Why Microsoft's Windows Courier tablet would have been a loser

By Preston Gralla

There's been a great deal of talk and reporting about Microsoft's never-released Windows-based Courier tablet, and the political infighting that led Microsoft to kill it. But amidst all the hubbub, one thing has been overlooked: The tablet would likley have been a poor seller.

CNet has just published an excellent two-part article, detailing why Microsoft killed the tablet in April, 2010. The details will be familiar to anyone who has covered Microsoft for any length of time. The innovative product ran headlong into internal opposition from groups other than the one which created it, leading to its demise. As CNet reports succinctly: "Courier was cancelled because the product didn't clearly align with the company's Windows and Office franchises, according to sources."

That article, and the commentary since then, portrays the Courier as a tablet that could have given the iPad serious competition, and opened up new markets for Microsoft.

A look at the Courier's design, though, shows that it likely would not have given the iPad a run for its money. I don't believe it would have gained significant market share.

Start off with the basics. The Courier wouldn't even have an app capable of handling email. Instead, people would only be able to read email on the Web. In fact, it was this very lack of basic email tools that led to the product's demise, reports CNet. Steve Ballmer asked Bill Gates to take a look at the product, and when Gates saw it didn't handle email, "Bill had an allergic reaction," one Courer worker told CNet.

The Courier also wasn't designed primarily to run apps, as was the iPad. In fact, it doesn't seem to have been a mass-market device. CNet notes: "Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents."

In other words, it was a niche product, designed to be a secondary gadget for a relatively small slice of the market. And it likely wouldn't have been cheap, either, because it had two screens, not one.

The Courier would have launched months after the iPad, which was released in April, 2010. It would inevitably have been compared to the iPad, and come up short. No email? No full suite of apps? Consumers would have stayed away.

So Microsoft was likely right not to launch the Courier, even if it might have killed the tablet for the wrong reasons.