First, you seem to think MS is all knowing and lords over all in the consumer when in fact since Windows '95, they have not really had a successful consumer product in over 10 years.
While you might count the XBox as a success, they have spent $10 BILLION dollars to sell 25 million units or about $400 to sell each one ... if you do math that way, how many more successes can you have before you close up the company?
That is one reason why Zune is priced around Apple's - they cannot afford to lose $100 per unit and hope to make up for it later down the line ... while they are not making a lot of money and persumably breaking even at best since they are launching a new product and mini division, they are obviosuly take it nice and slow (hence the features already dropped and no video) because they cannot afford another Xbox ... $10 BILLION and will they be still be third by this time next year?
And just in case you've forgotten, here are some major MS launches in the last ten years backed by major marketing dollars and retail presence ... All money losers or outright failures - Bob, Talking barney, MSN (how do you spend $4 BILLION and lose to AOL?), Windows CE, WebTV, home networking, plays4sure, and the watch OS ... other than being able to spend a lot of money to essentially sell a flat PC that alleviates the driver, compability and patch worries (the XBox) ... NOTHING else they have done in the past 10 years in the consumer market has registered at ALL.
All led by a new CEO who admits he missed out on Google, yahoo, MySpace, etc ... not to mention that little Apple ipod thing.
Last year, MS was all ballyhooing their plays4sure thing and NO REVIEWS - even from the biggest Windows fan sites offered a review where plays4sure played for sure on every player & every Pc they owned ... and now 6 months later, MS has magically figured it out - how fast do you think it will be from the day of release to the magic Windows phrase ... it didn't work, it locked up my machine.
MS makes a fine workplace OS, nice server and enterprise stuff - they should just stick to that ...
Put it this way- Bertrand got it right when he said if you can't innovate imitate. It's what M$ have been doing since the company began.
The consumer war was won by Sony when Msoft took them on with the XBox even though the XBox was around the same price and had more features than the second generation of Playstation. The consumer goes with the tried and tested user interface- The iPod will win the Apple/Microsoft war- there is little doubt in my mind.
The world is slowly starting to get annoyed with substandard quality and inefficiency.
Put it this way- Bertrand got it right when he said if you can't innovate imitate. It's what M$ have been doing since the company began.
The consumer war was won by Sony when Msoft took them on with the XBox even though the XBox was around the same price and had more features than the second generation of Playstation. The consumer goes with the tried and tested user interface- The iPod will win the Apple/Microsoft war- there is little doubt in my mind.
The world is slowly starting to get annoyed with substandard quality and inefficiency.
BENj
Maybe what Bertrand should have said was: "If you can't invent, imitate."
Innovation would be making a change in something established, which is what they are doing. What they are not doing is inventing, which means creating something that did not exist before.
Seems like Microsoft is behind on more than just its operating system development... I mean if recent rumors are true about the up-coming "iPhone" or "iPod with Phone" then Microsoft has their work cut out for them. 8) Way to go Apple!
A WiFi iPod has three potential features I'd really enjoy. First, synching to my Mac wirelessly. I know it's a small thing to plug the iPod into a cord, but since I sync up nearly every day for Podcasts I'd love to save a tiny bit of time. Second, my ultimate fantasy is to have shared music via wireless, meaning being able to hear other people's libraries. The last feature is a limited web integration so one could browse and purchase from the iTunes music store directly from the iPod.
I hope Apple is going to do one, two, or three with a WiFi iPod and I'm glad to hear the Zune may not be able to do any of the three.
Last Spring/Early Summer - Sony was all excited to announce the Bean ... coming soon - not sure why they thought a bean shaped would make us go giddy but in comparison to the mini, it was not horrible (priced around the same with a little less capacity but close enough) and it was smaller - something you could wear the neck ... however, they seem to live where nothing happens until they release something - a world MS seems to live in ... a week before the bean is actually available - Apple unveils a little something called the NANO ... twice the capacity (same price) and COLOR and frankly, tiny & a must-have ... the bean, amusing but a large jelly belly is not really all that enticing ... surprise, 5 months later - Sony Bean dead.
