Om, I’m having a heart attack

Hmm, odd. I've worked with several tablets here at work - let me say I'm NOT impressed thus far. First and foremost, if you're going to do any amount of typing/data entry/input/etc., even writing numerous emails, the tablet is a pain. I had lots of problems with the hand writing recognition system, as well as getting overall data entry working in a reasonable manner. The tablets I've tested have also gotten hot really easily (not so comfortable to hold), though reasonably fast are also not the lightest either - at least not when you compare one to a similar laptop with the same size of screen. For the price, I don't think the extra features for most users are worth it.

For drawing perhaps it'd be handy, and I can see a few other places where it's useful. Multimedia work, photo editing, recording, stuff like that - it's more useful there, but for me - definitely not very useful.

Please stop suggesting MS buy every little innovation on the web. It makes you unpopular and stupid looking at the same time. Besides, what would MS do with it besides kill it from neglect?

Go get your own ideas you who represents the company that claims to "innovate" (and has never done anything of the kind).

Slate tablets make __no__ sense whatsoever. Convertible tablets are winning me over. I just took a project for the large global company I work for to look at tablets. Went in guns blazing to kill the project...until I got a convertible in my hand, did the pricing, and saw the delta to not be too much from our current laptops.

Now, I'm actively working with the Field Sales/Field Service organizations to see if a convertible might be a collaboration/multi-function device to help improve productivity.

The convertible works well because I can type and ink at the same time or convert fully to ink during meetings so that I don't look like I'm simply surfing the net or doing email.

Handwriting recognition is all right - when I get rushed it suffers from my sloppiness, but in a pinch I can just send the handwritten notes to people. Speech to text needs some work...still trying to train the system to my voice.

Maybe I will try out Vista on it before my demo time is done.

Russ

Innocent: hmmm, we bought Flight Simulator. That hasn't been killed by neglect. Neither has PowerPoint. Neither has Halo. Neither has Word. Neither has Hotmail. (All were brought here by acquisitions) Neither has a bunch of other stuff we've bought over the years.

And, personally, that was meant as a compliment to 37 Signals which is doing a bunch of stuff we love. I seriously doubt we'd buy them.

As far as innovations: I'm getting tired of this stuff. It doesn't matter what you call them. It matters whether they serve some sort of customer need. If we only listened to you you'd think that Microsoft is dead and dying. But our booth at CES was crammed every day.

"But our booth at CES was crammed every day."

Idolatry, star system. Thanks Channel9.

I love my HP TC 4200 Tablet PC which is less intrusive in meeting and cleint interviews for taking notes. I also like the ease of use of One Note 2003 and the easy to use voice recording on the same page as my handwritten notes. The recognition works well for me and the TEO plugin for Outlook works great with easy integration with MapPoint Maps when I go out on appointments to meet new clients. I also see some of the appeal of Mac platform and would consider buying an Intel Apple DuoCore Tablet. I am wondering when DuoCore Tablet PC's will appear. PS how do I get on beta list for OneNote 12 ?

Scoble baby,

I'm sick of hearing about "the tablet" which is basically windows with a pointer instead of a mouse. BFD. RETHINK what you do. REIMAGINE what the computer is. VISTA on TABLET will be SHIIT on a TABLET. NOBODY GIVES A FIG.

Second - the inventor of the tablet was a little company called GO computing which MS CRUSHED through the use of anti-competitive behavior for which MS has been CONVICTED but not PUNISHED.

THIRD - Check out this little video and and compare it to what Vista on a Tablet will do. Think HARD about whether MS is actually INNOVATING or putting up a roadblock to PREVENT others from INNOVATING.

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

FOURTH - MS killed my fucking company after lying about future plans (and we FUCKING ASKED before committing our money to development) and promising they wouldn't compete with my product (which was superior but not bundled and free).

INNOVATORS? How about INNOVATION SUCKING LUDDITES. That about sums up the MS I've experienced.

Christ what a fucking pollyana

Tablet PC's are great. But there's a lot to the experience that I wouldn't recommend to people. The key is picking the good out from the bad...I'd almost say to Microsoft, don't promote the parts that don't work perfectly. I have a full set of notes I need to get posted...it's not cheerleading, just the real scoop on what works and what doesn't.

Microsoft may not have him long-->http://wmrice.wordpress.com/2006/02/03/new-apple-patents-tablet-at-hrmpfcom/.

I was recently lured away from my HP Tablet for the beauty and functionality of the Mac as used and demo'd from friends and the "Genius Bar" at the Apple store. This will probably keep me on Apple unless Microsoft Vista is a bigger than digital life :)

I doubt that Vista will be larger than digital life. I've frequently been told by people, "Just wait till PDC!" "Just wait for Vista!".. But, I when I went to PDC,I was thinking, that's *it*? The Big announcement is Office 12? Superfetch is a nice idea, but doesn't rock my world. I could go on, but I won't.

I really hope I'm "wowed" by Microsoft with Vista. I'd love to have Bragging rights over the OS I use and, generally enjoy. However, I always feel that if Microsoft *isn't* one step behind, the areas where it is ahead of the curve isn't Marketed. great example is the Tablet. My non-geek friends *loved* the tablet I used. I loved it. Problem was, they never knew existed. They mostly bought Macs instead, because they were deemed cooler, and they *knew* about it. Another example is the iPod. How long has MP3 players been available? With decent sized hard drives? Long before the iPod commercials a few years back. But, it took marketing to show people, "look what you can do".

The only marketing I've seen Microsoft do for the masses, of late, is the whole Microsoft Office Dinosaur ads. Why would anyone want to buy Office after seeing a bunch of people with dinosaur heads?!

You know, it's funny that people who have never spent any time using a tablet do the most complaining. Seriously, "Slates make no sense"? Maybe not to everyone, but that's what markets are about, that's why there are choices. For me it's all about notetaking and there's nothing better for it. I've gotten my hands on a pretty wide variety of tablets and some are better than others. That's the way it is. And you can't pick one up and use it for an hour and expect to be an expert. It doesn't work for tablets or anything else.

Innocent Bystander, you're a loser.

To Mike (comment #12)

I've been using tablets - for considerably more than an hour. Slates make no sense for where I want to use them in my business because the people I talked to want a keyboard with them as well. If the keyboard is disconnected from the tablet it's one more thing for people to lose or not have when they truly need it.

Yes, notetaking on tablets is great. Collaboration is another big thing that I'm liking with them.

Personally I like the flexibility of the convertibles - that makes sense. I can type when I need to type and ink when I need to ink or do a combination and never have to worry about where I stashed my keyboard (or require a training video to put my keyboard on to my tablet...something very wrong in that design)

Yep, if I was buying a tablet it'd be a convertible. To me, a slate is an "either / or" device. I can either use it effectively or not. The convertible is an "and / too" device. It can be a laptop, a "slate", whatever I need it to be, in a form factor that works for me.

>Innocent Bystander, you’re a loser

Very nice. Game, Set, Match.

Seriously, will there be anything like what's in the video I cited in Vista on Tablet. If so, then perhaps I'll be amazed.

I'm kinda doubting it though as MS's sole contribution (and its a very significant one) to the industry was ODBC (which they mostly bought from Sybase - but they did improve it).

Thanks for the inbound link, Robert. You'll probably beat Andru as my top referrer in a matter of hours ;-).

It was a lot of fun to sit around in the basement with all you crazy funny smart people. Yes, even Broback.

It was great to see you and Maryam. I need to get my ass down to the Bay Area to hang out with y'all more often.

How utterly bizzare! I left that last comment on your post about the long chat we all had and it turned up here.

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