Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you didn't touch with technology? With tech
Speaker 1: Stuff from how stuff flix dot com. Hi, and welcome
Speaker 1: again to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how Stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as he's usual, it's senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, Chris, and guys. This is June
Speaker 1: twenty two, which is a Friday. This is two thou twelve,
Speaker 1: and the reason why I say the date is the
Speaker 1: Monday of this week we heard an announcement from Microsoft
Speaker 1: about an upcoming product that definitely made some waves in
Speaker 1: the tech world. I saw some interest in places that
Speaker 1: I didn't expect, uh, and it was the Microsoft Surface tablet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the Microsoft Surface up until a few days ago,
Speaker 1: was a big table top touch screen device, a very
Speaker 1: cool tabletop touch screen device. I'm priced out of the
Speaker 1: market for most of us. It was really meant for
Speaker 1: commercial uses, not for consumer uses. Yeah. Actually, it kind
Speaker 1: of reminded me in a way of Veneva Bush's uh Memex.
Speaker 1: This was of course envisioned in the nineteen forties as
Speaker 1: um uh basically a desktop workstation that would allow you
Speaker 1: to uh photograph different documents and use them on microfilm. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course the lot of the computer and internet
Speaker 1: engineers since then has sort of taken that as a
Speaker 1: It ended up being a semi self fulfilling prophecy just
Speaker 1: because people like the idea and he said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be nice to have this. Well, the surface
Speaker 1: was actually a desk itself in a way, a table
Speaker 1: with a big touch screen surface, and you could have
Speaker 1: different things on the screen and interact with it. You could,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were using it in a work setting,
Speaker 1: which it's not really designed to do, but you could
Speaker 1: have all your documents in your desk, you know, on
Speaker 1: the desktop literally and move things around. Very neat, but
Speaker 1: very expensive. And uh uh yeah. But they they repurposed
Speaker 1: the name. Yes, they changed the name of that device.
Speaker 1: Uh pixel s right, that's the new name for what
Speaker 1: was the surface and now the surface is a tablet.
Speaker 1: And I've heard some people talk about how Microsoft is
Speaker 1: aping Apple, which I think is completely off base for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons. But we'll get into those and in order
Speaker 1: to really understand where I'm coming from about how Microsoft
Speaker 1: is not aping Apple, you have to kind of look
Speaker 1: at Microsoft's history with the tablet, which has not been
Speaker 1: a very smooth one. No, but it has been a
Speaker 1: fairly long one, especially in tech terms. Yes, back in
Speaker 1: Microsoft released a version of Windows called Windows for pen Computing.
Speaker 1: And pen Computing was essentially the idea of using some
Speaker 1: sort of interface that would require a stylus to input
Speaker 1: data into a display. So it didn't necessarily mean it
Speaker 1: would have to be in a tablet form factor. It
Speaker 1: could be a screen on a wall, it could be
Speaker 1: your laptop screen or or desktop screen. But the idea
Speaker 1: was that there needed to be some form of support
Speaker 1: for a different interface than just the keyboard and mouse. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: that product didn't really take off, and in fact, the
Speaker 1: form factors didn't really take off outside of some niche markets.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem is that building uh software
Speaker 1: that can recognize handwriting is really really tricky, and in fact,
Speaker 1: Apple had already tried it, yeah, with the Newton, the
Speaker 1: Apple Newton, which was a message pad, Yes, a message pad.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a PDA right UM a personal
Speaker 1: digital assistant right not public display of affection right. A
Speaker 1: p D a UM is basically a small handheld device um,
Speaker 1: that you would use the stylist to interact with it
Speaker 1: had a hum, it didn't have a the same kind
Speaker 1: of touch screen we use now, right, it didn't. It
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily allow you to use your fingers. You had
Speaker 1: to use the stylus, right, um. And and basically what
Speaker 1: it would do is I mean it was really at
Speaker 1: the time designed to be a business tool. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: the enterprise market. You would keep your calendar in there
Speaker 1: and your your phone contacts and things. So it's a
Speaker 1: smartphone without the phone, yeah, sort of more or less so.
Speaker 1: But but Microsoft was not looking at creating devices or
Speaker 1: marketing for devices that were, uh, this this kind of
Speaker 1: tier of electronics below computers, right, because you could think
Speaker 1: of a smartphone is like and a sub brand of computer,
Speaker 1: but it it doesn't have the full process and capability
Speaker 1: and uh, it's not as robust as a full computer
Speaker 1: would be. Right. So Microsoft view was that, no, we
Speaker 1: want to support devices that are essentially computers, just computers
Speaker 1: that are in a different form factor than your big
Speaker 1: desktop tower and display and keyboard and mouse. But again,
Speaker 1: developing the software to try and support that was very
Speaker 1: tricky and and it didn't really take off in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, it just nothing really happened, and for a
Speaker 1: while Microsoft kind of just put it on the back burner,
Speaker 1: although Bill Gates was still who was the head of
Speaker 1: Microsoft at the time, still very much determined to find
Speaker 1: a way to make this work because he saw that
Speaker 1: as the future of computing. He said that, you know,
Speaker 1: eventually that the tablet form factor would actually outstrip other
Speaker 1: fact versions of computers like laptops and desktops. So in
Speaker 1: nineties seven, Microsoft hires a fellow named Dick Brass, who
Speaker 1: was a guy who was involved in designing electronic dictionaries
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and they hired him to kind of
Speaker 1: spearhead this approach of trying to think about pen based
Speaker 1: computing and and what would it take to make that successful.
Speaker 1: So what Brass ended up doing was he ended up
Speaker 1: working with a carpenter of all things, to put together
Speaker 1: a rough looking model of what a tablet could look like.
Speaker 1: And um, it was a wooden model, had a flat
Speaker 1: base and a keyboard and a flat screen, and uh,
Speaker 1: the screen could be separated from the keyboard. So this
Speaker 1: was still a device that when it was put together,
Speaker 1: would resemble a computer in some sense. But then you
Speaker 1: could detach the screen and have that as a separate device,
Speaker 1: which sounds very familiar. We've seen a lot of devices
Speaker 1: over the last few years that have some sort of
Speaker 1: laptop tablet hybrid approach. Right, See, that'll come into play later. Uh.
