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What Windows 7 tablet?
Yep. It's dead. Engadget has more details.
It may make sense to be done with it. Windows 7, though much lighter and more efficient than Windows Vista, is still a full-fledged desktop operating system. Even though it runs pretty well on netbooks, it's clearly not suited for super-simple touchscreen tablet devices. Microsoft would need to undertake a major rewrite and strip the software down to its essentials.
I guess they decided it's just not worth the bother, with the iPad doing so well. Besides, we can likely expect future tablets running Google's Android operating system, a simpler product that does well on smartphones and will probably work fine on slate-type computers as well. So where's the benefit to Microsoft in spending another year or so prepping a Windows 7 tablet? Probably not much.
And yet... remember that Microsoft launched tablet computers nearly a decade ago. The biggest, richest software company on earth partnered with the world's top computer hardware makers to develop dozens of tablets. Yet in nearly 10 years, they couldn't create something that consumers wanted to buy. Apple managed it on the first try.
Cupertino, 1. Seattle, 0.
It may make sense to be done with it. Windows 7, though much lighter and more efficient than Windows Vista, is still a full-fledged desktop operating system. Even though it runs pretty well on netbooks, it's clearly not suited for super-simple touchscreen tablet devices. Microsoft would need to undertake a major rewrite and strip the software down to its essentials.
I guess they decided it's just not worth the bother, with the iPad doing so well. Besides, we can likely expect future tablets running Google's Android operating system, a simpler product that does well on smartphones and will probably work fine on slate-type computers as well. So where's the benefit to Microsoft in spending another year or so prepping a Windows 7 tablet? Probably not much.
And yet... remember that Microsoft launched tablet computers nearly a decade ago. The biggest, richest software company on earth partnered with the world's top computer hardware makers to develop dozens of tablets. Yet in nearly 10 years, they couldn't create something that consumers wanted to buy. Apple managed it on the first try.
Cupertino, 1. Seattle, 0.
About the blogger
Hiawatha Bray
Hiawatha is a business reporter and columnist covering the high-tech industry for the Boston Globe business section. His weekly Tech Lab gadgets and software reviews appear in the Globe every Thursday.
