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I'm not sure this is a helpful diagnosis - Microsoft didn't have a short attention when it came to tablets (as you say, they pioneered them, and they haven't abandoned them), they just didn't get the form factor right, and many of the Live services have just been rebranded. Likewise, Apple has also demonstrated a short attention span at times. Remember Ping?

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It's not that they didn't get the form factor right, it's that they didn't align as a company to make sure it was a success. To my knowledge, in-fighting between different divisions in Microsoft lead to the Tablet PC's ultimate demise and as an early adopter myself I definitely felt the pain of it. Tablet pen functionality in Office was a pathetic, tacked-on afterthought, for instance.

Good point - there were several problems with Microsoft's tablet approach, and you're certainly right that application software is one of them. The main thing I wanted to say is that "short attention span" and "abandonment" don't accurately describe what went wrong.

In those early iterations the stylus support was pathetic. In contrast, Today's stylus hardware/software integration on their Surface Pro line is great.

I look forward to Microsoft finding their own perspective not only in hardware, but in software/search as well.

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