Speaker 1: The so in in November of two thousand, we're skipping
Speaker 1: a ad a little bit at the Comdex event. Now
Speaker 1: Comdex is no longer a thing, yes, but at the
Speaker 1: time it was a big computer trade show. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the largest computer trade show in the world at
Speaker 1: the time. Now uh c E s UH formerly known
Speaker 1: as the Consumer Electronic Show, Yes, and still that's what
Speaker 1: it stands for, but they want to be called C
Speaker 1: E s UM. That's basically UM TVs UH, portable music players,
Speaker 1: car stereos, stuff that you and I are going to
Speaker 1: buy for uh daily everyday stuff. Yeah, there's also some
Speaker 1: tablets and some phones and things. But really that's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of computers. I mean laptops. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of laptops, like especially this last CS two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, that was when the Ultra books were really launched.
Speaker 1: But in general it is not a computer showcase. No, no,
Speaker 1: and neither is is E three the Electronics Entertainment XPO.
Speaker 1: That's a video game showcase right right. Sometimes a hardware
Speaker 1: showcase as well, but those are very specialized kinds of hardware. Right.
Speaker 1: You see computers there, but they're you know, specifically oriented
Speaker 1: towards gaming purposes or showing off gaming stuff. You might
Speaker 1: see video cards. You know, hey you got a new
Speaker 1: graphics card. Uh. Was the boring part of computers? Well yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of? I mean was It was really a geeky
Speaker 1: year side of the industry, get right down to it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it was, you know, personal computers
Speaker 1: meant for home business. I don't think personal computers for
Speaker 1: all different applications. But really, I mean the the image
Speaker 1: most people have as a bunch of a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys wearing short sleeve button up shirts with ties, sitting
Speaker 1: in a big auditorium and drooling over the latest specs
Speaker 1: of the next next year's models of personal computers. Um,
Speaker 1: which is an unfair characterization, but that's often what people
Speaker 1: think about. So at the two thousand Condex event, which
Speaker 1: took place in Lost Vegas, Bill Gates came out and
Speaker 1: had a keynote speech. He actually said some really interesting
Speaker 1: things in that speech some stuff that I think you
Speaker 1: could almost say everything you said turned out to be wrong,
Speaker 1: at least at least in the short term. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the trouble with being a visionary and and Bill
Speaker 1: Gates and uh, you know many of his contemporaries are
Speaker 1: and we're visionaries. Um, but you know, different people have
Speaker 1: different visions, and that things in the market also has
Speaker 1: a saying this of course, right, and sometimes the future
Speaker 1: turns out differently than the way you expect. And he said,
Speaker 1: for example, that the browser is dead. Yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: the browser era is over in two thousand, which you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about it kind of died for a while.
Speaker 1: It did, it did, and that and that was just
Speaker 1: before the dot com bubble bursts too, so there was
Speaker 1: some there were danger on the horizon already, but that
Speaker 1: was pre web two point out right. But the browser
Speaker 1: obviously is not dead. He also thought that people would
Speaker 1: not want this sort of shared computing experience, the idea
Speaker 1: of having uh, your computer essentially be a dumb terminal
Speaker 1: attached to some sort of smarter computer device that would
Speaker 1: do processing and storage. Well, it turns out cloud computing
Speaker 1: has really taken off and so that's essentially what he
Speaker 1: was talking about was cloud computing. It was just before
Speaker 1: people were referring to it as cloud computing. I think
Speaker 1: of it more as the old time share. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the timeshare model and the the the dumb terminals that
Speaker 1: you would see in college campuses where you had a
Speaker 1: mainframe and you would connect to the main frame. Uh,
Speaker 1: people at the time did want desktop computers. You wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to operate your computer where you were
Speaker 1: in your house instead of having to go to a
Speaker 1: computer lab and work on the mainframe. Right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's funny to say that because, um, now
Speaker 1: in retrospect, it looks I mean, we're I feel like
Speaker 1: we're kind of teasing Bill Gates, because a lot of
Speaker 1: the things he said, you know, turned out to be
Speaker 1: sort of semi false at the time. In the context,
Speaker 1: what he said sort of came to pass, and then
Speaker 1: it reinvented itself in a different way. And there were
Speaker 1: a lot of limitations on on the world when Bill
Speaker 1: Gates made these these predictions. For instance, we didn't have
Speaker 1: the broadband connections that we have now, so so having
Speaker 1: a cloud computing infrastructure back in two thousand was not
Speaker 1: a reasonable expectation. It wasn't feasible because you couldn't be
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to access the data you would
Speaker 1: need in a timely manner. It would take so long
Speaker 1: to transfer the data that it would negate the the
Speaker 1: benefits of having off site storage and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So at the time his predictions made perfect sense.
Speaker 1: But he also predicted that the tablet PC was going
Speaker 1: to be huge, that this was going to be the
Speaker 1: next revolution in UH in in computers and UH. Microsoft
Speaker 1: software architect Bert Keeley came out and he specifically talked
Speaker 1: about the tablet PC at that event. UM Now, the
Speaker 1: information he gave was that the device would weigh less
Speaker 1: than three pounds, and that would run Windows based software applications,
Speaker 1: and you would use the stylus to make notes on
Speaker 1: images and office documents which would then get incorporated into
Speaker 1: UH files. So that let's say that you're looking at
Speaker 1: a picture of something. Let's say that you're working with
Speaker 1: an advertiser, for example, on an AD, and the advertiser
Speaker 1: sends you a mock up of what the ad is
Speaker 1: going to look like. You can make digital notes on
Speaker 1: the ad using this tablet device and send it back
Speaker 1: and say like, all right, you know this the product
Speaker 1: isn't featured prominently enough for whatever you know, or or
Speaker 1: I don't like the color of this this background because
Speaker 1: it's it's masking the product. That sort of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: that was kind of the idea. And beyond just those
Speaker 1: those use cases as well. I mean pretty much anytime
Speaker 1: you could think of needing to make a note on
Speaker 1: a digital file, that's when it would come into play, right, Um,
Speaker 1: But it was just an announcement and a demonstration of
Speaker 1: the prototype. There was no product to show off yet.
