The danger of not letting your bloggers know… (more Origamisms)
What’s the danger of not letting your internal bloggers know about your product release plans? They might not be able to help keep your announcements in proper perspective. But, that’s OK. Todd Bishop, of the Seattle PI did more work over the weekend to dig into the details behind the Origami project. He learned that there isn’t going to be a product release on March 2, but that we’ll learn more details. John Markoff of the New York Times has more details too. And Memeorandum is tracking a bunch of comments.
Kent Newsome asks “will it walk the walk?”
Whenever hype gets ahead of an announcement, the answer has to be: no.
But, then, you gotta realize that I totally agree with Joe Wilcox who says that the best companies underpromise and overdeliver. ;-)
Maybe I should have posted that no one will want an Origami and that it sucks raw potatoes.
Seriously, let’s keep our hype in check, OK? Where’s the snarks when we need them? Calling Christopher Coulter, calling Christopher Coulter!
Oh, and marketing teams, I know you don’t want to let bloggers in on the secret, but when you don’t tell us what’s up we can’t help you keep expectations under control. Now everyone expects Origami to be bigger than the Xbox. I’d much rather expectations were dialed down a bit.
To bloggers outside Microsoft: it’s not healthy when things get hyped up so much. Whenever a company does this (whether it’s the one I work for, or another company), ask some tough questions. I have a ton. What is this? Who will want it? When will it be purchasable? When will there be decent quantities on the shelf? What are its limitations? Who’ll think it sucks? Who’ll think it rocks? Are any real customers using it yet? What will the price be? What will the real price be (after you deck it out to work properly?) When will we be able to get our hands on one? Does it have a chance in the marketplace? Why? Will Patrick Scoble want one of these instead of a video iPod? Why? (And, yes, as soon as I have one in my hands I’m gonna show it to Patrick and see if we have a clue).
Anyway, it’s gonna be a fun week. And not just because of Origami stuff. See ya in New York!
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February 27th, 2006 at 3:04 am
Just watched the teaser presentation site and it says that Origami will be announced on the 3/2/06 - that was 24 days ago, what gives??
When will US companies learn that they are the only country in the world to use m/d/y numeric format - please Mr. Scobliezer, King of Communication give someone a big kick where their spine ends and get them to use Alpha numeric dates.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:41 am
Actually, that was over 2000 years ago. Written in the One True Format, the date would read 2006-03-02.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:23 am
This is a perfect example of why Apple is so secretive. What could MS really say about Origami now that wouldn’t be greeted with “Yeah, we knew that”.
Even with all the rumors swirling about tomorrow’s Apple announcement, no one really feels like they know, so Apple gets excitement created without a lot of work on their part. Just saying “We’re announcing something on Feb. 28th creates a storm of excitement”.
That’s something MS has little of.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:27 am
News is that the video is more than a year old. Why don’t we give Microsoft a chance and wait till 02-Mar-2006 for the official announcement.
If the device is good enough, people will buy it regardless of what we know about it NOW.
February 27th, 2006 at 5:09 am
People spent the weekend anticipating a Microsoft launch. That’s the goal of the marketers, who are clearly taking a viral approach. We may not be happy with the tease, but then we may not be the target of the message…
February 27th, 2006 at 5:10 am
Hey robert, why is hype bad eh ?? It seems to work with every other product- ask the hype god - mike A!!
The market know(or will know)- more about the product, then the company that makes it. Yes, the market is interconnected and will talk-may it be bad or good- they will still talk. What matters is that the product speaks for itself in the marketplace!!
Yes-under promise over deliver
February 27th, 2006 at 6:24 am
I agree with one thing…it HAS to be something that’s announced on the 2nd of March and is available at retail within the month or so…no point in announcing something right now and releasing it in December…
if it’s a true convergent device, It might be something that I’ve been longing for…for years…
hmmm…I’m willing to bet that it’s got something to do with Transmeta’s secret MS project and the m-systems system-on-chip deal made 2 years back…
February 27th, 2006 at 6:29 am
/pd: how many of the companies that Mike talks about (I disagree that he hypes them up, by the way) will be profitable? How many will survive two years?
