This isn't so surprising, really. Any hardware platform, no matter how cool or gadgety or chock-full-of-possibilities, can't be sold to the general public on its hardware merits alone. It's the software that makes it or breaks it.

Selling a UMPC with Windows-XP-Tablet-PC-Plus-Goodies-Edition isn't enough to sell UMPC. In general, computers are really hard to use for average everyday mortals. Windows XP can be confusing on the desktop PC, let alone on a small platform. Simply taking desktop concepts and shrinking them for a UMPC isn't enough. Take a simple concept like menus. When tied to the right mouse button, menus are still confusing for some users. Without a mouse, what chance do they have? Perhaps a new paradigm was in order...

There's a lesson here for Internet tablets... Is IT2007 friendly/usable/powerful enough?

-F