Speaker 1: In two thousand one at Comdex, Compact came out and
Speaker 1: showed off a prototype tablet PC running Windows and at
Speaker 1: that time Gates then predicted that within five years, tablets
Speaker 1: would be the most popular form factor of computers sold
Speaker 1: on the market. And here's where I'm gonna take a
Speaker 1: little break here. So we've already talked about how Microsoft's
Speaker 1: got a long history and tablets. That doesn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the iPad. Right, here's where I am
Speaker 1: going to mention the iPad, Because even though the iPad
Speaker 1: doesn't come out for another nine years, you know, we
Speaker 1: see the iPad unveiled in UM Steve Jobs decided to
Speaker 1: approach the iPad in a fundamentally different way than the
Speaker 1: way Gates was looking at the tablet PC, and that
Speaker 1: Gates was looking at a way to create create a
Speaker 1: computer that was in the form factor of a tablet.
Speaker 1: Jobs was looking at building up a smartphone like device
Speaker 1: or iPod like device into the tablet form factor. He
Speaker 1: was looking at scaling up smartphones, not scaling down computers,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that was jobs main point. He said
Speaker 1: that his competitors were all trying to make computers into
Speaker 1: tablets and that that was the wrong approach and that
Speaker 1: it would not succeed. Well, this is kind of what
Speaker 1: Jobs was talking about. Microsoft has a history of trying
Speaker 1: to make computers fit into the tablet form factor, and
Speaker 1: historically they have not met with very much success. And
Speaker 1: this compact prototype was one of the first ones that
Speaker 1: sort of showed off what a Windows based tablet would
Speaker 1: be capable of doing. But it ultimately did not really
Speaker 1: make a huge impact, and again Gates's prediction about tablets
Speaker 1: being really popular would ultimately be true. It was from
Speaker 1: a completely different approach than the one Microsoft was making.
Speaker 1: So moving ahead, So November seven, two the tablet PC
Speaker 1: gets unveiled by Gates, who says he has anticipated this
Speaker 1: moment for many, many years. And uh, they talk about
Speaker 1: how they're going to be seven different computer makers that
Speaker 1: will create tablets that run Windows software. So this is
Speaker 1: not a Microsoft machine. It's Microsoft supporting the tablet form
Speaker 1: factor by building an operating system specifically designed for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the Windows XP Tablet PC edition. That's exactly right. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's exactly the way that Apple doesn't do it. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that people talk about that. Uh you know
Speaker 1: how Apple is a closed system because it manufactures both
Speaker 1: the hardware and writes the software for it. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know they do both sides of that equation. Microsoft
Speaker 1: offt um keeping ourselves in this timeframe. Microsoft doesn't make hardware.
Speaker 1: They make software, lots of different software, and they work
Speaker 1: with many, many different hardware partners to build the machines
Speaker 1: that run the operating system. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: this uh Windows XP Tablet PC edition was only available
Speaker 1: to O E. M's original equipment manufacturers. So if you
Speaker 1: were Compact or HP or you know one of the
Speaker 1: other manufacturers that was was working with them, you could
Speaker 1: buy this software and preinstalled on the tablets. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to find it on the shelf at shelf
Speaker 1: at your local computer store. Hey, they still had computer
Speaker 1: stores back then. Yep, and and uh. There were some
Speaker 1: other things that really set this apart from what the
Speaker 1: you know, the tablets that would come down the line
Speaker 1: several years later. One is that a lot of the
Speaker 1: tablets quote unquote tablets that came out in two thousand
Speaker 1: three was when they really started hitting store shelves. All
Speaker 1: those tablets were really hybrids. They were laptop hybrids. So
Speaker 1: you had the kind that would either have a screen
Speaker 1: that would swivel and then fold back down over the keyboard,
Speaker 1: so you would have a really thick tablet because there
Speaker 1: would be a keyboard section folded underneath. It's basically, uh,
Speaker 1: the same form factor as a laptop with a closed case.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's just got the screen flipped around
Speaker 1: and closed exactly. Or you would have the other type
Speaker 1: of hybrid where you could detach the screen from the
Speaker 1: base of the keyboard and it would just become its
Speaker 1: own little computing device with a touch screen interface, again
Speaker 1: mostly using stylus, not necessarily using your fingers. Um Gates
Speaker 1: was very uh optimistic about the chances of this in
Speaker 1: the market. He thought that at least half a million
Speaker 1: would sell in the first year, and they'd spent around
Speaker 1: four hundred million dollars on the technology to develop the
Speaker 1: tablet PC operating system and to support that form factor. Um.
Speaker 1: The manufacturers that were included in that list of seven,
Speaker 1: among them were HP, Samsung, Tshiba, and a ser But
Speaker 1: there were a couple of notable missing persons on that list,
Speaker 1: the two being really Dell and IBM, huge names and computers,
Speaker 1: especially at this time in the early two thousand's personal computers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so back in the early two thousand's, these two companies
Speaker 1: famous for making computers, we're kind of holding back in
Speaker 1: order to see if the tablet form factor truly would succeed,
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of skepticism in the market.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of optimism on one side,
Speaker 1: but there were some companies saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: really risky. Do we really want to pour millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in research and development and production to build something
Speaker 1: that we are not convinced people want yet, And so
Speaker 1: they decided to wait. And also these devices they ranged
Speaker 1: in price between around eighteen hundred dollars. They were computers exactly.
Speaker 1: They were full price computers. They weren't a tablet in
Speaker 1: the sense that we think of today, where they're running
Speaker 1: on lower power processors and using specialized operating systems. These
Speaker 1: were Windows computers in a form factor of a tablet.
Speaker 1: So the tablets had problems. They their screen resolution wasn't
Speaker 1: the best, they tended to have really short battery life,
Speaker 1: and the handwriting software, recognition software had lots of problems.
