4 years ago, Microsoft thought dual-screen devices were the future

[Windows Central]

On October 2 2019, Microsoft held what was arguably the best Surface event its ever put on. It was supposed to be a pinnacle moment for Windows and Surface, with the company willingly pulled back the curtain on products and plans that weren’t yet ready.

4 years ago, Microsoft thought dual-screen devices were the future : Read more

 

[taynjack]

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how Microsoft
Used to make me smile
And I knew if they had a chance
Microsoft could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But Satya made me shiver
With every paper you'd(windows central) deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I screamed
When Panos' chose himself be weaned
Something touched me deep inside
The day Microsoft died


My first day back to Windowscentral in several months and all I see is the death of Microsoft as I once knew it. It seems they peaked in 2019 then completely fell apart. Panos, the last hope of anything creative coming from Microsoft has left the company. Surface Duo won't make version 3, which means I won't ever own one. Satya further streamlining the Surface line means it's apparent that Surface Studio will never reach it's epic potential. I find myself with nothing left to root for at Microsoft. I remember the days of near constant news of Cortana, new Windows Mobile features, the phones, the Band, the Invoke, the home screen control thingy that never happened, the Surface Neo, the Surface Duo - windows edition. I remember so many features on my windows phone that STILL don't exist in other operating systems. Something so simple as sending a hands free text while driving was solved with Cortana and is still complete garbage on other systems compared to how seamlessly Cortana could handle those tasks. Things like using my phone's camera to pan around me to see what restaurants are nearby. There used to be something to look forward to. Now, I guess I can look forward to all the time I've gotten back as I no longer have reasons to come to sites like this. My condolences to the writers here, but there just isn't the compelling stories Microsoft used to generate to keep me coming back daily, if ever again.

This comment room is as empty as ever. It seems everyone else already left. So, I'll shut the lights out and lock up on my way out. Farewell to anyone who is still left here.

 

[FarStrider2001]

Not sure im surprised anymore think surface mini, wp, etc all potential wasted

 

[Jcmg62]

It's a heck of a shame, where we are today with the surface line.

After the roller coaster ride, and ultimate disappointment, of the Windows Phone fiasco, we needed a beacon of light from Microsoft, and the Surface brand was just that.

We were told from the very start that the surface brand existed to push boundaries, develop new form factors, and showcase everything that windows could be.

It existed to ignite imagination in hardware design and generate excitement in windows.

That's gone.

Now we're left with overpriced, underpowered laptops, and two-in-one designs that have been around for over ten years.

Its impossible to come up with brand new form factors every year, and of course every company needs to sell products and make money, and for those reasons I'd always be willing to buy a surface laptop or pro, because the designs are proven and they work well, but that should never have stopped Microsoft from wanting to push new boundaries.

The announcement, and subsequent cancellation of the Neo was hugely disappointing. It signalled the very last effort that Microsoft made to push hardware innovation.

I have no idea where the brand goes from here, but up until two weeks ago, I never saw myself using anything other than a surface device.

Now I'm not so sure.

 

[naddy69]

Such doom and gloom here. Why?

MS is far from dead. In fact, MS is thriving. Growing. Making tons of profits.

In part, because they stopped selling products that no one wants to buy. They are no longer losing billions on phones and music streaming services. And on and on. They are concentrating on their core business. Which IS business.

What are you "blaming" the CEO for? Making MS profitable? That's his job: to kill products that are losing money. If he let windows phones continue to lose a billion dollars a year for 5 more years, the board would have fired him and hired someone who WOULD kill the products that are losing money.

I know I sound like a broken record here. But the fact is, MS will never be the consumer products company you all wanted to see.

If you want laptops and phones and speakers and tablets and watches that all work great together, we already have Apple for that. Why should Microsoft have to duplicate all of that?

We also have Samsung for phones and tablets and headphones and TVs and microwave ovens. Do you expect Microsoft to duplicate all of that?

The "Microsoft you once knew" only existed for about 5 years. It was an experiment that failed. Failed very badly. Technicolor crash and burn. Due to management that believed Apple was their competition. That management is long gone.

Microsoft is now 48 years old. The phones, the music, the stores are all gone. They are not coming back. Mourn if you must, but the fact is the future of MS has never been brighter. The current leadership is doing the right things to make the future bright.

 

[Arun Topez]

Such doom and gloom here. Why?

MS is far from dead. In fact, MS is thriving. Growing. Making tons of profits.

In part, because they stopped selling products that no one wants to buy. They are no longer losing billions on phones and music streaming services. And on and on. They are concentrating on their core business. Which IS business.

