Remember this ad? The ad where Microsoft attempts to position the iPad as a chopstick-playing toy and the Surface as a PowerPoint-editing machine?

Yeah, that’s why we can’t have nice things.

Microsoft just released Office the the iPhone. It lets users edit any Word, Excel or PowerPoint document. As the oh-so-catchy name states, Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers is Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers only, meaning the app is essentially $100 a year. It’s not “Office for iOS.” It’s just a way to open and partially edit Office files for those saps paying for Microsoft’s pricey cloud platform.

Judging from the screenshots, it looks like a quality application. It supports rich media content like charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. And since it works through MS’ cloud service, all changes saved on the phone updates the original, too.

But forget about a native iPad app. Microsoft can’t kill the only legitimate selling point of its struggling Surface tablet.

Microsoft might have moved enough Surface tablets to not call it a flop, but the tablet was far from a blockbuster hit. Ever since launch, Microsoft has supported it with constant ad campaigns touting the tablet’s productivity chops. The latest TV spot pits the Surface RT against the iPad, deeming its offering as the superior choice for those that need to get any work done. However, in Microsoft’s world “work” equals editing a PowerPoint deck. This is something you can do quite handily on the iPad using Keynote and, in fact, I suspect Keynote users are well aware of the benefits of their superior platform.

Middle manager infighting must be rampant at Microsoft. One on hand, the company has to properly support its Windows 8 ecosystem and that means position its tablet offering as the only MS Office solution. But then, likewise, a true mobile version of MS Office would better help fight Google Docs. In this case the Office team lost, relegating Office to just the iPhone and in a truncated version at that. Windows 8 wins, the Surface stays slightly more interesting, and everybody in Redmond wins.

Only the consumer loses.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Bloomberg is reporting this morning that Microsoft is cutting the price of Windows RT for small tablets in a seemingly desperate bid to spur sales.

It’s a rather predictable move and a touch sad. Tablets based on Windows RT, an operating system that’s pure garbage, are not selling, because, referring to my first point, Windows RT is trash. And since they’re not selling, Microsoft is making concessions and that means cutting the price.

Windows RT was supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to iOS on tablets. Microsoft built the platform to be more robust than the Apple counterpart by including a lot of Windows 8′s desktop tools to run on lower-power devices. But in doing so, Microsoft forked its operating system, forcing developers to choose between Intel-based Windows 8 or ARM-based Windows RT (or Windows Phone 8 or Xbox).

Now, some eight months after Windows RT’s launch, very few mainstream apps have made their way into the Windows Store. There are only a scattering of Windows RT devices available. Meanwhile, Windows 8 devices are quickly becoming as inexpensive as Windows RT.

Microsoft has failed to provide buyers with legitimate reasons to buy a Window RT tablet over an iPad or Android device. Windows RT can run most of Microsoft Office, something traveling shower ring salesmen probably find enticing.

Cutting the price could help.

Android tablets went through the same sort of soul-searching early on, too. For several years, Android tablet were overpriced and without any real reason to exist (remember the HTC Jetstream?).

Then came the $250 B&N Nook Color followed a year later by the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. Suddenly, thanks to their $200 price tag, Android tablets were a viable option for buyers. As popularity exploded Samsung and others cut the price on larger versions, helping to entice more buyers, thus expanding the Android tablet’s marketshare.

I’m not sure even a $200 tablet could save Windows RT, though.

Computer makers are dropping Windows RT support en mass. HP killed its RT support early on. Samsung followed suit. HTC recently stopped developing its large RT tablet, instead focusing on a smaller, likely 7-inch model. As Bloomberg notes, Dell also has another RT model in the works.

Just the Dell XPS 10, Surface RT and the Asus VivoTab RT carry the Windows RT banner. Lenovo quickly killed its Windows RT-powered IdeaPad Yoga 11. Any other model is too far outside of the mainstream to matter.

Acer just announced the Iconia W3 at Computex. The 8-inch Windows tablet is supposed to hit at 379 Euros later this month. The small-ish tab packs modest specs: 720p display, dual-core Atom Z2760 CPU, 32 or 64GB internal storage with a microSD expansion slot. But it runs Windows 8, not Windows RT.