Speaker 1: In fact, they had a lot of problems during the
Speaker 1: development phase. I read one story about how they back
Speaker 1: at Microsoft, while they were developing the tablet pcos, they
Speaker 1: had an entire team switch from laptops to tablet PCs
Speaker 1: to really test them and see what's going on and
Speaker 1: see if they could do their work on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis using them. And they found that whenever
Speaker 1: they were making notes on a digital file, if they
Speaker 1: had to make multiple notes, often the tablet PC operating
Speaker 1: system wasn't really sure where those notes should go and
Speaker 1: sometimes would combine them to make nonsensical sentences. It was
Speaker 1: combining different notes into a run on sentence that has
Speaker 1: no real meaning, like a bunch of sentence fragments just
Speaker 1: crammed together. So they actually removed that feature before shipping
Speaker 1: it because they realized that that would do more harm
Speaker 1: than good. In fact, Apple had seen very similar problems
Speaker 1: when they developed the Newton a decade earlier, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't unique to Microsoft to have these problems. Um. But
Speaker 1: another problem was that the adaptation of the operating system
Speaker 1: and more more importantly, the applications that rested on top
Speaker 1: of the operating system, they didn't really work so well
Speaker 1: with a touch screen user interface. They you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was trying to put software that was meant
Speaker 1: to be used with a keyboard and mouse and put
Speaker 1: it into a different form factor with a different user
Speaker 1: interface without allowing for that difference. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the applications were not intuitive, some of them were downright
Speaker 1: unusable because they just weren't designed for that kind of interface.
Speaker 1: So you had a product that had a lot of
Speaker 1: horsepower to it, especially compared to you know, the computers
Speaker 1: of the day. It was fairly equivalent to them, but
Speaker 1: it just the software couldn't match up to the hardware
Speaker 1: because the user interface wasn't there. So you would have
Speaker 1: a big, heavy, expensive piece of electronics that couldn't do
Speaker 1: what you needed it to do. That seems like a
Speaker 1: waste of money, It does seem like that. Around that
Speaker 1: same time, Microsoft also partnered with Fujitsu and view Sonic
Speaker 1: to create smart displays. These were displays that linked to
Speaker 1: a PC through WiFi. So you would still have a
Speaker 1: home base PC and this device would hook to it.
Speaker 1: You would have a smart touch you know, display case
Speaker 1: where you could use it as if it were a tablet,
Speaker 1: the processing being handled by the computer that it's hooked
Speaker 1: to through WiFi. But these were still pretty expensive, like
Speaker 1: around a thousand dollars or more, and it didn't really succeed,
Speaker 1: so Microsoft ended up killing that project within about a
Speaker 1: year of its starting. Then there was a Project Origami, Yes,
Speaker 1: Project Origami, Yeah, that was for handheld PCs and touch
Speaker 1: screen interfaces. Yeah, exactly, Uh, including the ultramobile PCs. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that term? Yes? I do. It's not one
Speaker 1: you run into very much anymore, but yeah, ultramobile PCs
Speaker 1: that that was sort of the predecessor to both tablets
Speaker 1: and netbooks, um, but in a way also a predecessor
Speaker 1: to ultra books. Uh. They still had a lot of problems,
Speaker 1: mostly because again the operating system wasn't fully optimized for
Speaker 1: a touch screen interface, and also they tended to have
Speaker 1: really lousy battery life. UM, not not a great experience.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that these devices didn't work
Speaker 1: and that people didn't use them. Um. There were a
Speaker 1: couple uh industries really that took to them medical industry medicular, Yes,
Speaker 1: the medical industry, um followed their own advice and took
Speaker 1: two tablets and called Microsoft in the morning. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but they did. And I actually still see that at
Speaker 1: some of the doctor's offices that I've been to in
Speaker 1: the past few years, they're still using, um, the traditional
Speaker 1: you know, Microsoft tablet design. I mean, it's very useful
Speaker 1: for that kind of thing, especially because um they're using
Speaker 1: the same software uh to register and track patient records
Speaker 1: that they would use on a desktop computer or laptop
Speaker 1: computer typically, So it's very compatible with that, and it
Speaker 1: has been very efficient for that. And it's good because
Speaker 1: they can carry this around in the tablet form factor,
Speaker 1: so they can carry it under their arm, uh you know,
Speaker 1: drop it down where they can make notes and they
Speaker 1: can talk to you and and and take notes on
Speaker 1: this on this tablet device, but UM they had a
Speaker 1: specific need to have something like that, So I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why it um it took
Speaker 1: off in that particular market. Sure, yeah, and for home
Speaker 1: users not not like that. That's one of the things
Speaker 1: that Microsoft has always pushed is the idea that these
Speaker 1: are devices that can run the applications you're used to
Speaker 1: on your computer, things that that the other form of tablet,
Speaker 1: Apple's version of tablet can't do because the upbrake system
Speaker 1: isn't robust enough to support all the features and functions
Speaker 1: of the software. So for example, they're specifically one note
Speaker 1: which is part of the Microsoft Office Suite for Windows UM,
Speaker 1: this Note taking software, which I like very much actually UM,
Speaker 1: and they made sure that that was that in particular,
Speaker 1: in addition to the Office applications or Office compatibility, they
Speaker 1: made sure that was available for the tablets. So you
Speaker 1: can see where Microsoft is coming from. It's just again
Speaker 1: they've had this these difficulties, and some of it is
Speaker 1: beyond their control because again there they're creating the software
Speaker 1: and the hardware is being designed by other companies. That
Speaker 1: doesn't excuse the problems with how the software isn't fully
Speaker 1: optimized for touch screens. Obviously that's something that's very important.
Speaker 1: And again Apple got that they designed their interface with
Speaker 1: touch screen from the ground up. They didn't try and
Speaker 1: scale something down and then adapted for touch screens. So
Speaker 1: it's a different philosophy. That doesn't mean that Microsoft's approach
Speaker 1: won't ultimately work. It's just that they've had a really long, hard,
Speaker 1: uh journey and it's not over yet. Because we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about the two things that came out in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. We mentioned one of them because we mentioned
Speaker 1: Project Surface, which was the table top device you were
Speaker 1: talking about. Surface used cameras inside the device pointed up
Speaker 1: at the screen in order to detect where touches were
Speaker 1: being placed upon the screen surface. It could do multiple
Speaker 1: touches at once, so you could have um several people
Speaker 1: all playing on a surface at the same time, and
Speaker 1: it could track all those movements. It also meant that
Speaker 1: you could do something like take a piece of paper
Speaker 1: with something written on it, place it face down on
Speaker 1: the surface, and copy it to the surface, so suddenly
Speaker 1: you have a digital copy of the physical document you
Speaker 1: had in your hands. And it's because there were these
Speaker 1: cameras underneath that could look up and and see what
Speaker 1: was being pressed against the surfaces. Surface would have been yep.
