"It seems the stunning Zune HD interface was something of a trial run for the new Windows Phone 7 Series software... It is also understood that Microsoft is stipulating all phones must also include an FM radio tuner."
It was (and still is) lipstick on a pig. The hardware was actually pretty good but the software as usual had much to be desired.
No love lost here. At least WP7 shoes some glimmer of promise. Maybe Microsoft is finally realizing the stupidity of its ways? Nah...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mister Snitch
"the company was going to remain in the market for the long haul"
Guess the long haul is over. Time now for the iPad killer - the Zune Tablet!
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichL
Anyone got any idea on how well the Zune platform is doing on Xbox?
Quote:
Originally Posted by some internet dude
MS mite as well give up on the phone 7 thing too. In the face of Android nothing stands a chance. You guys need to concentrate on the Windows OS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuisDias
We have to recognize that the current windows phone 7 series is at least a seriously rethinking of what a smartphone should be.
And that Kinect is really good.
What I wonder is what Microsoft will do with Kinect. We have seen its potential in hundreds of amazing hacks all over the internetz. We have even seen videos of Microsoft employees doing interesting stuff with it.
But I doubt they will bring this stuff to the PC, or anything else. Apple learned a lot from iOS and brought things "back to the mac", I seriously doubt Microsoft's ability to do the same with its exclusive product.
So we will have to wait to see what Apple will do with Kinect - type of technology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SDW2001
My neighbor has a Zune and really likes it. I sent him this story link.
Really though, I completely agree. The Zune was good hardware with OK software at best. The marketing was terrible (an entire campaign based on the word "social?"--WTF?). It's funny...I just posted on this topic of "iPod Killers."
Originally posted by SDW2001:
Some of the Zune software's in WP7, but before this announcement - which I heard was coming some weeks ago - everything WP7 and Zune was placed under the group developing Windows 8. Apparently this had NOT been the plan until the alarm bells about Apple's phone success and tablet hegemony plus seeing Chrome and Android both stripping hardware partners away from MS began ringing too loudly.
The (derivative) idea is to emulate Apple, so that as iOS is based on the OS X kernel, Windows Phone 8 (WP8) and Win Tablet 8 (WT8) and the full Windows 8 (W8) are supposed to be built on a single (true Windows) modularized code base.
This is, of course, so that the 3 variants can then evolve synchronously and feed ideas into each other: "One Windows to rule them all" on three form factors. AND bits of stuff from XBox are also reportedly being incorporated so that Kinect should work in some fashion with W8. (Tho' I don't think X-Box is being totally Windowized at this point.)
Of course, MS is emulating in reverse - trying to cram the core of Windows into a phone - which is basically why MS OS's for phones and tablets have sucked so badly in the first place. But this time WP8 and to some extent WT8 are supposed to run on the tile interface from WP7 - which is being ripped off the top of whatever was on the bottom and shoehorned back into small devices.
Some work is also supposed to carry over to the Windows Live cloud stable, and the Zune Music Store (if that's the right name) is supposed to morph into a service also including, one guesses, apps and other iTunes Store like offerings.
The process is being called "componentizing" Windows and creating nested sets and supersets of functions, so that touch can be incorporated at all level of devices, e.g.
This is what the Windows on ARM demo and announcements were all about a month or two back. And the Nokia Alliance is somehow part of it as well. Of course this means there won't be a WP8 until the end of 2012 and no Win Tab 8's until mid-'12 at the earliest. (And that timeline's been officially announced.)
Which makes you wonder, even if they pull it off cleanly right out the gate, if it will really matter by then. They'll be releasing into the by then very well-entrenched teeth of iOS 6 (or 5.x at least), iPhone 6, iPad 3 (or 4 according to the still not totally dead "iPad 3 this fall" rumor) - plus multiple new iterations of Android for phones and tabs.
There will be what amounts to a WP7 SP1 release later this year ("Mango,") but since it's on the to be discarded base, how much love and effort will it get?
Anyway, friends and neighbors, that's what I hear the plan is.
