Q&A: Microsoft swallows tablet concept whole Andrew Donoghue Microsoft's Julius Sinkevicius discusses the company strategy for tablet PC. How do you see notebooks and tablets evolving? Do you see them as two distinct product types or will they eventually converge?
Ever since we launched the product our vision has always been that within five years most portable computers -- meaning laptops and notebooks -- will eventually have tablet PC technologies. We are starting to see that right now; for example Acer introduced a machine last year (Acer TravelMate 250P) that was a full laptop computer and the screen didn't swivel around but it did have a digitiser and it allows you to use a pen.
We recognise that not everyone will have note-taking requirements with a need to use a pen all the time but they might need one occasionally. And it's not just for note-taking it's for navigation too. There are around 40 OEMs in the market today making tablets and we are starting to hear about evolution of that technology into mainstream notebooks. Up until recently most of the tablets have been 10 inch or 12 inch screens but last November, both Acer and Gateway released 14-inch tablets with integrated DVDs. With Acer the difference between their tablet PC and their notebook is around £75. A user could walk in and buy it and not even know they are buying a tablet and able to write on the screen. Analyst Meta Group recently claimed that tablets are not really suitable for general workers yet and are really only worthwhile for specific niches such as education, healthcare and manufacturing. Does Microsoft agree with that observation?
We definitely saw early uptake in healthcare and education. But as the middle wave of tablets integrate Centrino technology and the predominance of wireless and the strength of the machines, we are starting to see some companies putting tablets on their standard lists as the thin and light notebook. Also Office 2004 has ink integrated into it and that's designed for the broader information worker. So definitely early uptake in the niche areas but we are still positioning this as a general information worker machine. When do you see that 'broadening out' happening?
Enterprises' evaluation cycles are pretty long compared to a consumer. We have seen a lot of pilots, companies 20, 30, 40 at a time, bringing them in house and doing a full evaluation. As the second wave of tablets came out in November last year -- with the new Toshiba and the HP Unit incorporating the Centrino technology -- I think that is going to drive adoption. A lot of it has to do with their adoption of Windows XP too. As we are a super-set of Windows XP, it's not as simple a case of saying I am bringing tablets into my environment, it's a case of bringing Windows XP and Office 2004 into the environment. What's Microsoft's take on how long tablets have actually been around for and how long the development cycle has taken?
We began a ten-base Windows initiative about a decade ago but that was based on a whole different set of principles. The handwriting technology that is in Tablet today has probably been in development for about a decade in Microsoft Labs. One of the reasons we waited so long is that we felt for Tablet to be successful it had to be a full-functioning Windows machine. The screen technology had to be rich enough to capture handwriting in a very high-fidelity type of way. About 2000/2001 we felt we were on the brink of all this coming together. Three or four years ago we couldn't get a machine that had that much power; that had a longer battery life. Now we feel the technology is all coming together especially the battery technology. Is there any emerging technology you would like to see incorporated into tablets over the next couple of years?
We know that there is fuel-cell technology coming. It's very interesting but we don't know what that means in terms of mobility -- can it work on a plane? Are there security concerns because of the fuel involved? Biometric devices are definitely interesting -- we have already seen a few implementations of fingerprint readers. But we know that that technology in certain instances can be spoofed. Also the advancement made in the small CCD cameras on smartphones -- is it possible to have some kind of retinal recognition. Also in the world of LCD technology we hear about formable and bendable screen technology and there also always improvements in screen technology. Also the pervasiveness of Wi-Fi makes Tablet very compelling. Anything that allows you to increase the range of input options is really interesting to us.
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