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I mentioned an Ina Fried Origami story earlier today, but she’s dug up more since then about how the hopes for Origami have not been fulfilled by the available technology:
Microsoft’s Origami is shaping up to be cheaper and smaller than today’s Tablet PC, but the device will likely miss the software maker’s most ambitious targets for size, price and battery life.
When Chairman Bill Gates first outlined the notion of an ultramobile PC at a hardware conference last year, he talked about a device that would weigh less than a pound, have all-day battery life and could cost less than $800, possibly as little as $500.
Those are still Microsoft’s goals when it comes to its much talked-about Origami project. However, the first Origami devices, which are set to arrive before the end of April, will likely not reach those lofty ideals. Instead, the machines are likely to start somewhere near that $800 mark and have battery life that hovers around four hours, according to a source familiar with the first-generation products.
More by following the link, but the battery technology curve has such a small slope compared to the rest of electronic technology that portable device makers will be running into the battery life brick wall for the foreseeable future. If anything, you get better battery life more easily by jiggering with the other components to reduce their draw, but a mini-tablet like the purported Origami still has significant demand.
Chris at LiveSide has the details:
In yet another Windows Live update coming this week, the Live Local team (formerly VirtualEarth) will release a technical preview at http://preview.local.live.com that demonstrates the new StreetSide feature for two cities: Seattle and San Francisco.
This new feature provides a vivid fly-through experience for the user, especially in the downtown areas that the technical preview focuses on. The user appears seated at ground level, as if they were driving around the map themselves.
Click through for some amazing sample screenshots. The observation is made that this takes a whole lot of storage and that’s why it’s just a two city preview.
Update: Mark Hachman at PC Magazine:
At noon PDT on Tuesday, Microsoft will unveil a preview version of its Windows Live Local Technology, which will allow users to view a “street-side” perspective of local neighborhoods.
…
Only two neighborhoods will be supported in the technology’s initial release: the downtown “cores” of Seattle and San Francisco, as a way to provoke feedback from users. The street-side view will supplement aerial, road and bird’s eye views currently available in Windows Live Local, the company said.The technology is being supplied by Facet Technology Corp., whose SightMap technology has already compiled 700 million high-resolution images — a total of 200 terabytes of data — of geomapped images.
Facet SightMap vans roam the country, snapping front-view and side-vide images of various streets at 8-meter distances, according to the company. In total, over 516,000 miles have been photo-mapped, the company said. Facet’s coverage map indicates that the company has indexed dozens of metropolitan areas around the United States, and the company plans to also index several “high-volume roads” as well.
More details by following the link.
Bill Snyder at TheStreet.com catches Microsoft’s CFO Christopher Liddell at the Goldman Sachs technology investment conference:
Liddell also said “he’s very comfortable” with Microsoft’s ambitious schedule of launching new versions of Windows and Office by the end of the year. But sounding a note of caution, he warned investors not to expect too much too soon from the parade of new products. “There won’t be a huge pop (in sales)” initially, he said.
His warning seemed timely, because the market has been waiting for Microsoft’s stock to break out of its relatively narrow range for years, and some analysts seem to expect a move fairly soon.
A remarkably sensible view which is dictated by the mechanics of the client OS and office suite market. I’m sure there are considerable internal and external pressures to declare that Vista and Office 2007 will lead to a bonanza.
Liddell also poured a bit of cold water on hopes that Microsoft will move much faster to distribute cash to shareholders. “I’m not a fan of special dividends,” he said. “If I had to prioritize, share buybacks would be first.”
That answer didn’t sit well with the director of a large asset management company who questioned Liddell from the floor (and was thus anonymous under conference ground rules.) “Microsoft is still overcapitalized,” he said. “And that’s why the stock hasn’t moved,” he said.
He added that investors don’t want to see Microsoft embark on a series of acquisitions. “The market fears that Microsoft will throw a lot of money to buy media or Internet-related companies. “We’re strongly opposed,” he said.
And there’s the nut – if Microsoft did nothing but preserve its franchises, it would be a remarkable cash cow for the foreseeable future. If more of the loot were returned to the shareholders, they’d be happy campers. Of course, that path has well known dangers, but so does trying to manufacture or acquire growth. Right now it seems that the market and at least some of the shareholders don’t see much in the growth efforts and would rather have the cash.
Ina Fried at CNET has been doing some digging and that’s what her sources say:
As rumors unfurl about a new gadget upcoming from Microsoft, the company’s Origami Project is starting to take shape as a very small tablet computer, one perhaps affordable enough to appeal to mainstream consumers.
The concept, which Microsoft plans to detail next month, is built on top of the Windows XP operating system but aims to be a new kind of device, rather than a replacement for existing PCs, according to sources familiar with the effort. With a screen bigger than that of a handheld but smaller than a notebook PC screen, Origami devices won’t fit in the pocket, but they’ll make it into purses and even the smallest of backpacks, sources said.
Microsoft’s goal is to create a blueprint for devices that could sell for $600 or less, although the actual prices will depend greatly on what manufacturers decide to include. Origami is capable of supporting features like GPS, Bluetooth, 3G cellular technology and Wi-Fi, though each of these adds to the cost of the device.
That answers my main question as to whether Microsoft was going to build Origami itself or provide a specification for OEMs to build as it did for the Tablet PC and the Portable Media Center. Of course, some will argue that Microsoft would be better off building it themselves as Steve Jobs has observed about the Portable Media Center which has done poorly against the iPod.
As for the Origami box itself, there really aren’t enough details for me to offer much of a critique, but one odd note is the Windows XP operating system. Why would Microsoft launch a new form factor using an operating system that is just about to be obsolete? My guess is that it is actually Windows XP Embedded which would be a natural given the form factor and the inevitable delay before an embedded version of Vista becomes available.
