WEBVTT - Microsoft’s History with Tablets 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:09.160 It's ready. Are you didn't touch with technology? With tech 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:18.000 Stuff from how stuff flix dot com. Hi, and welcome 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.560 again to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:22.400 I am an editor at how Stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.320 Sitting across from me, as he's usual, it's senior writer 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.000 Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, Chris, and guys. This is June 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.800 twenty two, which is a Friday. This is two thou twelve, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:33.879 and the reason why I say the date is the 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.919 Monday of this week we heard an announcement from Microsoft 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:43.600 about an upcoming product that definitely made some waves in 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.040 the tech world. I saw some interest in places that 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:52.920 I didn't expect, uh, and it was the Microsoft Surface tablet. Yeah, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.440 the the Microsoft Surface up until a few days ago, 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.720 was a big table top touch screen device, a very 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.040 cool tabletop touch screen device. I'm priced out of the 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.760 market for most of us. It was really meant for 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.560 commercial uses, not for consumer uses. Yeah. Actually, it kind 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.280 of reminded me in a way of Veneva Bush's uh Memex. 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.559 This was of course envisioned in the nineteen forties as 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.920 um uh basically a desktop workstation that would allow you 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:29.119 to uh photograph different documents and use them on microfilm. Um. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.720 And of course the lot of the computer and internet 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.039 engineers since then has sort of taken that as a 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.600 It ended up being a semi self fulfilling prophecy just 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.000 because people like the idea and he said, well, yeah, 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:41.679 it would be nice to have this. Well, the surface 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.440 was actually a desk itself in a way, a table 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.560 with a big touch screen surface, and you could have 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.840 different things on the screen and interact with it. You could, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:52.600 you know, if you were using it in a work setting, 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.360 which it's not really designed to do, but you could 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.720 have all your documents in your desk, you know, on 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.040 the desktop literally and move things around. Very neat, but 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:06.160 very expensive. And uh uh yeah. But they they repurposed 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.919 the name. Yes, they changed the name of that device. 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.040 Uh pixel s right, that's the new name for what 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.480 was the surface and now the surface is a tablet. 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.280 And I've heard some people talk about how Microsoft is 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.880 aping Apple, which I think is completely off base for 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.959 multiple reasons. But we'll get into those and in order 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.880 to really understand where I'm coming from about how Microsoft 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.760 is not aping Apple, you have to kind of look 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.880 at Microsoft's history with the tablet, which has not been 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.920 a very smooth one. No, but it has been a 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.880 fairly long one, especially in tech terms. Yes, back in 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:48.000 Microsoft released a version of Windows called Windows for pen Computing. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.000 And pen Computing was essentially the idea of using some 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.000 sort of interface that would require a stylus to input 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.240 data into a display. So it didn't necessarily mean it 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.160 would have to be in a tablet form factor. It 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.080 could be a screen on a wall, it could be 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.359 your laptop screen or or desktop screen. But the idea 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.560 was that there needed to be some form of support 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.840 for a different interface than just the keyboard and mouse. Uh. Now, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:23.840 that product didn't really take off, and in fact, the 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.920 form factors didn't really take off outside of some niche markets. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.200 And part of the problem is that building uh software 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:38.440 that can recognize handwriting is really really tricky, and in fact, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.160 Apple had already tried it, yeah, with the Newton, the 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.720 Apple Newton, which was a message pad, Yes, a message pad. 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.480 It was sort of a PDA right UM a personal 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.520 digital assistant right not public display of affection right. A 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:57.200 p D a UM is basically a small handheld device um, 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.760 that you would use the stylist to interact with it 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.400 had a hum, it didn't have a the same kind 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.680 of touch screen we use now, right, it didn't. It 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:10.000 didn't necessarily allow you to use your fingers. You had 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.000 to use the stylus, right, um. And and basically what 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.080 it would do is I mean it was really at 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.400 the time designed to be a business tool. Yeah, for 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.000 the enterprise market. You would keep your calendar in there 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.120 and your your phone contacts and things. So it's a 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.800 smartphone without the phone, yeah, sort of more or less so. 