So, what's the Zune rumor - that it'll be out in November? What do you bet that either the iphone or video ipod will magically be announced AND appear about a week earlier than Zune (which Apple can find out when it hits the shelves by calling any guy at a Best Buy warehouse who will read the inventory & SKU to them) thereby eviserating the Zune marketing & sales ... not that it had a chance to begin with ... so in 6 months when Zune adds video and is about to trump that - Apple will add wifi.
MS is almost comically inept when it comes to consumers ... all you have to do is look at the XBox 360 launch - it's one thing to artifically create a shortage in first couple weeks to generate excitement but they basically wasted $50 million in free publicity because now, 9 MONTHS later, the 360 is FINALLY found almost everywhere and STACKED up almost everywhere ... During the PS2 launch, at least Sony seemed to be building them - you could see news of planes arriving carrying the PS2 - X360? Nothing. Who cares about not having anything to sell for 8 weeks before XMas? It's not consumers will buy almost anything not nailed down ...
"The retailers were pleased with Microsoft’s feature-per-price package," the report adds.
"Feature-per-price".. *sigh*.. it sure sounds like Microsoft people to think like that. It's not about feature-per-price. It's about how well it performs and how usable it is... or something like that. Windows XP has great feature-per-price I guess... a lot of features... but it still sucks.
since I sync up nearly every day for Podcasts I'd love to save a tiny bit of time. .
So when do you recharge your iPod? Not joking, since you have to sync every day, and your iPod can't have more than 10 hours max play time, when do you charge? My only guess is that perhaps you prefer to recharge somewhere else, perhaps in a stereo mount.
On the general issue, while wifi for iPods has potential benefits, IMHO the drain on power makes the whole issue a moot point. Steve repeatedly has talked about battery life during iPod events. WiFi does not further the primary purpose of the iPod. A pod for personal information and media. So I don't believe we'll see WiFi until the power drain is a much smaller issue (maybe this could help), and WiFi coverage is more widespread and standardized.
Maybe what Bertrand should have said was: "If you can't invent, imitate."
Innovation would be making a change in something established, which is what they are doing. What they are not doing is inventing, which means creating something that did not exist before.
Firewire = 400Mb/sec; USB 2.0 = 480Mb/sec (burst); WiFi = 54Mb/sec (108Mb/sec max) if insecure (which would be unwise), significantly less if secure
Where's the time savings when you're synching at no more than 25% of "wired" speed?
Putting music on your MP3 player wirelessly may be convenient, but it's not fast - not using any presently accepted standard protocol anyway... we'll see whether 802.11n changes this significantly or not in the future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. K.
A WiFi iPod has three potential features I'd really enjoy. First, synching to my Mac wirelessly. I know it's a small thing to plug the iPod into a cord, but since I sync up nearly every day for Podcasts I'd love to save a tiny bit of time. Second, my ultimate fantasy is to have shared music via wireless, meaning being able to hear other people's libraries. The last feature is a limited web integration so one could browse and purchase from the iTunes music store directly from the iPod.
I hope Apple is going to do one, two, or three with a WiFi iPod and I'm glad to hear the Zune may not be able to do any of the three.
As has been mentioned, song sharing via WiFi could be appealing to kids. I work at a K-12 school and it's become sort of a "thing" for two kids to pair up and each wear one ear bud to share an iPod (I think it's kind of a "best buddies 4 ever" kind of thing, but then, i"m a clueless adult).
But that works because iPods are ubiquitous (or, for that matter, any MP3 has two ear buds). "Sharing" is one of those chicken and egg features that requires you to have a lot units out there to be of any use, but doesn't drive sales because there aren't a lot of units out there. Having managed to gets lots and lots of chickens and eggs into the wild is of course Apple's enduring ace in the hole.
And, as has also been mentioned, unless there's a way to make wireless have really low impact on battery life it's the same K-12 crowd that would give up on it first-- when kids do something, they do it a lot, and any early adopters would quickly discover that their Zune was being drained dry mighty fast.
There's no way MS can compete with Apple on price unless they want to lose billions of dollars (like they did with the xBox). Apple has a 4 year lead, plus they operate on larger quantities, so they can corner the market on certain types of components.
