Microsoft's "Origami Project" is...

[Bob Russell]

Well, that's really the problem. Microsoft's marketing machine has jumped into gear. Not quite with the buzz of an Apple teaser, but just as lacking in information. We're all still just guessing, but some rumors have come out. Don't know if it's true, but here's what we think we know: It's probably some kind of portable Windows-based handheld computer with connectivity and likely to allow sophisticated computing in a very portable platform. We reported on this topic before , but there's no confirmation yet that they are the same.

An announcement is coming March 2. That according to the cool little video. It looks like the video will be updated weekly. It also hints that it will be portable, and will help you to do things. The www.origamiproject.com domain is apparently registered to Microsoft, and I suppose origami is likely registered also. Maybe someone can confirm that for us.

Robert Scoble from Microsoft simply says "I do know that Origami is the code-name for a new kind of device. Oh, heck, here come the NDA police, gotta go! …"

Pretty intriguing, huh? Want more? If you follow all the leads from Engadget and a few more besides, here's what else you end up learning...

Paul McNamara says "Fortunately, we know someone who knows for certain. According to an industry source who has seen the thing and calls it "very cool," Origami is one and the same with this ultraportable 'lifestyle PC' we were talking about here earlier today. This source is under NDA, an honest fellow and unwilling to share more than his help connecting the dots."

He also points back to an earlier Engadget post saying "According to at least one report, Bill Mitchell, Corporate Vice President of the Mobile Platform Division, showed a slide that outlined specs for the new PC category, including that it be wearable, always on, no larger than 10-inches, connected through 3G networks, pen-based, and have a suggested retail price of $500 or less. … One notable spec that could differentiate this one: Microsoft is apparently insisting that this run the full version of Windows."

Unfortunately for me, now that I'm filling in the last parts of this post, I find that Paul has the same title I came up. Of course I was feeling quite proud and smug about how incredibly clever and unique I had been. Well, my apologies to Paul, because I'm not changing it now. But I gladly give him credit for coming up with it first.

Back to Origami, we find that it has quite a few people looking back to a device announced at the 2001 Comdex show. Look at this this description from PC Magazine, "Taking convergence to an extreme was National Semiconductor, which was promoting its Geode system on a chip. The chip is showing up in numerous wild products, and the company is encouraging that process by testing the water with high-concept devices. The weirdest device was the National Semiconductor Geode Origami Mobile Communicator. The prototypes have got to be as collectible as those 1950s bullet-nosed GM concept cars. I'd be shocked if anyone manufacturers the Origami—as cool and interesting as it is. Essentially, it's a Transformers toy for adults. The device, which acts as a phone, camera, camcorder, MP3 player, PDA, Internet picture frame, laptop, workpad, and weapon, twists around every which way to morph. Of all things, it may have been the rage of the show."

And an interesting writeup from AMD also from back in the day. "Highlighting this year's Comdex is National's new Geode™ Origami™ Mobile Communicator, a multifunction conceptual device that combines a digital camera, streaming online digital camcorder, videoconferencing, Internet surfing, PDA and email. When docked, the device also functions as an Internet picture frame that displays photos and videos. Origami uses many products from National's unique product portfolio including power management, audio, display, graphics, wireless connectivity and the Geode integrated processor.

'The Origami Mobile Communicator is an exciting conceptual device that showcases the broad range and depth of National's analog, digital and mixed-signal technologies,' said Brian Halla, CEO, National Semiconductor. 'From audio and video to displays and wireless, we have all the key technologies that are enabling tomorrow's digital lifestyle.' "

CNN.com also had a writeup about the gadget in 2001. ""

You can keep up with the Origami Project with this RSS feed.

And I can't leave you without mentioning maybe the nicest concise writeup about the original Origami device with some pics at WindowsForDevices.

As the rumors develop, feel free to add your own thought and scoops in this thread. I have a feeling that if you can get over the fact it's coming from Microsoft, it's going to be an exciting development in the world of mobile computing!

Via hardware.slashdot.org.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by BobR

I have a feeling that if you can get over the fact it's coming from Microsoft, it's going to be an exciting development in the world of mobile computing!

It still seems like a big YAWN to me.

1. It's a Microsoft product. Which means that it will not support any standard formats. Microsoft has historically only thought of new developments as ways to promote its monopoly rather than how to meet the needs of the consumers.

