November 14, 2006

Knock-knock

Who’s there?

Microsoft Zune.

Microsoft Zune who?

Exactly.

Microsoft releases their Zune media player, intended to compete with Apple’s iPod. Hailed by some as an “iPod-killer”, the only killing done was by Microsoft less than 5 years later when they ended production of the Zune brand. Otherwise known as simply another media player to fall to the iPod behemoth, the Zune is considered a spectacular failure when taking into account the weight of the Microsoft brand at the time. The Zune’s lack of success foreshadowed of the decline of Microsoft in The New World of Technology, once Apple introduced the iPhone and iPad effectively ending the PC Era.

November 12, 2000

Bill Gates demonstrates a functional prototype of a Tablet PC. Microsoft claims “the Tablet PC will represent the next major evolution in PC design and functionality.” However, the Tablet PC initiative never really takes off and it isn’t until Apple introduced the iPad in 2010 that tablet computing is widely adopted.

In my opinion, Microsoft’s failure with the Tablet PC initiative was threefold. First, they simply tried to adapt Windows, an operating system designed for use with a keyboard and mouse, for use with a touchscreen/pen interface. Users never really warmed up to the awkward hybrid interface. Second, by their own words they were “incorporating the convenient and intuitive aspects of pencil and paper into the PC experience.” Rather than innovating, it appears to me that Microsoft was moving backwards by trying to graft an older paradigm (pencil and paper) onto a computer. It’s one thing to create an app or peripheral that mimics pencil and paper – it’s another to base an entire technology initiative around it. Finally, Microsoft left the design of the hardware to their OEM partners, most of whom are not especially well-known for innovating designs. Most Tablet PCs were considered too big, heavy, and expensive, plus the required pen/stylus was prone to loss. All of these factors left many Tablet PCs collecting dust if they were sold at all.

Likely the lessons that Microsoft learned from this early effort led to Microsoft manufacturing their own hardware for their Surface Tablets starting in the late 2010s, mimicking the model that Apple proved successful.

November 10, 1983

Microsoft formally announces Windows, a graphical user interface for Microsoft DOS-based systems. Bill Gates promises that Windows will ship by April of 1984. However, in true Microsoft fashion, Windows 1.0 doesn’t actually ship until November 1985. While Windows 1 and Windows 2 saw limited usage, it wasn’t until Windows version 3 that Windows began to see widespread acceptance.