From the Editors: With Touch, Microsoft has the advantage
By SD Times Editorial Board
December 15, 2009 —
(Page 1 of 2)
Attendees of Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference must have been delighted—truly touched—by the unexpected gift of a free Windows 7 notebook. By delivering the hardware, Microsoft was also making a point about a key feature of its consumer platform: support for touch. We’re delighted to see Microsoft promoting touch technology, and we hope that hardware and software makers leverage the potential of the platform.
Microsoft has been an early enthusiast of direct-to-screen input. Its Tablet PC initiative, launched in 2005 for Windows XP, offered a great deal of promise, but the compromises inherent in the hardware and limited software support beyond a few showcase applications kept the hardware out the mainstream. While Windows Vista improved the tablet infrastructure, the platform didn’t gain much traction.
A true touch-screen goes beyond the ink-based experience. As shown by Apple’s iPhone user interface, fingers offer a more intuitive UI than a stylus. Desktop computers, such as HP’s TouchSmart PC family, have become modest successes and have won rave reviews.
Equally impressive, but also out of the mainstream, is Microsoft’s Surface system. According to Microsoft, interest in the platform is growing quickly. While the hardware is expensive and has limited applications, some of the underlying technology has found its way into Windows 7… and into the touch-equipped Acer notebooks that Microsoft gave away at PDC.
We believe that touch-screens are about to go mainstream in desktop and notebook computers. If we’re right, there’s a huge opportunity for developers, and clear benefits for consumers and enterprises, to a touch interface. We commend Microsoft for its perseverance, vision, innovation and investment in this area.
What does touch need to take off? Software support in the operating system; Microsoft has that covered with Windows 7. We also need to see broad availability of the hardware in desktop and notebook PCs, just as we saw with CD-ROM drives, Ethernet interfaces and WiFi. Until developers see a lot of consumers with hardware, they won’t build applications; until consumers see applications, they won’t spend extra on hardware. Prices need to drop and choices need to expand, so that buying a touch-equipped desktop monitor or notebook computer becomes a no-brainer.
Related Search Term(s): APIs, Microsoft
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