So there I was sitting in my apartment one Thursday evening in late April, my desk lamp casting shadows around the room whilst I reviewed the news from the day with Microsoft announcing a competitor to Facebook’s Open Graph and Steve Jobs openly attacking Adobe’s Flash. When all of a sudden I heard a great commotion outside on the street, as I listened more it came apparent the fuss was about someone or something being killed. I began to worry as people were saying it was the rumoured Courier that had been killed, it couldn’t be. Courier was the speculated king of the underworld.
…I don’t think I am going to make it as a crime novelist and you’ll be glad to know I am not going to continue writing in the faux first person crime style.
What Was Courier?
For those you do know what Courier was you’ll probably want to skip down to why I think it was cancelled but for those of you who don’t know it was Microsoft’s creatively oriented, two screen tablet device. The device would have had a new OS giving unmatched integration between touch and pen inputs for the two multi touch screens to allow for some innovative functionality and uses.
Whilst primarily being aimed at creative people with its infinite number of “journals”, replicating the uses of a real journal, it also had some other great features. It would have incorporated calendar and contacts information pulled from various online sources, would have sported a web browser (which modern device doesn’t now?) and would have stored every journal on the cloud as well as on the device to make it easy to share and collaborate on different journals.
Rather than me try and explain every little detail of how this was innovative you’re best off watching these render videos of the device, note that these aren’t of a working device just how the Courier team wanted the device to look and work.
Microsoft Courier inteface demo
As you can see this certainly a device to get excited about as it offered something truly innovative and new and would have be a serious competitor but alas it seems we wont see such as device come to market.
Why Was It Cancelled?
There is definitely a lack of understanding as too why Microsoft decided t cancel the project, it a appears to be a rather quick decision considering the New York Time only heard a few weeks back that we could expect to see Courier in early 2011. Microsoft is unlikely to share with us why the project was cancelled seeing as it hadn’t ever announced the existence of Courier until it announced it had been cancelled.
The best reason I have seen is that it was stopped due to internal politics/streamlining within Microsoft with the main argument being that Microsoft doesn’t need another mobile device OS. Microsoft already offer Windows 7 for tablet and touch screen devices so why create a new OS based on Windows Embedded when Courier could be a custom application for a two screen Windows 7 device. One answer is perhaps that Windows 7 offers too much functionality for such a specific device and would also be too slow. Then there is the Windows Phone OS which could, in theory, be used as the OS for Courier but with a custom UI or even have courier as an app for a two screen mobile device, after all it is thought that the Zune HD 2 will be running Windows Phone OS but with no phone functionality. To me it makes sense for Microsoft to try and use one of its current OSs rather than create a new one so this might answer why Courier was stopped but in doing so its likely we wont see such an integrated nor precision user experience on a future version of Courier.
Another politically based is that maybe teams within Microsoft wanted the device to be oriented in a different direction, only a few weeks back I saw talk that Microsoft were confused how to market the device, as a media playback device, a “digital journal”, a general purpose mobile device etc etc. This recent lack of clarity could have meant that the team had lost their way somewhat or that other teams were pressuring them which could perhaps explain why it was shelved.
Some other reasons worth considering, perhaps cost came into it however with Microsoft being the most profitable non-oil company in the world I can’ see them being too concerned about the cost of the project at the moment unless they couldn’t get their numbers for releasing the device to market to work. Even then I would have thought they would compromise on hardware or functionality rather than cancelling it completely.
One other idea I had was following Steve Ballmer’s own guidelines for when Microsoft releases a platform or when it releases its own device. Microsoft think that if a market has more than 50 million units sold a year then they are best off licensing software to companies, as they do with Windows and Windows Phone, however if a market is smaller than 50 million then they are better off making their own products for example Xbox and Zune HD. Its this idea that got me wondering about Courier and whether it would be best for Microsoft to license it or make their own, I have yet to hear someone say a bad word about the concept and many people would happily use one day to day. Following the praise for the concept and thinking of how many people around the world could make use of such a device, students, designers, anyone who carries around a folder or journal with them etc etc, it makes me wonder if the market for a Courier like device is actually rather large.
As far as I can tell Microsoft planned to have this as their own device like the Xbox but I have started to wonder if the project was cancelled actually because it needs a restart with a change of direct being that this should be licensed out to consumers and businesses or even educational institutes. Perhaps it was the great public perception this concept received that actually caused Microsoft to stop it. But this still begs the question of what OS the platform would be based on.
What Of The Future?
Have we seen the last of Courier? I think not as it likely that Microsoft will use much of the innovative idea in other products going forward, perhaps Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Perhaps it will even appear sooner as an app for Windows and/or Windows Phone.
Will what we see be as good as the Courier concept? I doubt it, without being a dedicated device it likely there will need to be compromises on its UI and implementation making it somewhat less useful and functional, but I imagine still the best “digital journal”. I also doubt we will actually see a two screen device.
One other idea I have had is of the “Microsoft Office OneNote Book”, we know Microsoft are keen to push OneNote and believe it will soon be the big third next to Word and Excel in its Office line up. Could they make a device dedicated to the Office application for students etc which would, in part, resolve the issue of another OS? Who knows.
I think it is a great shame that Courier has been cancelled however it may mean more people are able to access some its functionality through a proliferation of features throughout other Microsoft products and services.
What I was most looking forward to though with Courier was Apple having a general purpose platform and Microsoft having a platform for the creative amongst us, somewhat of a complete reversal of Windows Vs Macs.
