Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft is definitely thinking ahead when it comes to its Surface tablet. At a TechEd event held in Amsterdam today, the company has said that it believes tablet sales will overtake PCs within the next year. Antoine Leblond, vice president for Windows Web Services, spoke about how touch interfaces will become the dominant platform in the coming years, and that tablets will outsell traditional PCs for the first time.

“Touch is coming to PCs and that’s going to change the way UIs are designed very dramatically, just like the mouse did,” Leblond said at the event, going on to detail how Microsoft’s new Metro interface has been specifically optimized for touch operations. Still, the company won’t be shunning those keen to cling to laptops and PCs: “[Metro] works equally well on a desktop or a tablet.”

Microsoft introduced two Surface tablets at an event its event in Los Angeles, one based on the ARM architecture while the other runs on Intel’s low-voltage Ivy Bridge processor. The ARM version will be running Windows RT, while the Intel variant will run full blown Windows 8. The company was keen to point out the magnesium construction of the device along with the integrated kickstand, and impressed those in attendance with the introduction of a cover that doubles as a keyboard.

Manufacturing partners apparently aren’t quite as impressed. Details of the Surface tablet reportedly weren’t revealed to them until the last minute, with an executive at Acer believing the tablet is nothing more than an attempt to spark interest in Windows 8 tablets among OEMs. A report from an analyst has also detailed how Microsoft looked at OEM partners’ tablet lineups yet went ahead with the Surface announcement, something which is said to have changed the dynamics of the relationships between the company and its partners.

[via PCPro]

Microsoft predicts tablets overtaking PCs next year is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When Microsoft announced that it would be making its own Windows 8 Surface tablet, some believed the next logical step was for the company to start producing its own smartphones next. An executive at Microsoft has come out and said that this isn’t the case, and that the company won’t pursue the same strategy. When asked directly if Microsoft had any plans to apply the same formula to phones, Greg Sullivan, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone, said, “No, we do not.”

It was a bold move for Microsoft to enter the tablet space by itself, especially with the risk of alienating its OEM partners in the process. Acer has already spoken out against the move, saying that it’s a ploy to spark interest in the overall platform, boosting OEM interest in the operating system before Microsoft makes its exit from hardware later on.

A single analyst sparked the rumor for a Microsoft built Windows Phone 8 handset, claiming that the company had a deal in place with a hardware manufacturer to produce such a phone. Details aren’t clear as to whether it was a reference platform, or a product designed to be shipped to consumers, but the analyst went on to say that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft bring a branded handset to the market next year.

Hardware partners for Windows Phone 8, meanwhile, include Samsung, HTC, Nokia, and Huawei. Tentative details of HTC’s Windows Phone 8 devices have already emerged, with options for the entry-level, midrange, and high-end of the market. The budget device, codenamed Rio, is said to have a 4-inch WVGA display, and is powered by a Snapdragon S4 Plus processor with 512MB of RAM while featuring a five megapixel camera. The hero device, Zenith, reportedly comes with a 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD2 display, a Snapdragon quad-core processor, an eight megapixel camera, and HSPA+ speeds up to 42Mbit/s.

[via Information Week]

Microsoft: We’ve no own-brand Windows Phone plans is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Fears of Windows tablet manufacturer apathy spurred Microsoft’s Surface development, despite insistence that the slates are intended to support not compete with OEM efforts, according the latest batch of rumors. Observations of the extent to which Apple will go to secure the materials necessary to develop distinctive and unique products – and concerns that its own Windows OEMs were playing device strategy too safely – prompted Microsoft taking Surface into its own hands, a former executive told the NYT, burned too by the ill-fated HP Slate 500 project.

That tablet, demonstrated by Steve Ballmer back in 2010 as a poster-child of Windows 7 on touchscreen hardware, highlighted the shortcomings both of off-the-shelf components and Microsoft’s own platform. Components sufficient to run Windows 7 left the slate heavy, thick, hot and expensive, while the performance of the OS itself fell significantly short of the iPad’s usability. “It would be like driving a car, and the car not turning when you turn the wheel” a former HP executive who worked on the Slate 500 project said, blaming underwhelming finger-friendliness in Windows and the multitouch display for the issues.

HP went on to spend hugely on acquiring Palm for webOS, then dropped the platform into open-source vagueness after the initial HP TouchPad feedback proved subpar. According to insiders at the firm, HP was frustrated at the apparent lack of time and investment Microsoft appeared to be demonstrating in getting Windows 7 to the level where it could legitimately compete with iOS on the iPad. For its part, Microsoft was supposedly reluctant to free up engineers and developers from coding Windows 8, which is designed from the outset to accomodate touchscreen control.

Opinion is now divided as to whether Microsoft wants to continue with its own hardware range or if, after it has shamed OEMs into action, it will bow out. “I think once they jump-start it, they plan to make money the way they always have,” MIT management professor Michael A. Cusamano suggests, “from licensing software,” echoing similar comments recently from Acer’s founder.

The company itself, though, is playing its cards close. “Microsoft has tremendous respect for our hardware partners and the innovation they bring to the Windows ecosystem,” Microsoft corporate VP Steven Guggenheimer insisted in the aftermath of the Surface reveal last week. “We are looking forward to the incredible range of new devices they are bringing out for Windows 8.” No pricing or specific release dates for either the ARM-based Windows RT Surface or the more expensive Intel-based Windows 8 Surface Pro have been confirmed.

As of late-2010, the ex-Microsoft exec claims, it was still undecided internally whether Surface would be Microsoft-branded or licensed out as a hardware reference design. The added control of helming the project from drawing board to store shelves seems to have tipped Microsoft’s hand, however.

Surface spawned over timid OEMs tip ex-Microsofties is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.