Microsoft cancels the Courier, the Internet sheds a tear

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/29/microsoft-cancels-the-courier-the-internet-sheds-a-tear/

by McKittrick • 16 years ago

63 62 16 years ago

crunchgear.com

nexneo2• 16 years ago

Will be #1 on Vaporware 2010. Last year winner was Crunchpad.

maukdaddy2• 16 years ago

To be fair, MS never announced that Courier was a real product.

nexneo2• 16 years ago

But they leaked existence and now they required to leak its death. That is good enough to qualifies as vaporware.

Aside from that. I like, "Microsoft Kills iPad Killer" perfect headline for this news. http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/04/29/microsoft-kills-...

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

Oddly, it's leak was timed to coincide with one of the dates Apple was supposed to announce a tablet, in order to steal some press space.

Nobody ever believed it would be a real product.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

Wasn't Duke Nukem Forever slated to run on a Courier? Damn, I guess it'll never come out now.

stcredzero2• 16 years ago

I think this was based on Inkskein, which is not vaporware. I don't see why such a thing isn't possible. The iPad could support such an interface. Just divide the screen in two in landscape. This is what I'd want Evernote to become.

stcredzero2• 16 years ago

I think someone's already started on the iPad-ish take on Courier:

http://www.popplet.com/

JunkDNA3• 16 years ago

The courier did its job. That and the news of the HP slate (on indefinite hold) were timed to try and get some free press out of the pre-iPad hype. The fact that no actual product was close to shipping didn't matter.

SamAtt2• 16 years ago

"the news of the HP slate (on indefinite hold)"

Where did you hear that? If you're referring to WebOS I don't think HP is going to cancel a product already in the pipeline for a product that is at least a year away

glhaynes2• 16 years ago

"at least a year away"

Where did you hear that?

JunkDNA3• 16 years ago

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-doesnt-have-to-worry-ab...

They are going to wait until the Palm deal closes. My guess is that HP wants more control over their platforms than a commodity Windows mobile provides. WebOS is just the ticket.

nl• 16 years ago

Hewlett-Packard has killed off it’s much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/29/hewlett-packard-to-kill-win...

Anonymous source of course, but still.

glhaynes2• 16 years ago

The fact that no actual product was close to shipping didn't matter. That's right boss, I'm here to report at this project's conclusion that we ... got some hypeglow that dripped off the iPad. No, ... I'm not sure how much any tablet-future-legitimizing hype we did build only helped iPad's reception, ...that's ... a good point. ... Yes, that's correct, we ... have no revenue to report from this. cringe

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

Close to shipping?!

Microsoft has been strategically announcing products to harm potential competitors since ever. This one was timed to prevent Microsoft-happy companies from buying Apple's tablet (that wasn't announced on the corresponding Apple event, BTW).

Natal is another fine example: a special-effects-heavy video from a product that didn't even have a shipping date, with people assuming it would be a couple months later, timed to hurt sales of competing consoles. They didn't have a product and my bet is that they won't have anything close to what was shown.

Microsoft has consistently used vaporware over most of its history to promote a "let's not switch providers - Microsoft will soon have a similar product" attitude on its clients.

The downside of this is that the tactic has become transparent to most. A Microsoft announcement has little credibility these days.

JunkDNA3• 16 years ago

Perhaps I was a bit too terse, but I was essentially making the same point as you. You and I are in violent agreement. I'm not at all surprised courier isn't going anywhere. The leaks were all about trying to assure pundits and tech decision makers that Microsoft is "on the job" so just waits little for their solution. The tech press dutifully lapped up the story. Whether or not anyone actually believes it is another matter.

sgk284• 16 years ago

Just a small correction (I'm a Microsoft employee). I've played on Project Natal, and (pardon my french) it's pretty fucking awesome. You've got to see it to believe it.

Can't say when it will ship (not sure if they announced that date yet), and I'm not sure how hardware constraints will make it different than what I played on, but if it's anything close to what I experienced, it'll be a major game changer (no pun intended).

thejay• 16 years ago

Once again, we rejoice.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

Good news in the sense that it gives a WebOS based slate (which would be way more interesting than that thing HP showed at CES) a fighting chance.

While the Courier wasn't something that interested me over an iPad, there were some interesting ideas in those mockups.

brandonkm• 16 years ago

I wouldn't take this news as the huge bummer that it looks like. One thing Microsoft doesn't have with the courier is the element of surprise. Windows phone 7 is coming out later this year, so I would think that they want to focus on that as much as possible and then consider how to scale that experience to something like a courier/tablet device.

As amazing as the concept video looked, something even better could be on the horizon.

j_baker• 16 years ago

This is the first time I've heard of the Courier...

paulgb• 16 years ago

Same here, at first I thought the title was referring to Microsoft's Courier New font. I guess someone at Crunchgear made the same connection.

SamAtt2• 16 years ago

The funny thing is we were just having a discussion at work trying to figure out where Microsoft's $9.5 billion R&D budget goes (that's per year). I wonder how much of it was spent on this last year?

bokchoi• 16 years ago

It goes to Haskell!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1304685

msie• 16 years ago

I believe that R&D budget also counts for the salaries of all the MS developers who are working stuff like Office and Windows.

necubi2• 16 years ago

And this is surprising to who exactly?