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
In their entire history of existence, what has Microsoft done that was something new and different?
Anyway, friends and neighbors, that's what I hear the plan is.
Interesting - thanks.
Perhaps we can reflect again on brentbordelon's words:
Originally Posted by brentbordelon
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
I saw a Verizon branch just a few blocks from the Boylston Apple store. I tried my Sandbox website at the Apple Store and it loaded fasi. The iPad sample in the Verizon branch did not work. It gave an error about connection. Oddly enough, the website loaded in the Samsung tablet (what a bargain, $199 with a keyboard). The website though was slow compared with the loading in the iPad (Boylston Apple Store).
The Xoom, felt so foreign and heavy, and the place was so dark (this was past 7 pm), I did not recognize the icons at all. Then, a couple came wanting to see Xoom (sorry Apple fans, there are Xoom buyers).
The salesman was reciting all these specs of the Xoom, and keep on comparing it with the iPad. In between, he claimed he has an iPad but is trying to get rid of it because he preferred the Xoom.
"The iPad does not run Flash, the Xoom does... The iPad does not have 4G. supposedly the Xoom does" -- conveniently omitting that both are not existing features of the shipped Xoom. [Or, were there new developments about these features in the Xoom?] I was tempted to enter the conversation to correct the misinformation, but decided, "Who cares, if some people buys the Xoom?" The older guy was telling his daughter/gf/wife??? (who was with him) that he liked the Xoom better.
They might have come from the Apple Store because they did not try the Apple iPad, also on display but "not working". The salesman never even bothered to show the iPad.
Then, an African American guy came in and he zoomed in to the Xoom. He was playing some games. [Yes Apple diehards, there are potential Xoom buyers.] He stated he did not want to buy the Xoom with the contract. The salesman responded, he might be better off waiting for the Wifi only.
"When is it coming out?". "In a couple of months," the salesman responded. He did not show the iPad either.
If this was typical, and a Verizon policy (and not just the salesman's preference and dislike of the iPad), no wonder the Verizon iPad is not selling well.
It is only compete morons who have no clue about basic business principles that call Apple's margin for sales on their system a "subscription tax". What retailer do you know that says "oh, I'll build a store and just let suppliers stock their inventory there while I do all the marketing, logistics, inventory, provide the sales and delivery platform, and take no cut of the sale"?
Simmer down internet tough guy, did someone piss in your cheerios?
You forgot to mention the fact that Apple gives ISV's no choice about using an alternative to most of the items you mentioned and that it's upending companies and businesses that helped build Apple's great platform. If it's such a non-issue, why have the US + EU kicked off an inquiry?
Replace Apple with Microsoft in the story and I'm sure many would be singing a different tune.
What a bad idea. Releasing the Zune yeah, but more importantly killing it so soon. Soon? Yeah, soon. After killing Plays-For-Sure with the Zune, and then killing the Kin within months of its release, and now killing the Zune after just a few revisions. It's hard to believe any vendors will take Microsoft seriously with future endeavors that don't involve already well-established products.
Perhaps we can reflect again on brentbordelon's words:
Originally Posted by brentbordelon
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
All the best.
I forgot one thing and you just made me realize another:
1. The new "Win 8 Family" is a "bet the farm" moment for MS. Fail, and they're stuck with 90% of a fading commodity market which won't integrate as well with other makers' tabs and phones as Apple's do with Macs. Result: A still huge base, but one that becomes a relatively static niche, even if a great big niche, i.e., a grey commodity. Or to extend SJ's idiom, mostly a truck (software) maker rather than a sexy car manufacturer.
And with Apple and HP making not only cool cars and scooters and bikes, but with both also in the hot Pickup Truck biz, MS would basically find itself walled in. And for good measure, if netbooks maintain a meaningful presence, Google's Chrome-powered "Netties" will be attacking on another flank.
Result: Irrelevance in the hottest sectors of computing. Like I said, it's cinch up the belt time up in Oregon. Get tough or die. (As any kind of a trend maker in personal [post-PC] computing, at least.)
