Microsoft invests in ads, multitouch
A rough economy isn't stopping Microsoft from spending in key areas. The software maker on Monday announced a new ad campaign aimed at wresting spending from cash-strapped companies as well as the company's own investment into a start-up focused on multitouch.
In the latter area, Microsoft is part of a $24 million financing round for N-trig, a Kfar Saba, Israel-based company that provides technology for sensing pen and touch input. The size of Microsoft's stake was not disclosed.
N-trig's technology is used in current multitouch computers from companies such as Dell and HP, a category Microsoft hopes to expand by building gesture support directly into Windows 7.
"With the introduction of multitouch in Windows 7, integrated with N-trig's DuoSense technology, our customers will have a new and natural way to interact with their PCs," Microsoft Group Program Manager Ian LeGrow said in N-Trig's press statement. "By simulating the way people write and touch naturally, N-trig is helping to make it easier to navigate your PC and enable a new class of Windows experiences."
An image of a print ad from Microsoft's "everybody's business" ad push.
(Credit: Microsoft)As for Microsoft's new ads, they started running during Sunday's NFL playoff coverage and carry the theme "Because it's everybody's business" and is part of the company's long-running "people-ready" campaign. They are designed to feature specific customers, such as Quicksilver and Coca-Cola talking about how they are using Microsoft products to ride the waves, quite literally in Quicksilver's case.
In a Q and A posted to Microsoft's press Web site, General Manager Gayle Troberman said that the time was right for Microsoft to tout what it has to offer businesses.
"We think software can provide one of the biggest competitive advantages, and that's especially critical now when a lot of companies are struggling just to keep the lights on," Troberman said. "Microsoft's view is that business leaders who maintain a long-term perspective--even as they take short-term steps to adjust to the current economic realities--have the chance to emerge from a downturn in a better position than they were in before.
Although the company is spending on ads, Troberman indicated the company may not be spending as much as it originally had planned.
"As for executing the campaign, we've taken a hard look at every advertising and marketing dollar we're spending, and there are areas where we're changing plans," Troberman said. "We also think we're getting a great deal on advertising 'real estate' right now, so we hope we can get a lot more value out of the dollars we are spending today."
In an interview last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested that the company is taking a tough look at where it can cut spending but declined to offer specifics, noting that the company is in a quiet period before announcing its earnings later this month.
"The fact of the matter is, this is not a downturn, this is a bit of a reset," Ballmer said. "Those are quite different and we're trying to really suss through what we think that means for us."
Both the N-trig investment and the business ad push were reported on Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Give them time to eventually copy gestures (unless Apple has the patent protection).
There is a cheaper way for Microhooo to copy Apple -- just buy them out.
Funny thing, Microcrap can't even buy out Yahoo.
Micro$oft, if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em!
Microsoft had multi-touch and gestures long before Apple, and any other company. In fact, Microsoft is the biggest backer of touch interfaces. They have been pushing for touch for nearly a decade now starting with the touch capabilities of the first Tablet PC in 2001, also today in many different PCs and smartphones with many different form factors, and of course Surface:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html
In the Matrix movies, we've seen the multi-touch in action as well as some Star Trek movies.
I suppose the technology has been there all along, but it was Apple that delivered the multi-touch along with the gestures in a much more substantial way.
If Microsoft can somehow deliver this multi-touch to video displays, that would be a very interesting technology.
BTW, at the NY Visitor Center in Manhattan (on 7th Avenue in Midtown), they have upgraded to multi-touch displays that resemble tables where you interact with the touch screen.
However, those tables are not consumer products, however, it would be interesting to see those technologies appear in other businesses.
Apple was the first to offer a multitouch platform to consumers. It's that simple. Apple was first to throw it out there... it has been wildly successful... and now that Microsoft sees Apple swimming comfortably, it's ready to jump in too... less afraid of the outcome.
Problem for Microsoft though... Apple is the hot model with the little bikini... and Microsoft is the balding, overweight 40 year old with abundant back and shoulder hair.
The position taken by the OP was that Apple invented these things and MS was just copying them. That's pretty demonstrably untrue for these two examples. In fact, I'd generally argue that both companies end up copying quite a bit off of each other and other sources. That's how computer research works - people build off of each other's ideas. Was Apple first to market with some of these things? You bet. No one could deny that. That doesn't mean MS is copying them when they get to market with similar technology though. Especially when they've been engaged in parallel research for years before Apple went to market.
Neither MS nor Apple invented gestures
MS was actually first to market with multitouch in the form of the Surface.
rapier1, ... I was replying indirectly to all of the posts citing obscure trivia facts regarding the origin of this and that.... None of that matters... what matters is who popularized the technology.....
I could dream up a cure for cancer... but if never do anything with it.. it's worthless.. effectively non-existent. It's the people/companies who take risks and implement new technology and paradigms that matter.. not the ones who sit around and cry "I thought about it first"... they don't matter.
Microsoft still doesn't realize that consumers are the future of computing.. not single-minded IT professionals and corporate types.. Computing is a consumer market now.. adapt or die.
