JANUARY 12, 2009 Microsoft Betting Big on 'Touch' Software Giant Invests in Touch-Screen Technology for Personal Computers
By NICK WINGFIELD Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123172288454472521.html While Apple Inc.'s iPhone kicked off the craze for touch-sensing screens on mobile phones, Microsoft Corp. is pushing a similar technology for personal-computer screens that could eventually replace the computer mouse. N-trig Ltd., an Israeli start-up that makes touch-sensing screen hardware, is expected to announce that Microsoft is the largest investor in a $24 million round of funding that also includes several venture-capital firms. The Redmond, Wash., software company is making the investment to help N-trig quickly adapt its technology to work well with Windows 7, the coming version of Microsoft's dominant operating system. It didn't disclose the specific size of Microsoft's investment. The agreement is part of a gamble by Microsoft that consumers will eventually prefer to control their PCs with finger gestures, rather than pointing and clicking with a mouse. Microsoft is more deeply integrating touch features into Windows 7 -- due out in final form sometime before January of next year -- than it has in any previous version of Windows. The company is now mobilizing software-application makers, PC companies and component suppliers like N-trig to tool their products for Windows 7. Microsoft unveiled a test version of the operating system last week. To be sure, touch-sensing PCs could end up as little more than a gimmick, but if the technology catches on as it has in the cellphone business, it could provide the first meaningful change in how users interact with PCs in decades. Proponents of touch screens hope users will find it more appealing to browse libraries of photos, music and videos on their PCs by swiping their fingers across their computer screens, rather than do those same tasks with a keyboard and computer mouse. Touch screens let users zoom in on maps by pinching their fingers together, and to pivot around a three-dimensional map by sweeping their hands across the screen. Like virtual sculptors, engineers and architects could use the technology to mold simulated objects with their hands. Bill Veghte, senior vice president for Microsoft's Windows business, says some likely applications are in education, as well as for shared PCs in places like the kitchen, where they can be used for things like recipes, online traffic reports and directions. "It provides another natural way to interact with the computer," Mr. Veghte says. He adds that touch screens aren't useful for all PC applications. Nor will they likely ever replace keyboards, which are more efficient for entering text. But touch-screen advocates predict mice and comparable pointing devices on notebooks will eventually fade from popular use. "The mouse, I think, is gone," says Amichai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig. "I don't see a reason to have one." Touch-screen technologies have been around for decades, used for purposes like automated teller machines and some mobile phones. Early implementations of the technology would often require users to press hard on screens that didn't respond snappily enough, limitations that have been overcome in recent years. Furthermore, "multitouch" screens like those on the iPhone have opened up new ways of manipulating objects on screens with multiple fingers -- like enlarging photos by spreading two fingers apart. Touch-screen companies got a huge boost when Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone two years ago at Macworld. After the debut of iPhone -- which would inspire many cellphone makers to add similar technology -- PC companies that had largely ignored his sales pitch began returning his calls, he says. "I didn't need the iPhone out," Mr. Ben-David says. "I just needed Steve Jobs in January 2007 announcing touch and showing the smoothness of it." N-Trig's touch-screen technology is used in notebook PCs from Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. H-P has become one of the most aggressive adopters with its TouchSmart line of computers, sales of which have "far exceeded" the company's expectations, according to Philip McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer of H-P's personal systems group. Those machines are sold with Microsoft's version of its operating system, Windows Vista, but H-P had to design extra software to more easily manipulate applications with users' fingers. Mr. McKinney says Windows 7 will accelerate the changes necessary for new applications -- software designed for the new operating system, for example, will have wider scroll bars to better accommodate the width of fingers. But there will still be areas where touch isn't much use, he says. "You're not going to do an Excel spreadsheet by touch," he says. "It's not a panacea." ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