(RIM's in a big pickle too. They have no computing arm [like Apple and HP], no relevance on the web [like Google and MS], no native apps to speak of - and the BB phones and the new PlayBook have, I believe, very different code bases. Time for a Molson, ehh?)
2. If MS intends for this new codebase to be lean in any meaningful way and truly pointed at future devices rather than at past OS's and devices, they're gonna have a helluva' time doing that if they continue complete legacy support of multiple old versions of Win in deference to their huge installed corporate base (and their cheaper consumers) who hate having to change.
Any parts of that in the core, though, really have to go before they try to get it zip along on a Tegra chip.
So in many ways IMO the code will to be a fairly large break that's at least likely to make at least a big hunk of software and maybe all drivers that currently work on Win 7 and Vista (and often, still, XP) incompatible. And create a kernel (if that's the lowest level of an OS that directly faces hardware, excuse my ignorance if it isn't) which will support multiple processor families equally (something they tried but never really achieved with NT on the DEC Alpha chip in the mid-90's).
Not as big a break as OS9 with OS X and not as huge as Apple's whole shift to X86 from PPC, but in some ways, a bit of both combined. And a big challenge to an elephant that hasn't tap-danced well in a long time.
One possible approach might be to mostly virtualize Win 7 and Vista in ways that lets older programs operate mostly in a sandbox - on the level of Win 8 only (not Win Tab 8 or Win Phone 8). And/or to provide ISV's and peripheral makers tons of support to make their code and drivers functional on Win 8. In kind of a combo Cocoa/Carbon, Rosetta and/or Parallels Coherence way. Or something like that.
That might tide them over until native W8 programs come along. And MS does know a thing or two about virtualization.
Finally, it also means partially rearchitecting all of their own own PC and Server programs over a relatively short period. And they gotta lotta programs.
And that's a pretty challenging To-Do list. For something that might be too late to matter enough in the first place.
Man, how the shoe's moved to the other foot! Now all the pressure's on the one time school bully who's looking more and more like Mickey Rourke's face in The Wrestler. MS is getting beaten up by multiple opponents and they're wobbly on their feet.
So are they gonna suck it up off the mat or are they goin' down??
Tho' I don't think X-Box is being totally Windowized at this point.
trying to cram the core of Windows into a phone - which is basically why MS OS's for phones and tablets have sucked so badly in the first place.
But this time WP8 and to some extent WT8 are supposed to run on the tile interface from WP7
Zune Music Store (if that's the right name) is supposed to morph into a service also including, one guesses, apps and other iTunes Store like offerings.
Which makes you wonder, even if they pull it off cleanly right out the gate, if it will really matter by then.
Job listings have already popped up for Xbox Next which means perhaps a Christmas 2012 or 2013 release.
If that's the case I wouldn't be surprised if it did end up "Windowized" and running x86 or ARM (a custom Tegra SoC perhaps?)
I also remember a project to get Silverlight (i.e. potentially the W8 App Store) running on the Xbox.
For tablets yes, for mobile...
Windows Mobile ran a custom designed mobile OS and it was still pretty crap. I think persisting with a poorly supported, bastardized, spaghetti coded OS (i.e. as opposed to a modular OS like W7/W8 or OSX) and trying to cram a Windows-like UI onto a phone screen added to the poor Windows Mobile performance (among other factors).
That's what I'm hearing as well
Almost certainly.
The concept of a "marketplace" for Windows 8 was leaked about 12 months ago.
There is a current project to improved Zune media integration across MS devices.
There is a current project to bring cable TV across all MS devices.
Windows Live will be baked into the W8 core, which means when you sign into a Windows PC (or phone, tablet, car or Xbox) you get access to your account and data, sync'd or stream
I think it will be relevant to business. With Office 365 and Azure it's really looking like Microsoft will successfully extend their Server/Windows/Office "stack" to the cloud. Microsoft won't maintain their monopoly in the enterprise sector as Google and Apple continue to chip away at them, but they will continue to be a dominant force.
By 2012 they may have lost the consumer sector though, and I think this is what you may have been referring to.
