[Zigurd]

This is a bit of revisionism. Windows tablets, and tablet support in Windows, have been around since Windows XP. It was unsuccessful every time it was tried.

Saying "no" to tablet support was, in light of Microsoft's experience with tablets, the right thing to do.

[kabdib]

Yeah, but all the tablets were crappy. They weren't what a tablet needed to be to succeed, which unfortunately really means "ditch a lot of Windows." At MS this is heresy and is not tolerated.

Xbox managed to ship a non-Windows-based product because they were nearly completely isolated during the product's inception. (Yes, the Xbox kernel is largely Win2000, but with a LOT of stuff ripped out).

I don't know how WinCE succeeded at all. Microsoft would have been better off if it hadn't, and something better had come along. Lordy, what a pile...

In summary: At MS, you are either (a) Windows, and shipping something probably inappropriate for your users, or (b) playing a political game where users come second, or (c) isolating yourself from the rest of the company, if you can swing it.

MS needs to fix it's "Windows everywhere" mindset.

[deveac]

>Saying "no" to tablet support was, in light of Microsoft's experience with tablets, the right thing to do.

The point is that the failure of MS to bring a viable tablet to market cannot be painted as any single exec's fault over Ballmer. I was responding to the article's accusation of Ballmer's frustration at being told no (fair or not, I can't say). The bottom line is that the buck stopped with Ballmer, and if he was frustrated at being told "no", then even if "no" was the correct business decision at the time, the reason it was is the fault of Ballmer.