Microsoft Highlights First Unique Windows 7 Feature: Pervasive Multi-Touch

Good God, Reading Thurrott talk up Microsoft vs. Apple is like listening to Rush Limbaugh endlessly talk up conservatives vs. "liberals." His near absurd biasness bleeds through every word. I hope he considers himself an "entertainer" like Rush does and not a journalist.

Apple will be on OS 10.6 before Windows 7 is even scheduled to be released. OS 10.5 is already considered to be technically ahead to Vista, so, really then, who is doing the "leaping ahead" here. Windows 7 looks to be nothing but another product full of "me too" features.

Here is a company that, public relation-wise, is on the ropes after the Vista debacle and what do they choose to showcase presumably to stir some much needed excitement? "Me too" multi-touch. Great, so Windows three years from now will have all the innovation of last year's iPhone. Is Microsoft out of ideas? What happened to things like WinFS? Even a questioner asked them whether they were wasting time diluting themselves chasing "search" rather than having a "Big Hairy Audacious Goal." Who doesn't sense that Steve Jobs has a long-term plan, but does Balmer even have a clue? Jobs is right: when the marketing/sales guys take over from the engineers then the company is doomed to stagnate. Balmer is more concerned with chasing markets to exploit rather than creating exciting products.

And that quote about selling 290 million PCs? Originally Balmer said 270 million in the interview but then inflated the figure another 20 million literally a few sentences later. But see, Microsoft, with the possible exception of the shoddily produced Xbox, does not sell PCs (but Apple does). It licenses an OS to HP, Dell et al. -- companies that don't have much of an alternative ,,, except to downgrade to XP.

It'll be entertaining to read Thurrott talk up Microsoft as Apple's iPhone, iTouch surpass Windows Mobile, its "iTablet" (out later this year) surpasses Tablet PC, its growth in laptop and desktop accelerates even more and 10.6 arrives.

@will84

Well, obviously, you care a lot about Apple and Mac OS.

BTW: Your limited world view and comprehension ability makes sheep look like independent thinkers..

"in a new market"

Yeah, the smartphone market started when Apple made the iPhone... sure...

But back onto the real topic here...

Why in the world is there this push for "touch", I can bite on the phone stuff... I can sort of bite on the tablet PC even though I think a person "taking notes" with a pen is an idiot when he has a keyboard. But with a desktop PC? Why? My monitor is 4 feet away from me, and 40 inches wide, and if some greasy fingered idiot tried to touch it, they'd get a swift tap in a sensitive place.

Ingraining touch into a desktop OS is a waste. This seems like MS trying to pacify the sheep. Stop listening to sheep, if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't be sheep, let them go to Apple and mutilate an OS nobody cares about.

Perhaps MS could create several sites like Dell's "Idea Storm" to obtain suggestions from different key groups such as home users, corporate users, IT administrators, VARs, application developers, etc., about what they would really find most useful in their new client-side OS. I found myself wondering if touch screen functionlaity would be at the top of a corporate IT administrator's list of most desired new features?

Multi-touch means nothing when only a couple of companies make touch screen monitors and they sell for around $500 for a 15" LCD. Lastly except possibly on a tablet and again only if the price didn't go up at all could I even see a use for it.