Jay Greene on the three year old Microsoft design studio:
>Though Microsoft made little noise about Pioneer, it was once at the heart of the company’s efforts to capture consumer imagination. Rather than having a portfolio of products to develop, Pioneer sought to incubate design that might one day make its way into products. The ill-fated Courier tablet–something of a dual-screen tablet that predated Apple’s iPad–emerged from Pioneer. Though the device won kudos when images leaked, Microsoft decided to shelve the concept.
Thus one of the few areas in Microsoft that was creating interesting new products is now gone. I just don’t see the logic here, but then again Ballmer is lacking in logic.