Microsoft CEO laughs off Google OS challenge | The Coffeehouse

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

It's like having a QVGA device the size of a VGA device and if as by your own admission it's not as usable with your fingers as your iphone you could imagine how much it would be usable without that DPI hack on its real resolution.

QVGA device the size of a VGA device? DPI hack? What are you talking about? You've completely lost me. Windows Mobile can either run under QVGA 240x320 at 96DPI or VGA 480x640 at 192DPI (it supports other resolutions too but that's not important right now, these two are the most common anyway). The screen is the same size as a QVGA device, but the resolution is twice as high. Because the OS knows the higher DPI everything stays the same size as on a QVGA, only with much sharper graphics and text. That's not a hack, that's how it's supposed to work. And FYI, the iPhone is also 192DPI.

EDIT: Axim and iPhone side by side (sorry for the poor lighting):

Ok, so the Axim's screen is maybe a little bit bigger, but the difference is negligable.

Ubuntu

Steve Ballmer answers in the WPC09

the best quote from Ballmer: "We don't need a different OS than Windows" - I'm afraid we do Wink

Ray7

His comments make no sense. Doesn't Microsoft have separate operating systems of the desktop and mobile devices?

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

In reply to leeappdalecom

#Jul 14th @ 11:43 PM

I agree, the iPhone interface right now is the best on the market (although I haven't used a Palm Pre). However, a PDA thats hard to do text entry on and is a closed application platform isn't worth me buying. So, right now, I don't even own a PDA, I just have a regular cheap phone that I got for free with my wireless plan.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

Isn't Windows Mobile a client operating system? Even if OEMs are putting it on netbooks, Andriod was never designed to compete as a desktop OS. It's very clear to me at least that it was designed with phones in mind. Chrome OS is going directly for the desktop market.

Charles
Welcome Change

In reply to Bass

#Jul 15th @ 10:45 AM

"Chrome OS is going directly for the desktop market."

Really? Are you sure about that?

C

jason818_253.33
Yippi skippy

In reply to Charles

#Jul 15th @ 11:28 AM

I would be surprised if google didn’t have a strategy for taking some of the desktop market. That is why I don’t think Steve Ballmer should be laughing at the current state of the chrome os.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

In reply to Charles

#Jul 15th @ 11:28 AM

Yes.

Charles
Welcome Change

In reply to jason818_253.33

#Jul 15th @ 11:40 AM

Time will tell.

At this point, given the lack any real information, it's all just speculation anyway. If in fact they want to enter the general purpose client computing arena (beyond handheld or small form factor "netbook" PCs), then they have their work cut out for them. That said, they really don't have anything to lose. Yet...

One thing I do know for sure is that we aren't worried at all...

C

kettch

In reply to leeappdalecom

#Jul 15th @ 5:21 AM

Only when I visit them a thousand miles away.

I've had finger scrolling for quite a long time via third party addin, but 6.5 has brought smooth finger scrolling and inertia to the rest of the OS.

magicalclick

Clearly SteveB is the one canned that MS Browser OS. "we don't need two OS". I do believe Chorm OS is directed as Netbook OS, lite, simple, and reliable. Certainly it will trade off many flexibility to gain ease of use and reliability. I am sure it will be good enough to have apps like iPhones, that, most people cares about. Although it is too early to tell what Chrom OS can do, I don't think anyone should ignore it as MS fanboy, Apple fanboy, or Ubuntu fanboy.

I personally think MS should think about its position. Obviously OS is getting competitive when you have more devices to cover. MS is currently strong on PC and Console market, but netbook and cellphone market is seriously lacking. Netbook maybe fine with Win7, but I still believe some specialized security setup should be used to maintain better usibility and reliability (from users). Not everything needs a PC grade OS in every device. Just like you don't need all the features in Facebook or Twitter, you only need a subset of features.

I am certainly worried about WM. It is clearly lacking compare to iPhone in terms of hardware software integration, since MS doesn't control hardware at all. And it is also certain that gPhone OS is cheaper and suitable for exactly the same MW market, the software only market. And we all know no one want their phone looks the same as other phone running the same OS; this is part of fanboism thing. They want their handle to stand out with different GUI and so does the manufacture. Thus, they all want to make their own OS instead. This is certianly not a good thing to WM.