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.400 But but Microsoft was not looking at creating devices or 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.240 marketing for devices that were, uh, this this kind of 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.960 tier of electronics below computers, right, because you could think 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.640 of a smartphone is like and a sub brand of computer, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.599 but it it doesn't have the full process and capability 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.760 and uh, it's not as robust as a full computer 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.240 would be. Right. So Microsoft view was that, no, we 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.360 want to support devices that are essentially computers, just computers 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.440 that are in a different form factor than your big 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:08.120 desktop tower and display and keyboard and mouse. But again, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.560 developing the software to try and support that was very 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.120 tricky and and it didn't really take off in the 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.200 early nineties, it just nothing really happened, and for a 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.560 while Microsoft kind of just put it on the back burner, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.120 although Bill Gates was still who was the head of 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.800 Microsoft at the time, still very much determined to find 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:30.760 a way to make this work because he saw that 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.279 as the future of computing. He said that, you know, 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:38.440 eventually that the tablet form factor would actually outstrip other 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.479 fact versions of computers like laptops and desktops. So in 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:47.920 nineties seven, Microsoft hires a fellow named Dick Brass, who 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.880 was a guy who was involved in designing electronic dictionaries 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.200 in the eighties, and they hired him to kind of 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.880 spearhead this approach of trying to think about pen based 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.800 computing and and what would it take to make that successful. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.880 So what Brass ended up doing was he ended up 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.799 working with a carpenter of all things, to put together 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:19.600 a rough looking model of what a tablet could look like. 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.960 And um, it was a wooden model, had a flat 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.840 base and a keyboard and a flat screen, and uh, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.280 the screen could be separated from the keyboard. So this 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.320 was still a device that when it was put together, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.080 would resemble a computer in some sense. But then you 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.160 could detach the screen and have that as a separate device, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.640 which sounds very familiar. We've seen a lot of devices 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.960 over the last few years that have some sort of 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:55.600 laptop tablet hybrid approach. Right, See, that'll come into play later. Uh. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.760 The so in in November of two thousand, we're skipping 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.000 a ad a little bit at the Comdex event. Now 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:07.000 Comdex is no longer a thing, yes, but at the 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.760 time it was a big computer trade show. Yeah, it 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.520 was the largest computer trade show in the world at 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:17.320 the time. Now uh c E s UH formerly known 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.560 as the Consumer Electronic Show, Yes, and still that's what 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.000 it stands for, but they want to be called C 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:27.480 E s UM. That's basically UM TVs UH, portable music players, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.440 car stereos, stuff that you and I are going to 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.640 buy for uh daily everyday stuff. Yeah, there's also some 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.280 tablets and some phones and things. But really that's not 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.000 a whole lot of computers. I mean laptops. You see 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.240 a lot of laptops, like especially this last CS two 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.400 thousand twelve, that was when the Ultra books were really launched. 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.200 But in general it is not a computer showcase. No, no, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.360 and neither is is E three the Electronics Entertainment XPO. 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.760 That's a video game showcase right right. Sometimes a hardware 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.520 showcase as well, but those are very specialized kinds of hardware. Right. 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.000 You see computers there, but they're you know, specifically oriented 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.920 towards gaming purposes or showing off gaming stuff. You might 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.880 see video cards. You know, hey you got a new 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:20.880 graphics card. Uh. Was the boring part of computers? Well yeah, 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.120 kind of? I mean was It was really a geeky 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.480 year side of the industry, get right down to it, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.080 and a lot of it was, you know, personal computers 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.920 meant for home business. I don't think personal computers for 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.240 all different applications. But really, I mean the the image 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.520 most people have as a bunch of a bunch of 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.880 guys wearing short sleeve button up shirts with ties, sitting 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.120 in a big auditorium and drooling over the latest specs 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:51.760 of the next next year's models of personal computers. Um, 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.360 which is an unfair characterization, but that's often what people 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.120 think about. So at the two thousand Condex event, which 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.960 took place in Lost Vegas, Bill Gates came out and 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.760 had a keynote speech. He actually said some really interesting 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.480 things in that speech some stuff that I think you 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.360 could almost say everything you said turned out to be wrong, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.520 at least at least in the short term. Well, you know, 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.160 that's the trouble with being a visionary and and Bill 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.240 Gates and uh, you know many of his contemporaries are 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.320 and we're visionaries. Um, but you know, different people have 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.079 different visions, and that things in the market also has 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.559 a saying this of course, right, and sometimes the future 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.319 turns out differently than the way you expect. And he said, 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.160 for example, that the browser is dead. Yeah, he said, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.440 the browser era is over in two thousand, which you know, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.439 when you think about it kind of died for a while. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.880 It did, it did, and that and that was just 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.320 before the dot com bubble bursts too, so there was 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.839 some there were danger on the horizon already, but that 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.680 was pre web two point out right. But the browser 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.880 obviously is not dead. He also thought that people would 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.360 not want this sort of shared computing experience, the idea 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.320 of having uh, your computer essentially be a dumb terminal 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.480 attached to some sort of smarter computer device that would 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.760 do processing and storage. Well, it turns out cloud computing 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.440 has really taken off and so that's essentially what he 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.360 was talking about was cloud computing. It was just before 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.319 people were referring to it as cloud computing. I think 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.959 of it more as the old time share. Well, yeah, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.880 the timeshare model and the the the dumb terminals that 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.800 you would see in college campuses where you had a 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.680 mainframe and you would connect to the main frame. Uh, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.600 people at the time did want desktop computers. You wanted 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.960 to be able to operate your computer where you were 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:46.960 in your house instead of having to go to a 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.720 computer lab and work on the mainframe. Right. So yeah, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.200 and it's it's funny to say that because, um, now 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.320 in retrospect, it looks I mean, we're I feel like 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.240 we're kind of teasing Bill Gates, because a lot of 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.080 the things he said, you know, turned out to be 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.760 sort of semi false at the time. In the context, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.079 what he said sort of came to pass, and then 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.680 it reinvented itself in a different way. And there were 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.160 a lot of limitations on on the world when Bill 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.960 Gates made these these predictions. For instance, we didn't have 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.840 the broadband connections that we have now, so so having 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.520 a cloud computing infrastructure back in two thousand was not 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.920 a reasonable expectation. It wasn't feasible because you couldn't be 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.000 You wouldn't be able to access the data you would 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.440 need in a timely manner. It would take so long 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.520 to transfer the data that it would negate the the 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.160 benefits of having off site storage and all that kind 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.960 of stuff. So at the time his predictions made perfect sense. 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.559 But he also predicted that the tablet PC was going 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.400 to be huge, that this was going to be the 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:55.520 next revolution in UH in in computers and UH. Microsoft 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.400 software architect Bert Keeley came out and he specifically talked 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.240 about the tablet PC at that event. UM Now, the 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.760 information he gave was that the device would weigh less 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.960 than three pounds, and that would run Windows based software applications, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.720 and you would use the stylus to make notes on 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.480 images and office documents which would then get incorporated into 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.240 UH files. So that let's say that you're looking at 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.000 a picture of something. Let's say that you're working with 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.239 an advertiser, for example, on an AD, and the advertiser 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.160 sends you a mock up of what the ad is 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.680 going to look like. You can make digital notes on 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.560 the ad using this tablet device and send it back 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.240 and say like, all right, you know this the product 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.720 isn't featured prominently enough for whatever you know, or or 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:46.000 I don't like the color of this this background because 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.400 it's it's masking the product. That sort of stuff. Um, 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.199 that was kind of the idea. And beyond just those 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.720 those use cases as well. I mean pretty much anytime 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:56.480 you could think of needing to make a note on 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:01.680 a digital file, that's when it would come into play, right, Um, 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.680 But it was just an announcement and a demonstration of 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.480 the prototype. There was no product to show off yet. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.800 In two thousand one at Comdex, Compact came out and 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.439 showed off a prototype tablet PC running Windows and at 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.720 that time Gates then predicted that within five years, tablets 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.480 would be the most popular form factor of computers sold 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.920 on the market. And here's where I'm gonna take a 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.439 little break here. So we've already talked about how Microsoft's 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.040 got a long history and tablets. That doesn't have anything 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.280 to do with the iPad. Right, here's where I am 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.800 going to mention the iPad, Because even though the iPad 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.160 doesn't come out for another nine years, you know, we 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:47.960 see the iPad unveiled in UM Steve Jobs decided to 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.280 approach the iPad in a fundamentally different way than the 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.920 way Gates was looking at the tablet PC, and that 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.560 Gates was looking at a way to create create a 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.439 computer that was in the form factor of a tablet. 