Just another WordPress site
ITNews Australias writes: What do you get if you take an iPhone, remove the clean UI, user friendliness, nice industrial design, battery life, cachet, functional OS, and in general everything else that makes it worthwhile? The new Microsoft phone, powered by Nvidia. I’m sceptical of the truth of this but it does essentially show that … Continue reading “ZunePhone to Zune WinMo smartphones.”
ITNews Australias writes:
What do you get if you take an iPhone, remove the clean UI, user friendliness, nice industrial design, battery life, cachet, functional OS, and in general everything else that makes it worthwhile?
The new Microsoft phone, powered by Nvidia.
I’m sceptical of the truth of this but it does essentially show that life is going to be difficult for Windows mobile licensees.
ENN’s Ciara O’Brien writes: “Nokia is challenging Apple in the digital music market with a new online music store aimed at Irish customers. … Tracks from the Nokia Music Store are compatible with any device that plays Windows Media Audio files (wma), which are embedded with Microsoft’s digital rights management technology. However, iPods and iPhones … Continue reading “Nokia Ireland parties like it’s 1999. Or 2001.”
ENN’s Ciara O’Brien writes:
“Nokia is challenging Apple in the digital music market with a new online music store aimed at Irish customers.
…
Tracks from the Nokia Music Store are compatible with any device that plays Windows Media Audio files (wma), which are embedded with Microsoft’s digital rights management technology. However, iPods and iPhones do not support the wma format, effectively cutting iPod users out of Nokia’s potential customer pool.The good news for the Finnish mobile giant is that there are plenty of mobile phones and other devices out there capable of playing the Windows format files.“
Emphasis mine.
It’s 2008. 70% of the market has an iPod. iPods play Apple’s DRMed tracks as well as non-DRM’ed MP3 tracks – both of which you can buy direct from Apple. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is currently being challenged by Amazon who has started selling DRM-free MP3 tracks.
And Nokia is challenging Apple with a Windows-only DRM solution that won’t work on an iPod and which will likely get Zuned in a few short months?
‘”We want to become a major player in the music market,” said Shane O’Brien, service and software manager with Nokia in Ireland’
This press release from Nokia would have been revolutionary in 1999, innovative in 2001. Maybe even newsworthy in 2004. But now?
It literally shows how out of touch with the market Nokia truly is. My advice: Fire the dumbass who thought this was a good idea, get in bed with Amazon and stop piddling about with end-of-life DRM solutions.
It’s like a big bargain bucket of stupid with a side order of failure.
Look outside, the future is happening.
Alistair Croll writes about Microsoft for GigaOM. Microsoft is fighting a war — one in which it’s being attacked on three sides. … what emerges is the Redmond giant’s three-pronged defense strategy: consumer, enterprise and developer. What emerges is that consumers who have previously been buying nothing but Windows don’t care about what operating system … Continue reading “Microsoft’s multi-pronged defeat strategy”
Alistair Croll writes about Microsoft for GigaOM.
Microsoft is fighting a war — one in which it’s being attacked on three sides. … what emerges is the Redmond giant’s three-pronged defense strategy: consumer, enterprise and developer.
What emerges is that consumers who have previously been buying nothing but Windows don’t care about what operating system or productivity software they run.
What emerges is that Vista was a complete mule and we have corporations, including Microsoft, backpedaling away from it as quickly as their stumpy little legs will carry them.
What emerges is that nothing exciting comes from Redmond. Sure – big hoopla about Silverlight (been done) or telescopes (been done) but really, what’s new? A $10000 coffee table to compete with the iPhone? Brilliant. How about something else to cement the fact that you’re burning through tax dollars (via relocation of facilities to other states to avoid taxes in Washington state).
