For a company that has launched products with Ringo Starr, Paul
McCartney and Jay Leno and has even paid to light up the Empire State
Building in its signature colors Microsoft's unveiling of Windows 8 on
Thursday was a subdued affair.
Windows 8 is Microsoft's radical
reimagining of its ubiquitous operating system. What makes it vastly
different from past Windows releases is that it's designed from the
ground up to work on touch-enabled PCs and tablet computers. Microsoft
is also making its own tablet computer, the Surface, marking the first
time that it will manufacture a general-purpose computer. Both the
Surface and Windows 8 will go on sale Friday.
For the event,
Microsoft dressed up a cavernous former bus depot on a floating pier
jutting from Manhattan into the Hudson River. Improvised siding shielded
the roughly 500 reporters and other guests from the sight of a ruined
pier to the south.
This time, with no rock stars in attendance,
Microsoft executives took the stage to introduce an array of Windows 8
desktops, laptops and tablet computers made by AsusTek Computer Inc.,
Dell Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and others.
Instead of raising expectations, Microsoft Corp. did what it could to reset them.
In
recent days, some reviewers have panned Microsoft's Surface tablet.
Others have criticized the dearth of apps in the Windows Store, the new
online store where customers can buy apps that will work on the current
model of the Surface and other devices that use the streamlined version
of the new operating system, called Windows RT.
"The Windows Store
has more apps than any competing app store had at its opening," said
Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows and Windows Live, in a thinly
veiled reference to Apple Inc.'s iPad, which launched in April 2010
relying on apps that had been developed for the much smaller iPhone.
"Thousands
of new developers are joining the Windows Store ecosystem," Sinofsky
added. "Your PC experience only improves over time."
Microsoft's U.S. launch event followed a pre-launch event in Shanghai on Tuesday.
Launches
such as Microsoft's inevitably draw comparisons with Apple's events.
Microsoft's event in New York took on the look and feel of Apple's
famous unveilings but lacked the element of surprise. Apple's late
founder and CEO Steve Jobs used to tease audiences with "one more thing"
at the end of Apple presentations. Most of what came out Thursday had
already been known long ago a consequence of Microsoft's need to work
with a wide array of partners, particularly PC makers.
Microsoft's
event was tame even by Microsoft standards. For the Windows 95 launch,
founder Bill Gates brought Leno to the stage to show how easy the
software was to use. In 2009, McCartney and Starr helped promote the
"Beatles: Rock Band" video game during Microsoft's presentation at a
game conference in Los Angeles.
In the one extravagant touch of
the Windows 8 event, Microsoft built a miniature model of Manhattan out
of wooden boxes. It was painted white and covered an area the size of a
basketball court. Reporters could walk among the buildings to peruse
Windows 8 devices -desktop PCs, notebook computers and tablets- perched
on their "roofs."
Sinofsky was the first to appear on the stage
Thursday, standing before a light blue background amid a row of devices
from various manufacturers. He wore a blue V-neck sweater over a white
T-shirt. CEO Steve Ballmer later appeared in a suit and unbuttoned
collar with no tie.
Microsoft executives said 1 billion people are
using Windows and 11 billion photos are stored on its cloud storage
service, SkyDrive.
They borrowed from Apple's phrase book,
frequently relying on superlatives to describe Windows and the machines
and gadgets that run it. Sinofsky said the release was "the best release
of Windows ever" and the array of PCs, tablets and "convertible"
tablet-PCs were "the best PCs ever made."
Perhaps in a nod to its
many manufacturing partners such as Dell and others, Microsoft didn't
talk about its own device, the Surface tablet, until the end of its
morning presentation.
It followed that with a separate
presentation in which Surface general manager Panos Panay dropped the
tablet from shoulder height to the stage without breaking it to
demonstrate the toughness of its glass and magnesium case. Sinofsky also
showed off a couple of Surface devices the team had turned into
skateboards by screwing on rails and wheels.
Ballmer, wrapping up
an initial presentation, appeared to address concerns that the new
Windows 8 interface, which emphasizes touch, has annoyed some early PC
reviewers.
"Windows 8 shatters perceptions of what a PC now really is."
Later,
he addressed a concern that some PC users have had with pre-release
versions of the software - that it lacks a familiar "Start" button
containing programs, settings and other controls. Microsoft has said its
new interface, with its automatically updating tiles on the opening
screen, replaces that button.
Asked by an Associated Press
reporter if he might bring the "Start" button back, Ballmer replied,
"You've got a whole screen as a 'Start' button," while hurrying off
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