Microsoft to reveal HP built Courier slate tomorrow?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 5th 2010 8:58PM
posted January 5th 2010 8:58PM
It was 2001 that Bill Gates first introduced the Tablet PC in Las Vegas. Tomorrow will see the launch of what could be Microsoft's next take on the Tablet PC right here at CES if the New York Times is correct. According to "people familiar with Microsoft's plans," Steve Ballmer will introduce an HP-built "slate-type computer" during the opening CES keynote. The rumored device is said to be a "multi-media whiz with e-reader and multi-touch functions" in tow that could be available by mid year. So what will it be? The Courier supported by a full-suite of content partners, or will it be just another Windows tablet in search of mass market acceptance? You'll find out tomorrow right here at Engadget.
The AAPL fanboys are running scared. Gotta love the spin: "GOOG and MSFT had to show their cards!" If AAPL's card is a WiFi-only glorified e-book reader, then MSFT and GOOG have "the nuts".
@dwboston1 can we remind you of this post once the Apple tablet is announced?
It doesn't matter what AAPL announces, you'll declare victory anyway. That's what fanboys do.
@dwboston1:
"MacBook air fits in a manilla envelope, gotta give it to 'em!"
"Apple TV is a great product, no one just uses it."
"...what? The Mac Mini is _good_ for it's price range..."
I like Apple's innovation, but recognizing failures is good too.
@Kirtay >> "I like Apple's innovation, but recognizing failures is good too."
Why don't you follow it up with an "Apple success" chaser?
iPod... love 'em or hate 'em... it's the best selling MP3 player ever.
iTunes Music Store... 8.5 billion songs sold. Largest music retailer in the world in less than 7 years. Music has been sold for over 70 years.
iPhone... double the Windows Mobile market share... despite only being on the market for less than 3 years.
@Michael Scrip
Let them live in denial.
Is this on WOOT yet? It seems like a mixture of Smart Screen and Tablet PC remember those, no me neither. Not going to happen people, not if MS has its hands in it.
@szamot Your logic appears to be about as faulty as your memory.
Example: How can you list both Smart Screen and Tablet PC and then in the same sentence state that you don't remember either.
Maybe it's time for you to take a break from the interweb...
Just Saying
@DaHarder
Yes.... Smart screen is nowhere to be found, Google it, you will find some screen gutter covers, and honestly Tablet PC? I don't know a single person who uses it, god knows I tried it myself.. Tablets are almost as useful, as last year snow, time to get over it.
@szamot One note is a great program I use on my Lenovo Tablet daily....
I think it could be wm7. I read on xda that htc could be releasing new wm7 handsets this year. Although, Im not sure about the source.
WM7: late, bloated, half-assed-business-as-usual, 50% vaporware. Gates will brag about it on a HP crapgadget tablet that probably couldn't make it through a real demo, so he'll just show screenshots. The crowd will applaud and then they will find there is no there there.
Two fails in one week, first the Nexus One and now the Gates Slate.
LOL, thanks for playin' GOOG & MSFT.
@Ed T
It's 2010. billg won't be doing the keynote....
Slate, Slate, Slate.
They literally haven't done *anything* yet, but Apple's already won.
Before I start I'll tell you a little about myself. I've been using Windows since the days when 386 PCs came out. I bought one with a monochrome (black and green) screen and a sweet dot matrix printer. Ever since, I've gone through every iteration of Windows and all kinds of x86 hardware till 2006. By then I realized PCs are not the way to go (unless I wanted a gaming rig). Windows, including XP, was just too unreliable, had too many problems (specially unexpected ones) and there was just too much to tinker with and figure out to get the PC working right. So I switched to a Mac and suddenly I was enjoying using a computer again.
I'll give XP merits for finally merging the code from NT 5 and '98 into a unified platform but I always found 2000 far more stable than XP. You're right that XP had more features than OS X at the time (granted OS X was born out of NeXT just in 2000), however XP was built on shaky foundations (NT code) whereas OS X was built on rock-solid UNIX. Ever since, Apple has delivered constant OS technology innovations in the form of OS X updates from 10.0 (Cheetah) to the current 10.6 (Snow Leopard). In contrast, Microsoft has just followed Apple's lead. Example:
In 2000, when Apple developed OS X's Aqua GUI utilizing its Quartz graphics compositing engine, MS responded with a cheap imitation (skinning) on XP called Styles. Seven years later MS came up with their own graphics compositing engine called Aero bundled in Vista. It was so badly done that it became one of the leading resource hogs in Vista.
I would say XP was the largest jump in Windows operating systems in history but would not go as far as calling it the biggest jump of all operating systems. You're right that MS delivered 64bit first but at a very high resource cost. In other words they had to split development of XP into 32bit and 64bit platforms with applications for the two not compatible with each other. Apple's approach was incremental but kept on a single platform. Processes were made 64bit with 32bit GUIs (Tiger), then the GUI was made 64bit (Leopard) and finally the Kernel was made 64bit (Snow Leopard). This one single delivery of SL is fully compatible with 32 and 64 bit applications. MS to this day maintains a fractured platform with 32bit and 64bit variants of Windows 7 and all their 6 variants in each flavor. I think Apple's approach was wiser.
stupid engadget comment sytstem. this was meant for OG Phenix on page 2
I have a sales team on the road of 10 using tablets (running XP) and though they are robust (mixture of HP and LG hardware) I would never actually pay my own money for them !!!! God forbid. The company has to pay for all my hardware and generally my bail money also.
iWant a Courrier
My confidence in Microsoft introducing something as cool as the Courier feels like rooting for the Cleveland Browns to win the superbowl. A man can hope.
I'm not an actor, I'm not a star...
and I don't even have my own slate.
If this is all true then it's a mixed bag really. On the one hand, it's great that Microsoft is finally learning to prepare itself for the competition instead of waiting and releasing a good enough device when it's too late.
On the other hand, I really don't want another multimedia tablet- I'd much rather they made the original Courier prototype a reality and gave millions of students(and work-types in general) the notetaking device we all want.
If all else fails though I guess I'll be upgrading my tx1000 to the tm2 when I start uni again.
I do belive MS has done a nice job. Of course Wii was the console whom inctroduced such gamming expirience but this does not make MS job lame. Although, I belive this will cost more than my years income...
You shall notice that using image processing requires far more processing than the supposelly "lame" and 80's IR from Wii. Did you came to think the explendid work Wii does with a extremely weaker HW?
By the complexity of the games shown, it may be possible that the images are being processed on the console and that would kill the possibility of using it in a game like FFXIII.
I would wait a little more to see how this performs with high-complexity games before declaring this technology to be the ultimate gaming expirience.
ignore me please...
wrong post :D
i second that....please be the courier....
Anyway, isn't Ballmer supposed to be speaking about now? where's the dude?
@HighestRanked: 6:30PM PT. Pacific Time, so don't know where you are.
@Kirtay He is excited, ROFl...oh and loves his fruit...
@therodt If fat Ballmer actually comes out with his new crapgadget it is going to be fun seeing the disappointed reactions of all the MS 'tards here