That depends how they plan to go about it. For example, M$ lost money on XBox, but that was only on consoles. In the end, XBox was a profit due to other endeavors that tied in to the XBox.
If not, then there wouldn't have been an XBox 360. (In fact, Sony loses way more money on all versions of Playstations than MS does on XBox. And that's including the Playstation 3's $500 price-tag! )
I'm not sure how MS plans to do this, but I think their plans to gain 15-20% of the market in a few years (as they said) isn't totally uneasonable. If they said it would happen in one holiday season, then they'd be insane!
And as for wireless capabilities, I'm sort of glad they are trying to allow people to buy songs wirelessly. MS doesn't have the usability skills to pull that off successfully.
Comments
While you might count the XBox as a success, they have spent $10 BILLION dollars to sell 25 million units or about $400 to sell each one ... if you do math that way, how many more successes can you have before you close up the company?
That is one reason why Zune is priced around Apple's - they cannot afford to lose $100 per unit and hope to make up for it later down the line ... while they are not making a lot of money and persumably breaking even at best since they are launching a new product and mini division, they are obviosuly take it nice and slow (hence the features already dropped and no video) because they cannot afford another Xbox ... $10 BILLION and will they be still be third by this time next year?
And just in case you've forgotten, here are some major MS launches in the last ten years backed by major marketing dollars and retail presence ... All money losers or outright failures - Bob, Talking barney, MSN (how do you spend $4 BILLION and lose to AOL?), Windows CE, WebTV, home networking, plays4sure, and the watch OS ... other than being able to spend a lot of money to essentially sell a flat PC that alleviates the driver, compability and patch worries (the XBox) ... NOTHING else they have done in the past 10 years in the consumer market has registered at ALL.
All led by a new CEO who admits he missed out on Google, yahoo, MySpace, etc ... not to mention that little Apple ipod thing.
Last year, MS was all ballyhooing their plays4sure thing and NO REVIEWS - even from the biggest Windows fan sites offered a review where plays4sure played for sure on every player & every Pc they owned ... and now 6 months later, MS has magically figured it out - how fast do you think it will be from the day of release to the magic Windows phrase ... it didn't work, it locked up my machine.
MS makes a fine workplace OS, nice server and enterprise stuff - they should just stick to that ...
The consumer war was won by Sony when Msoft took them on with the XBox even though the XBox was around the same price and had more features than the second generation of Playstation. The consumer goes with the tried and tested user interface- The iPod will win the Apple/Microsoft war- there is little doubt in my mind.
The world is slowly starting to get annoyed with substandard quality and inefficiency.
BENj
Put it this way- Bertrand got it right when he said if you can't innovate imitate. It's what M$ have been doing since the company began.
The consumer war was won by Sony when Msoft took them on with the XBox even though the XBox was around the same price and had more features than the second generation of Playstation. The consumer goes with the tried and tested user interface- The iPod will win the Apple/Microsoft war- there is little doubt in my mind.
The world is slowly starting to get annoyed with substandard quality and inefficiency.
BENj
Maybe what Bertrand should have said was: "If you can't invent, imitate."
Innovation would be making a change in something established, which is what they are doing. What they are not doing is inventing, which means creating something that did not exist before.
I hope Apple is going to do one, two, or three with a WiFi iPod and I'm glad to hear the Zune may not be able to do any of the three.
So, what's the Zune rumor - that it'll be out in November? What do you bet that either the iphone or video ipod will magically be announced AND appear about a week earlier than Zune (which Apple can find out when it hits the shelves by calling any guy at a Best Buy warehouse who will read the inventory & SKU to them) thereby eviserating the Zune marketing & sales ... not that it had a chance to begin with ... so in 6 months when Zune adds video and is about to trump that - Apple will add wifi.
MS is almost comically inept when it comes to consumers ... all you have to do is look at the XBox 360 launch - it's one thing to artifically create a shortage in first couple weeks to generate excitement but they basically wasted $50 million in free publicity because now, 9 MONTHS later, the 360 is FINALLY found almost everywhere and STACKED up almost everywhere ... During the PS2 launch, at least Sony seemed to be building them - you could see news of planes arriving carrying the PS2 - X360? Nothing. Who cares about not having anything to sell for 8 weeks before XMas? It's not consumers will buy almost anything not nailed down ...
