Microsoft betting big on touchscreen laptops

Although touchscreens have played a key role in the success of smartphones and tablets, they have yet to successfully catch on in more traditional computers – namely desktops and laptops.  This is due in large part to the view that users would quickly become fatigued from holding their arm up to use a vertically-mounted touchscreen (as opposed to a mobile touchscreen that can be held horizontally) – the so-called “gorilla arm” issue, which Steve Jobs frequently cited in his opposition to including touchscreens in MacBooks. 

Unlike Apple, Microsoft has decided to invest heavily in making touchscreens the standard in new laptop PCs.  To start this transition, Microsoft has entered into a partnership with Intel to require all new fourth-generation Ultrabooks to have touchscreens.  This move is clearly intended to boost sales for Windows 8, which was designed with touchscreen interactions in mind, but has fallen far short of initial sales projections.

If Microsoft is correct and touchscreen laptops become the norm, this could represent one of the few times that the company has been right when Apple was wrong about predicting consumer habits and preferences.  However, the alternatives to traditional touchscreen interfaces for computers are becoming more numerous: for example, the Leap Motion uses a Minority Report-style input, which could effectively be used to interact with both laptop screens and larger monitors that may not be within easy reach.  With this kind of next-generation technology already being built into laptops, is Microsoft making the right choice by forcing the implementation of current-generation touchscreens?