Professor Elam

 

Apple, notoriously secretive about upcoming products, has not commented on the matter. But given the iPhone's success, which propelled competitors to come out with copycat touch-screen phones and centralized "app" stores to sell add-on software, all eyes are on Apple to define what a slate or tablet-style computer should look like and how it will be used.

AP Jan 7 2009

Read the article here.  But the excerpt above and the picture pretty well says it all, Apple now sets the Design Standard for personal computers.   It's almost humorous to see bald, heavy Balmer trying to imitate Steve Jobs at an announcement.  Jobs, a rather slimmer figure than Balmer,  has made his jeans and black shirt ensemble the understated presentation form. Can't Balmer hire a good looking faux Steve Jobs model, male or female?   It looks like Balmer is trying some sort of Garth Brooks smoke and lights show to get folks excited about, well, a tablet that will be out sometime this year. As the article notes, there have been many windows based tablets but none of them took off. Now that Apple is not going to announce, but note the verb, define, what a tablet should be, the rest are playing catch up. 

And note that Apple does not make an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas pictured above. No, they will have their own show later this month where  only Apple is the star. 

All of this makes my case that Design should be a component of business classes.