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"So what is Microsoft's plan, now it seems they're just throwing stuff on the walls and to see what sticks."

Yes, and this is exactly what they should be doing. In some ways, it is what Microsoft has often done in the past.

Remember Windows Tablet circa 2004? It may have been a complete failure, but it shows Microsoft was looking toward and understood the future. Unfortunately it came at a time when Microsoft was not executing quite as well as they are now (in most areas I'd say - up for debate).

Many comments in the parent thread are about how this will lead to 'sub-par' laptops and 'AR isn't good enough', but they aren't building this for today, they are building this for 5-10 years from now.

It may be released next year (I hope so), but it will take a while for interaction and hardware and possibly social norms to catch-up.

Yes, this is what Microsoft should be doing now. Try 1,000,000 things, get 100 out into the market, see what people respond to. This is what we tell start-ups to do all the time, and we suggest that big corporates should imitate start-ups, but then we bludgeon them when they put out an incomplete product.

Absolutely agree. "seeing what sticks" is also called innovation. It's what Amazon and Microsoft are excelling at and what Apple has forgotten how to do

I think the problem at MS is indeed not the lack of innovation, but the lack of synchronizing the different efforts and listening to feedback (i.e. checking if it actually sticks).

In years of using and developing for WP, I've been baffled several times by how unsynchronized some of their actions looked from the outside. One thing always enraging WP users was that Android and iOS counterparts of MS apps received new features earlier than their WP counterparts, if at all. While the other platforms are surely important, it looks like even MS doesn't really believe in its own mobile platform.

I just never could get rid of the impression that one layer of management isn't doing it's job propery.

Definitely. The best example: When WP8 first launched, it was only one of two totally different Microsoft phone platforms. The Microsoft Kin was simultaneously developed and launched by a wholly separate team. It cost $1 Billion to develop and lasted for 2 months before the plug was pulled. Mismanagement doesn't get any more blatant than wasting a billion dollars to build something your company is already building on another campus.

Regarding the WP apps though, I do find the WP OneNote to be better than the Android version.

If it's really for 5-10 years from now, they should release it in 5-10 years when it's fully baked. How can any product that needs at least another 5 years of work be anything other than a poorly implemented beta product that isnt fully thought out and doesn't work properly?

Apart from the total disregard that shows for current customers, the big issue with that attitude is that it's fundamentally incompatible with the discipline and focus needed to actualy get the product right even 5-10 years down the line.

Poorly thought out, badly implemented compromised systems do not transform into great products. None of the parts of those half baked tablet computers from Origami and such exist to this day. The whole lot had to be junked when Apple showed everyone how it ought to be done. The fact that they had a half baked solution to sell actively prevented better solutions being developed within Microsoft because they would compete with the existing system. It's a recipe for mediocrity now and failure in the future.

> If it's really for 5-10 years from now, they should release it in 5-10 years when it's fully baked.

> Poorly thought out, badly implemented compromised systems do not transform into great products.

Microsoft has never needed their first version of a thing to be fully basked in order for the product to eventually be successful. Ever.

> If it's really for 5-10 years from now, they should release it in 5-10 years when it's fully baked.

You can't go dark and build a product for 5-10 years and then drop it on the market. While you're "baking" for years the market will change around you and you'll find that you built the wrong thing and someone else launched early and took the whole market with iterative improvements.

> Poorly thought out, badly implemented compromised systems do not transform into great products.

Sure they do. There's a reason people talk about minimum viable products and worse is better. You cannot build the perfect product in isolation. You build something good enough, get to the market, and keep making it better.

Disclosure: MSFT employee

But as so explained the example given - MS tablet computers or 'pen computing' shows the opposite. The modern Windows Phone OS would never have happened if Apple hadn't brought out the iPhone. They still be iterating on Windows Mobile. They had to throw out every bit if mobile tech they had and go back to square one. That's almost impossible to do on your own initiative if you've already got an existing viable product.

Another counter-example. What ever happened to Myspace and Orkut? What did their first mover advantage buy them? A legacy platform that held them back.

> throw out every bit if mobile tech they had

WP7 run on Windows CE kernel, same as Windows Mobile. It uses embedded version of .NET and Silverlight, both pre-existing. Even the touchscreen friendly UI language (once called Metro) existed before windows phone, the first product was Zune.

The only bits they had to throw out is marketing bits, branding, logos, that kind of BS. The tech however is an evolution, not "back to square one".

