Microsoft Stretches 'Vision Thing' with Surface Computing

Published: June 13, 2007

by Alex Woodie

You have to credit Microsoft with doing some things right--the graphical user interface, productivity apps, development tools, just to name a few. But sometimes, the company gets it so wrong, it's painful to watch. Like the new "Surface Computing" initiative launched a couple of weeks ago, which will be DOA. The funny thing part is, Microsoft is acutely aware of its failings in the whole "vision thing," but it just can't stop itself from doing it again.

Microsoft exposed to the world to a wonderful glimmer of self-awareness last week during the Tech Ed conference in Orlando, Florida. The moment came during a video skit that aired just prior to Server and Tools chief Bob Muglia's keynote address, and which spoofed the hit movie "Back to the Future." You can listen to it as you read along by clicking here.

The skit starts with Muglia being chased off the stage, covered in tomatoes and other vegetables, and incredulous as to what had just happened. "As soon as I started with my vision of the future speech …" Muglia says, but he's cut off by Christopher Lloyd (who played Doc Brown in the movie). "They have heard about visions up the wazoo," Lloyd says.

Instead, Lloyd has a better idea. "We'll go back in time to show you why our audience is so tired of Microsoft visions," he tells Muglia as the pair jump into the gull-wing DeLorean and vroom off into the past.

The pair first goes back to 2001, when Microsoft launched its ill-fated "HailStorm" initiative to enable consumers to access personal data from any location and on any device. TechFly (the Marty McFly character in the skit) is having trouble developing HailStorm, much to the chagrin of Biff, the office bully. "What about privacy concerns?" says TechFly, who gets a noogy from Biff for his insolence.

"We were just thinking big," Muglia tells Lloyd. "Big waste of time," he responds.

Next up was 2003 and Microsoft's revolutionary Windows File System (WinFS), which was going to forever change how Windows stores and retrieves data, documents, and objects. Biff needed TechFly to pull up all the pictures of him and the CEO over the last five years, which WinFS would have been able to do in a New York minute, but all TechFly had to show for it was the title page on a 600-page book on XML schemas.

WinFS, in case you weren't aware, is officially dead.

"Well it was a big vision," Muglia says of WinFS. "Big tease if you ask me," Lloyd responds.

This kind of frank self-criticism is refreshing. All too often, IT companies believe so much of their own hype that they lose sight of the real world, its real problems, and the real solutions that are possible. Microsoft often falls into this category, which is why it was such a rare joy to see the world's most powerful software company publicly admit its failings and poke fun at itself in front of its customers and partners for the flaming failures of HailStorm and WinFS.

But that was the past, and this is the future, and Microsoft won't necessarily learn from its past mistakes. Its new Surface Computing initiative--where public surfaces such as tables are turned into touch-screen interfaces to a network-enabled computer--is a perfect example of this.

Microsoft launched its Surface Computing initiative two weeks ago during The Wall Street Journal's "All Things Digital" conference in Carlsbad, California, which was attended by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, not to mention the leaders of many other very well-respected IT organizations.

The new Surface initiative is so absurd, one has to make sure it wasn't a precursor to last week's skit, a late April Fool's joke, or a response to Google's clever Toliet ISP gag. According to Microsoft, Surface Computing will "break down traditional barriers between people and technology" by turning "an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content." As if the proliferation of cell phones, Blackberries, iPods, and laptops had rendered ordinary nondigital devices, such a 4x8 piece of plywood, worthless.

The actual Surface Computing deliverable will be a computer with a 30-inch screen that resembles a table, and which groups of people will be able to use at the same time, using just their fingers (as opposed to mice or keyboards). Microsoft says there are several possible uses, including ordering a beverage "with just the tap of a finger," creating personal postcards "while still wearing flip-flops," reading barcodes affixed to objects laid on its surface, and everybody's favorite, digital finger painting. (Virtual navel gazing was not included on the list, but it might as well have been.)

Microsoft has lined up several partners to test the new product, which will become available later this year, in the real world. Harrah's Entertainment, which makes its living by taking people out of the real world, will use Microsoft's Surface device as a "virtual concierge" to help casino-goers select concerts and restaurants. Starwood Hotels & Resorts, owner of the upscale Hyatt hotel chain, will use the devices as a sort of public Internet kiosk, where guests can listen to music, send photos, download books, and order food and drinks. Cell phone giant T-Mobile plans to let shoppers in its retail stores view different plans and features when they place phones on Surface computers.

Ballmer predicts Surface Computing puts us on the cusp of a computing revolution (sound familiar?). "We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror," he stated in a press release. Not likely.

Microsoft is a truly great organization that can move mountains when it sets its mind to it. But if Surface Computing is the best new thing the company can come up with, then its best years are truly in the past. Give me WinFS over digital finger painting any day.

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