What are you "blaming" the CEO for? Making MS profitable? That's his job: to kill products that are losing money. If he let windows phones continue to lose a billion dollars a year for 5 more years, the board would have fired him and hired someone who WOULD kill the products that are losing money.

I know I sound like a broken record here. But the fact is, MS will never be the consumer products company you all wanted to see.

If you want laptops and phones and speakers and tablets and watches that all work great together, we already have Apple for that. Why should Microsoft have to duplicate all of that?

We also have Samsung for phones and tablets and headphones and TVs and microwave ovens. Do you expect Microsoft to duplicate all of that?

The "Microsoft you once knew" only existed for about 5 years. It was an experiment that failed. Failed very badly. Technicolor crash and burn. Due to management that believed Apple was their competition. That management is long gone.

Microsoft is now 48 years old. The phones, the music, the stores are all gone. They are not coming back. Mourn if you must, but the fact is the future of MS has never been brighter. The current leadership is doing the right things to make the future bright.

Are you one of their board members? lol... the doom and gloom is from their actual customers who were diehard fans of theirs and who loved their innovation and designs. Now they've become the opposite of what they touted ("To make Microsoft a brand that people love and want to use, not just have to use"). And with the way they've recently treated their customers (not supporting their expensive devices, cancelling services, using customers are QA), and employees (laying off thousands, cutting local marketing and sales teams, putting all their priorities in AI instead of distributing it across all their entities resulting in people losing work, lowering employee review scores to avoid paying them more), etc. it's all about profits with no heart. That's why they've lost fans, and they'll continue to lose customers this way. If one of their most passionate leads left due to these changes and not being able to innovate and make the Microsoft, Windows and Surface brands light us up like it used to, then it's only going to be stale from here like Apple is doing.

 

[Arun Topez]

Oh man... watching that Neo intro video above just gave me goosebumps again, especially when the keyboard sneaked out and seeing the little details in the OS. It really sucks that they couldn't make it work, but if they really invested into it I'm sure they could have. I don't know if I could trust Surface anymore going forward. I really want to, but they keep repeating the same mistakes of putting the majority of their investments into one thing (before it was cloud, now it's AI). I miss the days when the Windows and Office and Surface were hero investments for them, which is why those products haven't changed much today because they're solid enough to last this long. But the lack of innovation and support and consumer love... it just feels so ingenuine.

 

[kltye]

Such doom and gloom here. Why?

MS is far from dead. In fact, MS is thriving. Growing. Making tons of profits.

In part, because they stopped selling products that no one wants to buy. They are no longer losing billions on phones and music streaming services. And on and on. They are concentrating on their core business. Which IS business.

What are you "blaming" the CEO for? Making MS profitable? That's his job: to kill products that are losing money. If he let windows phones continue to lose a billion dollars a year for 5 more years, the board would have fired him and hired someone who WOULD kill the products that are losing money.

I know I sound like a broken record here. But the fact is, MS will never be the consumer products company you all wanted to see.

If you want laptops and phones and speakers and tablets and watches that all work great together, we already have Apple for that. Why should Microsoft have to duplicate all of that?

We also have Samsung for phones and tablets and headphones and TVs and microwave ovens. Do you expect Microsoft to duplicate all of that?

The "Microsoft you once knew" only existed for about 5 years. It was an experiment that failed. Failed very badly. Technicolor crash and burn. Due to management that believed Apple was their competition. That management is long gone.

Microsoft is now 48 years old. The phones, the music, the stores are all gone. They are not coming back. Mourn if you must, but the fact is the future of MS has never been brighter. The current leadership is doing the right things to make the future bright.

Sure, if you want Microsoft to be the next IBM, then it's wildly successful at that. Some of us care about more than pure profits and shareholder value, though. The fact is, Microsoft has always been at the cusp of doing something great, but they pull the plug too soon.

As for the silly "we have Apple" comment - why then do we have other brand vehicles if BMW exists for the luxury market? Why have other EVs if Tesla is around? Why have laptops from Dell if Lenovo exists? Should we forget about Sam's Club because Costco is around?

