Traditionally, as stated in the previous post, when Microsoft is referring to the three-screen concept they are talking about PC, mobile, and TV. The actual devices behind each of these can vary. In fact I would go so far to say that the devices themselves are not the important component. How a user interacts with the device and how the device is connected to the cloud ultimately should determine how it is categorized within the concept. So, let me start with the PC and what that screen represent (at least in my opinion).

When you’re targeting the PC as one of the “screens” it is common to think of it as a computer with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. If, however, you look at it as a primarily stationary device that is always connected and where users actively interact with it in close proximity of the display it starts to open up to more devices beyond the classic desktop PC. So, what kind of devices are we talking about?

How about a multi-touch PC mounted in a kitchen? A user walks up to it and interacts directly with the screen as opposed to a keyboard and mouse. But, the interaction takes place within the same general proximity as a traditional desktop. So, from a display perspective it needs to be optimized for close viewing.

An end-user is not going to sit down and type a novel on this device. Instead, they would use it to display recipes, maintain a family calendar, or watch video with a few taps of the finger. Yet, this is essentially still a PC and I do not think many would argue against it falling into the PC screen category. But, it does start the move away from what is thought of as the typical PC. And, I hope it starts you thinking about other possibilities as well. So, let us move a little bit further from the traditional PC again. How about a Microsoft Surface device?

Most of the Surface devices that have shown up in the wild have been in hotel lobbies, bars, and retail stores. And, for the most part they have been little more than a novelty. But, there is reason to believe that there can be more to this than what we have seen so far.

Several months ago I watched a video (of course I can’t seem to find a link to it now) where Microsoft demoed a Surface desk that was tailored to a factory supervisor. The interface itself was more like a sophisticated dashboard than traditional GUI and was fully multi-touch. On this dashboard the supervisor was able to see at a glance a schematic of the factory floor. Individual equipment on the schematic was color coded to indicate if there was a problem. For example, maybe a line was not meeting the production quota that is has been assigned. Or, perhaps maintenance had been recently skipped on the machinery. With a few taps the supervisor is able to see historical performance information as well as future data such as employee shift schedules.

The demo continued by showing additional cool features of the Surface device. For instance, the supervisor was able to perform and enterprise search for an electronic document by simply placing the hardcopy face down on the desk surface. All of this is very interesting and shows some real value.

Ultimately, the interface was seamless, customizable, and geared directly towards complementing the supervisor’s natural workflow. Here again, we have many of the same concepts of the traditional PC. But, it is really starting to open up some exciting possibilities; especially for BI. Certainly there are some big differences between this and the display that sits on your desk. Yet, I’d contend that this is still the same “screen”.

Microsoft has been touting their technology vision of three-screens and the cloud for about a year now (much longer if you don’t include the formal name). For those not familiar with the concept it is essentially a vision that embraces the union of technologies across the PC, mobile, and TV. The common connector in this vision is usually the cloud.

Over the last several months the bits and pieces that Microsoft has shown of this vision have been fragmented and lacked a sense of completion. However, with the recent announcement of the Windows Phone 7 things are starting to come together; at least on the consumer side of things.

This week the GDC (Game Developers Conference) is taking place and Microsoft is showing off the gaming portion of their vision with announcing XNA Game Studio 4. One of the demos that they recently presented showed a game that worked seamlessly across the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone. Even more impressive than simply having a game that can be ported across these platforms is that the game was able to push it’s save state to the Cloud. This allows the end user to pick up where they left off across all of their devices.

This is certainly cool and is exactly the type of thing that gets my imagination going. I innately have a curiosity for all things dealing with technology. And, when I see something like this my mind immediately starts racing with different scenarios of how this can be used.

With that in mind, I had originally intended to take this post and talk about how this technology vision could be applied to business intelligence; more specifically, how Microsoft intends for it to apply to their product lines. But, after some additional thinking I decided that I wanted to take another direction. Instead, I’d talk at a more abstract level. I’d like to bring up some ideas on how to expand this vision and perhaps redefine it a bit. The idea behind this is to allow your curiosity and imagination to run wild as opposed to having me just dictating to you. To me this is a far more powerful prospect.

With this change in direction the amount of content has grown larger than what I’d consider appropriate for a single blog post. So, I am going to break this up into a small series. It is my hope that you will find this not only interesting but that it will prompt you to imagine and, perhaps, help create the future!