2. If the rumors are true:
"...new PC category, including that it be wearable, always on, no larger than 10-inches, connected through 3G networks, pen-based, and have a suggested retail price of $500 or less. … One notable spec that could differentiate this one: Microsoft is apparently insisting that this run the full version of Windows."
Then...
a) You will probably need to pay a monthly fee to have it (to the 3G network provider).
b) You will have to worry about OS exploits on it (one thing that WinCE typically doesn't have an issue with).
c) At 10 inches, it's no better than a PDA. So what's it going to do above the current crop of PDAs?
d) Since they still haven't licked the power problem, battery life isn't going to be very good - especially for an always-on, full Windows system.

"Essentially, it's a Transformers toy for adults. The device, which acts as a phone, camera, camcorder, MP3 player, PDA, Internet picture frame, laptop, workpad, and weapon, twists around every which way to morph."

I still maintain that anything that acts like a phone+anything is useless. People who use their phones alot and want some PDA functionality sometimes probably would find it useful because they wouldn't have to carry around 2 units, but that's it.

Cameras/camcorders are falling out of favor in many places. Some companies don't permit devices with cameras in them on company property. Because of some people's misuse of cameras (like in lockerrooms), many other places are banning them - at least banning their use in those places. Putting a camera on something is a negative - not a positive.

I highly doubt that it will be an MP3 player. A WMA player, perhaps, but not MP3.

"Laptop"? At 10 inches? I have a Zaurus SL-C760 that I normally term "Barbie's Laptop" because it's that small. It's not usable as a laptop. People's hands aren't that small.

"Internet picture frame"? Boy, the 3G provider will like to charge you for that.

Bottom line is that I don't see anything exciting about this. It's just some hype that the MS marketing guys have smoked up.

[Laurens]

Well, I, for one, am curious. I'll suspend judgment until it becomes clear what it actually is. (March 2 is next Thursday.)

[Bob Russell]

JKonTheRun at http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther...ami_video.html is reporting there may be a video of the device.

[Snappy!]

The last time I checked, all the corporations want to be monopoly! ... who opens shop not to make money? Even google is making money ok!

Anyway, I think it will be some development ... as to whether its exciting ... its really arbitary. There had been MS flops and wins. So far, the coin is flipping heads (wins) up more often ... eg, like it or not, Windows 95 really did a major change to computing ... at least desktop. Bundling IE in it further brought internet to the mass, riding on the initial wave by mosaic and netscape.

MS also had its flops: (I won't mention MS Bob, 'cos everyone mentions it but it flopped so badly I never quite heard or seen it before! ) ... there is the tablet PC ... which didn't quite change the world. The HandheldPC (I am using one) which was axed some 3~4 years ago after PPCs took the pda world by storm... etc etc.

Oh well ... we'll see next week. Anything that is < $500 (ie, within my budget) ... is good!

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Snappy!

The last time I checked, all the corporations want to be monopoly!

From a purely economic point of view, yes. But most consumers know that monopolies are bad for them.

As history has shown, monopolies mean higher prices and poor quality. It's better for everyone when there is competition. That's why we have laws against monopolies.

Case in point: Our largest unregulated monopoly used to let people who had a legal copy of MS Office at work take a copy home to use for free. But after that decision drove the competition out of the market, they stopped that.

And don't get me started on IE and how that stagnated after the browser war.

I'm not holding my breath for anything Microsoft puts out since they typically don't innovate. They wait for someone else to innovate and either buy them out, or reproduce the product and drive the innovator out of business.

In the case ot Origami, I don't see any innovation at all. Just another attempt at Microsoft telling us what we need.

[Laurens]

@rlauzon: being so rabidly anti-MS is not healthy for you. Your responses are almost Pavlovian in nature. Let's just wait until we know what this Origami actually is. (Then bash away all you want.)

[Laurens]

Here's a leaked flash animation. Really lame "lifestyle" advertisement, BTW, but it does reveal it's a tablet-style PC.

Seems to be competing in the same market as the Nokia 770.

[Snappy!]

If innovation means creating something totally new based on nothing that was designed by others, then practically no one can claim to be innovating.

Computer products in general belong to what is sometimes called (products of) "Applied Sciences". It is not hardcore sciences where discovery about new characteristics of the physical world is made and more is made known. And even then, it is "mere" *discovery* and not creation per se.

