J Allard and Robbie Bach officially exit Microsoft

I dunno if douche bag is the right word. I think of the Jersy Shore for that term. Maybe ass wipe, or dip shit, but yeah he sucks.

On the bright side, maybe the next iteration of the Xbox won't be as botched a hardware as it was at launch.

Maybe now the division will be profitable?

B*TCHES DONT KNOW BOUT MY COURIER

I know. That picture is so ice cool it makes it look like Bill's reporting to him.

What are you? A fortune cookie?

Lucky numbers: 21, 8, 33, 12, 10, 96
Learn Chinese: Xie xie (thank you!)

Actually, the numbers are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42.

The problem is that if they want to get some hardware into the tablet market they're going to have to take a risk, especially with Apple already securing their position with the iPad.

The iPad, in comparison to the Courier, is hardly a risk. The iPad, quite literally, is an enlarged iPod Touch. It is literally a consumer device in that it is meant for the typical consumer's needs. It plays games, browses the internet, can be used to watch videos or listen to music. The Courier however from the videos I saw, seemed like a niche device to me.

What the real problem is that the software did not feel right to me. If Microsoft was willing to create an optimized operating system for tablets, I'm sure something with the same hardware as the Courier would work. I'd rather them work on that than anything else.

I'm not saying the iPad was a risk, only that they've leveraged their current popularity to stake out a huge claim tablet market. So to take them on you're going to need to a take risk of some sort. Maybe it doesn't have to be an extravagant risk, but it's doubtful they'll be able to make a dent with a me-too device.

*in the tablet market

Finn, I read somewhere that Allard was heavily invested in Courier, and it got pretty far in the development process and was then axed. Think of it as being Kutaragi and then having Sony cancel the PS3. When your main project is axed, not only are you left with nothing to do (for the short term) but it's also a vote of no-confidence... Many people take that as a sign to go elsewhere..

As for the iPad, yes it's a big iPod touch. However, big iPod touches have a lot more usability potential than little ones. I've been using mine a lot, and it functions like an iPod touch, but the experience is much more laptop-like, since I can actually, like, see stuff. And whether or not the Courier would have been "more this" or "more that", that's irrelevant if consumers lump it in the same category as the iPad. It would have to compete.

I never intended to understate how great a product the iPad is. I actually think it's a brilliant product because it is an enlarged iPod Touch. Most people use iPod Touch's for gaming, music, videos and the internet. Since this is all they do on regular computers, the iPad is a great product for them.

I think we just don't know enough about the Courier to call it either way. We have almost no idea what the final product would be anyways. It would certainly be very different from the conceptual videos we saw.

I disagree greatly, finn. We've all seen the videos; the concepts for the Courier were very developed. I would go so far as to say that they were a few months from starting to get the actual components and OS together. Further, I don't see it as niche at all. The iPad is very much about consumption; the Courier looked to be about production. Maybe a few years ago you could have made the, "Professionals produce, everyone else consumes," argument, but the paradigm has shifted, and a platform like the Courier would have worked amazingly as a way to facilitate creation.

I just heard that the gaming division is now going to be reporting directly to Ballmer. This is seeming more and more like a power play on his part, to oust Allard and get direct control of that portion of the company...

Finn - if I had that kinda money I would retire early too.

That's just it though. It's much harder to sell a creation device than it is to sell a consumer device. Most professionals are used to the devices they already use, and the Courier would certainly be limited by current technology's inability to pack in a lot of hardware into a small package while remaining cost effective. I just don't see tablets replacing laptops or desktops for professionals as of yet. And the iPad proves that mainstream consumers only want a consumer device.

The Courier was brilliant. Anything from professionals to students would have had immense use for it. I could see uses for writers, taking notes and pictures as inspiration strikes them, shuffling and editing plot points, while also managing meetings with editors or interviews with publishers. College students taking and sharing notes, club events, fraternity/sorority scrapbook designs then publishing it right from the device... anyone with a creative or active life could have found tremendous use out of the courier. I personally was very excited and am very disappointed to see it axed.

They will construct it with space-age Ball-ymers.

I don't disagree with your sentiment...I see the same stuff you see, and yeah, he seems like MS was blessed under Gates, and Ballmer has been nothing but bad news. However, that's a gross simplification. Just like it's shortsighted to blame a current president for a previous administration's effups, Ballmer might be doing a relatively good job with the company he was given. Just because it looked like it was in an unassailable, solid position, doesn't mean it was. Maybe Microsoft only looked good from the outside...you know, like how the Roman Empire looks during the 1st turn of a Total War: Barbarian Invasion campaign..

Are you insane?

At the very beginning, Gates very shrewdly led MS in aggressively building a software empire. But then he completely cluster-f***ed the company by using a combination of corporate bullying, monopolistic practices, and various other egregious violations of business ethics (such as trademarking ideas stolen from other, un-trademarked products like Mac OS and Linux) to push unprofitable products (how much do you think MS has earned so far off Internet Explorer? Considering its always been a free program . . .). The gazillions of dollars MS spent on its anti-trust litigation both at home and abroad were the direct cause of Bill Gates' leadership.

Ballmer has been left with the mess, which he has handled fairly well. Under his leadership, the Entertainment and Devices division of MS has gone from massive losses to consistent profits. Ballmer was president of MS during the release of both Windows XP and Windows 7, two very successful operating systems. As far as I'm aware, the Windows-based handheld OS series has always been profitable (Pocket PC, Windows CE, etc). Ballmer has also aggressively sought to expand into the business market without vilifying Linux and other open OSs, something Bill Gates couldn't seem to grasp.

I'm not saying Ballmer is awesome. Like most CEOs, he's a total douche bag. But compared to Bill Gates, the guy is a friggin saint. :)

Exactly -- I was really upset when Courier was axed. I was planning on getting on Day of Release, even if it only had 75% of the features they were showing in the demos, I still would have made use of it for my job and my personal life. Now I'm looking at what netbook tablets are doing these days, but it's not the same.

Someone else that feels my pain? I get mad when I see Corvettes going down the road doing about 35 mph