Farooq: if it takes until December to buy one then I agree that it is doomed. But, I still haven’t heard yet when the average person will be able to buy one.
Looking at the target market, I’d say that if they don’t have the channel stuffed with a ton by May that they’ll be missing a big opportunity (the back to school market, which arrives in June/July).
February 27th, 2006 at 8:14 am
“how many of the companies that Mike talks about (I disagree that he hypes them up, by the way) will be profitable? How many will survive two years?”
Good !! Now tell that to Edgeio :)-
February 27th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Will it run MacOsX-intel?
February 27th, 2006 at 8:18 am
What about the danger of letting your bloggers know? Especially ones that talk too much.
February 27th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Anonymous: well, if you ask a blogger not to talk and he or she does, at least you know where to find them. But, in this case I don’t know whether to talk or not cause no one is giving the bloggers guideance. Which is a recipe for even deeper trouble than if you shared your cards in the first place.
February 27th, 2006 at 8:56 am
You called? Now that busy with History Channel, you will hafta call. ;)
Speaking of history…
A History Lesson
Well letsee, Bill Gates and Paul Otellini talk about the Haiku and Ruby ultra-mobile prototypes, Softies talk about it forever, Evan hints and teases, more Microsoft blogger hints from from Tablet Team outsiders, that Tablet Team has a new product coming out soon, but given a vague date ranges of 2007ish, then Bert on Channel 9 talking “Smartphones” and “Tablets” and other read between the lines stuff, rumors leak to press, lots of chatter that it’s hitting (all shrug tho), Intel UMPC news all over Asian press (Samsung presenting at CEBIT), with Samsung, LGE, Acer, Averatec and ASUS UMPC news all over Asian Press, Tablet PC Partner Conference where it’s shown around, and word leaks out, more rumors, with MVP sorts yapping it up (nudge nuddge, “off-the-record” yet “on-the-record”), and ArtRage fans spreading rumors, and then a ’secret site’ that you somehow missed? And now an agency video that leaked was detailing what everyone thought anyways. And now, when everyone knows, they still aren’t pulling off the curtains just yet? And then you are miffed you weren’t informed? While I agree they should get key spokespeople in line, you sure had to be asleep at the wheel to miss this one. Just going to Digitimes daily coulda seen it coming a ten miles away.
But really old news after the Evan post…
http://blogs.msdn.com/evanf/archive/2005/04/03/405083.aspx
“In other news, the moment of truth came and went…I was part of a small group of people who had a concept presented at the Executive Retreat a couple of weeks ago. The feedback that we got from the execs was to go ahead and build it. So this upcoming week a few people will be shopping around the concept to the OEMs and if one of them (or more decides to build it) we’ve got a new and interesting product to put together.”
——–
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/06/intel_umpc/
“Intel is gearing up for the release of its handtop computer platform later in this quarter: The first “Ultra Mobile PCs” (UMPCs) will arrive with a standby time of a week and include WWAN and GPS capability. A second batch of UMPCs will follow in the second half of this year and come with Windows Vista preinstalled, TG Daily has learned.”
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/02/ultramobile_lif.html
“Rob Bushway is attending the Partner briefing hosted by Microsoft, a meeting where MS is sharing information about upcoming products in the Mobile PC (and Tablet PC) arena with OEM partners and developers. There is exciting news coming out of this meeting about “Mobile Lifestyle PCs” that will be pen enabled, have long battery life, and cost around $500.”
Final thought: For the life of me I still can’t figure out why HP killed the TC line.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:26 am
2nd Final Thoughts (just think Cher’s 5th Annual Farwell tours). ;)
So now, a ’second batch’ that will come with Vista later. So pay not much attention to the first one then. Well something for Gates to chat up at the next CES, which is about when it will be in volume. Speaking of hardware glitches, geesh I am STILL unable to get a Xbox 360 anywhere retail, I guess just wait another 2-4 weeks, right? Least the UMPC tossed to OEMs.
