{"id":281162,"date":"2010-02-04T20:48:42","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T01:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"Gizmodo-5464664"},"modified":"2010-02-04T20:48:42","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T01:48:42","slug":"another-early-account-of-how-microsoft-strangled-its-own-tablets-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/281162","title":{"rendered":"Another Early Account of How Microsoft Strangled Its Own Tablets [Microsoft]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"lytebox\" href=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/02\/ballmernote43.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/02\/500x_ballmernote43.jpg\" class=\"left image500\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a>In former VP <a class=\"autolink\" title=\"Click here to read more posts tagged #dickbrass\" href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/tag\/dickbrass\/\">Dick Brass<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5464229\/how-innovation-dies-at-microsoft\">stabbing assault on Microsoft<\/a>, he pointed to how his tablet projects were strangled to death by competing groups inside the company. So it&#8217;s interesting to see the record of infighting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/technology\/content\/nov2002\/tc2002111_7927.htm\">go back further<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>First, Microsoft didn&#8217;t give Brass as many engineers as he wanted&mdash;just six, instead of the 20 he wanted. (He did manage to snag two guys worked at Xerox&#8217;s nigh-mythical PARC, the birthplace of the GUI that inspired the Macintosh.) Consequently, the team ran into issues like handwriting recognition that only worked half the time, and a confusing interface, according to user tests.<\/p>\n<p>BusinessWeek also reported back then that Office group wanted to focus on their own applications, even though the tablet group knew having software ready to go was key. <a class=\"autolink\" title=\"Click here to read more posts tagged #billgates\" href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/tag\/billgates\/\">Bill Gates<\/a> went for the weak compromise, an add-on pack with tablet-specific features. This seems to support Brass&#8217;s allegations in the NYT op\/ed that the VP of Office at the time &#8220;refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet.&#8221; Ironically, the person who shut down Brass appears <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/presspass\/exec\/ssinofsky\/\">to be Steven Sinofsky<\/a>, current president of Windows&mdash;the guy who turned the division around and gave us <a class=\"autolink\" title=\"Click here to read more posts tagged #windows7\" href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/tag\/windows7\/\">Windows 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the problem now isn&#8217;t that Microsoft doomed their tablet PCs to failure 7 years ago, it&#8217;s that they still haven&#8217;t solved their tablet problems <em>today<\/em>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/technology\/content\/nov2002\/tc2002111_7927.htm\">BusinessWeek<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p><br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=10e51affffc397849efce5f471b3d593&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=10e51affffc397849efce5f471b3d593&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2226\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:H0mrP-F8Qgo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=Y0CbwNmNc38:UFoMwwl3FpQ:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/gizmodo\/full\/~4\/Y0CbwNmNc38\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In former VP Dick Brass&#8216;s stabbing assault on Microsoft, he pointed to how his tablet projects were strangled to death by competing groups inside the company. So it&#8217;s interesting to see the record of infighting go back further. First, Microsoft didn&#8217;t give Brass as many engineers as he wanted&mdash;just six, instead of the 20 he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1718,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}