???? – 1998retired
IBM WebExplorer
“Built in Research Triangle Park, browsed the early web, and asked for so little in return.”
“Microsoft dialed into hardware once — then let the call go to voicemail for two decades.”
In 1998, Microsoft made its first-ever telephone: the Cordless Phone System, also known as the PC Phone System MP-900. It was a cordless phone with personal computer integration, a genuinely odd and charming leap for a software company. For a brief moment, Redmond answered the call.
The phone came and went within 1998, and it remained Microsoft's only phone product until the Windows Mobile smartphone era. It was a first try, a lone try, and then a quiet exit. Not every experiment gets a sequel — this one just got an entry in the record books.
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“Built in Research Triangle Park, browsed the early web, and asked for so little in return.”
“The ancestor at every modern desk — 29,290 descendants and counting.”
“The x stood for 68030, and for a Mac that finally read your floppies right.”