"Feature-per-price".. *sigh*.. it sure sounds like Microsoft people to think like that. It's not about feature-per-price. It's about how well it performs and how usable it is... or something like that. Windows XP has great feature-per-price I guess... a lot of features... but it still sucks.
since I sync up nearly every day for Podcasts I'd love to save a tiny bit of time. .
So when do you recharge your iPod? Not joking, since you have to sync every day, and your iPod can't have more than 10 hours max play time, when do you charge? My only guess is that perhaps you prefer to recharge somewhere else, perhaps in a stereo mount.
On the general issue, while wifi for iPods has potential benefits, IMHO the drain on power makes the whole issue a moot point. Steve repeatedly has talked about battery life during iPod events. WiFi does not further the primary purpose of the iPod. A pod for personal information and media. So I don't believe we'll see WiFi until the power drain is a much smaller issue (maybe this could help), and WiFi coverage is more widespread and standardized.
Maybe what Bertrand should have said was: "If you can't invent, imitate."
Innovation would be making a change in something established, which is what they are doing. What they are not doing is inventing, which means creating something that did not exist before.
Gotta love that built-in dictionary
never ever buy a Product with a M$ badge.
(Exception: Office for Mac) I have to, unless... you know
I deeply hate Microsoft. Period. And i am for sure won't
never ever buy a Product with a M$ badge.
(Exception: Office for Mac) I have to, unless... you know
People say that about Apple.
I'll bet you have a pc under your pillow.
Gotta love that built-in dictionary
Zune might not offer video at first. http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.ph...deo_at_launch/
So the "iPod Killer" is now the "iPod Taunter".
Where's the time savings when you're synching at no more than 25% of "wired" speed?
Putting music on your MP3 player wirelessly may be convenient, but it's not fast - not using any presently accepted standard protocol anyway... we'll see whether 802.11n changes this significantly or not in the future.
A WiFi iPod has three potential features I'd really enjoy. First, synching to my Mac wirelessly. I know it's a small thing to plug the iPod into a cord, but since I sync up nearly every day for Podcasts I'd love to save a tiny bit of time. Second, my ultimate fantasy is to have shared music via wireless, meaning being able to hear other people's libraries. The last feature is a limited web integration so one could browse and purchase from the iTunes music store directly from the iPod.
I hope Apple is going to do one, two, or three with a WiFi iPod and I'm glad to hear the Zune may not be able to do any of the three.
But that works because iPods are ubiquitous (or, for that matter, any MP3 has two ear buds). "Sharing" is one of those chicken and egg features that requires you to have a lot units out there to be of any use, but doesn't drive sales because there aren't a lot of units out there. Having managed to gets lots and lots of chickens and eggs into the wild is of course Apple's enduring ace in the hole.
And, as has also been mentioned, unless there's a way to make wireless have really low impact on battery life it's the same K-12 crowd that would give up on it first-- when kids do something, they do it a lot, and any early adopters would quickly discover that their Zune was being drained dry mighty fast.
There's no way MS can compete with Apple on price unless they want to lose billions of dollars (like they did with the xBox). Apple has a 4 year lead, plus they operate on larger quantities, so they can corner the market on certain types of components.
That depends how they plan to go about it. For example, M$ lost money on XBox, but that was only on consoles. In the end, XBox was a profit due to other endeavors that tied in to the XBox.
If not, then there wouldn't have been an XBox 360. (In fact, Sony loses way more money on all versions of Playstations than MS does on XBox. And that's including the Playstation 3's $500 price-tag!
I'm not sure how MS plans to do this, but I think their plans to gain 15-20% of the market in a few years (as they said) isn't totally uneasonable. If they said it would happen in one holiday season, then they'd be insane!
And as for wireless capabilities, I'm sort of glad they are trying to allow people to buy songs wirelessly. MS doesn't have the usability skills to pull that off successfully.
Yes its kindda like how ipod users like the Ipod and then buy a mac...
Windows users will think: "well microsoft makes a great OS, so im sure their MP3..."
wait...