Speaker 1: So I was pretty cool. But the other thing that
Speaker 1: the other project that we became aware of in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, really in two thousand nine was Project
Speaker 1: Curve Ear. Yes, this was an internal project of Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and it was led by a couple of different people,
Speaker 1: one of whom was uh, someone who came from the
Speaker 1: Xbox division of Microsoft, a division that did really really
Speaker 1: well in the sense that it went into a uh
Speaker 1: an industry that already had some dominating companies and it
Speaker 1: mostly mainly Sony and Nintendo and created carved out of
Speaker 1: space and was very successful in that space, at least
Speaker 1: especially in the United States by creating the Xbox. If
Speaker 1: you think about it, it's uh. It also provided a
Speaker 1: valuable lesson for Microsoft. And I've never seen this written down.
Speaker 1: It just occurred to me. Um. Up until this point,
Speaker 1: Microsoft didn't make hardware, but the Xbox showed him that
Speaker 1: they could, and it probably you know, again, again, I've
Speaker 1: never seen anybody say this or hurt anybody say this,
Speaker 1: but I would imagine that probably gave him a little
Speaker 1: bit of confidence to say, hey, you know, we can
Speaker 1: do this, we can be a hardware company too. And
Speaker 1: also keep in mind the iPad had yet to debut.
Speaker 1: The iPad doesn't debut till so at the same time
Speaker 1: that we know Apple is working, or at least we
Speaker 1: suspect Apples working on a tablet, we also hear about
Speaker 1: this Microsoft project. And the thing that said the Courier
Speaker 1: apart was that it was a two panel tablet. It
Speaker 1: was hinged in the middle, and it had two displays,
Speaker 1: so it's like a booklet or a bigger version of
Speaker 1: the Nintendo DS form factor where you had two screens
Speaker 1: when you open it up. And there were videos that
Speaker 1: leaked on the web that had showed the Courier's concept
Speaker 1: where you would be able to make notes and read
Speaker 1: the information and create content, and so it was all
Speaker 1: about content creation, not just content consumption. And it seemed
Speaker 1: to have a customized operating system based upon the videos
Speaker 1: that or at least it would have a customized operating
Speaker 1: system because the videos were all pretty much prototype, concept
Speaker 1: level stuff. It wasn't necessarily a working model, and so
Speaker 1: there was a lot of interest in this among geek
Speaker 1: circles anyway, but in Microsoft killed off that project and
Speaker 1: part of that might have been that the approach to
Speaker 1: the Courier was closer to what Apple was doing. It
Speaker 1: was more about taking a simpler computing device and giving
Speaker 1: it some interesting features and functions rather than trying to
Speaker 1: take a computer and put it into a tablet form factor.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, I think Microsoft decided that that the Courier
Speaker 1: did not really reflect what Microsoft is as a company.
Speaker 1: And it also didn't support two of Microsoft's flagship software
Speaker 1: UH products being Windows and the Office Suite. So since,
Speaker 1: you know, since it didn't do that, Microsoft like, why
Speaker 1: would we produce a product that doesn't support our other
Speaker 1: products that are the foundation of our company. And ultimately
Speaker 1: the cur you'r died UH. And in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: Microsoft officially ended support for Windows for tablet PC. It's UM.
Speaker 1: I think that actually this might be a good time
Speaker 1: to mention UH something that we haven't before. And this
Speaker 1: dates back again has its roots in in years before UM.
Speaker 1: Microsoft did, however, make a an operating system for PDAs
Speaker 1: called Pocket pc UM and it was a very successful
Speaker 1: competitor to the Palm uh P d A s, which
Speaker 1: were immensely popular with enterprise, but they were they were
Speaker 1: both aimed at business customers and then you know, it
Speaker 1: did the same kinds of things. But as the uh
Speaker 1: first with the Trio and some of the other smartphones,
Speaker 1: um Windows uh well Pocket PC became Windows Mobile, it
Speaker 1: migrated over to smartphones and that was the operating system.
Speaker 1: And of course we we now have Windows Mobile eight um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean they were they were starting to
Speaker 1: use uh you touchscreen devices, making the software for other
Speaker 1: companies to use on their phones, so that you know,
Speaker 1: they are working on software that will do that will
Speaker 1: operate a device like a tablet what we think of
Speaker 1: now as a tablet, um, but it wasn't on what
Speaker 1: they were creating as their tablet products. So the surface,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry, the courier is probably using something
Speaker 1: along more along lines and Windows Mobile as it's operating
Speaker 1: system than it would be a more fully developed, fully functional,
Speaker 1: went traditional Windows computer operating system. And part of the
Speaker 1: reason for that is that going with the smartphone model,
Speaker 1: smartphones and mobile devices tend to use lower power processors
Speaker 1: than a computer does. They use like arm based processors,
Speaker 1: and that's done for a couple of reasons. That they're
Speaker 1: smaller and they are more energy efficient, so that means
Speaker 1: you have a longer battery life, and they're cooler in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases to um, which is important when
Speaker 1: you have a device that doesn't necessary really have an
Speaker 1: internal fan, Yes, especially if you're going to put it
Speaker 1: in your pocket. So, uh, for the Microsoft, for Microsoft
Speaker 1: Windows to run, it really needs a pretty beefy processor.
Speaker 1: You know, it can't be it can't just it can't
Speaker 1: just be you know, a little dinky process here. So
Speaker 1: you know, there were some tough choices for Microsoft to
Speaker 1: make in order to pursue this. So moving on in
Speaker 1: Balmber was at CS and he showed off the Steve Balmer.
