One of the main things that has been said about Windows Phone 7 is that the team working on it threw out the rule book when it came to trying to revitalize Microsoft’s mobile business. Given the high praise that has been floating around the web it apparently is a strategy that has worked but it is still a couple of months yet before we will know for sure how the consumer will react.

However much of a success Windows Phone 7 might be because of the willingness to totally re-think Microsoft’s place in the mobile marketplace that same thinking doesn’t seem to be in the cards for Microsoft’s attempts to get into the hot slate market. While we are seeing really cool ideas about what a possible Windows 7 Slate could look like thanks to companies like UI Centric those in charge at Microsoft don’t seem to have a clue, and haven’t learned anything from the past.

Even now Steve Ballmer sounds like a complete doofus as he fumbles his way through presentations of Microsoft’s road map. As felix at #comments points out in a post

When asked about tablets he says:

Laptops actually are well designed for a lot of things. I notice they are all light. In fact, if you look around this room, they all weigh zero pounds, because they’re just sitting on the table, you are not holding them and you don’t set them up when you want to type, and they prop up — they have good attributes. But some people are going to want that form factor.

What? Steve Ballmer may not realize this, but everyone already knows about laptops. It is not interesting to talk about why people might want a laptop when discussing actual future tablet products. And is he really saying that laptops are weightless because when you use them you put them down? That, the weight of carrying them around doesn’t matter? WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?

I can’t believe this. Reading that transcript was like watching the Miss Teen USA pagent talk about the Iraqs and like such as. Seriously. When asked to stop being ambiguous about Microsoft’s tablet strategy and the iPad in specific he starts with this:

No, that’s actually helpful. I would have said I thought we were completely clear. We’re coming full guns. The operating system is called Windows. No — there’s — let me be unambiguous. A new Windows Phone for screen sizes that, let me just say, are, you know, sort of bigger than three or four inches — the answer is Windows Phone. We are in the game. We’re all in the game today with Intel architecture machines. We’ve got improvements coming from Intel. We’re driving forward. We’re unambiguous about that. Now, where we’ll go and what’s going to matter — I said also in my remarks that in no way will we allow hardware to be the impediment. We will embrace what we need to embrace over time in terms of hardware evolution.

I… I can’t even fathom what he’s trying to say. Is Windows Phone going to be for screen sizes larger than 3 and 4 inches? Is that a new Windows Phone? What game? He keeps saying that Windows is the operating system. Is it not? Is it a new version of Windows Phone? It’s ridiculous. Is his strategy to wait for Intel to make hardware improvements? Will Intel hardware improvements magically only be a boon to Microsoft hardware and somehow not the entire intel using tablet making universe? Why is he talking about impediments? No one mentioned impediments, it is not impeding the iPad. WHY IS HE STILL CEO??

My position on Ballmer as CEO is pretty well known by this time so I have no argument with felix asking that last question because Ballmer should know better, unless of course he has conveniently forgotten his own company’s history.

After all it was Bill Gates who first triumphed the tablet form as far back as 2001 and his keynote speech at Comdex. We all know how well that worked out but that didn’t stop the company from rethinking the whole idea which brought us the Origami Project running on the UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) platform – using a mobile version of XP.

You can still see the complete slide set of Origami 2.0 but here’s a couple to refresh your memory Mr. Ballmer.

While this is still not the same fluidity and classic gorgeousness that we see in UI Centric’s Macallan, Windows Phone 7 or even Zune Desktop there is a hint of being a more more touch oriented interface but then they go and return to the same old same old need a mouse, or stylus, centric thinking.

And that is the problem and one that Ballmer can’t seem to grasp for some reason. Where this type of tablet is suited to a corporate environment it is destined to fail in the general consumer market. Apple has already set the standard of what consumers are going to expect and if Microsoft tries to drag a tired old format into that arena it’s is going to be seeing a repeat of the Kin.

But there is a way that Microsoft could get its foot in the door and not get knocked out of the consumer slate market and Windows Phone 7 shows how that can work. No-one is stupid enough to believe that the Windows Phone 7 is going to knock either the iPhone or Android phones out of the market but it doesn’t have to – it just has to gain a foothold and then build from there.

The same applies to Microsoft’s efforts with the slate – get their foot in the door and then build off of that momentum. John Biggs at CrunchGear had a great post where he made some great points as to what Microsoft could do to get in this game in a solid way. In the short term using the interface that we see in both Zune and Windows Phone 7 as well as bringing in Xbox functionality would be a good start.

In the longer term the idea of creating a skunkworks division separate from the main company would be ideal but also insure that the autonomy that they have also includes working closely with the Microsoft Research division.

But paramount – forget everything that they think they know about tablet. Follow the Windows Phone philosophy – throw it all out and start from scratch. Yes there is the innate fear in the boardroom of missing yet another generation (or two, or three eh Ballmer) but I honestly believe that the consumer market would wait – just as they have for the Windows Phone 7 because sometimes … just sometimes … Microsoft can surprise us.

However, as long as Ballmer continues to sound like he doesn’t have freaking clue and keeps thinking that he can keep pulling the same dead rabbit out of the hat consumers will keep looking elsewhere.

There is still time though. Still time to throw out another of those old rule books.

[Editor’s Note: Time for Microsoft to throw out another rule book is a post from: winextra. –mrh]