Microsoft has one more thing for Apple: a product announcement on Tuesday afternoon that will follow an Apple “special event” earlier in the day.
Perhaps Gates looked out his Windows and decided Apple needed a bit of pruning in the buzz and marketing department. Aside from the Xbox and its successor, the Xbox 360, Microsoft generally avoids making hardware aside from its excellent keyboard and mouse products.
But rumors associated with the Origami Project have led to a full-court press of commentary and hysteria among tech sites and bloggers who follow the industry.
It isn’t known if Microsoft’s announcement at 2 pm PT in Redmond on Tuesday will have anything to do with Origami, which is supposed to have more details revealed on March 2nd. Ars Technica reported Origami looks like a sub-notebook sized tablet PC, aimed at the entertainment and mobile computing markets.
Given the separate dates, it doesn’t look like Microsoft will break Origami out ahead of its team’s announcement later this week. And the Origami Project website itself is set up to release details over a three-week period.
Could Microsoft have something related to search engine technology to unveil? The Search Engine Strategies winter conference is taking place in New York, and that would be a more likely place for some kind of search product announcement.
Gates has had an eye on the portable media market, one that Apple owns and like everything else in the tech world, Microsoft covets. No company has been able to make any significant inroads against Apple. But playing media on a portable device isn’t exactly innovative.
The press conference in Redmond features Microsoft’s Research team and Kevin Schofield, General Manager for Strategy and Communications at Microsoft Research. That seems to indicate something much different than a consumer product for the marketplace.
—
document.write(“Email murdok here.”)
Drag this 
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