Speaker 1: Uh sorry, I just I think of him as the
Speaker 1: bomber Um. He showed off the HP Slate tablet at
Speaker 1: Windows at CES it was running Windows seven, so again
Speaker 1: you know, moving away from the Windows XP tablet PC
Speaker 1: stuff into Windows seven. But another problem, Windows seven not
Speaker 1: optimized for touch screens. So there were several tablets that
Speaker 1: came out that ran on Windows seven. They did not
Speaker 1: do very well because a lot of the reviews said,
Speaker 1: this still is not a very satisfactory experience when you're
Speaker 1: using a touch screen interface. It's just it wasn't made
Speaker 1: for that. And there and it shows yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you you it has clarified. It has touch screen functionality,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't optimized, right, It wasn't designed for a
Speaker 1: touch screen. It was designed for a traditional computer. And
Speaker 1: while it had elements of touch screen interface design in it,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that wasn't the primary purpose. There were people
Speaker 1: making touch screen PCs all in ones. I remember HP
Speaker 1: had a line. It was very much the same style
Speaker 1: of computer as uh the imax of now where you
Speaker 1: have everything baked into a basically looks like a big
Speaker 1: monitor with a keyboard. You know, no no side computer,
Speaker 1: you know, our tower computer. It's all built into that.
Speaker 1: And it said you know, hey, you can use this
Speaker 1: as a touch screen, and yes you you could, but
Speaker 1: it it didn't have things like the pinch to zoom
Speaker 1: and the swiping and the the same kinds of effects.
Speaker 1: So things that built in really intuitive little gesture commands
Speaker 1: and things just weren't part of it. And that was
Speaker 1: a problem. Well, now we're up to and Microsoft has
Speaker 1: introduced the surface tablets, which are going to run two
Speaker 1: different versions of Windows. There's two two main categories of
Speaker 1: these tablets. There's the Windows r T version and Windows
Speaker 1: RT is again an O E M version of Windows
Speaker 1: just as tablet the tablet PC Windows XP was um,
Speaker 1: it's optimized for more mobile processors. So again that now
Speaker 1: we're looking more like the the Apple tablet in the
Speaker 1: sense that it's going to be on ARM based processors,
Speaker 1: so lower power, more efficient, cooler, but less um less
Speaker 1: capable of running really chunky programs. Right, So that's one version.
Speaker 1: It's the consumer model Windows are T version. Then you
Speaker 1: have the Windows eight pro version, which will come out
Speaker 1: about three months after the debut of the Windows our
Speaker 1: T version. According to Microsoft, now this one is going
Speaker 1: to be having It will have an Intel Core processor, uh,
Speaker 1: and it will run Windows eight Pro on it, so
Speaker 1: it will have a more fully fledged operating system. And
Speaker 1: Windows eight was an operating system designed with touch screen
Speaker 1: in mind, at least as far as the metro design
Speaker 1: of Windows eight goes. Because there's there's different model modes
Speaker 1: of Windows eight, but one of them was specifically designed
Speaker 1: with touch screens in mind. And when it first premiered,
Speaker 1: Microsoft didn't show it off on a tablet. They were
Speaker 1: showing it off on computers, and people were thinking, well,
Speaker 1: does this mean Microsoft working on a tablet or they're
Speaker 1: working with other manufacturers for tablets, and as it turns out,
Speaker 1: Microsoft was making a tablet. You might ask yourself, well,
Speaker 1: why is Microsoft doing that now instead of partnering with
Speaker 1: the manufacturers that does for computers and other devices, And
Speaker 1: they're possible months of possible reasons. One of them might
Speaker 1: be that Microsoft wants to make sure that a tablet
Speaker 1: is made quote unquote the right way. Yes, Microsoft is
Speaker 1: making a tablet. Why are they making a tablet? Thank
Speaker 1: you Captain Kirk. The Captain Kirk is climbing the mountain
Speaker 1: and look it up on YouTube. So the the the
Speaker 1: question would be I think the answer here is that
Speaker 1: Microsoft wants to design a tablet around that that really
Speaker 1: takes advantage of this operating system. They know what the
Speaker 1: operating system can do, They've got the people who can
Speaker 1: build the tablet itself. They want to be able to
Speaker 1: do this to show off the operating system, and it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to be a line of products that
Speaker 1: will continue forever into the future. It may even be
Speaker 1: that these two models are the only two Microsoft ever produces,
Speaker 1: and that they let everyone else build tablets from here
Speaker 1: on out. I don't know that Microsoft wants to get
Speaker 1: into the manufacturing business. That has been rumored. In fact, um,
Speaker 1: some of that has been going along in the the
Speaker 1: tech media in the past few days since the announcement
Speaker 1: is that uh uh, that's one of the things is
Speaker 1: that maybe Microsoft is doing this as a a proof
Speaker 1: of concept and they will get in but not uh
Speaker 1: jump into the market completely. And once they have proven
Speaker 1: that this is a thing and then it will work,
Speaker 1: they will let everyone else take the lead. Because, um,
Speaker 1: as with Google's acquisition of Motor Motor Rolla Mobility, if
Speaker 1: Google gets into the hardware business, everybody said, well, wait,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be competing with all these other hardware manufacturers
Speaker 1: that they have been working with. Well, Microsoft is going
Speaker 1: to be in the same type of vote, competing with
Speaker 1: their partners. So um, you know, there are people who
Speaker 1: who really do believe that that is they're they're showing
Speaker 1: it off. But of course, as Apple has proven uh
Speaker 1: time and time again, Yes, a closed system is closed,
Speaker 1: but the manufacturer has much more control over the environment
Speaker 1: when the system is closed, because they can make it
Speaker 1: work exact actually the way they think it should work,
Speaker 1: and they don't necessarily include anything else that wasn't intended
Speaker 1: for example, again with the Google Android platform, if you
Speaker 1: buy a Google Android device with only a few exceptions,
Speaker 1: you're going to get extra stuff that you do not
Speaker 1: necessarily want or need. Uh. Some of those things don't
Speaker 1: make sense if you catch my dress. Some of those
Speaker 1: things are impossible to remove without without your rooting your device.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is one way to get around
Speaker 1: that as well. Now we don't know if it's going
Speaker 1: to succeed, we'll have to wait. But still, really a
Speaker 1: computer that's been put into the tablet form factor, it's
Speaker 1: it's again that philosophy is building scaling down as opposed
Speaker 1: to scaling up some other lower powered electronic device. Um.