But it’s doomed if the Tablet PC team is doing the Marketing and OEMs are doing bare min. I predict a similar trajectory, gadget freaks will have ‘origasms’, but the mainstream will find the UMPC still too big, and will find their needs met in Treo. And limited vertical use, more consumer, but the fan sites and MVP folk should start regging the domains now.
“Microsoft discussed the Ultra-mobile Lifestyle PC with partners last week and hinted that an announcement might be forthcoming from OEMs very soon.” - Yeah, I was tapping you too (email overload?), but I think you were in some Swiss WiFi Hot Tub then. :)
But here’s what’s already out there…
Cost - around $500, well under Tablet PC $2,000 ranges.
CPU - ULV Pentium M
Avail: Dec 2006 to Jan. 2007
OEMs - Samsung, LGE, Acer, Founder, Averatec and ASUS (to start). Toshiba and Sony already flirted off per past attempts? (But Tosh’s M400 a dream).
Breakthrough Period - mid-2007-2008 timeframes.
Battery Life - around 8 hours.
Connectivity - WiFi, EVDO, HSDPA, GPS
Touchscreen, no Active-Digitizer
February 27th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Christopher: if it’s not available until December then it’s already dead. This thing has to be on market before back to school. I’m off to see Otto to find out what’s up.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:59 am
[...] Hot damn. That’s an out-of-date but still very nice video advert for the handheld computer Microsoft’s rumored to be building - more details forthcoming, eventually, on Microsoft’s currently useless teaser site. Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble has gone into hype reduction mode, which probably means the first version will underwhelm, but nevertheless - as I’ve said before - portable computing with ubiquitous web access is the future. I’m not saying that Microsoft will find the magic have-to-have hardware (hint: it shouldn’t take over a minute to boot), but someone will. The enhanced mobility will make a ton of new applications possible. Get developing your products now, before these things hit critical mass. microsoft, origami, origami+project, handheld, hype Posted by Greg Yardley @ 5:58 pm [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Christopher: I just talked with Otto. Your details are wrong.
All the announcements are gonna be at CeBit.
February 27th, 2006 at 10:33 am
[...] Interestingly enough Scoble has just put up a fresh post trying to downplay it or at least convince others to calm down a little, so I see troubled waters ahead … sucks to be the Microsoft CEO (*thats a joke btw*). [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Duh, Samsung already said such. And the details vary from OEM to OEM. And ‘announcements’ don’t equal shipping, and if the details are wrong, then Intel is lying.
if it’s not available until December then it’s already dead.
Nah, it won’t break-thru until 1Q 2008 with Vista anayways. Most will sit out the first round, only early adopters, geek folk and MVP wantabe’s will clamor first hit, funding the beta testing. Still if got good battery life, and a good sync story, could get some hit’s. But ‘tweeners’ never gain much ground.
But I think some OEMs should flag this up as the new corporate NEC Mobile Pro, and include an attached keyboard. Get corporates and verticals on board, and then hit consumer. Tablet tried that but wasn’t able to break into consumer.
But one of these suckers with Vista and OneNote 2 and good connectivity story? I could see it. But then I could see Tablet too, and look what happened there. But the beyond PDA market is ripe, so timing on their side.
It depends on real world vetting. Still think it’s a hard sell to mainstream, work on verticals and coporates too.
February 27th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Robert - when will you be in NYC? Are we having a geek dinner and/or drinks thing?
February 27th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Robert,
this issue really illustrates just how bad the loss of focus is at Microsoft. it’s not even a “right hand doesn’t know what the left one is doing” anymore, that would actually be an improvement.
Now it’s “The right index finger doesn’t know what the right thumb is doing”
The lack of internal communication I see on a regular basis from MS is really quite shocking.
