Well this is depressing. Word has just gone fluttering out of Redmond that work on the Courier project -- a heretofore rumored dual-screen tablet which rightfully set the tech world ablaze -- has been spun down by the company. Here's the official line from Frank Shaw, Microsoft's VP of corporate communications:

At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It's in Microsoft's DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The "Courier" project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.

All very sad, of course. So how did we get here? And was this thing ever really real to begin with? After all, it's hard to kill something that never lived. Well here's the deal, according to a source familiar with the situation: the Courier did indeed start life as a potential new product category for the company, one which was being incubated internally with very real plans for a marketable device. It seems, however, that things just didn't manage to take shape, and word was handed down very recently that the incubation period had reached its conclusion -- sans product -- and resources would be directed elsewhere. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't see some of this technology turn up in other products which Microsoft has in the pipeline (the company does keep quite a few balls in the air), but it does mean that those rendered videos of the Courier in action will remain, unfortunately, renders. As far as the Engadget team is concerned, there isn't a dry eye in the house right now -- but the Courier will always remain in our hearts as one of the finest unicorns that ever unicorned across our screens.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/microsoft-confirms-kills-courier-in-one-fell-swoop/

-------------------------

Sucks...

*message send from iPad*

This could have seriously been 100000x better than the iPad. This is kinda sad, who the hell is making these decisions at Microsoft?

$10,000 table? PERFECT!
Original, well designed tabled? Nope

Did people really think this was ever going to come out?

Really?

I think most people knew it was just a proof of concept piece.

Considering the money MS must have lost in that new fiasco, I think they really intended to release it.

As stated in the article, it was more than a "proof of concept". But the Ipad killed it I guess.

Ms does this kind of thing all the time (so does Apple). They design dozens of products that never see the light of day.

It was obvious to me that once this thing hit user acceptance testing (if it ever got that far), it would die.

its one of those things that looks great in a video, but when you have it in your hand and have to use it for something, it falls far short of it's intended purpose.

I am sure they lost as much money as they expected to lose on it. It could have also just been a ploy to try and keep the iPad from selling. The carrot on a stick kind of thing. I don't think it was that however.