In fact, at Computex, Taipei’s massive computer tradeshow, there isn’t a hint of Windows RT. And this is the same tradeshow that featured dozens of Windows RT examples last year. The only talk of Windows 8′s lackluster sibling came from Acer’s chairman who told WSJ that Windows RT won’t be “so influential anymore” also noting that it would be for Windows RT to overcome the lack of compatibility that the full Windows 8 version has.

Windows RT was a mistake from the onset. It’s ridiculous to force consumers to choose between battery life and usability. They’d prefer both. Like on the iPad.

Microsoft can cut prices and perhaps later introduce device subsidies, but it won’t help. Consumers, and more telling, device manufacturers, have spoken. Neither find Windows RT devices to be worth their money. As widely stated at the Surface RT launch, the platform simply has too many compromises.

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Apple appears to be on a kick of delivering product refreshes to punctuate its major release cycle, with changes to devices and tweaked versions that go beyond what it has done in terms of spec refreshes in the past. It looks like we could see a new era of light changes in direction to cater to market trends and optimize product viability under Tim Cook, which in many ways makes sense for a man known as a supply chain maestro.

“New” iPads, iMacs, MacBooks And iPods

If you review all the mid-cycle changes Apple has made this year, you come up with a pretty long list. There’s the Retina MacBook Pro and Air improvements it made in February for instance, which included new processors, is not really all that out of character; the company has been boosting internal specs on its Mac line for years. But the 128GB fourth generation iPad, the iMac with VESA mount, and the new 16GB iPod touch which lacks a rear camera are all big changes to the way Apple generally operates those product cycles.

All of these updates arrived with little fanfare, at least when compared to the lavish launch events Apple usually holds to trot out new hardware. At most they’ll get a press release, and in the case of some, like the iPod touch just launched today, they’ll simply update the online store. Press still flocks to these changes, regardless, and it’s true that they aren’t often ground-breaking enough to merit proper events, since they’d look paltry painted in that light. But the changes are a sign of a new commitment to continuous improvement, and one that seems like it could result in dramatic changes to how Apple views and operates its product release cycle.

Optimization

Tim Cook used to be Apple’s COO, and in that role he essentially helped Apple build one of the most effective and efficiently run supply chains in the history of supply chains. That meant that Apple seldom had any inventory costing it money by sitting around in warehouses, that incidences of error in the manufacturing process were drastically reduced, and that improvements and adaptations were made continually to help keep profit margins high. Likely Cook is still directly responsible for a lot of continued optimization in that area, but it makes sense that he would also bring those skills to bear on actual Apple products themselves, instead of just on their manufacturing process.

The updates to the products mentioned above each constitute a specific optimization. In the case of the iPad, the storage bump helps it keep pace with other new-to-market devices including the Surface and better service education and enterprise users; with the iMac, it addresses the one big failing pointed out by reviewers of the iMac when comparing it to previous generations, and targets again business users; and with the iPod touch, it fills a gap in the company’s lineup, simplifies supply chain and makes it easier for developers to optimize their designs for screen sizes going forward.

Flex

The new approach to Apple’s products appears to reflect a greater flexibility; thinks are more mutable than they were before Cook took the reins, if only just. There’s still the question of keeping fair of angering early purchasers of products, as someone who has bought an iPad four months prior doesn’t want to see a new model and regret their earlier decision, but for the most part, these upgrades look like very specific tweaks designed to expand a potential audience, not alienate an existing one. So long as that kind of precision refreshing continues, I think Apple stands to gain a lot from this modified approach to product development.

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Microsoft’s Surface Pro, the tablet/laptop amalgam device designed to perfectly showcase Windows 8, is getting a 256 SSD internal storage option, the biggest yet for the device. Previously, Microsoft has shipped the Surface Pro with either a 64GB or 128GB internal drive, but when it arrives in Japan June 7, it’ll come in 128GB and for the first time, 256GB flavors (via Engadget).

The 128GB model will retail for just about $1,175 U.S. in Japan, or just under $200 more than the 128GB version’s current retail price. The beefier version should help address some of the criticism levied at the Surface Pro for actually reserving a big chunk of on-board storage for OS components, which was particularly harmful in the 64GB capacity.

A 256GB option not only makes the Surface Pro more generally useful, it also gives Microsoft another way to compete with devices that consumers might look to instead, like the iPad, which introduced a high-capacity 128GB version shortly after the Surface Pro’s launch, and the MacBook Air, which offers up to 512GB of storage through customization options.