February 27th, 2006 at 11:24 am
[...] Not to be outdone, Microsoft has gotten into the hype game (it seems that America’s favorite billionaire just can’t keep his company’s fingers out of anything). The mammoth software company is set to release a new piece of hardware, deemed the Origami Project. Complete with a vague and viral website, Origami is shaping up to be this week’s biggest tech news — bigger, even, than the coinciding Apple event. Even the New York Times is covering it, without much mention of Apple’s potential new products In fact, it seems that Microsoft “technical evangelist” Robert Scoble is the only one downplaying the hype. [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Coulter? Double take! Robert I thought you meant Anne Coulter! After a web search Coulter seems, uh obsessed with you! http://thomashawk.com/2005/12/andrew-orlowski-on-moral.html Christopher why?
February 27th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Ann is far more macho and much less feminine than Chris
February 27th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
“All the announcements are gonna be at CeBit. ”
So what? They’ll be announcements that several different OEMs have expensively mangled this design spec into several different products of varying desireability. They’ll be announcements that there will be availability at some future date. Even your silly announcement in a few days is not an announcement; as PT and others have mentioned, you announced this concept over two years ago and had actually had a few attempts at the smaller form even years before that.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
[...] Origami received coverage in New York times, and this week we’ll be hearing more details about this device. In related news, Scoble talks about < href=”http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/02/27/the-danger-of-not-letting-your-bloggers-know-more-origamisms/” target=”_blank”>letting your bloggers know. [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
But Scoble you told me that they were shipping on the 3rd.
How could you say they were shipping if you didn’t know. I don’t care whether they should have told you or not. But I do care that you will stand guarantee for something that you don’t even know.
You should have subscribed to their mailing list maybe :) if you wanted to be in the loop.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Hi Robert-
I’m glad to see that MSFT is getting more skilled in trying to generate buzz for an upcoming product launch.
The bigboy bloggers have really fallen for this strategy…what lemmings. It is amazing to watch these Old world PR teams adapt to manipulating/shifting perception within the blogosphere.
Leaking pictured, videos, and mysterious flash websites are a great start….. now all you guys need is a hardware product that doesn’t suck. Apple has mastered the ‘launch’…everyone anticipates what they’re about to launch.
I mean how much did MSFT have to spend to hype XBOX 360? You guys are about equal to Sony…maybe a little worse, I’m sorry to say.
I’m a big fan of your blog, but it would be better if the MSFT PR machine didn’t have to approve your various postings in advance…. that’s sort a buzz kill. It would definately make things more interesting, but I suppose it would open legal liability.
Best regards,
-E. David Zotter
February 27th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
“I’m glad to see that MSFT is getting more skilled in trying to generate buzz for an upcoming product launch.”
Are they?
This will be MS talking about a spec. A Month later 2 or 3 OEMs will show a prototype. At the earliest a device will not arrive until Vista’s launch. We don’t know if OEMs will remain consistent or if they will be able to get all the features in at a reasonable cost or if they will be expensive. From there, we don’t really know if having a 4×6 or 5×8 version of a notebook or tablet is really worth it–does it make a good media/personal device? does it make a good laptop?
Personally, All I see is a vaporous hype machine similar to the Hailstorm campaign, the Athens prototype campaign, the PMP/iPod-killer campaign, the SPOT campaign, the XBox2 campaign, etc…
February 27th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Its an Apple Newton.
OK, its got color, and bluetooth (wifi?) but its pretty much a Newton. Which is not surprising, since MS hired the original Newton architect several years ago.
Which makes me wonder, what took so long?
And why will this succeed where Newton failed (”failure” is actually debatable - I know half a dozen people with 3-4 newtons each stockpiled away for the future so they’ll have replacements)?
Given that I can have a whole computer in a similar sized package these days (looks about the size of a small ibook), I don’t see the market for it.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
By the way, Scobie, rather than titling this:
“The danger of not letting your bloggers know… (more Origamisms)”
Couldn’t it equally have been:
THE DANGER OF BLOGGING (HYPING) SOMETHING YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT
February 27th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
[...] Today Scoble added to the wild speculation about Microsoft’s Origami product by pointing out that Microsoft hasn’t done anything to let its bloggers know about the product release plans and that the product can’t help but fail with expectations getting so out of control. I agree. While “the best companies underpromise and underdeliver” it seems that lately the best bloggers overhype and underreport. [...]
