Is it a qualification or essential criteria to be an idiot if you work in the higher echelons of Microsoft?
From the NYTimes, J. Allard, chief of Microsoft’s competing Zune unit whines about the iPhone:
It’s a lousy iPod. You can’t skip a track without looking at it. You can’t go running with the thing. It is the first consumer product that has done browsing [on a cellphone] extremely well.
Actually J, if you double-click the little headphone switch on the iPhone, it forwards one track. You can do this with one hand. And no eyes.
I’d heard the one about not running with scissors but….can’t run with the iPhone?
Microsoft brings out two music players by themselves and they think they can comment? Apple has FIVE. Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Touch, iPhone. You’d have to be Golgafringian to not find one that fits your specific niche.
Wireless carriers kept Microsoft from making good phone software.
Er, right. Who stopped Microsoft from making good desktop software?
The fact is that there was nothing to copy. Microsoft did well with a GUI eventually by copying Apple. They build Windows mobile by copying themselves. Of course it was going to be a disaster. Don’t believe me? What do you get if you put a turd in a photocopier?
This is a plain cop-out.
We didn’t create the Zune because we were dying to get into the hardware business and take inventory risk. We felt we had to do it.
Because you’d tried killing the iPod with the “PlaysForSure” brand and that didn’t work. So you made a handheld that wasn’t compatible with “PlaysForSure” and screwed over your old partners.
See. That’s what happens when you base your lifeblood on Redmond. They screwed Creative, Napster, Yahoo, Real and dozens of other “partners” who bought the party line. Did they honestly think it would play out any differently? When Microsoft enters your market, best thing to do is change markets.
I think it’s funny that they’re not denying the possibility of entering the phone market with more than just software. Wanna bet?
Make hay while the sun shines, guys.
Microsoft has still declined to release the Zune outside the US. That’s because there’s no way anyone outside the US would actually buy it.
Windows was incredible. We got to create most of the magic and take none of the financial risk.
Are we meant to ADMIRE you for this? Going back to the earlier statement of why you couldn’t make good phone software? Who was stopping you from making Windows good? Was it simply that you didn’t have to because there were a million idiots who’d buy it anyway?
Playing all of you for fools.
Remember this is J Allard. Don’t know him?
One of these pictures was taken before he got to work on the cool stuff. Wanna bet they used Windows Live Search for “image consultant”.