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.800 Jobs was looking at building up a smartphone like device 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.240 or iPod like device into the tablet form factor. He 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.680 was looking at scaling up smartphones, not scaling down computers, 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.400 and in fact, that was jobs main point. He said 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.640 that his competitors were all trying to make computers into 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.440 tablets and that that was the wrong approach and that 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.400 it would not succeed. Well, this is kind of what 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.040 Jobs was talking about. Microsoft has a history of trying 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:33.520 to make computers fit into the tablet form factor, and 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.400 historically they have not met with very much success. And 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.000 this compact prototype was one of the first ones that 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.880 sort of showed off what a Windows based tablet would 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:50.640 be capable of doing. But it ultimately did not really 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:56.920 make a huge impact, and again Gates's prediction about tablets 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.680 being really popular would ultimately be true. It was from 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.960 a completely different approach than the one Microsoft was making. 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:09.840 So moving ahead, So November seven, two the tablet PC 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:15.120 gets unveiled by Gates, who says he has anticipated this 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.160 moment for many, many years. And uh, they talk about 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.040 how they're going to be seven different computer makers that 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.720 will create tablets that run Windows software. So this is 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:32.480 not a Microsoft machine. It's Microsoft supporting the tablet form 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:37.520 factor by building an operating system specifically designed for that. Yeah, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:42.160 that was the Windows XP Tablet PC edition. That's exactly right. Um, yeah, 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:47.000 it's it's exactly the way that Apple doesn't do it. Um, 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.840 you know that people talk about that. Uh you know 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.320 how Apple is a closed system because it manufactures both 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.000 the hardware and writes the software for it. So uh, 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.960 you know they do both sides of that equation. Microsoft 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.880 offt um keeping ourselves in this timeframe. Microsoft doesn't make hardware. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.800 They make software, lots of different software, and they work 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.040 with many, many different hardware partners to build the machines 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.320 that run the operating system. And as a matter of fact, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.360 this uh Windows XP Tablet PC edition was only available 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.240 to O E. M's original equipment manufacturers. So if you 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.760 were Compact or HP or you know one of the 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.720 other manufacturers that was was working with them, you could 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.120 buy this software and preinstalled on the tablets. You wouldn't 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.200 be able to find it on the shelf at shelf 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.240 at your local computer store. Hey, they still had computer 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.480 stores back then. Yep, and and uh. There were some 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.800 other things that really set this apart from what the 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:49.680 you know, the tablets that would come down the line 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.680 several years later. One is that a lot of the 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.520 tablets quote unquote tablets that came out in two thousand 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.040 three was when they really started hitting store shelves. All 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.880 those tablets were really hybrids. They were laptop hybrids. So 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.040 you had the kind that would either have a screen 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.120 that would swivel and then fold back down over the keyboard, 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.760 so you would have a really thick tablet because there 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.159 would be a keyboard section folded underneath. It's basically, uh, 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:20.280 the same form factor as a laptop with a closed case. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.399 You know, it's it's just got the screen flipped around 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.920 and closed exactly. Or you would have the other type 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.600 of hybrid where you could detach the screen from the 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.600 base of the keyboard and it would just become its 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.080 own little computing device with a touch screen interface, again 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:42.720 mostly using stylus, not necessarily using your fingers. Um Gates 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:47.280 was very uh optimistic about the chances of this in 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.080 the market. He thought that at least half a million 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.520 would sell in the first year, and they'd spent around 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.280 four hundred million dollars on the technology to develop the 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.359 tablet PC operating system and to support that form factor. Um. 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.879 The manufacturers that were included in that list of seven, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.040 among them were HP, Samsung, Tshiba, and a ser But 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:16.119 there were a couple of notable missing persons on that list, 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:22.400 the two being really Dell and IBM, huge names and computers, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:28.119 especially at this time in the early two thousand's personal computers. Yeah, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.159 so back in the early two thousand's, these two companies 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:36.119 famous for making computers, we're kind of holding back in 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.000 order to see if the tablet form factor truly would succeed, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.240 because there was a lot of skepticism in the market. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.159 I mean, there's a lot of optimism on one side, 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.720 but there were some companies saying, you know, this is 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.199 really risky. Do we really want to pour millions of 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.639 dollars in research and development and production to build something 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.840 that we are not convinced people want yet, And so 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:01.800 they decided to wait. And also these devices they ranged 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.600 in price between around eighteen hundred dollars. They were computers exactly. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.800 They were full price computers. They weren't a tablet in 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.320 the sense that we think of today, where they're running 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.880 on lower power processors and using specialized operating systems. These 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.840 were Windows computers in a form factor of a tablet. 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:26.760 So the tablets had problems. They their screen resolution wasn't 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.720 the best, they tended to have really short battery life, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.439 and the handwriting software, recognition software had lots of problems. