Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Promises Windows 7 iPad-Killers By The End Of The Year

John Brownlee ()

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Promises Windows 7 iPad-Killers By The End Of The Year

Way too little, way too late: speaking at the opening keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his audience that we should expect Windows 7 tablet computers “sometime before the end of this year.”

“We know you really want to know what’s coming,” said Ballmer. “[Tablets] will come from the people you would expect. From Asus, from Dell, from Samsung, from Toshiba, from Sony.”

Microsoft just doesn’t get it. Their business is software, so it’s understandable they are focusing on selling a tablet operating system instead of a single iPad-challenging tablet themselves (even if that business model is so stagnant that it has directly contributed to the death of possibly revolutionary products).

The problem is: Windows 7, as an operating system, isn’t capable of taking on iOS. One was built from the ground-up to support multitouch; the other is a bad hackjob rlaid on top of a desktop operating system.

HP knows full well that Windows 7 isn’t up to the job of taking on iOS: that’s why they killed the Windows 7 Slate and purchased Palm’s mobile, multitouch operating system, webOS. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft’s other hardware partners get the same memo.

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At the end of the day, Microsoft is going to enter the slate arena several years late, just like they did with Windows Phone 7. How can a company this hopelessly entrenched in the business models of the past hope to survive when the likes of Google and Apple are swimming in the same waters, faster, stronger and smarter?

24 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Hardware, iPad, News |

  • http://birbilis.spaces.live.com George Birbilis

    Most probably Microsoft will take the path Apple took: they’ll make sure their Windows Phone 7 upcoming platform works on tablets too apart from smart phones

  • frampton_1

    My feelings, exactly.

  • http://phumo.com Nigel Burke

    Great little article John and so on the ball too. Will Microsoft ever learn? I doubt it.

  • Mike

    @George Birbilis I don’t see that happening. Although some elements of iOS translated into the larger screen of the iPad, much more had to be redesigned. Apple was more than willing to do this to enter the market. Windows Phone 7 is based on Zune’s interface, one based primarily on Windows Media Center (since both small screens and large-but-viewed-from-far-away screens have commonalities in amount of presented information). A tablet’s screen can display far more information, so they’d have to redesign that interface. However, they’d still be left with a gimped OS where they can just add touch elements to Windows 7 and get one at least already compatible with popular apps.

    Not that I’m supporting Windows 7 on tablets neither. I don’t think any current incarnation of the brand is suitable for the form factor.

  • d

    Hummm iPad killer….. He must mean like their iPhone killer and their iPod killer that they came out with. I’m skeerd.

    d

  • Erin’s Dad

    Be wary of any project codenamed “Son of Kin”

  • MarkByrn

    Windows 7 in a tablet? Muahahaha! How sad that Gates put the clown jester in charge of his empire while he ineptly manages his philanthropic foundation.

  • Happy

    Can you explain the “…One was built from the ground-up to support multitouch…” comment please.

    I understood iOS (previously iPhone OS) is based on OSX which in turn is based on BSD.

    Not trolling, genuinely curious.

    Thanks.

  • Jaime R

    Microsoft is not in any danger of disappearing. They can afford to fail, and to fail big, because they are so huge. Are you even serious about what you write?. I own Macs and lots of Mac products, but I’m not blinded by a Jobsian cult. Only a huge fanboy can suggest that Apple can take on Microsoft and win at this moment. Win what? They’re completely different companies getting revenue from very different sources. They overlapp a bit, and that makes you think that they are direct competitors. They are not. Microsoft, at this point couldn’t care less what Apple is doing, except to replicate it, if it is good, and sell it to the masses for less, and in a somewhat crippled way, because, let’s face it: multitouch PCs still have a long way to go; just look at the current HP and Gateway models; they pretty much suck.

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @Happy,

    iOs is not the same visually as OSX. Structurally it may be, im not too versed in this area, but there was no ‘installing’ process, no menus to go through to find programs to launch, menu items are 90% of the time the size of your finger print, if not larger, all of this makes an OS which is actually suited to, and compliments using your hands to control it.

  • http://www.icog-studios.com Mark

    @Happy,

    iOS was not built from OS X. OS X is a desktop OS that really had no place in the iphone. I’m sure there were a bunch of tips/tricks taken from OS X but iOS is a completely different style of operating system than OS X.

  • HD

    The real problem that Microsoft has is the size and market-cap of Google and Apple. In the 90′s and early 2000 Microsoft became so big, not through innovation, but because they bought anyone who had an innovative product. Then they made a few cosmetic changes and slapped a MS label on it. Think Hotmail, Softimage, Netwise, Forethought, Navision, Vermeer Technologies. Or they “borrowed” the technologies of Lotus and Mosiac. Can’t acquire Google or Apple and they can no longer bully their way past patents when Apple and Google protect them so vehemently. So now they are left to follow and imitate.