The Surface Pro spec bump will likely make its way to the U.S. and other markets eventually, as it seems like something that Microsoft could use to boost interest in its Windows 8 flagship slate. But there are also rumors of an entirely new Surface to ship in June, with a possible introduction at Build. I’d say it’s more likely we’ll see this spec bump touted at that conference, as the first-gen Surface is barely out of the oven as it is.

The Surface Pro reportedly hasn’t been selling at that well, with figures from March showing it hadn’t even broken 500,000 devices shipped at that point, based on sources close to Microsoft’s supply chain. That’s obviously not good by really any relative measure, so it wasn’t entirely clear that Microsoft would do much with the line in the future. This new storage option is proof that for now at least, Microsoft is still investing resources in the Surface Pro, even if it isn’t on the verge of releasing all-new hardware under the brand.

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Being behind in a market sucks, and it’s understandable to want to lash out at the top dog, as Microsoft has shown it’s willing to do with Google in search and email, and now with Apple in tablet computers. A brand new Windows 8 ad pits the iPad against Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet, in an attempt to show how much more versatile the Asus VivoTab is vs. the iOS device.

Microsoft uses Siri’s voice (which isn’t difficult, given that it’s a fairly generic computer-generated female tone) to highlight what the Windows 8 tablet can do that the iPad can’t, including things like live tiles (it took me a couple views to figure out what “I don’t update like that” even meant), Windows Snap multitasking, and… PowerPoint. Then finally we get a price comparison, showing the much cheaper price tag for the Asus.

The problem is that not only is the Siri construct weak and her actual lines poorly written, but the abilities Microsoft chooses to highlight show exactly why it doesn’t “get” the tablet market. People aren’t looking for multitasking PowerPoint slide deck-creating machines; they have computers for that.

The closing bit here is maybe the worst part; showing that Apple’s iPad can easily provide a remarkably realistic experience for playing Chopsticks on the screen is not the way to trash your competition, especially if you noticeably can’t offer up an equivalent experience on your own hardware. Apple uses that in its own ads for a reason, and that’s to highlight the magical, delightful experiences users can have on its device. Countering that with a bunch of sober (though admittedly useful) features isn’t the way to turn the tide back in your favor.

An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified the Asus VivoTab in this ad as a Surface.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft’s Corporate VP for Windows Julie Larson-Green was at WIRED’s Business Conference today, and she was put on the spot when asked by interviewer and WIRED Senior Editor Michael V. Copeland about the apparently sluggish start for Windows RT. RT’s failure is a consumer education problem, according to Larson-Green, since it’s very different from what’s come before.

Windows RT, for those unfamiliar or confused by the new familial breakdown of Windows following the introduction of version 8, is a lightweight version designed for ARM-powered devices (vs. x86, the architecture which full Windows OS runs on), which doesn’t offer access to the full suite of Windows software. According to our own Matt Burns, that has resulted in a big app gap, and made the Surface RT essentially a glorified web browsing tablet, which sounds like something different from a simple matter of properly framing the product.

“I think we have some work to do on explaining it to people because it’s different,” Larson-Green said. “They’re just so used to Windows meaning backward compatibility in all the programs that you use today. I use Surface RT as my main computing device, I connect to a corporate network using my virtual smart card and VPN when I need to, Office is already on there [...] it’s just a simpler experience and then the Surface Pro has the flexibility if you want to work on the details.”

“I love my Surface RT,” was a common refrain from Larson-Green even into the Q&A, who later characterized it as a device for casual consumption mostly, especially filling a niche for “weekend” use. Even the dual nature of her defense of the Microsoft tablet shows that it still needs work at Microsoft itself in terms of fleshing out its role in the consumer ecosystem, which probably isn’t helping the company properly explain its purpose to the buying public.

The Surface RT is estimated to have sold only around 1 million units total since its launch late in 2012, far under its reported initial estimates of 3 million or so. Other OEMs have balked at the RT line in the meantime, with Acer waiting on launching its RT slate until at least Q2 of this year.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Intel’s fiscal Q1 earnings are out today, and the company reported profit and earnings at expectations on revenue with $12.6 billion for the quarter, and below on earnings per share at $0.40, according to Bloomberg’s analyst consensus. Revenue was down from Q1 2012, as were earnings per share, as the chip-making giant continues to weather the storm of a declining PC market.

