Microsoft to spend over $500m to catch up to iPhone, Android

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  • Reply 121 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    This is why its called the open market. Everyone has the opportunity to compete.







    You are making the same predictions people made with the iPhone was first introduced. You are predicting doom before anyone has even used it.







    MS has no power to eliminate competition. Bringing that up in the smart phone market is just FUD.



    Roughly 1.2 billion mobile phones are sold annually. Roughly 300 million smart phones will be sold this year. There is plenty of room for competition.







    How did this go from talking about Windows Mobile to talking about switching from Android to iPhone?



    he was talking about competition. then i added what i added. wasn't fishing for big mouth bass, but one grabbed the hook anyway....
  • Reply 122 of 188
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TNSF View Post


    Try Googling the whole picture... Something along the lines of how much money they've spent on Xbox compared to how much revenue they've generated. The MSFT financial releases also have some good tidbits in them.



    In some isolated quarters they've probably made some money, but in the long run they've not made any profit on Xbox. None. And that includes Xbox live.



    The division has been profitable for 2 years not an isolated qtr or two (they did have a qtr or two of losses in those years). They did spend billions to get into the game but who in 2001 thought that Microsoft would be beating Sony the next generation?



    And they did it against Sony's strengths (hard core gaming) vs its weaknesses (casual gaming) which is how the Wii won. Today Microsoft is the incumbent and Sony the challenger.



    MS will likely make that money back and sunk costs are just that. Sunk. They purchased a revenue stream in a highly competitive industry they had very little real experience in and beat the 500lb gorilla at it's own game.
  • Reply 123 of 188
    axualaxual Posts: 244member
    I am happy I do not own MS stock. If I were a stockholder, I would be a bit miffed that MS wants to spend a half a billion dollars in a futile effort to catch up with iPhone. MS is acting like the federal government ... let's just spend money to solve the problem. The problem is not a marketing issue, it's a product issue, an end user experience issue, a quality issue.
  • Reply 124 of 188
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    How does this contribute to the discussion at hand?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post


    he was talking about competition. then i added what i added. wasn't fishing for big mouth bass, but one grabbed the hook anyway....



  • Reply 125 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    How does this contribute to the discussion at hand?



    what is so hard about this? he talked about competition. i said there was competition and will be even more competition because i didn't think the iphone 4 brought a lot of big selling points.

    all i am going to say on it so if that isn't enough i can't help you.
  • Reply 126 of 188
    I promised an interesting read anonymouse, nothing more.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    ... it's ridiculous to think that education in this country will be improved by not "throwing money at it," for many years, consistently, and with a purpose.



    I think that's been done. Failure has many fingers pointed in its direction, but I won't be convinced lack of funding is the problem. Many public schools do well with meager funding. Many more do phenomenally poorly given three and four times the revenue.



    I used to live in an area with some of the highest school budgets in the country. My school taxes quadrupled over a decade. I left. The district's performance remains mediocre, despite numerous attempts at improvement by the state to redistribute tax revenue "fairly".



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    The current regime of standardized testing to "fix" education is a joke, and a complete waste of money.



    Not a joke. It's been pernicious. So many decisions have been taken away from local control. Federal control is a disaster:



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    It may actually be too late to fix the education system in the US. Local control is a disaster -- e.g., school boards voting to teach students fake "science". Federal control would be a disaster because it would become just another political football in our current toxic political environment. It's basically a microcosm of why this country is failing while we congratulate ourselves that everything is, "the best in the world."



    Agreed. We're sooo good at patting ourselves on the back. We continue to graduate functional illiterates, but hey - we're number one!!!



    The rest of the world is laughing at us.
  • Reply 127 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by john galt View Post


    I know nothing about marketing, but one would think this is a golden opportunity to ditch the moniker for good. I thought Vista would have been it, but no, it's back! Hasn't the "windows" metaphor been played...? This is the best a 200 billion dollar company can come up with? What's "windows" supposed to mean anyway?



