Sheraton Tries Windows 7 Touch Technology Out on Customers

Multi-touch technology -- which lets you use more than one finger to tap a screen, drag items around, and do other tasks without a mouse -- reigns supreme on smartphones like the iPhone and media players like the Zune HD and iPod Touch. But the reception for multi-touch technology on a PC has been anything but touching.

To date, users have shown mainstream resistance to finger tapping a computer screen. In 2008, touch-enabled units accounted for only about 1 percent of the notebook market, or approximately 1.4 million PCs, according to research company IDC.

Why the low numbers? The long habit of using a mouse is one culprit, as is the fact that the user interface of a PC, with its small icons and buttons, is not finger-friendly for everyone. What's more, extending your arm to an eye-level screen a foot away can be awkward and uncomfortable.

Despite lackluster user response to touch, Apple baked multi-touch capabilities into its Mac OS X Leopard two years ago, and now Microsoft has done it with Windows 7 -- with the hope that the new OS will start a PC touch movement.

PC vendors have jumped on board. Big-names such as Dell and HP already offer multi-touch on their "all-in-one" computers and Lenovo, Acer and Sony have announced plans to release touch-screen PCs running Windows 7.

Sheraton Guests Get Early Look at Win 7 Touch

One of the earliest adopters of Windows 7 touch-screen machines is Sheraton Hotels, which three weeks ago installed HP TouchSmart computers running Windows 7 in its Link@Sheraton workstations. These recreational spaces are in most Sheraton lobbies and contain comfortable chairs, tables and computers.

Selected Link@Sheraton spaces in major cities now have the 22-inch HP TouchSmart machines for guests and lobby dwellers to use. According to Mark McBeth, VP of IT at Starwood Hotels Inc. -- which manages Sheraton and Westin hotels, among others -- the company currently has 40 HP TouchSmart machines deployed at seven hotels in major cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago.

Starwood crafted a deal with Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard wherein the Sheratons will have the HP TouchSmart machines free for one year, says McBeth.

"The Link spaces are a vibrant part of the Sheraton lobbies where people are spending lot of time, so we want them to be clean and uncluttered with all-in-one computers because those machines have so few cables or power cords. And we wanted current technology like Windows 7," McBeth says.

But there's another reason that McBeth pursued Windows 7: he wanted his team and IT managers across Starwood's hotels to be exposed to the new OS as preparation for an eventual company-wide deployment, he says.

Starwood, primarily a Windows XP shop now, has an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and was able to test Windows 7 RC and RTM versions, says McBeth. Additionally, Starwood currently has about 150 workstations running Windows 7 in the company's accounting and sales offices, he says.

"We're interested in Windows 7 and we're going to let our deployments grow organically," he says.