Microsoft global chief strategy officer gets confused by iPads and modern computing strategy
The Sydney Morning Herald has a great interview with Craig Mundie, in which the Microsoft ‘global chief research and strategy officer’ makes a firm, bold opinion about the future of computing, which Microsoft has been instrumental in for the past three decades:
I don’t know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not.
It’s that kind of decisive thinking that’s helped Microsoft into a ‘back on the starting line’ position when it comes to mobile. Luckily, Mundie has some choice thinking on that area, showcasing his ‘global chief research and strategy officer’ credentials:
Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use.
I’m glad that’s been cleared up. So, Mundie, as ‘global chief research and strategy officer’, what is the future of computing? Where are things going? Steve Jobs is still on leave, so he can’t tell us. It’s all down to you!
I believe the successor to the desktop is the room.
The room? Look, I know you guys built a touchscreen table while Apple was busy wasting time on the iPhone, but a room? Clearly, I misheard you.
Instead of thinking that the computer is just something on the desk that you go and sit in front of, [in the] future basically the whole room is the computer and you go in it.
O… K… So the future of computing, as far as Microsoft is concerned, is this:
Image credit: Simon Pride, from the film Alien (1979)
You’ve got to hand it to the guy, he totally spotted how the trend in computing has been towards bigger and bigger devices. We started with the mainframe, and… oh wait.
Also, if the computer is the room, doesn’t that mean you’ll need burglar bars and deadbolts to keep out the hackers? Will you need a mortgage to buy a computer? What if something goes wrong? Do you call a builder or PC World? If the computer crashes, will you be physically injured?