    It stinks - like a retirement home. Just plow more money into it though. Dopes.



    ditch 'Windows'? the name? the name that made them a 200 billion dollar company? i don't use it unless i have to but i like it better than the name IOS. not punching at apple here but at your notion. thats the best apple could come up with 'ios'? wasn't that cisco's?



    what does 'windows' mean? are you for real?
  • Reply 128 of 188
    grkinggrking Posts: 533member
    Many of the comments here remind me of MS way back, when they dismissed Apple. Most people here completely dismiss MS out of hand. I understand this is an Apple fansite, and there are plenty of reasons not to like MS, but being dismissive might be a mistake.



    Many have rightfully pointed out that much of Apple's recent success is due to its ecosystem. I love the way my iPhone and Mac computers seemlessly integrate, and present a unified experience.



    Many also rightfully point out that Android does not have that ecosystem.



    However, MS does. As I posted before, they have Productivity (Office), Exchange/Enterprise, Media (Zune Marketplace), Games (Xbox Live), and quite possibly apps, with 300K downloads of the SDK. You may not like the ecosystem, and you may think it stinks, but they have one, where neither RIM nor Android do. So, on paper, and given the videos, they have a compelling product for Windows users.



    If MS can make WP7 truly plug and play like the iOS, then they have a shot.



    Quite a few people have said that MS is not creative, and they do nothing but copy. Well, in the case of the metro interface, this is dead wrong. You may not like it, heck, consumers may not like it, but it is a new and creative UI for the mobile phone, even if it is not particularly groundbreaking.



    I write this, not as an MS shill, but more as a "history" lesson, so that neither Apple, nor their fans, make the mistakes that MS made.
  • Reply 129 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    A couple of problems with this. First, it would be difficult to find a more biased source than Cato. Secondly, cherry picking a couple of anecdotes don't prove a point. The education system in this country is and has been in such a shambles for years from chronic underfunding that, no, a few years of throwing money at it isn't likely to make a difference. Nor will randomly throwing money at any problem make a difference. So, while it's easy to look at something like this and say, "See, dismal failure," it's ridiculous to think that education in this country will be improved by not "throwing money at it," for many years, consistently, and with a purpose. The current regime of standardized testing to "fix" education is a joke, and a complete waste of money.



    It may actually be too late to fix the education system in the US. Local control is a disaster -- e.g., school boards voting to teach students fake "science". Federal control would be a disaster because it would become just another political football in our current toxic political environment. It's basically a microcosm of why this country is failing while we congratulate ourselves that everything is, "the best in the world."



    There is no royal road to geometry.- Menaechmus to Alexander the Great
  • Reply 130 of 188
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by john galt View Post


    Not a joke. It's been pernicious. So many decisions have been taken away from local control. Federal control is a disaster:



    I would point out that no test left behind was basically a strategy to "fix" the schools without actually having to adequately fund fixing them. Generally, when people who don't think government should do anything are in charge, government isn't likely to do anything productive.
  • Reply 131 of 188
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post


    There is no royal road to geometry.- Menaechmus to Alexander the Great



    I believe that was Euclid, although, I can't prove it.
  • Reply 132 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post


    ditch 'Windows'? the name? the name that made them a 200 billion dollar company?



    Was there something I wrote you didn't understand?

    By the way neither "iphone" nor "ipad" were originally Apple trademarks either.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by screamingfist View Post


    what does 'windows' mean? are you for real?



    Let me check... yes, I'm quite real. I have no idea what "windows" is supposed to mean any more. I suggest you ask someone older - check the retirement home.
  • Reply 133 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by john galt View Post


    Was there something I wrote you didn't understand?







    Let me check... yes, I'm quite real. I have no idea what "windows" is supposed to mean any more. I suggest you ask someone older - check the retirement home.



    uh....yeah....sure.....John Galt? no that name isn't dated....not at all. at least i stole my moniker from the 80's...

    oh i need to add some of these to. evidently its all the rage with you youngsters
  • Reply 134 of 188
    swiftswift Posts: 436member
    Apple launches the iPod. Remember the commercials? Right. Great music, graphics, stars -- very memorable ads. Scarcely said anything about the, you know, iPod. Never said, it's now 30 Gigabytes! And we've increased the bitrate to 256. No, you got this fantastic girl dancing around, to high energy rock or pop, with the tiny little white wires around her neck. Then the black, with "iPod" in Apple Palatino.



    Or a Microsoft ad. The Windows 7 ones aren't horrible, but there's just something wrong about it.