Windows Phone 7 was two major versions ago, and its CE base was ditched with WP 10.

That is correct. But you mentioned Windows Mobile, so I presumed by “back to square one” you meant WM 6.5 -> WP 7.0 transition.

They indeed replaced the OS kernel while transitioning from WP7 to WP8.

However, they inherited the rest of tech things from WP7. Both .NET and Silverlight were almost same as in WP7, they released the new non-Silverlight UI platform later with WP 8.1 update. Same applies to GUI design, marketplace and other online services. They even inherited non-tech things as well, i.e. logo and branding.

You see, at no point they were starting things from scratch. Instead, they released new generations of products largely based on the stuff they already had developed and tested.

What about the products that won because they released "too" early and iterated? YouTube, Twitter, Windows?

Windows phone is an interesting example for you to choose. Do you imagine that the old Windows Mobile team would have produced an iPhone if they'd just kept working quietly? Of course not. No amount of baking would turn Windows CE into an iPhone or even the current Windows Phone. On the other hand, Android released super early when it felt junky, but they iterated repeatedly and eventually beat Apple in market share.

My personal take away from your critique is that the problem is not just the computer. We also need a mobile display solution. Whether MS thinks they have that solved with their coming AR devices or they are looking farther down the pipe, I'm not sure.

I think MS's plan right now is to not have a plan. Many of their products point to them thinking that we are at a point where computers are making a fundamental shift in the way we interact with them (Surface, AR, this) but not necessarily being sure where the shift is going.

I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf. It seems like it get's more expensive/more complicated while not solving the same problems.

Sure in the far far future there might be feasible solution but in the meantime it would be nice if Microsoft had an idea of where they were headed instead of shrugging and going "well let's just see" :) They need to keep their ecosystem competitive to be positioned to take advantage of that future, whatever it is.

I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf

AR-glasses should be given to programmers and traders. What if AR-glasses could somehow be synchronized with what you're looking at in your IDE/editor? How about "diff-vision?" -- You could have a visual overlay that diffs the currently shown method/function with another bit of code from a stack?

I think the gloves are silly. Hand gestures would be a nice supplement to function keys. Heck, I could envision a bunch of good gestures that would mean less finger travel than function keys.

What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? Another problem is how comfortable it is staring through AR glasses hours at and end. I don't want to be the person to only see problems however, there might be some nice scenarios.

What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen?

If it was somewhat independent of any particular tool, it's possible that I could diff faster and more conveniently. If I can do it 5x faster than with a desktop tool, then I would probably use diffs a lot more often. It's the kind of change that happened with git vs. svn: certain information became much easier to use, and so the way that information was used fundamentally changed.

I'd also use such a tool differently. Instead of going statement-by-statement or character by character, I'd want to see at a glance the degree of similarity, then transition to a desktop tool to look at details.

Miracast is a Windows 10 supported mobile display solution with increasingly surprising ubiquity. You currently can't expect every hotel room TV to support it yet, but a generic Miracast stick (or Amazon Fire stick if you want a branded one) can be obtained pretty cheaply and is small and easy to tote around.

Microsoft has a folding bluetooth keyboard that fits in my pocket and is surprisingly nice to work on despite the size.

Keyboard, stick, phone, phone charger is just about all I need to be productive, and with a bit of arrangement I can fit all of that in carpenter's jeans pockets.

I think MS has several plans in motion but has been slow to get all of the moving parts in place. The Creator's Update and "Redstone 3" to follow sounds like some of those plans are finally starting to converge (now that the basic infrastructure is in place).

Intel also has their Compute Stick devices for people who need a full x86 PC in the same form factor. They're surprisingly inexpensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Compute_Stick

I think we've definitely hit a Gibson's Law inflection point here: the future is clearly already here and we can definitely see it; it's just very unevenly distributed right now.

That's a pretty good point.... (mobile display)

That means that msft must be working on some way to address this.

Possibly, they see continuum as a way to interconnect many devices made by their vendors?

I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight.

Senseless Corporate Priority inversions are most often some combination of internal politics and/or money grabs.

I have trouble coming up with use-cases...but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone.

People who prioritize for ultra light weight already have a "sub-par laptop." So what if you could get rid of the laptop? A large company that standardized around docks would make that possible. All large companies standardizing around, say USB-C connectors and a Windows ubiquitous wireless "dock" standard would make that possible for US corporations in general.

I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across the board. It's just sad seeing the mix mash of wasted potential.