 

[Cmndr_Bytes]

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how Microsoft
Used to make me smile
And I knew if they had a chance
Microsoft could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But Satya made me shiver
With every paper you'd(windows central) deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I screamed
When Panos' chose himself be weaned
Something touched me deep inside
The day Microsoft died


My first day back to Windowscentral in several months and all I see is the death of Microsoft as I once knew it. It seems they peaked in 2019 then completely fell apart. Panos, the last hope of anything creative coming from Microsoft has left the company. Surface Duo won't make version 3, which means I won't ever own one. Satya further streamlining the Surface line means it's apparent that Surface Studio will never reach it's epic potential. I find myself with nothing left to root for at Microsoft. I remember the days of near constant news of Cortana, new Windows Mobile features, the phones, the Band, the Invoke, the home screen control thingy that never happened, the Surface Neo, the Surface Duo - windows edition. I remember so many features on my windows phone that STILL don't exist in other operating systems. Something so simple as sending a hands free text while driving was solved with Cortana and is still complete garbage on other systems compared to how seamlessly Cortana could handle those tasks. Things like using my phone's camera to pan around me to see what restaurants are nearby. There used to be something to look forward to. Now, I guess I can look forward to all the time I've gotten back as I no longer have reasons to come to sites like this. My condolences to the writers here, but there just isn't the compelling stories Microsoft used to generate to keep me coming back daily, if ever again.

This comment room is as empty as ever. It seems everyone else already left. So, I'll shut the lights out and lock up on my way out. Farewell to anyone who is still left here.

I made a very similar comment last week. https://forums.windowscentral.com/t...anos-panay-left-microsoft.527052/post-3851597
I miss the days of being excited about what Microsoft was doing. When they were truly innovating and not giving up on everything.

 

[Iamdumbguy]

You know what's a dual screen device? Plugging in a monitor to a laptop. Connect two monitors to a desktop PC? That's a dual screen device. Microsoft didn't give a **** about those though. The focus on "devices" and hardware here is frustrating.

All you really needed to know to know that Surface Neo was vaporware and would always be just that, is that Microsoft has released more than 9 Surface Pro models, each one touting pen support and yet, the only Microsoft pen-focused app, OneNote, is abandonware.

Microsoft has put its foot down and is refusing to make software for anything but a browser. That is the writing on the wall for any Microsoft "device".

 

[The Werewolf]

You've nailed my reactions to it perfectly.

For me, the Neo was the leaked Microsoft Courier from the 2010s, showing a whole new vision of how to interact with computers. Even many of the software elements in the Neo video felt lifted from the Courier one.

It's similar to devices shown (simulated) in the various Office productivity videos of the time as well.

Ands the Duo mess. SO, many bad decisions there (and I have a first gen Duo). Microsoft forgot the first rule "You don't get a second chance to make first impressions..." The whole presentation really felt like Microsoft (or Panay) trying to out Apple Apple with the whole "we spent so much time on the hinge and getting that 'thunk' closing sound perfect" in order to justify a US$1500 price that should have been $750 tops give how much was missing from it... and that it basically was just two $300 phones glued together... badly.

I STILL want a Neo. Other OEMs are making two screen devices, but they are all two 12"+ screens making them unwieldly as laptops and equally awkward as electronic smart-books (as per the Courier). This needs to be two 8" screens. But it also needs to be at a price point that lets enough people buy it to create a market.

I feel like getting two Surface Gos and gluing them together

 

[bradavon]

Still such a shame the Surface Neo never shipped.

Surface Neo was cancelled because it was fo release during the pandemic.

But it's still a device with so much protentional. ARM would fix the overheating issue. Windows on ARM excels when it's not being used with legacy x86 Desktop apps (many of which work absolutely fine). Millions of workers live in a web browser now.

We still need a modern cut down version of Windows. Microsoft has always been far to reliant on putting all their eggs in the Windows basket.

Surface Duo is a phone no matter what Microsoft say but Surface Neo is a PC. Microsoft know PCs.

 

[bradavon]

Surface Duo has shown us it's a good thing Microsoft missed the boat with phones.

Phone software moves much faster than PC software and Microsoft have shown they're incapable of structuring phone updates in a timely manner.

I'm not surprised, Microsoft always abandons projects that haven't worked but to give the Surface Duo 2 only one Android update is disgraceful. No excuses.

 

[bradavon]

I STILL want a Neo. Other OEMs are making two screen devices, but they are all two 12"+ screens making them unwieldly as laptops and equally awkward as electronic smart-books (as per the Courier). This needs to be two 8" screens. But it also needs to be at a price point that lets enough people buy it to create a market.

Exactly.

The current foldable PCs are all trying to be laptops too, they're much to big and all look like awkward concepts.

It needs to be smaller. This is what Surface was about, showing OEMs they can take risks but make the product right. The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a good example of an OEM taking a risk with PC design.

Now Jobs has past we won't see Apple taking risks any more.