Speaker 1: The other big thing that I saw everyone going gaga
Speaker 1: about is the cover for the surface. Ah. Yes, Now
Speaker 1: it is very much like the smart cover introduced with
Speaker 1: the iPad too, because it has a magnetic uh clasp
Speaker 1: on it so that when you you cover your surface tablet,
Speaker 1: it will the magnets will snap to the the case
Speaker 1: of the device and it will hold it closed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it also has a keyboard built into it, and
Speaker 1: there are two different types of the keyboard. There's a
Speaker 1: pressure sensitive keyboard where the keys are not raised or anything,
Speaker 1: but you can you know, designated certain keys, and then
Speaker 1: there's actually a click keyboard where they're the keys are
Speaker 1: raised slightly so it's more like a touch keyboard. Um.
Speaker 1: And also they work uh uh, they have a variety
Speaker 1: of colors. They work on Bluetooth to connect to the device. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. They also the surface itself has
Speaker 1: a little kickstand in the back of it that you
Speaker 1: can flip out so it stands up like a laptop
Speaker 1: screen would. In fact, a lot of people have said
Speaker 1: that this is really just another version of the laptop
Speaker 1: tablet hybrid. It's just that this is one that is
Speaker 1: closer to the tablet side than the laptop side. And
Speaker 1: I don't that Microsoft would argue that because they really
Speaker 1: want you to think of it as a PC. And
Speaker 1: the Microsoft presentation where they unveiled this, they referred to
Speaker 1: it as a PC repeatedly. Yeah, which is exactly in
Speaker 1: line with their their previous tablet effort and exactly an
Speaker 1: opposite alignment of Apple's approach, where Apple was jobs would
Speaker 1: say this is not a PC, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a tablet. It's for the post PC environment, right right,
Speaker 1: where whereas uh, the iPad, and it has been criticized
Speaker 1: more times than I can account, certainly by people who
Speaker 1: say it's a consumption device. It is a consumption device
Speaker 1: that people began writing productivity software for. It's sort of
Speaker 1: one people's hearts and minds by being a consumption device
Speaker 1: primarily at first, but it is shown also well, the
Speaker 1: software developers have shown that you can use it for
Speaker 1: productivity and creativity and creation as well. And and Microsoft
Speaker 1: isn't approaching it as a h well, this is a
Speaker 1: scaled down productivity device that you can also use to
Speaker 1: consume with. So it's it's really I mean that both
Speaker 1: devices will do both, but it's two different and different
Speaker 1: approaches to the same converging point, right, because that's why
Speaker 1: this is all about his convergence, because you know, you
Speaker 1: can't go an entire episode without me saying the word.
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a that's an example there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and you know, just so you guys know, I mean,
Speaker 1: there have been several tablets that have run on various
Speaker 1: versions of Windows, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows seven
Speaker 1: all had tablets. Uh, it's just they didn't do so well.
Speaker 1: And so you know, in terms of sales in terms
Speaker 1: of sales. UM, So we'll see if the Surface could
Speaker 1: perhaps buck the trend. You know what. I think we're
Speaker 1: actually getting to the point where people are curious about this.
Speaker 1: They really think, well, if Microsoft can make a truly
Speaker 1: compelling product that can really run these rich applications that
Speaker 1: are beyond the scope of something like an iPad or
Speaker 1: an Android tablet, it perhaps there's a place for it.
Speaker 1: And that might very well be instead of buying a laptop,
Speaker 1: maybe I'd buy a surface next time because it has
Speaker 1: all the capability of a laptop but has the portability
Speaker 1: and other functions of a tablet. Why would why not
Speaker 1: get that? UM? I think it's really going to depend
Speaker 1: heavily upon the price of the surface. We don't know
Speaker 1: what that's going to be yet. We don't know exactly
Speaker 1: what processors they're going to put in it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't have the specific details. We do know that
Speaker 1: the RT one will have an ARM based processor that's
Speaker 1: what Windows RT was optimized for, and that the Windows
Speaker 1: eight pro version will have some sort of x A
Speaker 1: D six based processor, although and we don't know specifically
Speaker 1: which one it will be. UM, we know that there's
Speaker 1: going to be a couple of different flavors of each
Speaker 1: of these. You know, there's certain bubery don't have the
Speaker 1: different levels of storage space, you know, thirty two gig
Speaker 1: versus sixty four gig versus twenty eight gig, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But we don't really know what the price
Speaker 1: ranges are going to be. It may very well be
Speaker 1: that the Windows eight Pro one hundred twenty eight gig
Speaker 1: version is that could that could happen. We don't know that.
Speaker 1: That's the thing about a tablet, regardless of what system
Speaker 1: it's running, you might say, is what you're giving up
Speaker 1: to make it work and what price point you've got
Speaker 1: to hit? So you know, you have to make sure
Speaker 1: it's it's not going to run the battery down. You've
Speaker 1: got to make sure that it's energy you know that
Speaker 1: it's energy efficient, that it it looks nice even though
Speaker 1: it has a nice screen on it, and it's functional.
Speaker 1: But then you go, okay, well what software am I
Speaker 1: gonna run? You know what, Obviously you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to run something like a Final Cut Pro
Speaker 1: on an iOS device or Adobe full version of Adobe
Speaker 1: Photoshop CS on a surface because there are certain things
Speaker 1: you need the screen space, you need. So what are
Speaker 1: you going to give up? What are you gonna take out?
Speaker 1: What are you gonna put in? And that's that's really
Speaker 1: what we're talking about when we're talking about the philosophy
Speaker 1: that we're approaching it at Because, um, the forum factor
Speaker 1: has been established as a success. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a good These are good sizes for the device. Um.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you have the surface is
Speaker 1: very similar in size to the iPads versus the the
Speaker 1: Android tablets, which vary in size sixteen by nine screen size,
Speaker 1: and you know they're smaller or bigger than you have
Speaker 1: a tablets, the fablets, the fablets, the half phone half tablet.
