Microsoft Surface Draws Interest, if Not Buyers

Microsoft's Surface tabletop computer team has graduated from being a pet project of founder Bill Gates to a group that stands up on its own, and contributes back into other parts of Microsoft.

That is the impression that I left with after meeting with Surface General Manager of Software and User Experience Brad Carpenter this week at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week in Los Angeles. Carpenter said that Microsoft had more than four times as many partners for Surface as it did a year ago, and that the team contributed technology to Windows 7, including applications that are installed by computer makers. (See "Microsoft's Multi-Touch 'Surface' Table.)

While it is true that Surface hasn't revolutionized how the world interacts with computers yet, Microsoft is very serious about the touch-screen interface. To that point, every PDC attendee received a free touch-screen laptop to write touch-screen applications with.

Silverlight 4 also allows applications to invoke Windows touch screen interfaces, so that online puzzles can become much more interactive. And that's just ...

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David Worthington, Technologizer