Editorials
Mary Jo Foley – getting it wrong
You’ve got to love this newsbite from Microsoft Watch’s Mary Jo Foley. I won’t address the Origami aspect due to NDA restrictions, but I definitely want to address the Tablet Edition piece. She talks about Origami being a “slimmed-down Tablet PC” and then goes on to say this:
With Microsoft expected to kill the separate Tablet edition of Windows, > as of Vista, it’s an odd time for Redmond to be touting the Tablet, yet again. Maybe Microsoft will christen the new device the “UnTablet”?
First of all, you have to understand that Mary Jo is very anti-tablet. If you have read any of her columns the past several years in terms of tablet pcs, you’ll know what I’m talking about. She relishes any opportunity to declare the tablet pc dead. I’m writing about this so folks don’t get mislead by her statement.
Second, Microsoft isn’t killing the tablet functionality in Vista. Tablet functionality is alive and well and soooo much better in Vista than it ever was in XP. It just isn’t a seperate sku any longer. It is built in with Vista. With a proper understanding of where Microsoft is going mobile wise, she wouldn’t make such a statement in that way. That statement is so misleading, it isn’t even funny. It makes me wonder if Mary Jo has even seen a tablet pc running Vista. By saying ““an odd time for Redmond to be touting the Tablet, yet againâ€Â, she infers that tablet functionality is dead in Vista and dead in the marketplace, and that just isn’t so.
Post a clarification, Mary Jo. Your readers deserve it.