Speaker 1: I like saying that the Galaxy Note being one of
Speaker 1: the first makes the term makes Jonathan squirms, So it's
Speaker 1: not a big fan of the term fablet. I still
Speaker 1: want a Galaxy Note, by the way, I don't own
Speaker 1: one one, But I do think I do think that
Speaker 1: Microsoft has uh it's on the right track, definitely, And
Speaker 1: if anybody can do this, it's going to be Microsoft.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously Google and Apple have already proven that
Speaker 1: they can do this. But I can't think of anybody
Speaker 1: else getting into the field. Uh and just when I go,
Speaker 1: there's Paul, these guys. That's right, they still have o s.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we'll ever. I mean, technically it's
Speaker 1: not dead dead yet. Uh. Now it will, I think
Speaker 1: depend very heavily on the price, because people now have
Speaker 1: an expectation of how much tablet should cost, not thinking
Speaker 1: this is don't think of it as a tablet, think
Speaker 1: of it as a PC. That's that's really hard because
Speaker 1: now we've already established what a tablet is and what
Speaker 1: it can do and what it cannot do. And perhaps
Speaker 1: if you think of it, oh, well, this is a tablet,
Speaker 1: it can just do more than this other tablets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but is more value. That's so I think it's really
Speaker 1: gonna play down to how does Microsoft price it. Microsoft
Speaker 1: could end up pricing it very very competitively, so that
Speaker 1: they're essentially taking a loss in the hardware. But if
Speaker 1: they do that, then they're shooting themselves in the foot
Speaker 1: in another way, because they've set an expectation for all
Speaker 1: their partners, and then if their partners are forced to
Speaker 1: sell at it, you know, it doesn't make sense for
Speaker 1: the partners to sell at a huge loss. If that
Speaker 1: if that's how they may their money is through the hardware,
Speaker 1: which is already a very low margin area to make
Speaker 1: your money off of anyway. Um, so Microsoft has a
Speaker 1: very delicate balancing act. They can't price it so competitively
Speaker 1: that they have knocked all their partners out of the market,
Speaker 1: and they can't go too far over the established price
Speaker 1: of tablets because then everyone's gonna balk at the expense.
Speaker 1: Plus uh. I think this is very important for Microsoft
Speaker 1: to try for one very important reason. Um, there has
Speaker 1: been a halo effect on Mac sales from the success
Speaker 1: of the iPhone and the iPad. Now, of course you're
Speaker 1: going to say that the Mac still trails Windows by
Speaker 1: a huge margin. Yes, that's true, but there has been
Speaker 1: an increase in Mac sales and they have been selling better.
Speaker 1: Now there are rumors, of course that with the Chrome
Speaker 1: operating system, that Google could be getting into the desktop
Speaker 1: market and and it I think it is important to
Speaker 1: for Microsoft to establish a beachhead in the tablet front
Speaker 1: to keep people, to give them an option in to
Speaker 1: keep everybody in the Windows ecosystem as it is. Well,
Speaker 1: I have to say Windows eight Mobile, you can have
Speaker 1: you know, the Windows RTU tablet and you can have
Speaker 1: your Windows eight desktop. I have to say that I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised about the Halo effect thing, because you know,
Speaker 1: as we all know, Bungee used to develop games just
Speaker 1: for the Mac and that was where Marathon came out of,
Speaker 1: and the Halo games are sort of a spinoff of Marathon,
Speaker 1: and those went over into not that Halo effect. The
Speaker 1: Halo effect actually refers to, hey, I like this, and well,
Speaker 1: you know what, that looks very much like this. I
Speaker 1: think I'd be comfortable trying it out. And yes, people
Speaker 1: who have been trying out uh, Macintosh computers, people who
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily use them because they bought an iPhone or
Speaker 1: an iPad and said, hey, you know, the operating system
Speaker 1: looks pretty similar, I want to try it, and they
Speaker 1: find out they worked very well together. Again, that's sort
Speaker 1: of the benefit of the closed system. Just have a benefit,
Speaker 1: have Halo on the mind because I get to play
Speaker 1: Halo four in two weeks. Okay, all right, so I'm excited.
Speaker 1: But well, that was the reason that Microsoft sold so well.
Speaker 1: Office and Windows go so well together, and of course
Speaker 1: Internet Explorer as the browser. Um, you know, that was
Speaker 1: the focus of the whole antitrust thing is it part
Speaker 1: of the operating system? Is it not part of the
Speaker 1: operating system? Do people have a choice? But it makes
Speaker 1: you wonder about the whole, like the any there's an
Speaker 1: any trust thing brought up against Microsoft, but not brought
Speaker 1: up against Apple and the iPad where Chess, Safari and anyway.
Speaker 1: So these things I think are being redefined. Yeah they are.
Speaker 1: I agree they are being redefined. So we're going to
Speaker 1: wrap up this discussion on the history of Microsoft and
Speaker 1: tablets and the discussion about the Surface, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about once it once it actually becomes
Speaker 1: a real reality. It's a retail reality as opposed to
Speaker 1: just the the versions that we've seen and where we
Speaker 1: have more details and we can kind of I think
Speaker 1: it will be fun to talk about it maybe a
Speaker 1: year after the debut, to see what impact it had,
Speaker 1: if any, on the industry as a whole. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a good point too, because as we know,
Speaker 1: BlackBerry and Palms tablets lasted for a very very brief
Speaker 1: period of time on store shelves. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: Surface has a much better chance of making it long
Speaker 1: term and being a real competitor to the iPad than
Speaker 1: um those devices did, Yeah, I agree to. I think
Speaker 1: they'll be around. Well, well, we'll see. I mean there
Speaker 1: was a lot of initial excitement at the announcement at
Speaker 1: any rate, so that hopefully will propel this. And competition
Speaker 1: is always a good thing, So I want to see
Speaker 1: this succeed, at least as far as it will make
Speaker 1: other companies like Google and Apple and the various partners
Speaker 1: really press to innovate and and continue to bring cool
Speaker 1: features to consumers, so we'll all benefit in the end. Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up this discussion. Now. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for topics that we should cover in future
Speaker 1: episodes of text Stuff, please let us know. You can
Speaker 1: send us an email. Are and just tex stuff at
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Speaker 1: Are handled there is tech stuff hs W and Chris
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again really soon for
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