Microsoft Innovation?

Innovation is an IT buzzword that has never seemed to go out.  It’s what Microsoft always cites when representing itself in various lawsuits, cf. "we are disappointed by the ruling, which will stifle our freedom to innovate."

I’ve never been too convinced that MS software shows any signs of innovation, but today at Best Buy I saw a piece of MS hardware whose innovation impressed me.  Some of their new mice have scroll wheels that are "analog" -- they don’t click when you scroll them, they’re smooth-rolling.  It feels really neat and I couldn’t stop rolling the wheel on the mice at the store.  It may not be hugely innovative, since a non-clicking wheel would be the default and you’d have to add the click feeling, so MS basically just left out that click-adding part that’s always been there until now.  But still, I haven’t seen any other mouse manufacturer (read: Logitech) offering mouse wheels that scroll smoothly.

Some of the mice also featured sideways-scrolling.  Instead of being on a fixed axis, the mouse wheel is mounted in some kind of swively thing that lets you rock the wheel from side to side.  I think that’s a neat idea, but it’s not for me.  I found it slightly tough and unnatural to move my index finger from side to side that way with enough force to activate the feature.  And conversely if it were designed to require less force, you’d probably be accidentally side-scrolling all the time.

I’ve also never liked using mice with more than three buttons (three meaning two plus the wheel), nor mice that are shaped asymmetrically to fit your hand.  So to me the side-scrolling feature is just another thing to make a mouse more complex, when I already thought the 5- and 7-button mice were getting complex enough.