elizabeth grigg - the other fourth meal

Tablets would have been amazingly successful if we didnt already have laptops that can do more. At the end of the day, who really *needs* hand writing recognition anyway? After years of typing, Id much rather use a keyboard than actually write something down...

Kingy, yes, I too can type faster than I can handwrite in most cases. However, how about drawing? Or touching up an image in Photoshop? Also, try holding your notebook, typing, and/or surfing the Net while standing in a registration line at a conference. The Tablet helps with each of these.

Here's one more example. Elizabeth in her next post points out how she debugs using screenshots and annotating the pictures. She uses PowerPoint, but a Tablet with the built-in Journal app will do just as well.

Interesting points. If I were the first person to think of the tablet concept, and I could go back in time to advise that person, I'd give a strong vote for (instead) applying this form factor to niche widgets that can be clear successes like the iPod. And of course, widget connectivity is everything for achieving that success.

Somehow having something "as good as" a COWEDE* just begs the question of why the Tablet has to do so much all the time in order to win people over. Might I venture to say the Tablet is the supermom of computers? And perhaps just as unhappy? [Warning: metaphor overload]

Oh boy. Very dangerous thinking. If this is an indicator of the marketing thought-processes that go on inside MSFT, no wonder it hasn't got a lift. Even great products need to be INTRODUCED to people. Things do not happen in a vacuum. If XP and Office 2003 are so great (and they are) then why aren't more people upgrading to it? Quite simple, they don't understand HOW it's better than what they have now, and why it matters, and why the extra cost is worth it. Show them, and they might follow. Great products do not automatically equal market share.

Tablets will be way bigger than a simple 21st century low-fidelity walkman of sorts. People understand music players, no heavy education needed, but Tablets are more detailed, will take more time to explain, but in turn have a higher impact. Cars take more explanation in operations than bicyles. The Tablet PC needs all the cheerleading it can get (and then some) as it is emerging product and more complex. Working in an iPod comparison into that whole mix is bad logic. Not relevant, not comparable.

If the Tablet is so great, why does it need evangelized at all? As said before, that is easy. Simply because it is an emerging product, people are yet NOT aware of it. But it is quite viral once they use and see, takes time sure, but demo a Tablet to any random group of people, the reactions are bugged-eyed positive. "I didn't know a computer could do that." If a product is great, people will automaticlly find it? Oh yeah, right. So the whole of Capitalism, Advertising, Marketing and Madison Ave. is simply unnecessary and redundant? Just make good products? You can't really believe that. And if you do...oh dear, no hope. People are lazy, they are passive, they don't seek things out. You have to SHOW it to them, even good products.

And furthermore, your iPod numbers are off, and this is not an 'apples and oranges' comparison, between a $400 music player, and a $1,500-$2,300 workhorse Tablet; comparing an iPod to a Tablet, is like comparing a Scooter to a Buick, it's just not the same. And your Math does NOT add up. iPods been around for nearly 3 years, Tablets barely two, so the time-frame comparison is off, hence the numbers will be greatly different in a year, that I know as I have heard about several big Tablet deployments upcoming. And if anything Tablet numbers should be way lower (on account of pricing), but they aren't. Your logic and math does not compute.

Early adopters who were going to be buying Tablets have already bought one? NOT TRUE at all. Price levels are keeping many Early Adopter types away, and the fact of 2005 Edition right around the corner, plus Dothan and other things. Not everyone has bought into it. Software, hardware issues not in sync can be also factored in here. Tons of bleeding edge, never saw value in Pent III models, but see it in Centrino and Dothan. You miss the timeline.

