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Probably been mentioned before but they should have finished WinMo7 OS and adapted it to tablet form already. Microsoft are dragging their feet and will probably offer a decent tablet with WinMo7 at the end of next year. After they've released a lot of useless crap.
 
Microsoft will never get it, I fear. Making software is easy. Waiting for the hardware companies to build good enough hardware to run it properly is hard. It's one thing in the PC market where there is huge competition driving hardware innovation, but the tablet market is just getting started. The hardware companies just aren't working hard enough to make a good enough tablet that makes Windows look good on the platform. And until windows looks good on the platform, Microsoft's tablet initiatives will be DOA.
 
Don't discount microsoft. Should it provide functionality that businesses /consumers want, at a good price, could easily unseat iPad.

<grin> Can I quote you on this? Nothing Microsoft OS based will unseat the iPad. Android may be another matter - but even then I doubt it.

However, since Balmer is running microsoft into the ground - the chances of this are greatly diminished.

Balmer has a lot of failures under his belt. Basically, a big fat, sweaty cluster****.

Ballmer will be gone inside of 6 months. He'll have a golden parachute, but he'll be gone.
 
I'm not going to bash Microsoft, wanna wait to see what they deliver before commenting. (Although I'll be honest I'm not holding my breath.)

However the tablet I'm looking forward to seeing the most is a WebOS tablet. I really think that's gonna be amazing. Just hope HP don't ruin it too much.
 
And we shall call it.....the KinPad. Get it now cuz in 3 months we'll yank them off the shelves and work on something completely different just for the hell of it. :p
 
It seems like I've seen something like that before...

ah...there it is...

You cannot deny now that Microsoft is indeed copying the concept. I mean look at the iPad compared to this!

WTF!!!!!!!!! do they HAVE to copy EVERYTHING apple does? Come on!

There are videos on youtube that are many years old of Microsoft developing a tablet OS. And I saw a Bill Gates video from 2005 talking about the future and tablets. Also earlier this year, before the ipad was introduced, HP showed off the HP slate.



Steve Jobs didn't even know what a cellphone was, when Microsoft already was working on tablets. The picture is from Balmer's demo either on the 5th or 6th of January, this year. Then the rumours were that Apple's iSlate/iTab/MacSlate was going to run OS X. I challenge anybody to come up with a picture of the iPad before that demo. Or do I remember wrong?
 
So embarrassing that such a huge company has become so stagnant, with nothing to do but mock Apple one day, and copy their product line the next.

Absolutely pathetic to the worst degree.
 
Steve Jobs didn't even know what a cellphone was, when Microsoft already was working on tablets. The picture is from Balmer's demo either on the 5th or 6th of January, this year. Then the rumours were that Apple's iSlate/iTab/MacSlate was going to run OS X. I challenge anybody to come up with a picture of the iPad before that demo. Or do I remember wrong?

Everyone knows about "the secrecy" in Apple Inc. They don't show concepts and/or ideas to the public. They also do not show prototypes. What they announce and present are ready/already in production products.
FYI: Watch All Things Digital 2010

You really remembered it wrong or you just don't know facts. Most probably the latter...:rolleyes:
 
Steve Jobs didn't even know what a cellphone was, when Microsoft already was working on tablets. The picture is from Balmer's demo either on the 5th or 6th of January, this year. Then the rumours were that Apple's iSlate/iTab/MacSlate was going to run OS X. I challenge anybody to come up with a picture of the iPad before that demo. Or do I remember wrong?

So? Rumors of an Apple Tablet became hot long before January 2010. MS will have certainly done their homework studying in depth about the upcoming Apple iSlate/iTab/iWhatsoever. There were rumors of screen sizes, etc, which might have been not impossible to verify, if you are in the business like Microsoft, dealing with several hardware manufacturers. Do a little bit of case study about Apple Design Philosophy and you might have a good guess about an Apple Tablet.

I say, that Ballmer rushed this demo, just to make people like you believe, that they were in the lead. In fact they demoed almost nothing but a piece of hardly.more.than.vaporware.which.they.think.might.look.like.an.Apple.product. at the event.

Or do you believe, that Ballmer would have presented anything at all, if there weren't any Apple Tablet rumors?

So, after all... where is MS Tablet? One would expect it to be ready by now, wouldn't one? After all, it has been some time since that "demo" :D
 
Don't discount microsoft. Should it provide functionality that businesses /consumers want, at a good price, could easily unseat iPad.
LOL what!!!!!?

Keep dreaming. This post is more of a joke than a microsoft ipad competitor.

They haven't even managed to compete with the IPOD after almost 10 years of trying and failing.

wtf are you thinking?
 
Inspiration comes from all places. This time, from Microsoft.

