Columns

See Me, Feel Me… Touch Me?

By Michael Gartenberg on Friday, Oct 9th 2009 1 Comment

multitouch 201x166 custom We’re just a few weeks away from the formal launch of Windows 7 and I’ve been using the final build for some time now. It’s very nice and I’m sure most of you have seen it, used it or read about it to death. What I want to talk about over the next few weeks is various parts of Windows 7. One of the most intriguing parts of the new OS that Microsoft has talked about for some time has been the integration of touch features. While vendors such as HP have done their own touch implementations in the past (HP has gone as far as to offer their own touch-based SDK for developers) this is the first time since Microsoft unveiled their touch platform offering, Surface, that we’ve seen the OS vendor incorporate true finger-touch features directly into the OS.

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Media Center for Windows Deserves Some Respect

By Michael Gartenberg on Wednesday, Sep 30th 2009 1 Comment

windows media center pc When I first was briefed on the Media Center edition of XP by Microsoft, I thought MCE was a pretty bad idea. A lot of my skepticism had to do with the market they claimed they were going after, namely college students in dorm rooms and yuppies living in cramped apartments with no room for both TVs and PCs. Of course, college students mostly buy laptops, and no matter where you live most folks don’t watch TV on a small computer monitor from across the room. The short-term market were enthusiasts who understood the value of a DVR such as a TiVo.

Over time, Microsoft tried a few approaches with MCE – from extenders to allow you to view content on other TVs in the home over your network, to creating extender technology for Xbox (which is already hooked up to a TV set) – as well as working with a host of OEMs to create “living room” form factor home theater PCs. The result of these efforts was less than a stellar success and few vendors actively build home theater PCs; these days, if a consumer uses media center they’re either an enthusiast or they’ve tripped over it by mistake trying to do something else. That’s a shame, as MCE has evolved over time to become a great technology, one that few people even know exist.

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When real is a little too real for me

By Michael Gartenberg on Wednesday, Sep 23rd 2009 No Comments

pacman One of the things I can’t help notice, playing the latest and greatest video games, is how this generation of consoles and PCs have the ability to provide the most realistic worlds I have ever seen with the most intense level of detail and real-world physics models. It makes sense: games are, at their heart, simulations and thanks to Moore’s Law the processing power of today’s devices mean that I can model the world in ever more detail and sophistication.

To me, however, that’s not necessarily a good thing. The problem is that there’s a danger of real becoming a little too real, at least for me. I won’t get into the issues of video game violence (for me it’s simple: parents that are worried about video game violence should watch what their kids play) but watching the latest boxing titles and seeing someone get hit in the face really hard is a little disturbing to me. Sure, I love titles like COD, but as we get to the point of creating really convincing simulations we also begin to face the danger of losing the most important aspect of game play. Fun.

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It’s time for Microsoft to get serious about media and mobility

By Michael Gartenberg on Wednesday, Sep 16th 2009 1 Comment

Microsoft Clippy This is a follow up note to some folks who work in Redmond (it’s OK for the rest of you to read it if you want to).

Hi guys. How are you doing these days? There’s no doubt that you must be frustrated. Really frustrated. After all, you were in digital music long before Apple, had cool phones that played music long before Apple and in general had a pretty compelling story for the digital consumer that was very complete, but no one paid a whole lot of attention. There were WMA players on the market long before iPod. In fact, Microsoft might have been dominant in digital music if it weren’t for that pesky iPod and iTunes combo. You’ve taken some hard hits, I remember when Apple introduced a flash memory music player, removed features and had customers waiting 2-4 weeks to get one. Gladly waiting I might add and ignoring all those other devices your partners brought to market. Yep, it’s been a tough few years.

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Lessons From a Mac OS Switcher

By Michael Gartenberg on Thursday, Sep 10th 2009 2 Comments

I used to be a total Macintosh user; however, over time, various places I worked depended on Microsoft Windows and other MSFT technologies so that I was forced to use Windows for much of what I do. I still kept using a Mac, mostly for creative work and where business use allowed, but I had to have Windows in my life. Over the last few years, Apple has created a new line of machines that more closely match my laptop needs and have made a lot of changes to their core platform OS X. The result is a combination that makes for a very compelling argument to use Macintosh full time.

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Context is the killer app for the digital consumer

By Michael Gartenberg on Tuesday, Sep 1st 2009 No Comments

ocean2 7 slashgear 480x386 As recently as a five years ago, it was relatively easy to segment the mobile market into business users and consumers. Business users had specific needs, as did consumers, and rarely did those needs intersect. Today, the idea of segmenting users into the classes of business vs. consumer is becoming archaic and to attempt that level of breakdown will lead to erroneous views of the market.

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Snow Leopard is Just Plain Cool: Gartenberg First Hands On

By Michael Gartenberg on Wednesday, Aug 26th 2009 42 Comments

mac os x 10 6 snow leopard1 This fall will see the introduction of new operating system releases by the two major vendors in this space. For the first time in recent memory, Apple and Microsoft will go up against each other head to head with the newest versions of their platforms, released within weeks of each other. First up is Apple with Snow Leopard. Originally announced for a late September release, Apple surprised the market with an early ship date. Users will be able to pick up their copies starting on the 28th. Pricing for the release is $29 for Leopard users looking to upgrade. For Mac users still on Tiger, Apple offers the Snow Leopard box set which includes Snow Leopard along with the latest versions of iLife and iWork for $169.

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Windows Mobile: Don’t write it off yet

By Michael Gartenberg on Thursday, Aug 20th 2009 15 Comments

casio cassiopeia 1 Windows Mobile has been around for a long time. It started life in 1996 as Windows CE (which some say stood for Consumer Electronics and Microsoft insisted was an acronym for nothing) with the first clamshell device coming from Casio, called the Cassiopeia. Over time, it’s evolved into a stable platform, with both enterprise and consumer appeal and devices from multiple vendors available for carriers around the world. Despite selling 20 million devices last year, there’s still a lot of negative buzz about the platform. Bloggers, analysts and journalists have all called the platform’s future into question (while still calling for a mythical Microsoft-created phone) and continue to raise the question of platform viability. I think the latest version of Windows Mobile, 6.5 addresses many of those issues along with strong support from OEMs who are still committed to the platform and will help drive business adoption further over the next 18 months.

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Understanding the Mobile Rule of Three

By Michael Gartenberg on Wednesday, Aug 12th 2009 6 Comments

It’s an interesting challenge. Lots of mobile devices that are all vying for the consumer pocket (and wallet). But just how many devices will consumers carry with them at any one time? The answer is important as that also helps define which devices will be successful and which ones will fail. Conventional wisdom holds that most consumers prefer to carry only a single device, and while that wisdom is correct it only tells a partial story. We’ve done some interesting research at Interpret that says there’s more here than conventional wisdom would indicate and that consumers are willing to carry more than one device; however there’s also an upper limit on that number.

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The Wright Brothers and Frequent Flyer Programs or Why Predicting the Future is So Hard

By Michael Gartenberg on Tuesday, Aug 4th 2009 No Comments

Life as an analyst is exciting. For fifteen years, I have had the privilege of standing at the center of the technology universe, observing the technology landscape, charting the major tends and offering my predictions for the future. In that course of time, I watched as fundamental changes occurred. Changes that were large enough to alter the course of the industry. Changes that were sweeping in nature. The funny thing is they were all changes that were almost universally missed by the pundits and experts.

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