Dell is finding out the hard way.. Hopefully Microsoft will not follow.. They have the resources.. lets hope they figure things out and do the right thing.
Wired: "Multitouch technology itself is far from being an Apple invention. Jeff Han wowed the crowd at TED in 2006 with a demo of his multitouch research, and Bill Gates demo'd Microsoft's Surface Table in early 2007, months before the iPhone was released. Even Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly used Microsoft's work with tablet PCs as the jumping-off point for iPhone development."
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/02/multitouch_patents
You're all wrong:
"In 1984 Bell Labs engineered a touch screen that could change images with more than one hand. The group at the University of Toronto stopped working on hardware and moved on to software and interfaces, expecting that they would have access to the Bell Labs work.
A breakthrough occurred in 1991, when Pierre Wellner published a paper on his multi-touch ?Digital Desk?, which supported multi-finger and pinching motions. [3][4]"
--and--
"In 1999, Fingerworks, a Newark-based company run by University of Delaware academics John Elias and Wayne Westerman, produced a line of multi-touch products including the iGesture Pad and the TouchStream keyboard.[5] Westerman published a dissertation in 1999 on the subject. In 2005, after years of maintaining a niche line of keyboards and touchpads, Fingerworks was acquired by Apple Inc.."
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitouch#Bell_Labs
...so kindly take your revisionist history elsewhere, please.
/P
"Multi-touch technology dates back to 1982, when the University of Toronto developed the first finger pressure multi-touch display. The same year, Bell Labs at Murray Hill published what is believed to be the first paper [citation needed] discussing touch-screen based interfaces."
Dumb Apple troll.
It may be accurate, it may be worthwhile, but it cannot be trustworthy due to the location and control factors.
But I think his information has the gist of truth to it and is a bit more believable than anything else posted in this thread so far.
Furthermore, I directly cited Bell Labs as the earliest verifiable academic source for multitouch as a concept... not Apple. So much for trolling on Apple's behalf, huh? In short? Stop weaseling and suck it down, fanboy... ;)
@ducttape36: I normally agree with you when/if the sources cannot be verified. However, in this case, the citations listed on the page are true. Bell Labs was the first verifiable academic source for multitouch, and Fingerworks (an Apple property since 2005) was the first commercial manufacturer of multitouch products.
@Dan: follow the citations - that's all you have to do. Belittle Wikipedia all you like (ad-hominem-by-proxy on your part?), but the citations they presented are quite real.
@rapier1: I'm just here to step on the FUD... even if it means having to wipe my shoes off on the doormat afterwards. Sorry if that disturbs. ;)
It does not take a genius to do a 2 second search on wikipedia, my 5 year old does it daily at home and in school. So please refrain from perpetuating your superior attitude on others while claiming like they are attempting to re-write history. My 5 year old mastered that kind of restraint over her younger brother last year. Besides, it only serves to highlight your true motives and personal issues.
Professionals do not use wikis for their sources. The data is considered compromised by its very nature of free public editing. I would espect you to do the same if you want to be taen seriously. It's as simple as that.
"With the introduction of multitouch in Windows 7, integrated with N-trig's DuoSense technology, our customers will have a new and natural way to interact with their PCs," Microsoft Group Program Manager Ian LeGrow said in N-Trig's press statement. "By simulating the way people write and touch naturally, N-trig is helping to make it easier to navigate your PC and enable a new class of Windows experiences."
Apple to many people`s dismay , didn`t invent multi-touch , they simply have a patent on their version of it.
BTW...Palm is up today again while everyone else is down. The Pre freight train keeps on rolling. Apple`s iPhone OS looks quite "Stonehenge" compared to the Pe`s WebOS. No wonder Jobs was a no-show.
All fanboyism aside, if you would: Ad budgets are pretty big on either side, but considering that Apple's marketshare is rising while Windows' marketshare is not... who has the more effective use of their respective budgets, do you think?
Thank you for your opinion and comments. It's good to have a dissenting opinion. You are also very good at spinning information in a very creative manner that is most humorous.
I like reading science fiction and fantasy and your comments are right up there with the best.
- by kboateng January 14, 2009 8:46 AM PST
- What's the point of this multitouch argument? The point is Microsoft has invested a lot more in the technology than Apple simply because they have more money. Second, when we look at tablet PCs and multitouch devices such as the iPhone/Windows Mobile phones...Microsoft's products debuted first and that's all that manners. The only multitouch item fromm Apple is the iPhone and it has been out for only a year and a half...tablet PCs with touch have been out for years....also the Surface came out months before the iPhone. That said they did not invent the technology, neither did. However, the implementation of it was on Windows platforms way before anything Apple had to offer because of the accessibility of Windows. What I don't understand is how Apple fanboys always think that just because Apple releases a product or makes it popular then they were the first out with it. The Prada phone came out before the iPhone but yet every all-touch screen phone is a bite out of Apple when they did not even invent the concept. The same goes for even touch screen MP3 players...the world does not revolve around Apple you know. Just 5 years ago the company wasn't even relevant until the arrival of the iPod so know your beginnings...and let's not forget about the hefty bailout Microsoft offered them.
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