February 27th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
So now its about whether the team should go to the blogger or the blogger should go to the team :)
Hey, will this thing have the sideshow stuff on it ?
February 27th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
My predictions, based on absolutely nothing:
1. It will have some kind of Sideshow-lite built in to allow playback of WMA and MP3 without having to fully wake the device.
2. It will have 2 upgrade types: USB 2.0 and FireWire. There will be no PCMCIA.
3. It will have Radeon 92xx-class graphics
4. The .NET 2.0 framework will be preinstalled.
5. It will not have built-in DVD or CDROM. EtherNet/WiFi/USB only.
6. It will be a PlaysForSure compatible
7. Its battery life will be surprisingly long. Maybe 5 hours.
February 27th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Goebbels: how do you know what I don’t know shit about? Hmmm? I have Otto’s phone number. Do you?
Christopher: Otto says you’re wrong. Shipping a lot sooner than end of the year.
Met: I never said they would be shipping on the 3rd. Please go back and read carefully.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Robert…so what? At this point, the chances of this being a “Look, yet another microsoft demonstration without a clear focus”.
Unless MS is making the hardware too, what this is going to depend on is OEMs buying into MS’s hype, or MS just flinging money at them to offset the startup costs. If MS is just showing off yet another damned demo, like the light tables that require some bizarre future world without children or sick people, and where there are maids following everyone around and cleaning up after them.
I’m just not seeing any sign of focus out of MS when Windows is involved.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
“Goebbels: how do you know what I don’t know shit about?”
Because I’ve gotten to know you pretty well. Thus far, I know that I knew exactly, if not more than, what you have posted over the last few days, and I consider my information to be “shit”. We all knew an “ultraportable” platform was being worked on.
This post is clearly about the issue of: what happens when the hype exceeds the reality. You said they would be announcing a “device”; they are not, Microsoft is not going to release a device; they are going to release a spec that they hope other OEMs produce devices modeled off of.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Also, Scoble, you mentioned you saw a wooden prototype — wooden!!!… Who gives a shit when Gates himself was holding a real prototype a few months ago!! This is my point: even if you know slightly more (or even a whole lot more) than what you’ve mentioned you cleary know less than what is available from other available sources, and you were the source of the hype. And when people realize this is just a spec and will not be out until after Vista, it will be a disappointment. And that’s your fault; not the fault of the designers for not telling you that you overhyped a tech spec.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Interesting. Nice to see MS trying to hype something. Will it be bigger than Apple’s announcement tomorrow? See, as MS hasn’t really pulled a successful hype job in recent history (everyone’s too excited they let the cat out of the bag years or at the lease, several months in advance) it makes for all this excitement. The funny thing is that the over-hype will ruin the announcement. Will it be priced at $400? Will it have Vista? Hi-Fi? etc. etc.. Sure it will have some but the expectation becomes too much.
With Apple, the hype can exceed the announcements but Jobs will sell it like it’s the best, cutting-edge product out there. Balmer (aka Monkey Boy) unfortunately can’t pull that off. So will this be bigger than Apple’s announcement? Apple is set to announce:
a) iPod Boom Box - will it have extra harddrive capacity? a video screen? Who knows, but it will be touted as the best and sell like crazy.
b) Mac Mini - will it have DVR capabilities for $500? A built-in iPod dock? Front Row 2.0 and an iPod remote? It will certainly sync with the iPod Video so if it comes with this it will be a lock for media centers everywhere and blow the MS media center out of the water.
c) iTunes to sell movies - this just secures the rest of these items. Huge for the industry.
d) True Video iPod - as the current iPod video is only a hold over until the real release of the Video iPod, this thing could be a killer product. Speculated to have a full screen on the front of the iPod (touch screen) and come with HiFi, this thing could be a winner. (Origami may unseat it in the business market - if there is one for the Origami) but otherwise the bulk of 12-45 year olds will purchase the iPod Video. It has even been rumored to have DVR capabilities right from the iPod but I don’t think that will materialize yet.
e) Possible replacement for the iBook laptop with the MacBook laptop with built-in video camera. (I don’t think that this will come out either as Apple still has a bunch of iBooks in stock and usually replace items when inventory is out or very low)
f) iPhone - again, I do not believe this will come out at this point.