To make WM more attractive. Either moving to iPhone/Balckberry hardware based style to boost fanboy support. Or make WM a lot easier for manufactures to cutomize its GUI and a lot cheaper for manufactures to OEM it. But ultimatly I think it is better to go for ZunePhone market instead for Windows sytle market. It is clear that software only solution isn't working out for cellphone market.

Oh hell, too much typing.

Ray7

In reply to Bass

#Jul 15th @ 11:41 AM

An OS that is basically a browser running on top of a Linux kernel doesn't sound like much of a desktop OS to me.

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to Ray7

#Jul 15th @ 11:59 PM

Well, if it does web, email, word processing, pictures, IM, music and video, most people are fine with that. It's all they use their computer for anyway. And if that's free, nobody is going to say no to saving a hundred bucks... There needs to be a free Windows Smiley

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 16th @ 12:12 AM

Are you going to be moving over to a Chrome OS and get rid of Windows

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

In reply to Ray7

#Jul 15th @ 11:59 PM

We don't know how this is going to look. A browser is in theory capable of being a runtime engine. Google has tricks up it's sleeves to make a browser into a very good runtime engine.

Charles
Welcome Change

In reply to magicalclick

#Jul 15th @ 6:50 PM

Do you really think that we aren't thinking about these things? What do you think we do up here in Redmond? Do you think we aren't plotting and scheming, experimenting and failing and experimenting and succeeding, innovating, risking, etc like all other businesses in this industry? Do you think we don't have "tricks up our sleeves" (not my choice of wording, but I get what you're talking about) because we encourage blogging and community interaction in open and honest terms ("Microsoft hasn't told us what the're doing and even Mary Jo Foley doesn't know. My God!! They aren't doing anything!!!!!")? Come on. Google and Apple, like the rest of our competitors are very smart. This is because the are composed of very smart, highly skilled and talented people who are passionate and creative. You know, just like Microsoft....

Competition is awesome. It's stimulating. There are some incredibly interesting ideas and much experimentation happening inside the Happy Death Star that you can't know about. Does that mean they aren't real?

C

jason818_253.33
Yippi skippy

In reply to Charles

#Jul 16th @ 11:39 AM

That is the response Steve Ballmer should have given. IMHO

Ray7

In reply to Dodo

#Jul 16th @ 12:12 AM

Sorry, but if this were true, then MS would have stopped selling licenses long ago. It's fine for simple applications, but I reckon once you have a need that goes beyond the basics, then you're back to desktop programs.

magicalclick

In reply to jason818_253.33

#Jul 16th @ 1:02 PM

LOL so true. But, how much research projects does he knows or killed? But, saying that doesn't change the fact that MS is lacking some of those areas. It doesn't change the fact that Gazel (spelling) is killed within MS and Google OS may be the same idea that end up sucessful. And most people will just think MS has done nothing. For people like me know many dead MS researches, seeing the same idea being sucessful from competitors really make me sad.

Charles
Welcome Change

In reply to magicalclick

#Jul 16th @ 7:21 PM

Not sure how you've determined that the Gazelle research project is dead.... It's only just begun, in fact. The purpose of Gazelle is to investigate different approaches to web browser security and execution models. In reality, the successful pieces of the project will most likely find a home inside of, well, you can do the math....

MSR is not in the business of shipping production code. It's about research, science. Many products, of course, do directly benefit from discoveries that happen in MSR and they happen all of the time whether the public knows about it or not. Basic computer science research is critical to our ability to succeed. This is why Bill and Steve allocate so much funding for it.

On the production side of things, most product groups have incubation teams working on next generation technologies that we will not discuss until we feel we're ready to divulge information - this is because it's not useful to get customers excited about unproven technologies and we don't want our ISVs and partners building business plans on top of raw innovation (it needs to cook through before we serve it up). Remember WinFS? Yeah, we don't want to do that again.

C

exoteric
I : Next<I>

In reply to Charles

#Jul 17th @ 8:48 AM

Maybe a proper label is all that's needed rather than "secrecy" Smiley

...But no, in this post-longhorn world, it's understandable.

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to Ray7

#Jul 16th @ 3:15 PM

Well, if you need something else, you can still install a more capable OS, that's not a problem, but most people don't. Especially your computer un-savvy (did I spell that right?) grandma won't. There's so much on the internet these days, you don't need it running on your computer...

And with fast mobile internet via 3G and 4G networks, the only thing that remains to be solved is laptop battery life and everything could really run inside of a browser. The possibilities for webapps are limitless these days.