[mc32]

I remember when the Courier[1] demo came out. I was excited about it... Then deeply disappointed when it was unceremoniously shelved. It's speculation whether it would have been a successful product, but I think the idea back then had potential but Ballmer was unwilling to gamble on it.

[PS] On the other hand, he did gamble on long-term things like Azure, so it's not like he made all the wrong bets --but it seemed like an obvious bet to go with something like a Courier, specially after all the buzz it created.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier

[jalfresi]

To this day, I sometimes come across images of the Courier, and day-dream about what was possible the ideal portable for me. I loved everything about the potential of that project.

Still do.

[FreezerburnV]

You and me both. To this day I deliberately don't think about it, because it just makes me sad that what seemed to be incredible potential was shelved. I guess the Surface products are the closest to that potential, but for a long time all we had was the iPad and awful Android tablets. And I still feel like all of it doesn't live up to the ideals the Courier had.

I'm now going to go and forget this comment happened so I don't spend the day depressed about where technology went.