PC sales for the beginning of the year were reportedly steep, according to research firm IDC, with Windows 8 taking blame for the decline. IDC found that overall, sales were down 13.9 percent for PCs, a category which excludes tablets and notebooks with removable keyboards. Even if you count those in, the news still wouldn’t be great for Intel, which continues to struggle with making any real headway in the mobile processor market. The PC group’s revenue alone totaled only $8 billion, down nearly 6 percent year over year. Intel said in a statement from the CFO’s office that the sequential decline in overall revenue of 7 percent was in line with what they’d expect to see coming out of a holiday season.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini is leaving the company after eight years leading the company in May. Otellini announced that he’d be leaving Intel late last year, giving the company ample time to plan for and put in place succession arrangements. Otellini has been vocal about Intel’s work on “reinventing the PC” as it continues to face challenging market conditions and try to overcome them.

This definitely wasn’t a great quarter for Intel, and that means the incoming CEO will have a lot of expectations to live up, in a very challenging market environment. Intel’s roadmap includes big plans for mobile, like the Bay Trail 22nm design with native quad core processing built in, slated to arrive by the end of this year. It’s going to power budget, convertible PC designs, Intel says, which might inject some fresh life in the sluggish PC market, though we’ve yet to see any real promising indication that Microsoft’s efforts along those lines with the Surface RT are paying any big dividends – in fact, quite the opposite.

We’ll be listening in on the conference call and will update here if the company reveals anything interesting about its plans for turning things around, or about a potential replacement for Otellini, but the official release says the board is still working to choose a successor.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

According to a report in the WSJ, Microsoft is working on a new line-up of its Windows 8-powered Surface tablets that includes a seven inch version of the slate. This small form factor size would enable Microsoft to compete with the likes of the Android-powered Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, as well as Apple’s iOS-based iPad Mini.

The paper quotes a person familiar with the situation saying that while 7-inch tablets were not part of Microsoft’s product plans last year  company executives have realised they need to respond to the growth and popularity of small slates. Which boils down to Redmond is having to play catch up yet again.

Microsoft has previously been tipped to release three new and distinct generations of Surface this year — albeit, none of those prior rumours had pointed to a seven inch device. And perhaps with good reason, as Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg noted via Twitter today the small tablet form factor poses some usability challenges for Microsoft’s full-fat Windows OS. Rival small slates are powered by lighter weight mobile OSes, and while Microsoft has now unified its smartphone (Windows Phone) and desktop OSes on a shared kernel it’s still using ‘desktop’ Windows for tablets.

But it’s not just that computing devices are getting smaller. Shrinkage appears inextricably linked with the market in another way. Gartner put out its figures for worldwide PC shipments for Q1 late yesterday — which show shipments declining to their lowest level since Q2 2009. The analyst says alternative smart connected devices — aka those small smartphones and tablets running lighter weight smartphone OSes — are eroding the traditional PC market.

Global PC shipments totalled 79.2 million units in Q1 2013, which Gartner said was an 11.2% year-on-year decline. All global regions showed a decrease in shipments, with the EMEA region experiencing the steepest decline.

“Consumers are migrating content consumption from PCs to other connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Even emerging markets, where PC penetration is low, are not expected to be a strong growth area for PC vendors,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner in a statement.

Microsoft’s Surface tablet straddles the gap between a tablet and a laptop, having a touchscreen and a keyboard cover add-on. But Gartner said touchscreen-based Windows 8 PCs took only a small percentage share of consumer PC shipments in Q1 — owing to their relatively high price.

“Touchscreen-based Ultramobiles [such as Surface Pro] offer PC manufacturers an opportunity to recover market share from media tablets, but Windows 8 PCs with touchscreens accounted for only a small percentage of consumer PC shipments in the first quarter of 2013,” noted Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner in a statement. “The majority of consumers remain unwilling to pay the price premium for touchscreen capabilities on PCs at this stage.”

Android tablet sellers including Google and Amazon have been driving down the cost of seven inch slates — with the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire currently costing from as little $199 and $159 respectively — and that price erosion is likely helping to accelerate the consumer migration away from the traditional PC category. Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet was priced from $499 at launch, while Surface Pro was from $899.

How Microsoft chooses to price any ‘Surface Mini’ will be key to driving sales — and with the iPad mini starting at $329, there is not much scope for Redmond to be able to undercut the small slate competition. Yet it can’t afford for Surface to fail.

As Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told TechCrunch last week, discussing its smart devices forecast: “You need to own consumers in terms of mobile and tablet in order to remain relevant in this market… Consumers have options and consumers are choosing and Microsoft can not take that for granted that they’ll be the one to be chosen.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Wacom, the leading player when it comes to pressure-sensitive input devices aimed at photo and digital art professionals, has teased an upcoming mobile tablet product on its Facebook account. In response to what Wacom characterizes as outspoken customer feedback, the company says it’s working on a a device with “a pressure-sensitive professional pen, smooth multi-touch, an HD display, and other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets.”

The tablet device is said to be something Wacom is working on “24/7,” with a target launch date of sometime this summer. Wacom provides the underlying technology behind a number of current tablets with pressure-sensitive stylus input, including the Surface Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy Note line, so it’s no stranger to doing pressure sensitivity on mobile devices. The company’s own hardware has generally been limited to peripherals, however, like its Bamboo, Intuos and Cintiq line of USB-powered drawing tablets, all of which require a host computer to operate.

Now, it looks like Wacom wants to branch out into an own-branded standalone tablet device. The tease shares nothing about what platform the device would be based around, but Android is a good bet. Penny Arcade co-creator Mike “Gabe” Krahulik also recently articulated at length his love for the Surface Pro and its built-in Wacom tech for creating digital art, so a device based on Windows 8 also isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

The only challenge for Wacom might be keeping a standalone device affordable. The Cintiq line of drawing tablets with built-in screens it currently offers start at $899 for the 12WX, which has a 12.1-inch display, but again requires a connected computer to function. Getting a self-sufficient Wacom tablet to a level where it meets the standards of the company’s demanding pros probably won’t come cheap, but the level of tech and the supply chain associated with the necessary components has also matured considerably since the 12WX was introduced in 2007. The proliferation of tablets and smartphones have helped putting more advanced technology in ever-smaller packages increasingly affordable.

I reached out to Wacom to see if they could provide more detail on this upcoming product, and will update if they respond with additional information.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I love the idea of the Surface: compelling hardware, striking form factor, and, in the case of the Pro, smart compromises to offer a good value. But the products fail to live up to their promise. They have first generation bugs. But maybe a low-priced Surface with a smaller screen could finally help bring the Surface promise to life. It just better run Windows Phone 8 and not Windows RT.

Yesterday at Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein spoke to the Surface and Microsoft’s ability to scale to different form factors. As John Paczkowski lays out, Microsoft could build a Surface Mini.

Both Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone 8 could handle the task. With both options comes compromises, though.

“We can have the same core code base driving form factors from four inches all the way up to 27-inch ones and everything in between,” Klein said. “So I think we are well set up to respond to demand as we see it. We can deliver a versatile set of experiences across form factors, whether they’re four-inch, five-inch, seven-inch, 10-inch or 13-inch.”

Windows 8 requires beefy hardware but can run any Windows application. Windows RT has an extremely limited marketplace of apps and it doesn’t seem to be improving with time. The task seems best suited for Windows Phone 8 even though it’s far from a blockbuster hit yet.

Microsoft’s latest mobile OS is still struggling. It’s fighting for third place against BlackBerry. Android and iOS are simply out of reach. Consumers might not be buying the smartphones en mass, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fantastic user experience.

I love Windows Phone 8, but I wouldn’t use one as a daily driver. The user experience is beautiful. It’s slick, intuitive, and would scale nicely to a larger screen. It doesn’t require serious computing hardware, allowing for tablets with thin form factors and longer battery lives.

Microsoft might not be alone in developing a 7- to 8-inch tablet. Nokia has been said to be working one as well with its reveal coming as soon as next week at MWC.

Even with a beautiful hardware and wonderful OS, it’s pretty clear that a Windows Phone 8 tablet would struggle to gain traction. Even though WinPhone 8 is growing, the platform’s app ecosystem is pretty weak. Developers are not flooding the Store with apps. The platform is relatively unknown to most consumers. And another Microsoft-made tablet platform could be detrimental to the entire operation.

Microsoft is in a precarious situation. It can no longer rely on third parties like HP and Asus to advance its software. The company clearly feels its hardware needs to lead the charge. The first generation Surfaces are good, but not good enough. A smaller form factor model could help rejuvenation the brand once it goes stale in a few months.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch