Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

When a business executive makes a decision, sometimes it comes back to haunt him/her. And linear thinkers almost always take longer to “get there….” (Maybe that is one of the reasons that Apple has so many “creative staff” [read “nonlinear” or “global” thinkers] on board. My personal experience is that a lot of Apple engineers are ALSO nonlinear thinkers [as many Netscape engineers were]!)

As CNN states, ” Ballmer famously canned a turmoil-fraught Microsoft tablet project that had been in the works for almost a decade before the iPad came to market.”

The “tablet” that Microsoft needs is NoDoz (1)!

(Hey! Maybe that is why some critics of Windows will spell it as “Windoze.”)

“No one is sleeping at the switch here,” Ballmer said. “We have got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates.”

Heck, a good friend of mine (and fellow photographer) who was always a “die-hard” Windows user on his laptop now owns an iPad as well!

The CNN article quoted IDC applications development software program director at IDC, Al Hilwa, as expressing “concern” that Microsoft is committed to running Windows 7 on tablets.

Sure there have been lots of problems, but why not? If it’s the best that you HAVE…!

Windows Mobile has steadily been losing market share. The last I saw, it was ranked “down in the grass” with “other” for mobile Web use in the U.S. (Of course, Blackberry’s most popular OS was ranked 3rd in actual USE at that time, either because their users can’t figure out how to use it on the Web, or perhaps bought the phones to “look cool” and just DON’T use them on the Web. Actually, maybe it’s because the phones are bought and owned by the company, and the employees don’t want their company spying on their Web usage patterns.)

Microsoft has achieved great consumer success with its Xbox, of course. This has always struck me as “funny” because Macintosh, in the distant past, used to be criticized as a “toy computer.” My son owns an Xbox 360, and it is a great game machine, but I am still a lot more comfortable now that it is no longer on my internal network.

As the CNN article states though: Microsoft “…executives mapped out the company’s plans for maintaining its leadership in the corporate market, which makes up three quarters of Microsoft’s business.”

It is good that Microsoft is successful with the corporate market. (My 401K might be partially invested in them! ) I remember an executive at one of the companies that employed me saying that “we make a lot of money from people who don’t know what they’re doing.” Corporations, which caused the recession that we are now exiting, seem determined to “shoot themselves in the foot” (and US, too!) by stalling the economic recovery. I am glad that somebody is selling to them, just because it keeps them inching slowly forward!

As for iPad, a CNET editor notes, in an article entitled, “The iPad evolved: Four killer features,” that: “At first a bit of a utilitarian mystery, the iPad has evolved, for me, into a practical device.”

(One possible translation: “I couldn’t figure it out at first!” )

Sorry, dude! The iPad has not “evolved.” (I’m not sure that it has changed much at all!) YOUR THINKING has evolved! (Want to bet that he might be a Myers-Briggs “TJ” that has to scapegoat OTHER people/things?)

Who knows. Maybe the editor is a linear thinker (usually slow to come around). Or maybe, the editor is a TACTILE LEARNER, who really could not imagine the utility of the device until he had one in his hands for awhile and learned it, manually, for himself. Or maybe he is BOTH! In any case, he pretty much backtracked on his earlier article about iPad,  which I don’t mind at all. I personally admire people who have the ability to CHANGE THEIR MINDS, and to admit it when they’re mistaken. The CNET editor notes the four “killer features” of iPad to be: 1) 3G, 2) weight, 3) always on, always connected, and 4) battery life.

As you can tell, although I no longer work in high tech, I find it a lot of fun to WATCH!

I noted, WAY back in January, that:

“To me, the performance of Apple’s stock after the iPad introduction shows all the earmarks of investors ‘stumbling around’ trying to make sense of ‘game-changing’ technology. Tech writers ALSO seem split, which to me suggests that a new game is afoot!”

The deficiencies that I noted at that time were quickly made up with software, EXCEPT for the absence of an on-board camera, which has not been remedied in hardware, most likely because of deficiencies in the AT&T network for being able to handle the videoconferencing that would likely result. Videoconferencing on iPhone 4 is ONLY over WiFi, currently.

Seeing clearly is both a gift and a curse.

-Bill at

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