ummm it's not just a touch screen. Watch both videos and compare that to any touchscreen out there now. BIG difference.

Guys this thing has been in development for four years. The iPhone was announced, what, 6 months ago? I doubt they copied Apple.

-Oh and the card reading technology they used was downright impressive

-And since it's Microsoft they can actually persue this and implement it. A few other small companies may offer something kinda like it but in all honesty half of them will never leave the prototype stage, whereas Microsoft can put these things on the market without even flinching.

At $5k - $10k / per unit, I wouldn't get that excited guys ;)

Expect to see this in expensive hotels, airports and similar places. Wonder how the "blue screen of death" looks on this thing...

The iPhone is the consumer equiv - and its going to be launched real soon now...

 

Legend11 said: I realize some people don't want to give Microsoft credit for anything but this is still innovative.

 You are right, a few people don't want to give it credit for that because it isn't, and we know, becuae we were part of the (let's say) 2 million people that saw this 1 year ago and you are part of the 100 Million that saw first time because MS copied or bought it. Also the Iphone presentation some 6 months ago made very clear Apple was taking the route of multi-touch input technology, making it the first consumer product using it. 

 DOS: Bought to some poor guy for a misery after they had the contract with IBM to maake them billionaires.

Windows: Xerox PARC>Apple>Digital Research GEM>Amiga OS and then much worse, MS. 

Word: Copy of Wordperfect

Excel: Visicalc, Lotus 123

Palm: Windows CE

Windows Mobile: Simbian

IE: Netscape, Mozilla

Messenger: ICQ

MSN (1st try): AOL 

MSN (2nd try): Yahoo

MSN Search: Google 

Xbox: Well, you can fill this one as you prefer...

And so on and on and on...

I can't recall a single product that it was trully innovative coming from these guys.  I admire their great marketing expertise, specially guerrilla and aggressive tactics,  but style or innovation, no, these are not their strenghts.  And since Ballmer took over it lost even that, now their strengh is milking monopolies till they dry up... billions of profits every quarter? Sure.  Market cap above 500 M like in the late 90s? nope, I don't see that ever coming again for this co. 

 cheers,

 

albhum said: Legend11 said: I realize some people don't want to give Microsoft credit for anything but this is still innovative. You are right, a few people don't want to give it credit for that because it isn't, and we know, becuae we were part of the (let's say) 2 million people that saw this 1 year ago and you are part of the 100 Million that saw first time because MS copied or bought it. Also the Iphone presentation some 6 months ago made very clear Apple was taking the route of multi-touch input technology, making it the first consumer product using it. DOS: Bought to some poor guy for a misery after they had the contract with IBM to maake them billionaires. Windows: Xerox PARC>Apple>Digital Research GEM>Amiga OS and then much worse, MS. Word: Copy of Wordperfect Excel: Visicalc, Lotus 123 Palm: Windows CE Windows Mobile: Simbian IE: Netscape, Mozilla Messenger: ICQ MSN (1st try): AOL MSN (2nd try): Yahoo MSN Search: Google Xbox: Well, you can fill this one as you prefer... And so on and on and on... I can't recall a single product that it was trully innovative coming from these guys. I admire their great marketing expertise, specially guerrilla and aggressive tactics, but style or innovation, no, these are not their strenghts. And since Ballmer took over it lost even that, now their strengh is milking monopolies till they dry up... billions of profits every quarter? Sure. Market cap above 500 M like in the late 90s? nope, I don't see that ever coming again for this co. cheers,

I agree with virtually your entire list, but I can think of one product - well, Microsoft may not have been the very first to develop it, but I think they were the very first to (unsuccessfully) commercialize motion-sensing in their Sidewinder gamepad.

Motion sensing has been implemented in games way before that. For example in a pre-Doom world, even in a pre-Wolfenstein 3D world actually, there was the an Amiga based arcade games system called "The 1000CS Virtuality System" developed by Virtuality. The players would stand inside a "pod" and wear a helmet (headtracking) and gloves which sensed the players movements and translated them into actions in the virtual world.



Well before Wolfenstein 3D was released for the PC, people could already play deathmatch and capture the flag games in 3D multiplayer FPSs like Dactyl Nightmare with this system. With later technologies from this company would allow you to hold a tennis racket to play tennis games or wear boxing gloves to fight in boxing games.