So while some of these items will (may?) come out, or other items are released, it is usually a big announcement when Jobs and company invite media to their own turf (to keep the announcement even MORE secretive).
Will MS be able to pull that off? Maybe if they incorporate xBox games in the Origami, include a music player as good or easier than the iPod, a better version of iTunes, etc.. If this flops, the media will not be as nice for their next announcement.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Vomitizer
February 27th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Whoever did this viral thing - didn’t carry it off properly.
MS should have come out and said what it CAN do by now. Not some rumors on what it could do.
Anything that MS can say now will surprise anyone.
Remember that was the argument I had yesterday.
February 27th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Met: this was a tease to get people to visit the Microsoft booth at CeBit. :-)
February 27th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
They will probably just put Xbox Live Arcade games on it and some “scaled down” MS PC/Xbox Games. The device by what I’ve seen is going to cost at minimum 500 dollars and by my estimates it will fall between the 1000-2000 range around the price of a decent tablet pc. There will probably different versions of the device like the Ipod based on HDD size and features. What will the Xbox 360 Compatibility Be? Im guessing it will be video, photo, and audio streaming to the 360 wirelessly over Wifi with your PC off with data on the HDD. Will it allow me to transfer 360 HD Movie trailers I download, will it allow me to talk to my 360 friends when Im not at my 360 (probably in the future) and will it have more connections then just WIFI that I can use at coffee shops and home, like what about Satellite Based Web /Media Center Connectivity or Satellite based TV or Cellular Capabilities (probably with a PCCard).
After seeing the video Im not really impressed because the video made it seem like it was easy to carry and to be honest it doesnt look like it will. If the item isnt small around the size of an Ipod and thin not thick its going to be like one of those fat PocketPC phones that people tend not to buy becuase they aren’t portable enough.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Christopher: Otto says you’re wrong. Shipping a lot sooner than end of the year.
It wasn’t me, it was Intel and an OEM source. I don’t make up my own information, I just pick from the chatter and try to weave together seemingly disparate threads into a cohesive whole. But shipping dates aren’t fixed. So no biggie. Otto knows more than I do. But I am not sure that holds for all OEMs, least not from what I am hearing. I was just saying what’s out there and what I have heard, and what the press chatter is. But it’s not gospel. But even if shipping that soon, I’d hold till second Vista round.
I would kinda like one of these things, Handheld Pro 2000, I always liked. And big fan of Psion Revo’s, if had instant-on would be perfect.
But then I do agree with the “vaporous hype machine” tagging and agree with Gobbels. And been down the 4 year tar-pitted Tablet road.
Hopeful, but wary.
PS - You miss InkGestures? Loren actually 1.0′ed something. ;) And not something freewareish MathPracticeish.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:04 am
am i the only one yawning about Yet Another Teaser campaign? wake me up when there’s something actually announced.
February 28th, 2006 at 4:22 am
Could this be a clone of Dualor’s cPC?? or a XBOX portable…
Waiting for the launch…I LOVE MS
February 28th, 2006 at 6:19 am
[...] You’ve really got to hand it to Robert Scoble, he has posted on his blog that the recent buzz around the Microsoft Orgami project may be a bit more hype then it is worth. Over the years I have organized and attended many events where I’ve seen my share of Microsoft employees ‘toe the company line’. It is great to finally see (or read) from Microsoft employee who has some objectivity, yet still able to be a passionate company evangilist. [...]
February 28th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Pull back on a the hype wave that he basically started?
Irony abounds. Who outside of a few Tablet PC Partner Conferences attendee’s and press chatter people like me knew, before that link? Still even I am surprised by the acclerated schedule (even tho saw it coming), I thought UltraMobile would only be in the Vista timeframe, they must want to beta-test the public the first round. Always risky imho.