Innovation or creation (to me at least) is about piecing together existing building blocks to create a whole that is greater than the sum itself. In certain cases, it involves building blocks that are small enough or low level enough that it is generally seen as a "new" technology.

MS, Apple, IBM, Sun, HP, Dell ... all the big boys (and girls) (and small boys ... and girls ) all innovate in some manner, be it in higher level productization of existing technology or research of new lower level technology or development of newer ways of business model. They all are undeniably some form of innovation. What they do from the success of it, is quite a separate issue. Just because MS let IE become stagnant after that does not mean we should simply discredit it for IE's success in the browser war.

Last point to note. I used to work in MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) and from what I see, ironically corporations and business users chose IE partly because it was "stagnant", and later lamented it for the same reason. How so? Corporations deal with hundreds and thousands of users spanning different geographical locations and very often across different platforms (of windows, from Win3.1 (back then) to Win9x, NT, 2k and XP). When they roll out a new business application that uses the IE as backbone, they cannot afford to have compatibility issues day in and out. Between having the latest whistles and bells (like tabs and what not) vs a more or less fixed backbone, most of them chose to have a fixed backbone infrastructure.

In a similar tone, when I met some corporations while trying to share with them MS AD & Exchange as a new directory and mail / app backbone, there was serious concern even though they agreed that there is much much more functionality while the aging Lotus Notes platform had some much quirks. The crux was that the whole tech infrastructure (in business) is built not to try and be the latest greatest but to enable the core business of the corporation to function better and ... in short increase the bottom line. The corps had a choice, and they chose IE.

Having said that, over the years, IE did stagnated. On two fronts: One Security stability and Two Whistles and bells. While most corps realised that security was becoming an issue, fixes and patches were not coming in as quickly as should have been. On this front, its a shame on MS that it should have happen at all. On the other hand, if MS had rolled out automatic patch updates to workstations, there will also be a foul-cry of privacy and what not.

Further, like what some articles pointed out, other system features like firewall etc, was part of a series of Da*n-if-MS-do-it, Da*n-if-MS-do-not-do-it thingie. MS works with its partners on both hardware and software fronts. It tries to juggle a fine balance between giving enough features in its OS to compete and allowing a healthy environment for its software partners to create new products for Windows users. Some linux users keep claiming that MS Windows sucks because it does not come with proper photo editing tool, etc etc ... but look what happened to MS with IE?

Did MS bundle Office with Windows? I dun think so.

On the whistles and bells, MS also laxed a bit. Ok, quite a bit. In all honesty, if you try running IE4.01 and compare the browsing experience with 6.0, I think it is quite a bit of a difference. But could they have done more, yes. But does that wipe out their past innovation? No. Does it imply their new product platform is going to necessarily suck and not be innovative? I don't think so.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Snappy!

If innovation means creating something totally new based on nothing that was designed by others, then practically no one can claim to be innovating.

Yes, but our out-of-balance copyright laws and the inability of the patent office to determine the obvious-ness of something is a different topic.

Originally Posted by Snappy!

Just because MS let IE become stagnant after that does not mean we should simply discredit it for IE's success in the browser war.

I think you missed my point.

Once a company has effectively become a monopoly, they lose any incentive to innovate or even improve their product.

IE is an example of this. Once MS "won" the browser war, they didn't improve IE - because everyone used it and they had an effective monopoly. When I talk about improvements, I'm not talking about adding incompatible new features. Heck, most people would just have liked to see IE improved to just adhere to W3C standards.

MS has been proven to be a monopoly and they have stopped innovating (some people may argue that they never innovated, but rather took the innovations of others). So I have little hope that anything from MS will be exciting.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Laurens

@rlauzon: being so rabidly anti-MS is not healthy for you. Your responses are almost Pavlovian in nature. Let's just wait until we know what this Origami actually is. (Then bash away all you want.)

Growl! Growl! Growl! 8-)

I have to deal with buggy Microsoft products that (presume to think for me) all day. I need an outlet. So, this actually is healthy for me.

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Growl! Growl! Growl! 8-)

I have to deal with buggy Microsoft products that (presume to think for me) all day. I need an outlet. So, this actually is healthy for me.

I deal with buggy (not just Microsoft) products all day as well and I don't feel a particular need to vent any frustration. Really, all the points you bring up are off-topic and have been discussed to death for years already. No use in beating a dead horse over and over again.

[Snappy!]

ok, right now I just wish MS or its partner will surprise me with an actual product come March9.