Despite their huge success, such a statement could apply to Microsoft throughout most of its long history. I suspect that internal politics is behind much of that.

I dunno, take the Dell xps 13, depending on your specs you have pretty powerful laptop in a 11" format. Compare that against the HP Lap dock (https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Elit...). Expensive and it isn't even a full laptop.

I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places, whereas the good thing about laptops is that they can be used anywhere..

I agree that internal politics is most definitively the bane of Microsoft's existence :)

> I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places

I'm still holding out hope for a "Surface phone" with a laptop dock. The dock would really just be a battery, keyboard, trackpad, display, and probably a few USB ports.

I'd add a GTX 1060 GPU.

Personally, I like the idea of having one compute device that is always with me BUT only if it can be both a good phone and a good PC. Windows Continuum made no sense to me because Windows is a niche platform on mobile so it wasn't a good phone, and it didn't run my favorite Windows apps in PC mode either! With Windows 10 on Snapdragon, however, it could be a decent desktop PC (assuming a good dock with KVM and connectivity) but will it also be a good phone? That remains to be seen but I won't be surprised if some people start buying the new devices as low-end PC replacements (then using them as phones). If enough people do that, then developers might be persuaded to port native apps to Snapdragons, thereby enticing more people to buy these devices (iteratively)...

The continuum stuff is maybe the long term plan. But i think they could have a decent short term plan:

What about an affordable 7"-8" tablet that can offer windows mobile gaming(with an add-on joystick) and media + serve as a computer + serve as a media center ? could be a great fit for a the gamer niche, teens , and frugal consumers.

And a 7" platfrom is a great beachhead to encourage app development for 5" phones.

>frugal consumers

I feel like nobody is attempting to hit that market anymore in the US. As the income gap widens it seems foolish to ignore the majority of the marketplace.

You can buy a 7" Fire tablet for $50. The market is not lacking options for frugal customers.

It's a start, Amazon is smart to move in that market. I say put Linux on it and add a keyboard and we'd be getting somewhere.

The market for people who care about Linux on a 7" tablet is effectively zero.

I'm also pretty sure it supports keyboards. Attaching one permanently and turning it into a 7" laptop would make it unsellable.

I still have a WeTab at home that used to run Plasma Mobile (or whatever it was called back then). Those were the times.

Does Android allow you to do any meaningful work? The OS is more of a problem than the form factor. Kindle is for games and Netflix not for homework or doing your taxes.

You can install TurboTax and Microsoft Office on Android (not sure about the Kindle Fire) so you can definitely do homework and taxes on it. Personally I don't want to do either of those on a tablet, but that's due to the small screen moreso than the OS.

You mean like this? (8" Windows Tablet, $60.00)

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/NuVisio...

Which has Bluetooth 4.0, and will natively pair with Microsoft's Xbox One Bluetooth Gamepad. It also supports Miracast, so you can send Netflix / Hulu to your TV using Microsoft's Miracast Adapter ($50)

https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microso...

> For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with.

WP10 as the main OS, launch Android in a hypervisor, which ARMv8 supports.

i have immediately thought of that. Also Microsoft has Office Apps for Smartphones. I downloaded them once, but never used them. For a quick view a browser based solution would be sufficient, i really don't need full editing capabilities on my smartphone.

Speaking of tablets is entirely different, but microsoft already has the surface computer/tablet mix.

I use Word on Android + the MS fold-able mobile keyboard (pic in the article) to edit documents a lot. It works well for me on my P8 max. I am not the average user but I can't wait to never need a laptop or tablet again and just take my phone (or, better yet, clam shell) and fold able keyboard.

well, use cases might differ. I do most of the stuff on my laptop and only use my smartphone for reading in the train and social messaging.

Why can't there be a smartphone/tablet/desktop mix? With a single device, so that your apps are always running, you're always in the same place, all your data is always there (connectivity or no) etc.

ASUS actually already tried a smartphone/tablet device with PadPhone, but it lacked the productivity angle that full-fledged Win10 would bring to the table. Also, I think the idea of physically docking the phone into the tablet is counter-productive, because it results in a bulky device, and you cannot use the phone.

A simple tablet that is basically just a wireless display with touch makes a lot more sense, and the phone can stay in the pocket. I also wonder how much lighter the tablet could be made if it didn't have to have a powerful chipset, and cooling for it.

> I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. It seems so integral to so many other efforts.

Real men have mobile platforms.