Comments
Another one bites the dust.
"It seems the stunning Zune HD interface was something of a trial run for the new Windows Phone 7 Series software... It is also understood that Microsoft is stipulating all phones must also include an FM radio tuner."
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/paulspain/7095
Did HD Radio in the Zune HD leave you half-broke and with a bad taste in your mouth, MS? LOL!
It was (and still is) lipstick on a pig. The hardware was actually pretty good but the software as usual had much to be desired.
No love lost here. At least WP7 shoes some glimmer of promise. Maybe Microsoft is finally realizing the stupidity of its ways? Nah...
"the company was going to remain in the market for the long haul"
Guess the long haul is over. Time now for the iPad killer - the Zune Tablet!
Anyone got any idea on how well the Zune platform is doing on Xbox?
MS mite as well give up on the phone 7 thing too. In the face of Android nothing stands a chance. You guys need to concentrate on the Windows OS.
We have to recognize that the current windows phone 7 series is at least a seriously rethinking of what a smartphone should be.
And that Kinect is really good.
What I wonder is what Microsoft will do with Kinect. We have seen its potential in hundreds of amazing hacks all over the internetz. We have even seen videos of Microsoft employees doing interesting stuff with it.
But I doubt they will bring this stuff to the PC, or anything else. Apple learned a lot from iOS and brought things "back to the mac", I seriously doubt Microsoft's ability to do the same with its exclusive product.
So we will have to wait to see what Apple will do with Kinect - type of technology.
My neighbor has a Zune and really likes it. I sent him this story link.
Really though, I completely agree. The Zune was good hardware with OK software at best. The marketing was terrible (an entire campaign based on the word "social?"--WTF?). It's funny...I just posted on this topic of "iPod Killers."
Originally posted by SDW2001:
Some of the Zune software's in WP7, but before this announcement - which I heard was coming some weeks ago - everything WP7 and Zune was placed under the group developing Windows 8. Apparently this had NOT been the plan until the alarm bells about Apple's phone success and tablet hegemony plus seeing Chrome and Android both stripping hardware partners away from MS began ringing too loudly.
The (derivative) idea is to emulate Apple, so that as iOS is based on the OS X kernel, Windows Phone 8 (WP8) and Win Tablet 8 (WT8) and the full Windows 8 (W8) are supposed to be built on a single (true Windows) modularized code base.
This is, of course, so that the 3 variants can then evolve synchronously and feed ideas into each other: "One Windows to rule them all" on three form factors. AND bits of stuff from XBox are also reportedly being incorporated so that Kinect should work in some fashion with W8. (Tho' I don't think X-Box is being totally Windowized at this point.)
Of course, MS is emulating in reverse - trying to cram the core of Windows into a phone - which is basically why MS OS's for phones and tablets have sucked so badly in the first place. But this time WP8 and to some extent WT8 are supposed to run on the tile interface from WP7 - which is being ripped off the top of whatever was on the bottom and shoehorned back into small devices.
Some work is also supposed to carry over to the Windows Live cloud stable, and the Zune Music Store (if that's the right name) is supposed to morph into a service also including, one guesses, apps and other iTunes Store like offerings.
The process is being called "componentizing" Windows and creating nested sets and supersets of functions, so that touch can be incorporated at all level of devices, e.g.
This is what the Windows on ARM demo and announcements were all about a month or two back. And the Nokia Alliance is somehow part of it as well. Of course this means there won't be a WP8 until the end of 2012 and no Win Tab 8's until mid-'12 at the earliest. (And that timeline's been officially announced.)
Which makes you wonder, even if they pull it off cleanly right out the gate, if it will really matter by then. They'll be releasing into the by then very well-entrenched teeth of iOS 6 (or 5.x at least), iPhone 6, iPad 3 (or 4 according to the still not totally dead "iPad 3 this fall" rumor) - plus multiple new iterations of Android for phones and tabs.
There will be what amounts to a WP7 SP1 release later this year ("Mango,") but since it's on the to be discarded base, how much love and effort will it get?
Anyway, friends and neighbors, that's what I hear the plan is.
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
In their entire history of existence, what has Microsoft done that was something new and different?
In their entire history of existence, what has Microsoft done that was something new and different?
Ummmmm... the answer would be nothing!
Anyway, friends and neighbors, that's what I hear the plan is.
Interesting - thanks.
Perhaps we can reflect again on brentbordelon's words:
Originally Posted by brentbordelon
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
All the best.
The Xoom, felt so foreign and heavy, and the place was so dark (this was past 7 pm), I did not recognize the icons at all. Then, a couple came wanting to see Xoom (sorry Apple fans, there are Xoom buyers).
The salesman was reciting all these specs of the Xoom, and keep on comparing it with the iPad. In between, he claimed he has an iPad but is trying to get rid of it because he preferred the Xoom.
"The iPad does not run Flash, the Xoom does... The iPad does not have 4G. supposedly the Xoom does" -- conveniently omitting that both are not existing features of the shipped Xoom. [Or, were there new developments about these features in the Xoom?] I was tempted to enter the conversation to correct the misinformation, but decided, "Who cares, if some people buys the Xoom?" The older guy was telling his daughter/gf/wife??? (who was with him) that he liked the Xoom better.
They might have come from the Apple Store because they did not try the Apple iPad, also on display but "not working". The salesman never even bothered to show the iPad.
Then, an African American guy came in and he zoomed in to the Xoom. He was playing some games. [Yes Apple diehards, there are potential Xoom buyers.] He stated he did not want to buy the Xoom with the contract. The salesman responded, he might be better off waiting for the Wifi only.
"When is it coming out?". "In a couple of months," the salesman responded. He did not show the iPad either.
If this was typical, and a Verizon policy (and not just the salesman's preference and dislike of the iPad), no wonder the Verizon iPad is not selling well.
CGC
Microsoft will be gone as an entity by the end of 2012. It's just too bad it takes so long for thieving bastards to get their due.
Don't get too carried away.
CGC
That's its natural color, as it comes out the end of the assembly line.
Does that mean aluminium iDevices are coming out of the end of Droid assembly line? I'm lucky-guessing here Droids don't do brown
It was (and still is) lipstick on a pig. The hardware was actually pretty good but the software as usual had much to be desired.
No love lost here. At least WP7 shoes some glimmer of promise. Maybe Microsoft is finally realizing the stupidity of its ways? Nah...
except hte hardware is gone, and the software lives on in WP7...
Microsoft has been giving it to us in the brown for years.
... and steaming!
Like this?
LOL. More like "feeling stupid his whole life."
When was Zune ever...rad?
Of all the dumbass things Microsoft have done over the years, I would vote releasing a Zune in brown as the second dumbest thing.
The dumbest obviously is Balmer being appointed CEO.
What do you think second dumbest is?
Well squirt!
The second dumbasst thing Microsoft has done is RETAIN Balmer.
LOL. More like "feeling stupid his whole life."
When was Zune ever...rad?
Perhaps not! Over time:
° To the Zune initiated, the tat will symbolise that it was great while it lasted. (Even though it probably wasn't.)
° To the uninitiated and unknowledgeable, it will be just a pretty tattoo. (Doesn't look too bad.)
° To the uninitiated though knowledgeable, well... just leave the sleeve rolled down!
Does Bill Gates ever comment on developments in public, anyone know of any interviews?
It is only compete morons who have no clue about basic business principles that call Apple's margin for sales on their system a "subscription tax". What retailer do you know that says "oh, I'll build a store and just let suppliers stock their inventory there while I do all the marketing, logistics, inventory, provide the sales and delivery platform, and take no cut of the sale"?
Simmer down internet tough guy, did someone piss in your cheerios?
You forgot to mention the fact that Apple gives ISV's no choice about using an alternative to most of the items you mentioned and that it's upending companies and businesses that helped build Apple's great platform. If it's such a non-issue, why have the US + EU kicked off an inquiry?
Replace Apple with Microsoft in the story and I'm sure many would be singing a different tune.
Interesting - thanks.
Perhaps we can reflect again on brentbordelon's words:
Originally Posted by brentbordelon
What Microsoft should do is QUIT trying to catch up with everyone else and start focusing on something new and different like they did 20 years ago. That's the only chance they have of ever being as good as they once were.
At least that's the opinion of a 25 year Microsoft developer
All the best.
I forgot one thing and you just made me realize another:
1. The new "Win 8 Family" is a "bet the farm" moment for MS. Fail, and they're stuck with 90% of a fading commodity market which won't integrate as well with other makers' tabs and phones as Apple's do with Macs. Result: A still huge base, but one that becomes a relatively static niche, even if a great big niche, i.e., a grey commodity. Or to extend SJ's idiom, mostly a truck (software) maker rather than a sexy car manufacturer.
And with Apple and HP making not only cool cars and scooters and bikes, but with both also in the hot Pickup Truck biz, MS would basically find itself walled in. And for good measure, if netbooks maintain a meaningful presence, Google's Chrome-powered "Netties" will be attacking on another flank.
Result: Irrelevance in the hottest sectors of computing. Like I said, it's cinch up the belt time up in Oregon. Get tough or die. (As any kind of a trend maker in personal [post-PC] computing, at least.)
(RIM's in a big pickle too. They have no computing arm [like Apple and HP], no relevance on the web [like Google and MS], no native apps to speak of - and the BB phones and the new PlayBook have, I believe, very different code bases. Time for a Molson, ehh?)
2. If MS intends for this new codebase to be lean in any meaningful way and truly pointed at future devices rather than at past OS's and devices, they're gonna have a helluva' time doing that if they continue complete legacy support of multiple old versions of Win in deference to their huge installed corporate base (and their cheaper consumers) who hate having to change.
Any parts of that in the core, though, really have to go before they try to get it zip along on a Tegra chip.
So in many ways IMO the code will to be a fairly large break that's at least likely to make at least a big hunk of software and maybe all drivers that currently work on Win 7 and Vista (and often, still, XP) incompatible. And create a kernel (if that's the lowest level of an OS that directly faces hardware, excuse my ignorance if it isn't) which will support multiple processor families equally (something they tried but never really achieved with NT on the DEC Alpha chip in the mid-90's).
Not as big a break as OS9 with OS X and not as huge as Apple's whole shift to X86 from PPC, but in some ways, a bit of both combined. And a big challenge to an elephant that hasn't tap-danced well in a long time.
One possible approach might be to mostly virtualize Win 7 and Vista in ways that lets older programs operate mostly in a sandbox - on the level of Win 8 only (not Win Tab 8 or Win Phone 8). And/or to provide ISV's and peripheral makers tons of support to make their code and drivers functional on Win 8. In kind of a combo Cocoa/Carbon, Rosetta and/or Parallels Coherence way. Or something like that.
That might tide them over until native W8 programs come along. And MS does know a thing or two about virtualization.
Finally, it also means partially rearchitecting all of their own own PC and Server programs over a relatively short period. And they gotta lotta programs.
And that's a pretty challenging To-Do list. For something that might be too late to matter enough in the first place.
Man, how the shoe's moved to the other foot! Now all the pressure's on the one time school bully who's looking more and more like Mickey Rourke's face in The Wrestler. MS is getting beaten up by multiple opponents and they're wobbly on their feet.
So are they gonna suck it up off the mat or are they goin' down??
If that's the case I wouldn't be surprised if it did end up "Windowized" and running x86 or ARM (a custom Tegra SoC perhaps?)
I also remember a project to get Silverlight (i.e. potentially the W8 App Store) running on the Xbox.
Windows Mobile ran a custom designed mobile OS and it was still pretty crap. I think persisting with a poorly supported, bastardized, spaghetti coded OS (i.e. as opposed to a modular OS like W7/W8 or OSX) and trying to cram a Windows-like UI onto a phone screen added to the poor Windows Mobile performance (among other factors).
By 2012 they may have lost the consumer sector though, and I think this is what you may have been referring to.