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I was reading news feeds when I read a blog post that included some quotes from Bill Gates. Bill was quoted as saying that Windows 7 will make the keyboard and mouse far less important than in the past. We've all heard that crap before, it's typically what Bill used to say before attempting to pimp yet another failed Tablet PC project. I admit, I fell for the Tablet thing once... I had one, and I hated it. It was never powerful enough to be a real laptop and it was never portable enough to be a good enough tablet. In short, it was useless.
Literally one blog post down in my reader after seeing that quote from Bill was some information about Microsoft doing some more demos of Surface, and how they plan on showing off Surface like mad during Mix '08.
So let's put some deduction to work here. Bill Gates says that Windows 7 is going to make the keyboard and mouse far less important than they used to be. Mix is coming up and Microsoft is planning on hyping Surface as the next best thing (admittedly, it could be...Surface is quite drool-worthy). Scott Guthrie has been posting about how by the end of the year, WPF will have received some dramatic new performance enhancements, as well as some much-needed functionality that makes it more equipped to deal with Line-of-Business applications out of the box.
If you want my completely off the wall predictions totally induced by lack of sleep, caffeine, and a healthy imagination, I'm guessing that Windows 7 is going to have Surface device drivers in it, and Microsoft, in cooperation with some hardware vendors, is going to try and release "Surface PCs", devices that use Surface technology that are small enough and affordable enough to become PC/furniture/appliance fixtures in upper middle class homes.
Maybe I'm totally nuts... nuts like a FOX! Or maybe not... ;) So far I've been unable to find a reason for consumers to own yet another video output device - we're all trying to consolidate everything so that our main display is our HDTV, so I don't know if MS will be able to convince people that they need another display.. Time will tell I guess.
I still think the sweet market for Surface is in themed entertainment/dining. Restaurants, Casinos, and Arcades (assuming there is still a functioning arcade left in this post-arcade-apocalyptic world!) are positively begging for stuff like Surface ... but do home consumers really need it?
I've also read a blog/news/rumor entry where they talked about the issue of
Apple patenting every multitouch gesture. This could block others software
editors and hardware manufacturers to define a common dictionary of
gestures related to the same task as we had Apple-C, Apple-V, etc ...
They mentioned surface-like multitouch trackpad accessories hardware
manufacturer implementing their own "open/standard" dictionary to bypass
this problem. This OS independent accessory could be the one your talking
about but not linked to a display.
I've completely lost faith in the patent system. It is currently being
overrun by patent trolls, and huge companies are able to patent things that
have obvious prior art or are so ubiquituous that my grandmother could cook
one up in the kitchen with spare parts and a keyboard. Regardless, it'll be
interesting to see how all this plays out. If Microsoft wants to give me a
"surface" that is really just a USB peripheral, kind of like a Wacom tablet
on steroids, I think it's going to be a hard sell. The reason why people
like the iPhone so much is because you're touch the actual icons, you're
not touch a tablet and then mentally translating coordinates in your head
to a different reference frame. Bottom line is with everybody trying to
beat everybody else to be the first with the next best "multi-touchy
thing", the consumer wins.
Well, in its current form it definitely qualifies as a nerd toy... Big-time
entertainment companies are finding it very intriguing, as I mentioned...
Casinos and similar enterprises have a really big interest in Surface right
now. The tough part for MS is going to be figuring out some way to get the
surface technology to have a broad, mass appeal.
Kevin - the problem with the patent system is that it compels big companies
to patent everything, regardless how obvious or ludicrous or trivial it may
be, lest someone else makes a similar claim.
"The reason why people like the iPhone so much is because you're touch the
actual icons, you're not touch a tablet and then mentally translating
coordinates in your head to a different reference frame."
Like in the MacBook Air? I noticed that.
Thanks for sharing this article. Quite Useful..
