Let’s face it, since Windows XP, everything consumer from Microsoft (apart from the XBOX) has been lame.

Windows Vista, Windows Mobile, MSN/Hotmail have been performing really badly and can be totally regarded as failures.

Yet it seems this time may be over.

For the first time in a long while, Microsoft is releasing exciting products one after another. Short development cycles, convergence and innovation has enabled them to release an excellent Windows 7, a challenging Bing, improved XBOX 360 experience and insights let us hope for the best with the upcoming Windows Mobile.

It seems that Microsoft managed to make massive changes in their R&D process to be able to regain that flexibility and ability to innovate aiming at shorter production cycles and more iterations, sounds like an interesting case I would love insights on.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&#038;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&#038;showPlaylist=true&#038;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>
Beautiful short video by Microsoft’s business team shown yesterday by Microsoft’s Business Division president Stephen Elop at the Wharton Business Technology Conference. Somehow Microsoft still is a visionary and identifies realistic use cases, but somehow as Venturebeat writes, their implementation of the vision has been pretty poor over the last decade.
I’ve always been a strong believer in the fact that software and hardware should be seen as a whole if you want to deliver a consistent and high-level experience to the end-user. Maybe Microsoft should either start making its own hardware or start being more directive with their manufacturing partners… just like for the xbox360 for instance which beautiful probably because they did both hardware and software.

It’s all over the blogs, Microsoft might be looking to buy 3DV Systems for $35 million, the producer of a 3D webcam device that would be able to get plugged into the xbox 360 to compete with Sony’s EyeToy and bring casual games to the xbox 360 platform.
While I think this is a smart move for Microsoft as they definitely need to catch up in the casual games market which means enabling fun without the hassle of learning to master the so complicated controller they have, I must confess I’m not such a big fan of that kind of technology.
What mainly bothers me with that system, is that you have to remain in plain sight of the camera to be able to play, and in my personal case I’m never twice on the same spot. Also casual game means also multi-player games, i.e. 4 players at the same time on the same platform. The raving rabbits are just so much fun when everyone plays together and the portions where you lay alone on the Wii Fit kinda suck – and that’s the kind of experience that a dedicated camera can only provide.

Yet while I’m not such a big fan of the use case I’m really happy to see that Microsoft is feeling the power of accessories to deliver engaging gaming experience, which is also the main objective of VR-WEAR : mix immersive and interactive technologies to create a strong engagement in the game !
Microsoft, if you read me, I’m ready to sell for just a bit less than 35MUSD !