February 28th, 2006 at 8:06 am
I understand the concerns you have about the product being over-hyped. But hasn’t the usual beef against MS been that they don’t have a coolness factor like Apple? Apple is always secretive about product launches and releases mystery invites which just serve to hype products to endless limits. Yet in that case it isn’t over-hype and they get a free pass? Frankly, I’d rather MS create this sorta cool hype regardless of whether or not the product is landscape changing.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I don’t think there will be any trouble persuading OEMs to make this, or to push to get it out as early as possible.
Look at the success of the Nokia 770 — which, although being smaller, lighter, Linux-based and apparently with a slower CPU — has the same carryaround appeal.
The 770 was designed to fit in a pocket (but still display an 800-pixel-wide webpage for satisfactory surfing). I carry mine around in my hip bag all day. Yet sometimes I would prefer a slightly larger screen, and I’d settle for carrying it around in my backpack.
Main point for me? I use it all the time as soon as I step away from the desktop.
February 28th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
But, Roger, we don’t know if the 770 is success jsut because you use it? Dell is just getting around to Tablets.
February 28th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
First of all, since Microsoft will be building none of the hardware, exactly WHAT is it going to announce?
March 1st, 2006 at 8:18 am
[...] Also interesting, Microsoft is trying to generate some more “organic” hype about their product. It’s funny to see that they may have done too good of a job, and are a bit worried it may not live up to the hype. Tags:tech apple msft [...]
March 1st, 2006 at 11:07 am
the video was a “cmoooon let’s show em what we got. pick up that ‘Features Supported’ list, we go from feature #1 to feature #17 in the first 3 seconds and from feature #19 to feature #34 in the…” kinda trip.
that box is large and ugly. the keyboard ‘add-on’ is uglier. the part where they magnify and go 100x into the ‘wi-fi zone’ sign is the ugliest.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm
John C. Welch: You fawned over Apple’s “secretive” nature and its abiltiy to use that to generate hype for their Feb 28 press event just by announcing that the event will take place. And yes, they did generate hype aplenty. Too bad Apple’s announcement turned out to be a big fat nothing. The Apple enthusiast sites are quite disappointed (what other company holds a press event to launch a boom box?). So you see, Apple CAN do wrong.
March 2nd, 2006 at 11:41 am
This is what I heard,
1 GHz
512 MB RAM
6″ screen
12 hour battery life
March 2nd, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Alright, I can’t take it anymore…I need to make a public statement. I am a ms employee and have been for several years. I was just involved in a marketing meeting that discussed a few things regarding a certain upcoming product launch that you may be wondering about.
Well, evidently…we are coming out with a new version of Windows. That’s right. Heard it here first. I can’t divulge a lot right now (the walls have ears), but rumor is that it is going to be called Vista. Yeah…I know…I was as surprised as you are. Now the notworthy part is that Vista will be available in a Boom Box form factor and WILL work with Intel chips.
I am also going to go out on a limb here and start the hype machine rolling…but I heard we are thinking about the possibility of another Halo game. Yeah. Cool.
Finally, as I was leaving I saw one key executive talk to another…I tried to get close and all I heard was this…you read into it what you will…but one guy said, “Hey…You hear anything about that other thing?” And the woman replied, “Yes…The tall man walks with a limp by the breakwall.”
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
March 2nd, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Morganis: Origami is a Mobile XP PC
Alex Morganis has examined the code of the Origami Project web site, and says he’s figured out what the thing is: a mobile PC running Windows XP.
For all the hype it’s creating, it had better be significantly more than just another notebook. All t…
March 3rd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
I had it on what I consider to be pretty good authority
http://blogs.opml.org/marty/2006/03/02
– a guy who worked on design of teeny tablets — that I’m going to love it. I’m thinking the size is going to make ALL the difference.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
If Origasmi runs anything like XP then its doomed
March 9th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
This is a great replacement product for many devices if proper software and hardware package is given. I see this device a replacement for products available for the car and air traveling like GPS systems and Portable movie players.
They should have a huge memory and battery life. This is unlikely from a product on an Intel chip.
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