Loren recently pointed to some thoughts from Miguel de Icaza about Longhorn and Linux battling it out on the desktop. Sure, the term "desktop" can be taken to mean a physical home or office computer, but these days it really means the "client" part of things, which is where the battle is taking place. Mobile or stationary, every machine still has a "desktop" where users spend their time. Today there is news of the Mozilla and Gnome groups getting together to propose a plan to counter the threats of Longhorn, XAML, and Avalon. Again, it's the battle for the desktop.
I originally wanted to write this post about Microsoft using specialized Windows "derivatives" like the Tablet PC to counter the open source movement. After all, there is no Linux Tablet PC, so it's not even much of a competition, right? (Sure, you can install a Linux distro on tablet hardware, but you'll lose all the actual tablet benefits, thus making the whole exercise pointless.) But then I thought about it some more.
Let's fast forward to, say, five years from now. Microsoft's tablet team will have almost perfected the recognizer. It will be trainable. It will consistently and correctly interpret 99.99% of your chicken scratch. There will be more shape recognition going on, and more gestures. The whole pen thing will plateau, because let's face it: once the machine can read your handwriting and interpret your pictures, that's about all you need (until somebody shows you what else you should need).
That pause will give the open source folks time to catch up. Sure, they won't develop a recognizer nearly as fast as Microsoft (or even Apple) can, because they won't have the sheer resources to throw at it. But they'll probably do it sooner or later. And the OSS recognizers will probably also cover some of the languages "forgotten" by Microsoft (until that particular country decides to mandate Linux on the desktop, and Redmond coders instantly manage to crank out versions of Windows and Office localized in the native tongue of the Goat Herders of the Southern Plains). So technology alone will always lead to a cat and mouse game of follow the leader.
However, Microsoft has a unique opportunity with the Tablet PC. Even though it's a superset of Windows XP, it might as well be a whole new operating system. Why? Because Redmond has a very viable chance of rallying a huge development community around the tablet. A passionate development community. One that will rival the enthusiasm of the open source movement, and help the Tablet PC actually realize its potential as a possible Linux killer.
But that community needs to be created fast. Now. Yesterday. Developers need to be told about the tablet. Shown the tablet. Shown existing ink applications. Provided with lots of cheap or free training. At least initially, provided with cheap hardware. Arin needs to clone himself and send a copy to any possible event that could have Windows developers in attendance. Get the person, who has been coding for 30 years. Get the hobbyist programmer. Get the IT manager, who wants to get into development. Get the curious high school and college students. Get everybody and anybody.
Unfortunately, amassing this great developer army is just half the battle. The easy half. What must be done next happens very rarely in technology circles. Somebody must inspire all these people. Somebody must explain that while adding an ink signature field to an existing, 10-year old application is fine (and such things are needed too), it's not quite what the Tablet PC is all about. Show them the new SDK, the Real Time Stylus APIs, the plugin possibilities, shape recognition, and so on. Discuss new UI concepts, screen orientations, form factors, pen interaction.
Most Tablet PCs may (and do) look like "normal" notebooks running Windows XP, even to developers. That's why the community needs to be not only educated, but powerfully inspired and excited about the platform. This isn't just thinking outside the box - there is no box anymore.
To the developers out there - make sure to check out the Tablet PC. Go to a free event or a local retailer, and play around with one. Poke the screen with the pen. Write some ink. Draw some shapes and pictures. Rotate the screen a few times. Convert some handwriting into text. Select some items with the pen. Hold the tablet and think about how it feels. Then do it all over again, and think of all the new possibilities and ideas. Not just how to make your existing applications ink-friendly (that too, of course), but also how to create something completely new. Something you never thought was even possible, until you saw the Tablet PC.
If Microsoft manages to fire up its developers like this and make them think beyond the previously imaginable, the open source groups will be in a lot of worried meetings, indeed. And if you ever forget just how important developers really are - for any platform or technology - make sure to go back to this reminder.