In my previous post I said “If you ask me, Microsoft should start making PCs next 
.”
Just came across this article in BusinessWeek: Microsoft, Design Guru. Its pushing a sleek new hardware vision to PC makers. Will they bite?
An excerpt:
A How-To kit for the ideal PC has been making the rounds of leading design shops. It calls for “accelerated curves” and “purposeful contrast.” The preferred colors include a shade of black called Obsidian and a translucent white dubbed Ice. “We want people to fall in love with their PCs, not to simply use them to be productive and successful,” reads the enclosed booklet. “We want PCs to be objects of pure desire.” A How-To kit for the ideal PC has been making the rounds of leading design shops. It calls for “accelerated curves” and “purposeful contrast.” The preferred colors include a shade of black called Obsidian and a translucent white dubbed Ice. “We want people to fall in love with their PCs, not to simply use them to be productive and successful,” reads the enclosed booklet. “We want PCs to be objects of pure desire.”
Doesn’t sound much like Microsoft (MSFT), does it? But it is.
Good, good…this is a great move on Microsoft’s behalf. I am all for making products that are visually rich, simple, and emotionally appealing to our customers/end users. Time and again it has been proved that it is the design of the product, not the number of new features, which excites and appeals to the customer. The classic example being iPod which still pales in comparison to some of the other mp3 players out there as far as features are concerned. Traditionally, Microsoft has always focussed on features as a key selling point but now things are changing and more focus is being put on design. Hopefully, we will soon have a PC that is a design marvel – hardware, software, and everything else including packaging!
September 27, 2006 at 1:40 pm
The visual appearance of the PC is the last thing I would worry about fixing. What irritates me immensely is the fixed-in-concrete idea that all peripherals (purry-fur-alls) of a PC shall be accessed via a motherboard bus. Consider this: I have several PCs at home, mostly old and retired except for me, all connected via a network. I have a limited amount of space on my desk. Fine. I used my badly calibrated brain and bought a KVM switch.
I also have some speakers, connected to one of the PCs’ sound cards.
That means I can use those speakers only with that PC, not with any of the others.
You know the thing that would really stamp Microsoft’s image on the home entertainment PC? Making the Zune a USB-attached or RJ45-attached sound box for the PC, one that could be accessd by any PC in a network.
(Of course if Apple wants to trounce Microsoft again, they’d notice this idea first, and make the iPod a USB-attached or RJ45-attached sound box for the average PC. Of course, once Microsoft notices this idea here on your blog, I firmly expect they will urge you via various gentle methods, for which Microsoft are extremely well known in the industry, to take this posting off, lest it be known that one of these confounded Anything-But-Microsoft FOSS fellows came up with a markedly improved multimedia PC. I’ve just been thinking along these lines for the last decade and a bit, but Microsoft is perfectly capapble of “innovating” it a decade and a bit after me – then suing me for it, and the US courts system is that stupid they’ll believe Microsoft …