Talking about who's ripping off the other one's ideas:

One video is from September, 2009 and is showing some interior design tasks (veneer and textile samples, I think) done on a Microsoft concept tablet; the other one is from the iPad's official video from this spring, showing some textile samples. Inspiration comes from all sorts of places. To be fair, Microsoft's video even included the term 'inspiration'. I suppose, at least Apple Inc's marketing team is following.
 

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Steve Jobs didn't even know what a cellphone was, when Microsoft already was working on tablets. The picture is from Balmer's demo either on the 5th or 6th of January, this year. Then the rumours were that Apple's iSlate/iTab/MacSlate was going to run OS X. I challenge anybody to come up with a picture of the iPad before that demo. Or do I remember wrong?

Who really knows when the companies started playing with the tablet idea? In the end, it doesn't matter much when a concept began. It's the completion that counts the most. Not too many will remember how well you started in a car race when you finish last.
 
Is it just me or is Steve Ballmer hilarious? He just has that look and attitude like your drunken uncle at a christmas party. He would probably be good at selling vacuums door to door
 
Ballmer.........Apple's secret weapon..............and it just works.

And like Gates before him........he follows the Microsoft mantra......copy whatever Apple does.........but badly.
 
Why now especially?

Microsoft has been actively pushing the tablet form factor for the last ten years. Every couple of years, Microsoft relaunches another tablet variation. Last time it was called Origami.

And in all that time, nothing at all has happened.

Because once consumers experience a desktop OS running on a tablet, they realise that it is a worse experience than a conventional laptop. And laptops are cheap.

Apple has finally released a commercially successful tablet by abandoning the desktop metaphors. Microsoft hopes they will capture this market by ignoring Apple's solution and doing exactly the same thing they have been doing for the last ten years.

There is no learning curve here. This is a flatline.

They are trying to catch a rocket by digging faster. It isn't going to work.

C.
 
If Microsoft consider themselves a leading player in the hardware market after their successes in the software market, then why aren't they able to innovate? If MS could consistently come up with & execute great ideas that work to make the user/consumers task easier or better then they could avoid becoming an ever growing parody of themselves.

I kind of cringe when someone tells me look what microsoft is innovating these days (demoing an expose kind of feature) Market share winner yes, they want to keep it that way which is probably why much of their time is spent just trying to keep up with apples innovation rather than fall behind.
 
Steve Jobs didn't even know what a cellphone was, when Microsoft already was working on tablets. The picture is from Balmer's demo either on the 5th or 6th of January, this year. Then the rumours were that Apple's iSlate/iTab/MacSlate was going to run OS X. I challenge anybody to come up with a picture of the iPad before that demo. Or do I remember wrong?

LMAO

Yeah right, the ipad wasn't in apple's thoughts in January of this year.
 
Who really knows when the companies started playing with the tablet idea? In the end, it doesn't matter much when a concept began. It's the completion that counts the most. Not too many will remember how well you started in a car race when you finish last.

Fair point, but please, stop the brainwashed mob from throwing abuse just because Apple Inc's competitor is inferior in their mind. There is no question here about the timeline, yet some immature people still use the opportunity to feed the stereotype.

The only escape route for Apple here is to accept that the iPad is just like a large iPod Touch. The first tablet we saw was Microsoft's.

Anyway, I don't want to defend Microsoft, after all the only revenue they ever got from me was from a copy of XP, run on a Mac some time ago and a few copies of Office for Mac. I don't know how old these people are or what their circumstances are, but threads like this make me ashamed to be associated with my aluminium and white plastic computers.
 
Hooray for competition - Bring it on! All of us consumers win. When these MSFT software tablets start flooding the market, Apple will probably reduce iPad prices $50-$100 overnight similar to what happened with the iPhone. I think MSFT actually does have an opportunity here, especially in vertical market applications like warehouse floors, sales reps, and healthcare. Do you think competition from the iPad might just have something to do with Amazon dropping Kindle prices?
 
Quote:
"They'll be shipping as soon as they are ready," Ballmer said, offering few details on the products, which he said will come from partners, not Microsoft itself. "It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch."

Speaking to financial analysts, Ballmer said the goal is "not just to deliver products, but to deliver products that people want to buy."

As for Apple and the iPad, Ballmer said, "they've sold certainly more than I'd like them to have sold."


I don't think Google or Microsoft will ever stop. They are simply happy being a lagging second and third place forever as long as they make money off of those who don't really care about tech but want to walk around with a device just to say they are with the times.
So in other words he's saying "Sheesh, Apple can't wait for us to get our act together enough to put out our cheesy offering of a copy of what they are making. By the time the laypeople catch on, no one will want one of our devices this time." :D
 
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