Microsoft To PC and Tablet Makers: You're Not Our Future 530
snydeq writes "Microsoft's plan to build its own Windows 8 tablets puts longtime allies in peril — and it may be the right thing to do. 'In announcing the Surface tablets, due to be released this fall, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cited Apple's advantage (without mentioning Apple) of integrated software and hardware. "Things work better when hardware and software are considered together," he said. "We control it all, we design it all, and we manufacture it all ourselves." ... Like Apple, Microsoft will hire a few PC makers to do the actual production work. But the need for 20 brands of me-too laptops, tablets, and convertibles is low. Manufacturing sophisticated electronics is a skill requiring manufacturing innovation. But all those branded-but-otherwise-undifferentiated PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones just aren't needed in the vision Ballmer sketched out yesterday.'"
Make sense (Score:5, Interesting)
This maybe the smartest move microsoft made in the last 15 years
Good news (Score:5, Interesting)
That's good news for the customers, because in order to penetrate the market Microsoft will throw shitloads of money at the development of their new hardware toys and essentially give them away underpriced and possibly at a loss.
All we need to find out is a way to hack them and install Linux on them, and there it is, your super-cheap Linux tablet. :-)
year of the? (Score:5, Interesting)
So now all the PC manufacturers need a non-MS alternative... this could be the year... sounds good for EFI being able to boot linux after all!
Commodity hardware isn't going anywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
All of the recent commentary about MS rupturing their alliance with OEMs is overblown. Microsoft is stuck with OEMs because they don't have the resources to supply an entire computer market with their own hardware. OEMs are stuck with Microsoft because Apple won't license OS X and most consumers won't want linux for the foreseeable future.
MS will make a flagship tablet, which will showcase Windows 8 in the way that they want to show it (without manufacturer bloatware etc). The OEMs will rush in and undercut MS with a range of comparable but slightly cheaper options, and life will go on.
Re:year of the? (Score:5, Interesting)
year of the demise of the desktop...
Fondleslabs... (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, I have 4 tablets in my house. One I use constantly for travel and three others for the wife/kids. Do they use them? sometimes but for me I have a Laptop, a Desktop and other systems to use. The tablet form factor is nice and it does provide a needed distraction from the obnoxious guy sitting behind me in 10A on the flights. I've also seen people now diligently taking their tablets everywhere, as if they're so much jewelry. Today I went to lunch and next to where I was, there was a young couple. Both with tablets, both watching stuff, exchanging e-mail and not really talking to each other. So why go to lunch together if you're not going to be part of the actual experience. Yes, it could be laptops, eepcs etc. but it's simply amazing the tools we now have that actually discourage face to face communications. Oh yeah, I can Skype too but that's beside the point.
Microsoft for jumping into this with a "Me Too" approach seems to be too little, too late. Much like their phones. Maybe they'll sell a few but right now I think the market is saturated by Apple and all of the Android based models out there. This move will also alienate them from a lot of their tried-and-true supporters, the Toshibas, the HPs and the ASUSs for example.
Well, let's wait and see in two years to see if it makes sense or if Ballmer will do his Monkey Boy Dance again!
Re:Facts on the ground. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:3, Interesting)
No device can ever be "secure", and running your own code can never be "absolutely impossible" so long as it is in the hands of consumers... The most you can hope for is to make it more difficult and time consuming for hackers to get sufficient control of it to run their own code. Or, in the case of microsoft's previous efforts in the mobile space, sell so few of them that noone is interested in cracking it.
Any device that has been interesting for users to get access to has been cracked...
Locked hardware on the other hand is damaging for consumers and the environment.
A relatively open PC can have a fairly long useful life, especially now that hardware has reached the point that even the lowest end kit is fast enough for day to day use... This is also why i tend to buy motherboards that support (for the time) a stupid amount of ram, and then max it out a few years later when the ram is dirt cheap.
On the other hand, locked hardware can often become a brick once the manufacturer stops supporting it... If it requires online activation you might not be able to reinstall it, you will probably be stuck with old software thats full of security holes, if it is locked into any other online services they may no longer be running etc. So most of the hardware just ends up getting thrown away.
When it comes to your average tablet maker, they are selling hardware not software... The more open the hardware, the more uses it has and this will translate to more sales. How many more is irrelevant, spending considerable extra resources for a reduction in sales however small is not a sound business decision.
Re:Facts on the ground. (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine Nokia own a fair few patents. Wouldn't surprise me if they hold stock in other businesses.
Sooner or later, the value of that will be far greater than the value of their shares - and when that happens, the asset strippers will move in.
Oh please, enough already (Score:4, Interesting)
MS is selling tablets in order to sell Win-8. That's it, that's the only reason. They're hedging their bets that Win-8 won't catch on so they're going to sell devices that have to run it. When after a few years they discover the error of their ways and realize that Win-8 is a niche product and that tablets haven't taken over the world, they'll drop Metro and they'll drop tablets.
Re:year of the? (Score:5, Interesting)
We're moving from a culture that encourages individual learning/mastery/understanding of the things used in life, to one of apathetic dependence on convenient 'service'. This is intellectually stunting, which causes all kinds of other problems.
Re:And, best of all... (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot links are rel="nofollow", which means Google doesn't count them. So no.
Remember when... (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember when Microsoft ruled the world because they left the dirty, competitive, low-profit-margin work of making actual hardware to other companies? Remember when "beleaguered Apple" was going broke because they still foolishly insisted on making computers instead of licensing their OS to cloners? Remember when mighty IBM fled from the PC business because they just couldn't make it pay?
I'm puzzled over how and why everything now tilts the other way. What changed in the world around us?
I hate to say Linux but they may benefit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: The OS Warz have begun! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Make sense (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you know they're not planning to really emulate Apple's "success" and move to proprietary hardware/software and tell all of their "partners" to go pound sand? A walled garden would be next.
They could, but that would be insane. Those "partners" would still be pumping out craploads of hardware and need something that would run on it, finally bringing about the Year of Linux on The Desktop, just as the Mayans predicted. When billion dollar businesses are told to fuck off by their trusted partners they don't just go quietly into the night, they do (possibly spiteful, crazy and dickish) things to try to stay afloat.
Re:The first step in a death spiral... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really too bad that Google Chrome (the OS) had to have this radical dependence on remote storage, because I image hardware manufacturers like HP and Dell would really buy into it now that they're competing with Microsoft on the hardware front and that means they're going to have to support Android. If they're going to support Linux they might as well go all in.
Really, companies like Canonical should be setting up meetings with hardware manufacturers pronto. Imagine "Ubuntu Dell Edition" -- a version that includes drivers that will support all Dell hardware configurations from 2012+ (but leaves out the unnecessary ones). Ubuntu HP Edition, etc. The biggest problem with Linux is the same problem Windows has - it has to support so much freaking hardware that support becomes a nightmare. The advantage Windows has is that most of this is setup for the user when they purchase the computer. All these hardware manufacturers will probably now realize that their dependence on Microsoft these past couple decades has put them in an extremely vulnerable position. They should have realized it when the XBox came out.
Re:Make sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft has never had to compete. They always bullied and now that they are in a market where they can't have things their way they find themselves at a loss for what to do.
Re:Make sense (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot of stuff that used to need a desktop that no longer does.
The desktop is going to become niche product, just like high-performance SGI or Sun workstations used to be a niche product compared to the ubiquitous PC.
Tablets and smartphones will replace laptops for most casual use, and laptops will replace the desktop for most daily use. Of course if you have need for cutting-edge space, memory, processing, or video requirements, you'll need a machine that isn't encumbered by form factor. But that will become the specialized workstation, not the norm.