Tablet has had a lot of cheerleading? Yeah? So that accounts for all OEMs and ISVs in a state of near-rebellion and every (I mean every) Press newsbit decrying the state of Tablet marketing? All that "Tablet PC is dead" talk. Even the most loyal types, have to admit, (for whatever reason) that the marketing has not caught on or been well-excuted. The "Vision Thing" was lost. I am not sure what sort of dream-state you have to be in to think that Tablets have gotten a lot of cheerleading. Really it has come down to around 10 to 15 people (non-MSFT employees at that); and you take away those 10 to 15 and (at least on the net) you have zero footprint. And put it this way, I don't want to be in the room when you say "Tablet PC has gotten a lot of cheerleading" to an Acer or Toshiba exec. :) Where are the official Tablet PC Evangelists? Where is the marketing outreach that has not resulted in monumental problems and screw-ups and press fodder, such as the Demo Days or College Tours? Where was the face of the Tablet PC team until Scobie pulled-teeth to get it on Channel 9? Now you have Evan, Rob Will, Phillip Su and others out there, picking up, but it has only started. Lots of cheerleading? I beg to differ. And even if lots, this is a product where cheerleading isn't enough, you can demo, cheerlead it until blue in face and it won't impact. People have to see, to use. To make it personal. To make it relevant, how does this help me in my job, life or whatever. Not "widgets". This is not gadget-fest cornucopia.

Socratic line of inquiry, yes. Socratic inquiry deals in questioning one into a contradiction, proving that their original assumption was wrong. Any marketer that throws out the Socratic line of inquiry should get a new career. Example...

"Tablets I have no use for. Well do you take notes in meetings? Yes lots. Would you like to store those notes in computerized form? Yes. Well, here's where the Tablet can do that. Show OneNote. Oh. Well ok. Neat."

To sum your post all up: bad comparison with bad math, even worse logic, and a misunderstanding of the market and of marketing. :)

PS - Sorry for the rantified run-on, but this was a sticker for me. :)

One final nitpick. :) You said..."it’s evident at this point there will not be any iPod-like adoption of the technology."

At this POINT? Right before even SP2 and 2005 Edition have even been released?...with tons of Press and the In-Stat/MDR report saying 2005 and lower prices levels (upcoming) are what is needed to take it higher? Your "at this point" is too early. You are throwing in the towel right before it hits a stride. No it is not evident. What is evident is that it will grow.

The correct way to answer that is...

"The Tablet needs all the cheerleading it can get, because it’s evident that most people don't know about it and might find it of use, *if* they knew."

But at the end of the day, it won't really matter...you won't be able to avoid it.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1614502,00.asp - "With tablet support likely becoming a standard part of the Longhorn OS, every Windows-based business notebook will double as a Tablet PC."

Hi Chris, thank you for educating me on some points above. I don't want to defend my post, but perhaps a slight recontextualization is in order.

One thing that comes to mind is the difference between a weblogger and a reporter. This has been discussed before. The fact is, I can't check facts the way a reporter can, so if I claim something that turns out to be wrong (like industry timeframe stuff) that just comes with the territory. I can only write about what I "feel" happened, and perhaps that's not much use to anyone, but there it is. Another important point is that I'm not a corporate weblogger from inside microsoft. Instead, this is a personal weblog with microsoft and food as the topic. I hope I didn't give the impression I work for microsoft (I don't), or that I worked for the tablet team at any point (although you could have fooled me, for a couple a days, before I looked at the org chart). So I don't have any inside scoop or information.

But enough about me, on to the substance. I maintain that you need a great product in order to be successful, and the evangelism works on top of that. Great products are typically less complex. This is why I brought in the iPod, because it's less complex.

As for cheerleading I should have said "in the weblog space," and I'd be happy to be proven wrong with the tablet adoption. More interesting however is how easy it is for simpler widgets to take off, and how this concept can be incorporated into the early design stage of any emerging technology.

I'm really flattered by your post and wish I could write it all perfectly clear the first time, but that's the 'net for ya. Cheers.

Loren - Good points, but you can buy a Wacom tablet for your regular PC to do those things (which I dont need to do, however there are a couple of graphic designers where I work who wont use anything else, I admit), or use a mouse.

The Tablet PC really only gives you mobility, that I can see, but as I dont carry a paper-base notebook anyway (this is what they replace, right?), Im still unconvinced that these products will ever be as successful as the iPod.