June 02, 2008, 3:46 PM — At D6, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates took the stage to discuss Microsoft and the future of Windows with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal. After massaging each other's egos for a while, Gates and Ballmer got into Windows 7 and their belief that the Vista follow-up will revolutionize the operating system market. And after taking it all in and listening carefully to what they had to say, I can say with the utmost certainty that they've really lost it.
According to both Ballmer and Gates, Windows 7 will utilize touchscreen technology to reflect their belief that both the keyboard and mouse is on the way out. Even better, that functionality will be available by late 2009 or early 2010.
Right.
Now, other than the fact that by saying Windows 7 will be available by the end of next year or January of 2010, Microsoft has practically admitted defeat on the Vista front, I think Ballmer and Gates have effectively shown how far off Microsoft is on gauging consumer preference.
Suffice it to say that there's no indication that people actually want to use a touchscreen on their desktops at home and implementation alone has proven extremely troublesome. Surely, Microsoft will try to use its Surface technology to its advantage, but I simply don't see the practicality of using it on a desktop.
First off, Microsoft services the vast majority of people across the globe with Windows. If the majority of those people have trouble using a keyboard and mouse, how can we expect them to use a touchscreen where interaction with the OS is even more advanced? Sure, some would say that a touchscreen makes things more intuitive, but I generally only hear that argument from tech-savvy folks who already know how to use a keyboard and mouse and prefer HTML coding to Web surfing and email checking.
What about implementation? If Windows 7 is designed specifically to use a touchscreen, what does that mean for Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and others? Will they be forced to add new, expensive functionality to an already barely profitable machine? Certainly those companies would have something to say about Microsoft's unilateral foray into the future, right?
Along those lines, the relatively homogeneous experience we have now when using Windows will be gone. If Dell spends more money on touchscreen technology and releases better functionality, isn't it safe to say that you would rather use that product than any other because it works much better? In other words, Microsoft loses all control over the viability of its product if people find that the touchscreen is garbage on their PC, Ballmer and company will lose customers through no fault of their own.
Since the iPhone and Microsoft Surface, companies have been touting touchscreens as the future of technology. And while I tend to agree on some fronts, I can't find any reason why I would want it on my desktop. After all, isn't it already being tried in some ways on tablet PCs? We all know how well that's going.
Microsoft is off its rocker with this one. Instead of promising functionality that won't work nearly as well as some want to believe, the company should fix the mistakes it committed with Vista and finally realize that what we want isn't a product that will let us touch the screen, but something that's both secure and reliable.
Is that too much to ask?