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:35.879 In fact, they had a lot of problems during the 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:41.560 development phase. I read one story about how they back 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.080 at Microsoft, while they were developing the tablet pcos, they 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:50.280 had an entire team switch from laptops to tablet PCs 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:52.840 to really test them and see what's going on and 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:54.359 see if they could do their work on a day 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.600 to day basis using them. And they found that whenever 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.439 they were making notes on a digital file, if they 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.159 had to make multiple notes, often the tablet PC operating 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.680 system wasn't really sure where those notes should go and 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.359 sometimes would combine them to make nonsensical sentences. It was 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.280 combining different notes into a run on sentence that has 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.600 no real meaning, like a bunch of sentence fragments just 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:24.280 crammed together. So they actually removed that feature before shipping 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.320 it because they realized that that would do more harm 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.000 than good. In fact, Apple had seen very similar problems 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.960 when they developed the Newton a decade earlier, so it 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.560 wasn't unique to Microsoft to have these problems. Um. But 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.560 another problem was that the adaptation of the operating system 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:47.720 and more more importantly, the applications that rested on top 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.880 of the operating system, they didn't really work so well 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.560 with a touch screen user interface. They you know, it 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.240 was it was trying to put software that was meant 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.600 to be used with a keyboard and mouse and put 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.880 it into a different form factor with a different user 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:09.280 interface without allowing for that difference. So a lot of 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.040 the applications were not intuitive, some of them were downright 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.879 unusable because they just weren't designed for that kind of interface. 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.840 So you had a product that had a lot of 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.280 horsepower to it, especially compared to you know, the computers 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.200 of the day. It was fairly equivalent to them, but 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.200 it just the software couldn't match up to the hardware 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.200 because the user interface wasn't there. So you would have 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:39.600 a big, heavy, expensive piece of electronics that couldn't do 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.040 what you needed it to do. That seems like a 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.240 waste of money, It does seem like that. Around that 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.520 same time, Microsoft also partnered with Fujitsu and view Sonic 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.440 to create smart displays. These were displays that linked to 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.320 a PC through WiFi. So you would still have a 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.680 home base PC and this device would hook to it. 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.680 You would have a smart touch you know, display case 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.840 where you could use it as if it were a tablet, 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.680 the processing being handled by the computer that it's hooked 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.600 to through WiFi. But these were still pretty expensive, like 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.399 around a thousand dollars or more, and it didn't really succeed, 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.200 so Microsoft ended up killing that project within about a 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:24.280 year of its starting. Then there was a Project Origami, Yes, 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:29.880 Project Origami, Yeah, that was for handheld PCs and touch 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:37.080 screen interfaces. Yeah, exactly, Uh, including the ultramobile PCs. Do 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.160 you remember that term? Yes? I do. It's not one 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.200 you run into very much anymore, but yeah, ultramobile PCs 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.400 that that was sort of the predecessor to both tablets 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:50.240 and netbooks, um, but in a way also a predecessor 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:54.159 to ultra books. Uh. They still had a lot of problems, 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.760 mostly because again the operating system wasn't fully optimized for 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.760 a touch screen interface, and also they tended to have 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:06.720 really lousy battery life. UM, not not a great experience. 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.600 Now that's not to say that these devices didn't work 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.040 and that people didn't use them. Um. There were a 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:21.920 couple uh industries really that took to them medical industry medicular, Yes, 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:26.400 the medical industry, um followed their own advice and took 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:31.560 two tablets and called Microsoft in the morning. Yeah, no, 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:34.159 but they did. And I actually still see that at 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.720 some of the doctor's offices that I've been to in 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:41.159 the past few years, they're still using, um, the traditional 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.399 you know, Microsoft tablet design. I mean, it's very useful 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:48.320 for that kind of thing, especially because um they're using 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:54.160 the same software uh to register and track patient records 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.200 that they would use on a desktop computer or laptop 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:01.520 computer typically, So it's very compatible with that, and it 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:03.760 has been very efficient for that. And it's good because 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.280 they can carry this around in the tablet form factor, 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.480 so they can carry it under their arm, uh you know, 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:12.359 drop it down where they can make notes and they 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:14.359 can talk to you and and and take notes on 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:17.520 this on this tablet device, but UM they had a 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:21.880 specific need to have something like that, So I think 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:25.120 that's one of the reasons why it um it took 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.640