can hardly wait.
MS could be an interesting company if everyone at VP level and higher was fired and replaced by talented underlings.
I get the impression there's some cool stuff struggling to get out. But the Vision People [tm] are so mediocre it's not going to happen while they're in charge.
Microsoft are doing their best to piss off their OEMs by making their own hardware, who may just start looking elsewhere for an OS. I see at least one major PC maker going tits up within the next 18 months as sales start to dry up even more and they fail to win people away from Apple with Windows 8
Well, for the general user, the case for being tied to an OS is weakening, with many PC activities being done through a browser. Networked storage and virtual machines can only contribute towards not really caring if ones next machine comes with a penguin, fruit or a primary-coloured shape pre loaded. For me, this day hasn't yet come and I'm not saying it will tomorrow, but one day..
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