    Since it grew up in the business world where you buy into a platform based on executives' orders, the Microsoft culture never developed its consumer advertising. They believe that Apple's success, of course, is nothing but advertising. So, they've tried the weird Seinfeld ads. And the price ads. And the whining about the Apple tax. None of them worked. The Windows 7 ads do make a point, but ONLY because the OS is finally not too bad.
  • Reply 135 of 188
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    I see a lot of scared Apple fans who think they won't own the "latest and greatest" once WP7 comes out.



    ...said the tortoise to the hare.



    If Windows Phone 7 really does best the iPhone in every way important to iPhone fans, then I expect people to switch. However, note the clause, "in every way important to iPhone fans". Therein lies the rub: has Microsoft ever out-Appled Apple?
  • Reply 136 of 188
    ouraganouragan Posts: 437member
    Quote:

    During a ReMIX Microsoft conference in France, the company referred to IDC data to estimate total sales of 30 million Windows Phone 7 devices by the end of 2011. In comparison, Jobs set a goal of 10 million iPhones sold in 2008





    Never underestimate your opponent, Microsoft or the power of a good marketing campaign.



    The iPhone's main weaknesses:



    1- Only one model for sale;



    2- Only one form factor and shape;



    3- No options besides storage capacity;



    4- No new model or features for one year;



    5- No choice of cell phone carrier in the United States;



    6- No possibility to listen to FM radio;



    7- No possibility to listen to music encoded with modern lossless audio codecs such as .ape, .flac or .wv;



    8- No possibility to install third party software outside of software and features approved by Apple to be included in the App Store (which negates the right of property of iPhone owners and their right to choose which software to install on the iPhone they buy);



    9- A 200% or 250% profit margin on iPhone units costing $200 to build and sold for $600 or $700 to cell phone carriers;



    10- No real competition in smartphones until now, so no incentive for Apple to address the iPhone's shortcomings.





    Apple made a fortune in a monopoly situation. Let's see how well it will do for itself once consumers have a choice of models, makers and carriers.





  • Reply 137 of 188
    rtm135rtm135 Posts: 310member
    The other companies are copying the iPhone look and feel. M$ is actually creating something new. That's what all the buzz is about and what I call "real competition"



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tsa View Post


    That's what MS has been doing for the past twenty-five years or so and look where it got them. I wouldn't underestimate their advertizing power so much. I bet Windows mobile 7 has a very smooth integration with Exchange servers, which is a reason for buying for many, many companies out there. Plus the fact that Windows phones can be in a service contract together with all the other windows software many companies have.







    Apple has strong competition already. Android phones are sold more than iPhones world-wide. Here in Europe the iPhone crazyness is over already, and many people dump the iPhone for better phones.



  • Reply 138 of 188
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    The iPhone's main strengths:



    1- Only one model for sale;



    2- Only one form factor and shape;



    3- No wading through confusing options besides storage capacity;



    4- No new model or features for one year, so you know exactly when the one you just bought will be obsoleted;



    5- No wading through confusing carrier plans in the United States;



    6- No crappy FM radio, listen to what you want to, when you want to;



    7- No fussing with arcane audio codecs such as .ape, .flac or .wv, it just works;



    8- No worries about software that trashes your phone, software and features reviewed by Apple to be included in the App Store;



    9- Apple does well financially, so you know they'll be there when you need them for support, and there will always be an improved model in the future, protecting your app investment;



    10- No real competition in smartphones, other phones just don't compare to the iPhone.





    Apple revolutionized the smartphone. Let's see how it will continue to do so in the future.
  • Reply 139 of 188
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Looking at the mobile phone market. In what way can you distort the word monopoly to describe the iPhone a monopolistic situation?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ouragan View Post


    Apple made a fortune in a monopoly situation. Let's see how well it will do for itself once consumers have a choice of models, makers and carriers.



  • Reply 140 of 188
    rtm135rtm135 Posts: 310member
    All the other phones copy the look & feel of the iPhone. WP7 created a whole new way to use your phone. Like it or not, that's the definition of groundbreaking. In fact, I'd be very surprised if IOS5 didn't incorporate some of these elements because they are more useful than pages and pages of apps.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleSauce007 View Post


    The Metro UI is not that great. It's different but not groundbreaking. Certainly not fit for tablets.



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