Steve Ballmer is a character. His antics and inflammatory remarks are legendary – perhaps more legendary than the business that he works for.
I caught a video of him discussing iPads, PCs and Form Factors via D8 and it really got my mind going about how we’re going to categorize devices and how we’re going to use them in the future.
If you’ve got 5 minutes, check this clip:
Thoughts?
I think he’s right (a first, right?) and I still think I can call, with confidence, a tablet-like device a “personal computer”.
I suppose the challenge is how we’re going to maximize our limited time, resources, and talents into these devices. Should a concentrated effort be the best? Or a wide-spread reach and tactic?
In any case, I usually like Steve dancing more than being calm and collected…
herbhalstead says
He is right. Of course he can’t help but to market Windows as he makes a good projection. Ignore the Windows specific rhetoric, and what we are left with are two ideas:
1 – There will always be a need for a more generalized (more powerful / capable) appliance, a personal computing device – which will certainly change form factor as time and technology progress.
2 – Even so, people are still going to want, increasingly so, a smaller, pocket-sized device, and they are going to expect more and more from that device as time and technology progress.
I thought it telling that he was willing (correctly so) to “categorize” the iPad as a personal computing device, but he was also right when he joked about the level of productivity currently possible on such a device.
I love my iPad – it is an AMAZING device for *consuming* media (images, audio, video *and* documents). But, I am fighting a frustrating battle forcing it to produce / create that media. You can produce / create, but it is not as easy as using a device with more precise and controllable input methods.
I consider the iPad the parent of a new stage in “pc” evolution. There is still a lot of room for improvement as it matures – at which point the “input” issues will be overcome and the form factor will finally be great at production / creation.
Personally, I believe that the next evolution will obscure the OS to a point where it will be invisible to the user and not at all a factor in using the device. “Applications” as we know it won’t really exist. The device will borrow the tools needed to “create” from a global knowledge base, fashioning your creation behind the scenes in response to your creative instruction, a la the Iron Man movies’ Jarvis.
Brett Barner says
Steve Ballmer scares me.
Adam Lehman says
John,
You said, “I suppose the challenge is how we’re going to maximize our limited time, resources, and talents into these devices. Should a concentrated effort be the best? Or a wide-spread reach and tactic?”
Intriguing question and one that I’ve been wrestling around with personally.
As technology develops and grows and expands and new uses are found, we’re going to (and maybe we’re already there) have to start choosing NOT to immerse ourselves in a given technology. And we’re going to have to look at a technology that could potentially be beneficial, and say, “you know what, i can’t extend myself any further…”