In 2000, Microsoft laid out a vision of the future.. (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

And didn't follow up on any of it... which is too bad, because whoever did it kind of called all the big innovations:

* GPS Navigation from device
* digital voice recognition
* Tablets
* moving digital library..

And they did.. nothing on it. Bloomberg asks why.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-11/microsoft-s-concept-videos-from-2000-were-spot-on-so-why-didn-t-ballmer-build-any-of-it-.html

 

[Ejanss]

Tablets? Digital copies? Cloud storage?
What happened is what happened to all MS ideas: Apple thought of them first.

 

[mattCR]

Tablets? Digital copies? Cloud storage?
What happened is what happened to all MS ideas: Apple thought of them first.

Well, not so much.. when Microsoft put this out in 2000, Steve Jobs had just returned to a broken Apple that teetered on bankruptcy. More like: MS couldn't act on their own ideas..

 

[Sam Posten]

I didn't read the article yet but I really wanted Microsoft's Courier to come to market.

 

[DaveF]

And didn't follow up on any of it... which is too bad, because whoever did it kind of called all the big innovations:

* GPS Navigation from device
* digital voice recognition
* Tablets
* moving digital library..

And they did.. nothing on it. Bloomberg asks why.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-11/microsoft-s-concept-videos-from-2000-were-spot-on-so-why-didn-t-ballmer-build-any-of-it-.html

I think this is like looking at Minority Report and asking why Spielberg didn't follow through and build his computer of the future. MS didn't have plans or visions for these products. They had special-effects demos. They had marketing fluffy. They had FUD to dissuade buyers from other companies with new products. What they didn't have was real vision or engineering impetus behind these film-school-esque videos.

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah "vision" and follow-through/execution are two different things. I can lay out a vision for: flying cars, transporters, warp drive and holodecks. Can't build any of it though.