See the Dactyl Nightmare game in action in this lcheesy GamePro video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybu7Q5uK6k

Microsoft makes a lot of stuff most people never use. Infrared spectroscopy and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance hardware used to identify chemicals in Organic Chemistry all use specially made softwara by Microsoft.

To those who can't think of any Microsoft innovations (copied from a blog and there are many more):

Here are some MS innovations off the top of my head (some big, some small, some built on top of previous work, but lots of “innovations” in tech build on previous work):
* AJAX
* Web browser component usable by any app
* OLE
* Spreadsheet Pivot Tables
* Tabbed spreadheets (since then, copied by other apps such as browsers)
* On-the-fly spell check in word processors
* LINQ (the upcoming tech that will be in C# 3.0 and VB9)
* Video codec innovations that have led to VC-1 being the premier codec for HD-DVD and BR discs.
* Mouse scroll wheels
* Mouse GoForward/GoBack buttons
* Ergonomic mice (I recall the days where you had to press down on a mouse while moving it in order to move the cursor; Microsoft ended that nonsense).
* Ergonomic keyboards
* Office 2007 UI
* Mac Office floating palette UI
* TerraServer (precursor of Virtual Earth, NASA WorldWind, Google Earth)
* Ability to alter compiled code while debugging it
* User Agents
* Wizards
* Intellisense
* Answer Wizard technology in Office Help
* ClearType
* TrueType (collaboration with Apple)
* Bob (yeah, it failed in the marketplace, but it was innovative (too much for its own good))
* Dynamic HTML desktops
* Taskbar
* Alt-Tab to switch apps
* Lots of small innovations in .NET that when combined equal large cumulative innovation.
* ActiveX (yes, it had security issues, particularly before XP SP2, but is great in an intranet setting)
* Net-DDE, the first tech to allow clipboard functionality over LAN
* Singularity
* Combining the Back and Forward history buttons into one navigation stack control in IE7
* Photosynth
* XPS (does everything that PDF does, adds graphical effects that PDF lacks, does it in a smaller file size, and does it using XML so the files can be manipulated via XML parsers)
* Windows Live Contacts (being developed by Danny Thorpe (legendary programmer at Borland, who jumped to Google, then 4 months later went to Microsoft))
* A bunch of little stuff in IM via MSN Messenger
* OneNote (I don’t think there’s any other app really like it (and those that try to be like it aren’t anywhere near as good), particuarly when used on a Tablet PC)
* Mac Word 2004’s notebook layout and microphone support
* Zune’s WiFi (yes, the RIAA only allowed 3play/3day sharing, but its use will grow into other areas)
* First console to have a harddrive (Xbox)
* Browser runs in a sandbox (IE7 on Vista)
* First browser with anti-phishing tech
* Multi-core/CPU calculations in Excel 2007
* XNA
* Vista’s ability to allow the user to increase RAM simply by plugging in a USB 2.0 flash drive
* First OS to support delayed clipboard rendering
* First OS to have a 3D Sound api for games
* Shadow Copy
* Media Center Extenders (which iTV looks to be a copy of)

most of the stuff surface can do was demonstrated in a press conference about a year ago. includng the interface such as dragging the corners of images to resize them.

MikeB said: agree with virtually your entire list, but I can think of one product - well, Microsoft may not have been the very first to develop it, but I think they were the very first to (unsuccessfully) commercialize motion-sensing in their Sidewinder gamepad. Motion sensing has been implemented in games way before that. For example in a pre-Doom world, even in a pre-Wolfenstein 3D world actually, there was the an Amiga based arcade games system called "The 1000CS Virtuality System" developed by Virtuality. The players would stand inside a "pod" and wear a helmet (headtracking) and gloves which sensed the players movements and translated them into actions in the virtual world. Well before Wolfenstein 3D was released for the PC, people could already play deathmatch and capture the flag games in 3D multiplayer FPSs like Dactyl Nightmare with this system. With later technologies from this company would allow you to hold a tennis racket to play tennis games or wear boxing gloves to fight in boxing games. See the Dactyl Nightmare game in action in this lcheesy GamePro video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybu7Q5uK6k

 Virtuality were really bad games.  Once the novelty factor passed nobody would play them.  Besides, technology existed before virtuality made their machines.  As far as I know I agree with Sidewinder being innovative. But they didn't know how to create a market for it.  MS succeeds once somebody else created the market, then they refine (arguably), expand and dominate.   Could we call it the cuckoo strategy?