The products behind Microsoft’s Origami project were unveiled just over a week ago today after one of the most exceptionally intense and successful viral marketing campaigns in recent memory. Blogs were buzzing like crazy over what the mysterious project might be about. Even the mainstream media picked up on the success of the grassroots initiative.

Who would’ve thought? Microsoft was for once getting (gasp) positive buzz! However, unfortunately for Microsoft the product that they unveiled, the Ultra Mobile PC or UMPC, was somewhat disappointing and the reaction generally tepid. They look like tablet PCs, but slightly smaller and with a touch screen. People have expressed muted disappointment with the hardware that was presented.

The funny thing is that Microsoft, unlike Apple, doesn’t make the hardware - others do. Microsoft’s only real contribution to the project was something they call a “Touch Pack”. This is essentially a driver for the UMPCs’ touch screens and other input devices. So Microsoft provides a driver, Intel provides a low-power chip, and several other PC manufacturers like Samsung, Asus and others try to build something useful around this. Sure, Microsoft stands to gain from sales of the platform’s operating system, but right now this is really just a Microsoft marketing project on behalf of these hardware vendors and Microsoft took the negative publicity hit for all of them.

On the project’s homepage, Microsoft is now using language to tout UMPCs that reminds me more of how beta open-source projects are presented than anything else. Surely UMPCs will be useful someday, but instead of capitalizing on the hype they successfully generated and presenting a cool new product that is ready to market, by unveiling a very raw product they’ve managed to turn that positive hype into another platform for criticism. And to make matters worse, they’ve given out valuable competitive intelligence. Note to Microsoft: only hype it if it’s ready to be hyped.

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