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Microsoft shutters Pioneer Studios, we pour one out for J Allard
It's been about a year since he left Microsoft, but the J Allard era came to a more definitive close yesterday, with the shuttering of his brainchild, Pioneer Studios. Microsoft opened the incubation lab more than three years ago as an entrepreneurial space where designers could toy around with new consumer technologies. The tragically shelved Courier tablet was first developed within Pioneer's exposed brick walls, where Allard and his Alchemy Ventures team also worked on the Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7. Now, however, a Microsoft spokeswoman has confirmed that the downtown Seattle office is no longer occupied, telling CNET that many of the lab's employees have either left, or moved on to different positions within the company. Pioneer co-founder Georg Petschnigg left Microsoft in April to pursue an "undisclosed new venture," while fellow godfather Jonathan Harris is still at Redmond, where he serves as "principle experience director," according to their respective LinkedIn profiles. The spokeswoman didn't offer a specific reason for the decision, but in a now-ominous video posted to Microsoft's developer site back in October, Petschnigg acknowledged that the unit's innovative spirit would frequently lead to dead ends. "Often times our work just doesn't go anywhere," he explained, adding that Pioneer would only pursue projects expected to bring in more than $100 million a year. "That's one of the perils of being an entrepreneur." See the full video after the break.
HP to undercut iPad price, iPad to undercut Amazon e-books prices, Courier to rule them all?
Today's Apple rumor roundup is brought to you by the word "money." First up is a piece carried by the New York Times citing no less than three people familiar with provisions that would require publishers to discount best seller e-book prices sold on Apple's iPad. In other words, below the $12.99 to $14.99 price dictated by the new agency model -- prices Amazon is being strong-armed into accepting. Apple's prices could be as low as Amazon's previously magical $9.99 price point for some titles just as soon as they hit the New York Times best-seller lists. Discounted hardcover editions could be priced at $12.99 even if they do not hit the best-seller list. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has a pair of sources saying that HP will be meeting with its US and Taiwanese partners to "tweak prices and features" on its upcoming Slate. The move is meant to capitalize on a recent uptick in tablet interest with hopes of undercutting the $629 price of the similarly spec'd 3G-enabled iPad. Although it was introduced before the iPad, HP deliberatly held back on announcing a ship date or pricing so that it could tweak the Slate accordingly. Also noteworthy is renewed attention given to Microsoft's Courier. The WSJ says that Microsoft continues work on its two-screen Courier tablet at its Alchemy Ventures incubation laboratory in Seattle. However, it's still unclear whether Microsoft will launch the device.
Microsoft's Turtle and Pure 'Pink' phones and Surface Tablet: take 2
Right on cue, Mary Jo Foley has chimed in with her expert opinion on the latest Project Pink rumor. Weekend gossip that has Microsoft and Sharp "unleashing" a pair of slider phones codenamed "Turtle" (pictured above) and "Pure" in January (likely at CES). JoFo thinks that it's possible that the rumored handsets could be announced in January, but any phone from Microsoft's Pink skunkworks project wouldn't launch until Windows Mobile 7 was ready, an OS not expected to ship on consumer devices until the end of 2010. Still, a January announce certainly aligns with the modern product buzz life-cycle: the iPhone landed six months after its unveiling while the first Google co-branded phone -- T-Mobile G1 -- took almost a year to bump hands of anxious consumers. Foley also addressed 9to5Mac's tease of a "much, much bigger and juicier" rumor related to a Microsoft tablet in the late prototype phases. According to her sources, a new Microsoft tablet is part of something called "Alchemy Ventures" and contains at least one exec from Microsoft's Surface team and is presumably led by our buddy, J Allard. You'll recall that Microsoft was already rumored to be working on "Oahu" a Surface-based tablet for consumers. So when might we see it? Mary Jo speculates that Microsoft could be waiting to see what Apple's working on before showing off Redmond's competing design. In other words: February. [Via WMPowerUser] Read -- "Turtle" pic Read -- Mary-Jo Foley on Pink and Tablet