 

[bradavon]

On another note, Microsoft seems content to kill the Surface Laptop too. It's design is so outdated it's laughable.

 

[Iamdumbguy]

You've nailed my reactions to it perfectly.

For me, the Neo was the leaked Microsoft Courier from the 2010s, showing a whole new vision of how to interact with computers. Even many of the software elements in the Neo video felt lifted from the Courier one.

It's similar to devices shown (simulated) in the various Office productivity videos of the time as well.

Ands the Duo mess. SO, many bad decisions there (and I have a first gen Duo). Microsoft forgot the first rule "You don't get a second chance to make first impressions..." The whole presentation really felt like Microsoft (or Panay) trying to out Apple Apple with the whole "we spent so much time on the hinge and getting that 'thunk' closing sound perfect" in order to justify a US$1500 price that should have been $750 tops give how much was missing from it... and that it basically was just two $300 phones glued together... badly.

I STILL want a Neo. Other OEMs are making two screen devices, but they are all two 12"+ screens making them unwieldly as laptops and equally awkward as electronic smart-books (as per the Courier). This needs to be two 8" screens. But it also needs to be at a price point that lets enough people buy it to create a market.

I feel like getting two Surface Gos and gluing them together

Please list the Microsoft apps that are going to work well on 8" screens. Not happening.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Are you one of their board members? lol... the doom and gloom is from their actual customers who were diehard fans of theirs and who loved their innovation and designs. Now they've become the opposite of what they touted ("To make Microsoft a brand that people love and want to use, not just have to use"). And with the way they've recently treated their customers (not supporting their expensive devices, cancelling services, using customers are QA), and employees (laying off thousands, cutting local marketing and sales teams, putting all their priorities in AI instead of distributing it across all their entities resulting in people losing work, lowering employee review scores to avoid paying them more), etc. it's all about profits with no heart. That's why they've lost fans, and they'll continue to lose customers this way. If one of their most passionate leads left due to these changes and not being able to innovate and make the Microsoft, Windows and Surface brands light us up like it used to, then it's only going to be stale from here like Apple is doing.

That doesn't just apply to Microsoft. All those things are true in any business that is publicly traded. These companies are not charities.

 

[ucyimDa_Ruler]

Gone are the days when bleached and rodneye would argue about Microsoft's future. Dan would also chime in about the negatively that bleached spewed. And guess what, it all happened. All of the predictions - that told everyone that history will repeat itself...happened.

As a Duo and Duo 2 owner (still my daily driver), it pains me to have cheered and purchased this device. Because I don' t know what's next. Sadly, I'll probably be a sucker for the next experimental device.

Dan, I blame you for getting your readers excited for abandonware. I will trust your judgement less and forever be skeptical of any recommendations for future Microsoft products.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Gone are the days when bleached and rodneye would argue about Microsoft's future. Dan would also chime in about the negatively that bleached spewed. And guess what, it all happened. All of the predictions - that told everyone that history will repeat itself...happened.

As a Duo and Duo 2 owner (still my daily driver), it pains me to have cheered and purchased this device. Because I don' t know what's next. Sadly, I'll probably be a sucker for the next experimental device.

Dan, I blame you for getting your readers excited for abandonware. I will trust your judgement less and forever be skeptical of any recommendations for future Microsoft products.

If long term support is needed the only mobile devices that have it are made by Apple, Google and Samsung.

 

[naddy69]

"Are you one of their board members?"

No, I am not a board member. Just a realist. Not a ******.

"lol... the doom and gloom is from their actual customers"

That's the point. You and I are NOT "their actual customers". Microsoft's REAL customers spend more each month for MS products than you and I and everyone reading this have spent in our entire lives. And these customers continue spending vast amounts for years. Decades.

BTW, there is nothing wrong with being "The next IBM". IBM is doing very well. Microsoft is doing VERY well.

AGAIN, well-managed companies focus on their strengths. Businesses ARE MS's core customers. That is why MS focuses on businesses.

AGAIN, MS is not a consumer products company. MS does not want to be a consumer products company. Once you realize this, you will understand everything MS does.

If you don't like it, that is YOUR problem. AGAIN, MS does not care about you or me. If you want MS to listen to you, then you need to spend $10,000 a month on MS products for 10 years.

Put it this way. You run a lemonade stand. You have 100 customers who might buy 1 glass of lemonade per day. But you also have 10 companies who each buy 5,000 glasses of lemonade every month. They have signed contracts to buy that amount every year.

Who are you going to listen to? Who are your REAL customers?