Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72
It didn't surprise me that Windows would interest me in tablets because I don't only see a tablet, I see the integration between the tablet and other tools that I'm already using and unless a tablet is going to help my professional life, I find it hard to justify the expense.
|
And *that* is exactly what a lot of pundits are missing with all their talk of a Post-PC age. They think in terms of gadgets *replacing* PCs when the reality is that in the post-PC age gadgets will supplement and feed your PCs.
So far computing evolution has run from one computer for many to one computer per person to many computers per person. Similarly, networking has evolved towards personal networks and the internet has evolved towards personalization of online resources.
Add it all up and you get a model where people will need and want total synchronization of their resources and services and ubiquitous acess to them across a multiplicity of gadgets.
Amazon gets it--Microsoft got it first (since the PDA days) and it is no accident that both are leaders in cloud computing.
Google gets it but their lack of a stable hardware base has hampered them in pushing their online services which is why many expect them to take android deeper into proprietary hardware like the Nexus 7. They are reasonably strong online but they are weak on the ground.
Apple has recently started to move that way but they are way behind online though they are strong on the ground. Long term I'm not clear that Apple understands Cloud Computing (and not just storage) is going to be a necessary part of the value equation for gadgets.
Amazon is aiming for app-based ubiquity, piggybacking on other folk's hardware--which is risky; hence their recent forays into hardware.
Microsoft is aiming for platform-based ubiquity and making a universal platform that can run on everything.
Now, Microsoft has *always* been a tools and platforms company, from the BASIC days to the present. And Project Austin is a reflection of that. The app is a demonstration of what their tools can do on their platform as much as Exchange and Sharepoint and Office and Azure are.
By open sourcing Project Austin they are not just showing off to consumers what the app can do and how it does it, but also showing to the developer community how it works and just how useful their tools and platform is. (And maybe daring fans of other platforms to try to replicate it.
)
MS has always played this two-pronged game: appealing to users with apps on one hand while appealing to the developers that make the apps with the other. And always raising the ante for competitors in the war for the hearts and minds of developers. (Everybody talk of the domination of Windows and Pffice but hardly anybody talks about the domination of Visual Studio and the MS Developer Network product.)
Releasing demo apps like these is something they've been doing for ages.
This one just happens to be especially interesting because of the backstory of the code.