  • Brian

    @Ben, @Mark, actually Happy is right. The development packages for OS X and for iOS are basically exactly the same thing, and the programs are coded in the same way. The operating system and GUI are completely different obviously, but the base language is essentially the same. That being said, iOS WAS built from the ground up to support multi-touch, and that shows even in the SDK for the iPhone software. The foundation may be the same, but the operating system itself is completely different. @Jaime… “Only a huge fanboy can suggest that Apple can take on Microsoft and win at this moment.” Seriously? Considering Apple is now the biggest tech company in the country (and second biggest overall), I’d say they already DID take them on and win. They’ve continually shown an aptitude for pushing boundaries and innovating, while Microsoft is content to pump out rehashed versions of the same old garbage and milk it for all it’s worth. Yes, Microsoft can afford a few big failures with the big bucks they’ve got, but they can’t CONTINUE to afford them. The Courier was a complete failure. The Kin was a complete failure. The Zune (at least in terms of market share) was a complete failure. If they’re going to try and be competitive in the ever-evolving technology market, they’re going to need to seriously step their game up and provide something people actually want to buy.

  • Stevo

    On occasion I run OS X on my ‘Pad by way of iTeleport so I can work within Microsoft Office. Funny thing is that as much as I like OS X on my desktop, it just doesn’t feel right on a tablet. Android OS on a tablet sounds interesting but I just don’t see Win7 working.

  • charli

    The bigger problem I see is the lack of details, especially dates. Diehard Apple haters will wait but those that are on the fence will get impatient, especially if they have played around on an ipad, and just give in and buy Apple since they don’t know how long they have to wait.

    This is one of the beauties of Apple’s method. They don’t tease vague stuff. They don’t say ‘hey we are going to make a tablet’. They wait until they can say “Okay so we made this tablet, here’s what it looks like and here’s when you can get it”. Same with all their other stuff.

    Digital has created an age of demanding ‘instant’ gratification and Microsoft etc aren’t giving it. By a long shot. and it could kill them in the end

  • Conrad

    @Happy

    Actually, iOS was NOT built from the ground up to support Multitouch. It has the same Darwin Kernel as OS X, and when Apple were first launching iPhone they talked about it as OS X.

    What they actually did was put a new, on top of that kernel Apple used touch (and phone)-friendly Core OS and Core Services (because all of the OS Features and Services in desktop-class OS X weren’t necessary) and then re-wrote their Cocoa API with touch in mind and, thus, called it Cocoa Touch.

    So, they did strip everything down to the OS Kernel and reengineer it for a phone. IT was a lot of work, but it is based on the same operating system and kernel. UNLIKE Windows 7 (NT Kernel), WiMo (WinCE), and whatever WP7 will be based on. Micorsoft just can’t get it together. And of course, this means any advancements on one platform cannot just be implemented in another, they need to be re-invented.

    Anyway… there it is.

  • John Brownlee

    You guys are right: while iOS has some deep OS X kernel stuff going on, what I really mean here is that the interface was built from the ground up for multitouch. That’s not true of Windows 7, where it’s a layer on top of an existing, desktop-based interface.

  • Jesper

    That steel frame seems familiar.

  • ArabMOFOhasRETURNED

    By the end of the year, iPad will be The King, well it is now, but sad attempts would not hurt its status.

  • shaunathan

    I remember (granted I was in elementary school) when microsoft was the plucky upstart shaking it’s fist at “The Man” (IBM). They used to LAUGH at IBM, telling them that they were so old and stagnant in their ways….

    Now microsoft is the old codger in the room. Apple has seemingly stayed so young…

    Poor Microsoft. perhaps they can retire like IBM to the business only sector. Although as I type this I have my second executive requesting an iPad, our CEO just got one and loves it. It’s only a matter of time Microsoft… just a matter of time..

  • Pauly

    Oh Microsoft. Sometimes I forget you make the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, two things I AM impressed with. Feels like those come from a completely separate company.

  • dubbdee

    Will it run Android?

  • Melinda

    You are right thatcMicrosoft “doesn’t get it”. They do not understand what consumers want and I don’t think they ever did. Their breakthrough was bundling the software with the hardware – though apple has always done that. PC’s were (and are) cheaper than macs. The software (supplied largely by the kids from Seattle) was never as good. Same old. Same old.

  • IcyFog

    Did Ballmer actually say “iPad killer”?