Microsoft has shown repeatedly in the last few years that they excel at creating pretty renders and hype for products that never appear on the market in comparable form. Anybody remember the Origami project? If not, here's a reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXHKCS28z1s. The same is true of the original Longhorn videos (which were revealed to be shockwave animations) and to a certain extent surface.

Contrast this with Apple's approach, which is to show absolutely nothing until they have a shipping product. Microsoft drives hype; apple makes products.

All that being said, I do hope somebody takes the ideas in those videos and makes a compelling product from them. I doubt the technology is there now, but it will be in a few years.

CamperBob• 16 years ago

All that being said, I do hope somebody takes the ideas in those videos and makes a compelling product from them

What, actually make something? Sounds like a good way to get hit with a patent suit.

smallblacksun• 16 years ago

You don't think Apple "drove hype" for the iPad? Seriously?

Also, I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft ships more new products each year than Apple (meaning a larger number of different products, not just more total).

DLWormwood• 16 years ago

Apple doesn't have to drive hype.

The tech media does it for them... For free, to boot.

ugh• 16 years ago

What Apple doesn’t do – at least not anymore since Jobs is back – is show concepts or prototypes (save those lost in bars :). They just don’t ever talk about future products. Or if they do, you will get what they announce no more than a few months later.

I’m pretty sure Apple had their own Courier, their own Origami. They could have produced the most beautiful and eye-popping concept videos you can imagine. Only they didn’t.

Concept videos are just a bad idea. Companies shouldn’t make them public. Only show me products you committed to producing. If you don’t do that you run the risk of looking like someone who can‘t keep promises.

jjs• 16 years ago

You don't think Apple "drove hype" for the iPad? Seriously?

Your point may be correct, but that's more of a taunt than an argument.

eagleal• 16 years ago

I was really hoping Microsoft shipped Courier, because I really don't want to buy an iPad (and I have a lot of personal reasons to do that). Have to wait and see what is going to do HP.

> ...show absolutely nothing until they have a shipping product...

Courier was a MSR project, and they were kind enough to make it public. (MSR) It's actually one of the good things MS does.

dannyr• 16 years ago

"I was really hoping Microsoft shipped Courier, because I really don't want to buy an iPad (and I have a lot of personal reasons to do that). Have to wait and see what is going to do HP."

I would tune in to Google I/O instead. Google plans to release a ChromeOS/Android tablet and the conference seems to be the best time to announce it (aside from their big Android announcements).

perokreco• 16 years ago

You can a multi touch EEE if you don't mind the keyboard.

MichaelGG• 16 years ago

I get your point, but Origami did ship, didn't it? They even have a list of hardware: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/umpc/def...

Of course the experiences never match up. In the videos, you get nice clips of some perfect UI. In reality, you get some crappy apps still designed for a mouse and keyboard.

necubi2• 16 years ago

Hence my qualifier "in comparable form." Origami did ship, but when it did it was twice as expensive as promised (initially: "as much as a good mobile phone", when released: $1200+) and was an unusable mess (read some reviews). The devices shipped bore no resemblance to those in the video, either in terms of interface or hardware. So while Microsoft's partners did ship UMPCs, it would be highly misleading to suggest that Microsoft shipped "Origami," at least as presented in the videos.

chaostheory2• 16 years ago

Not surprised. Just like UMPC and Surface, it's just another fancy mocked up commercial for Microsoft. History repeats itself.

tzs• 16 years ago

Surface is just mocked up? That's going to come as a big surprise to the many establishments that have them installed and are using them.

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

How many?

chaostheory2• 16 years ago

What I meant was that the commercials show a lot more of the device's potential that just isn't really there.

btw UMPC's exist too; they just sucked like Surface.

Have you interacted with a Surface device or UMPC? Did the features and possibilities match the commercials? From my experience, the answer is no.

Malic• 16 years ago

I own an iPad would have given the Courier a serious look. I have to wonder if Microsoft wants to go in a different (even better?) direction?

mortenjorck• 16 years ago

I think what killed it was that it didn't run Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7. Which is really too bad, because the former was obviously inappropriate for it, and the latter was subtly inappropriate.

WP7's UI looks really promising as a phone interface, but the courier wasn't about any of the tasks that phones do. It was about one thing only, and that was information collection for creatives.

I don't think I'd have liked a courier that booted up to something that I had to "launch the Courier app" from as much as I would one that simply became Courier every time I woke it up.

raganwald• 16 years ago

Why Apple Doesn't Do Concept Products:

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

cstuder2• 16 years ago

And of course: "Real artists ship."

danw• 16 years ago

Would make a nice iPad app, especially combined with a Pogo Stylus.

jsz0• 16 years ago

My guess is this goes back to Microsoft internal battles. Both the Windows client & Office groups were getting their turf encroached on here. The less powerful Windows Mobile & Zune groups probably had no love for it either. In ~5 years we'l probably see a lot of these ideas implemented by the big players inside of Microsoft.

emehrkay• 16 years ago

Am I the only person who wasnt impressed by the courier? It seemed overly complicated

sambeau4• 16 years ago

I'm a terrible Apple fanboi but I thought that the courier demonstrated some really interesting ideas.

I especially liked that the proposed device seemed to be a digital diary and notebook rather than a general purpose computing device. It was a very different concept to the iPad.

I could see real potential for this kind of "digital filofax".

thought_alarm• 16 years ago

It goes to show that most people on the "internet" don't understand software development.

Microsoft cancels the Courier, the Internet sheds a tear

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