Brandin.com

Microsoft Sees a Future That You Won't

Posted: 2009-03-01 23:06:38

External Link: Microsoft Watch with Joe Wilcox

Taking a break from my daily duties, I stumbled upon this from Joe Wilcox that I found interesting. ~B

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The "Future Vision Montage" video, "2019," comes out of Office Labs. The tagline is "envisioning the future." In what universe? Certainly not this one.

Silicon Alley Insider's Eric Krangel writes: "Highlighted in the marketing material are interactive newspapers, touch pads, computerized medical records, and it all looks really, really cool. Will any of this ever actually come to market? Probably not. But what a show."

He rightly sums up what the video is and what it doesn't portray.

There's a Star Treky mixed with Minority Report feel to the video, which envisions a very different future than the one you or I are likely to see. Right now, the cell phone is rapidly evolving into the major computing device most everyone will use in the future. I don't see one anywhere in the video. Do you?

Microsoft imagines lots of multitouch screens, including a touch newspaper. There's irony about the timing, given Friday's closing of the Rocky Mountain News and crisis coming to other newspapers.

Predicting the future is tricky. How close is the 30-year vision presented in movie "Back to the Future II?" We're just five years from that 30 years. There are no flying cars or skateboards.

Microsoft's future is slick marketing, and that's the whole point of the video. Marketing. Making Microsoft look cool and visionary. But the vision doesn't include mobile or the Internet. Did you see a Web browser or Net client on any of the devices? It's all client-centric.

I predict one client: The mobile phone, for all the activities envisioned in "2019." Digital wallet, car keys, teaching/learning tools, shopping list, etc., etc. Is there no mobility or social networking in Microsoft's future vision?

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>