[scholia]

Powerful 2-in-1 that works as a laptop and a tablet; runs sandboxed apps from a web store as well as traditional Windows apps; built in AI assistant; excellent pen operation; built in accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer; cloud integration with OneDrive, Office programs, email etc with the ability to continue work from different devices; face-recognition or fingerprint log-on; increased security features....

Yeah, it's hard to see any innovation compared to your granddad's laptop ;-)

[cmdrfred]

Microsoft wasn't the first to do a single one of those things. Copying Apple and Google isn't innovative in my opinion nor Websters.

[untog]

And Apple wasn't the first to make a touch screen smartphone. They were just the first to do it well.

[cmdrfred]

Lets say their implementations are marginally better.

* runs sandboxed apps from a web store - Android(2008), IOS(2007)

* as well as traditional Windows apps - Only Windows obviously

* built in AI assistant - Apple(2011)

* excellent pen operation - Wacom(1992)

* built in accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer - Every flagship phone since 2005

* cloud integration with OneDrive, Office programs, email etc with the ability to continue work from different devices - Google drive, Google docs, Gmail (2007)

* face-recognition or fingerprint log-on - Available on circa 2000 Fujitsu laptops

* increased security features - SELinux(1998)

I'm not impressed. Most of this stuff has been done for over a decade if the version from 8 years ago is worse that isn't saying much.

[scholia]

Microsoft had precursors for most of those, including pen operation via MS DOS extensions (in the 1989 GriDPad) and the intelligent Office Assistants in Microsoft Office 98.

Otherwise, the interesting point about Windows 10 is that so much of the technology was carried across from the smartphone industry, including Cortana and notifications from Windows Phone.

I'd have thought that creating a converged mobile OS to cover IoT devices, games consoles, smartphones and all types of PCs required innovation.

On the same basis, so did "PC innovations" that included features from minis and mainframes, and smartphone innovations that had already appeared in various PCs and handhelds.

Unless you're actually a research organization, pretty much every innovation will have more to do with implementation than with pure invention.

[hashhar]

It's really amazing how the list you created includes different products for each bullet but Microsoft (or M$ if you prefer) combined all of them into a single product which actually functions.

[cmdrfred]

So if Apple threw a stylus and a word processor on the iPhone they would be innovators too?

[scholia]

Microsoft had a stylus and a word processor on PocketPC handhelds long before the iPhone, and Apple had them on the Newton, though Palm was there first....

Going back to 1989, Microsoft had a stylus-operated tablet with the GRiDPad, which was running MS-DOS with Extensions for Pen Computing.

SketchPad was innovative. Otherwise, such claims generally tend to illustrate that the claimant doesn't know enough computer history...

[hashhar]

Well, I agree with them not being innovators but they definitely made a marketable product. It's the same thing for which business circles praise Apple. Apple turn already known things into a marketable package which is not so different from what Microsoft did here. That's what being a device manufacturer is about.

Innovations come in small bursts. Take the Surface Hub as an example.

[lisivka]

Yeah, ten year ago it was very innovative.