Microsoft Office Roundtable reviewed

The good people over at TMCnet want to keep you covered with their lengthy review of Redmond's five-camera foray into the teleconferencing game, which, as part of Microsoft's Unified Communications Platform, will probably be seeing a lot of action this year. And what are their feelings? Well, they get stoked on its resemblance to the ships in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds, dig the "head-size spatial equalization" (which makes everyone's head the same size, seriously), and think that maybe $3000 is a fair price. The only thing they weren't quite as excited about was the inability to use the panoramic features with non-Ballmerware, but even that appears to be a minor complaint. Still not sure you need one for your startup? Maybe you'd better read the whole thing.

[Hamson @ Jun 23rd 2007 12:47PM]

Addressed to Mr. Joshua Topolsky:
This may or may not be a personal request, but without looking at who had been writing the last 3 posts, I noticed a similar trend. They all left it "up to you" to decide something.

IE: 1. Still not sure you need one for your startup? Maybe you'd better read the whole thing.
2. ...which certainly raises a number of questions, and definitely gets you thinking about the word vaporware.
3. Was this for real? Read the translation and judge for yourself.

Now personally, I'm not a big fan of this kind of writing where I either have to go on a mystery hunt or read all the comments to even tell if an article I'm reading is legitimate or not. That's the kind of thing that the blogger should research before they make their post. Give me an opinion at the very least.

[Dustin @ Jun 23rd 2007 12:49PM]

What is this microsoft "tabletop" you refer to, you have truely made the find of the century!! No one has ever reported or talked about this at all. How did your website get such a massive exculsive, you have rocked the world today my friend!

There was no sarcasm in this post, or this sentence, at all.

[Reno Dehareng @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:02PM]

Dustin,

I just tried to be helpfull...

;-)

[Blackster @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:15PM]

helpful?
better try hijacking a thread to promote youre blog!

[Vasisht Srinivasasn @ Jun 23rd 2007 2:00PM]

To Blackster:

Y-O-U APOSTROPHE R-E is YOU ARE

Y-O-U-R MEANS YOUR

GET IT RIGHT!

[wrs @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:09PM]

Since M$ is so after DRM, I just wonder what might happen the moment some 'sonic driven' car thunders down the street, amidst a video conference. -- Shut it down immediately just to make sure noone can steal that music the car driver apparently is enjoying so much?

Might become a hard time to ever get a connection established then. Just think about all those copyrighted ring tones...

[Reno Dehareng @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:28PM]

To Blackster..

Ok man...no problem for me if you ask engadget to remove my post...

It was not my goal to spam engadget...but i didn't know that it was impossible to speak about something on this blog without beeing called 'spammer' by other readers!

[kcar @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:40PM]

Reno,

Microsoft's Milan is a touch-screen kiosk. Like the ones you find in malls. Or airport check-ins. Or ATMs.

Frankly, I don't see how or when it's going to penetrate the home market space. It'll be a one or two-trick pony in hotels and bars.

In short: whoop-de-damn-do.

[Tom @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:41PM]

Evidence of people becoming more and more stupid:
Only one out of 7 or 8 comments for this topic actually deals with the topic at hand.

Thank you, public schools.

[marc.federico @ Jun 23rd 2007 11:22PM]

Very, very, cool. I hope my company gets this soon!