They could have seen these things coming. Look how Apple bungled the music on computers thing. And now they’re the biggest name in that market. Look how long people begged Apple to make a PDA or a phone? They did both and now they’re taking the headlines in that market. Microsoft is the epitome of “Not Invented Here” syndrome, they’re the Typhoid Mary as well as the decomposing body. Build your new infrastructure on Microsoft technology and if you succeed, expect to get Zuned.
Don’t write off Microsoft: We were here once before, when Netscape was going to put the company out of business. But Gates issued an edict, the company turned on a dime, and a few years later IE was the dominant web browser.
Which is, of course, complete tosh. Netscape was never going to put Microsoft out of business because people still needed desktop PCs to run Netscape, desktop PCs running Windows. What put Netscape out of business was canny business deals (which turned out to be illegal) and making Netscape’s revenue source worthless (by releasing a free browser that was “good enough”).
Microsoft didn’t turn on a dime, they ‘bought’ a browser and screwed over a startup company or two.
Microsoft bores me and not even Scoble’s tears can make me look at them with anything but a jaded and cynical eye. Hear that, Microsoft, you’re yesterday, you’re last week, you’re nineteen-ninety-fucking-seven. Just bloody die already, will you?
Zu-ne. verb. 1. To fuck over or generally bugger up partners who believed your shite for years and invested heavily in it. (From Zune, noun, a music player released by Microsoft which is incompatible with their previous music sales efforts under the PlaysForSure brand and immediately began to undermine their own branding and hurt their … Continue reading “Microsoft to start manufacturing phones?”
Zu-ne. verb. 1. To fuck over or generally bugger up partners who believed your shite for years and invested heavily in it. (From Zune, noun, a music player released by Microsoft which is incompatible with their previous music sales efforts under the PlaysForSure brand and immediately began to undermine their own branding and hurt their partners).
If you’re currently a vendor of phone handsets using the Windows Mobile operating system, you’re about to get Zuned.
Microsoft has just acquired Danger, makers of the consumer smartphones, the Sidekick. They’re reportedly buying Sidekick to keep it out of Google’s hands as well as to line it up against Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Google’s Android, not to mention Apple’s hit iPhone (which recently garnered 23% of the smartphone market). The Sidekick, although popular, does not run Windows Mobile.
What does this mean to any manufacturer currently using Windows Mobile? Well, if Microsoft is getting into the hardware game for phones then you can expect to have a rough time. This is bad news for beleaguered handset maker, Palm and possibly even worse news for Sony-Ericsson. Palm is floundering after dividing it’s market offering Palm OS and Windows Mobile based handhelds rather than concentrating on developing a decent successor to Palm OS (and what the hell did they do with everything they got from their acquisition of Be?). But there’s more.
After Nokia started road-testing it’s new Linux-based platform in the 770/N800/N810 series of handhelds, Sony-Ericsson knew that it’s use of Symbian as an OS for their phones would leave it in the doldrums in terms of features and development speed. Their solution was the opposite of Nokia’s and they decided to license Windows Mobile.
Boo. Bad mistake.
If Microsoft starts manufacturing their own hardware running their own operating system, where does that leave everyone else who’s investing in Microsoft’s operating systems?
Exactly. Without a paddle.
Don’t believe me? Wikipedia speaks!
During its launch week, the original Zune, now Zune 30, was the second-most-sold portable media device with a 9 % unit share; behind the market-leading iPod’s 63 %. For the first 6 months after launch, NPD Group figures show that the Zune 30 achieved approximately 10% market share in the Hard Drive based MP3 market and 3% in the overall MP3 player market.
Good for Microsoft. $100 million spent on marketing for a 3% market share in the US and 0% outside the US. But that 3% comes at a cost – that’s a few million sales for Microsoft’s previous PlaysForSure partners. Microsoft robbed their hardware partners of those sales and then proceeded to screw over anyone who opened a PlaysForSure store because it didn’t play anything from Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, or even their own MSN Music Service.
So, what’s the chance they’ll sacrifice their own hardware sales to enable licensees to make a buck?
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. … Continue reading “Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod””
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”.