Zune is a serious misstep. Apple makes tons of money on the iPod, but the endgame is about controlling the media formats, and that's especially what MS is interested in. I'm betting Apple will soon open iTunes to the many companies that MS just screwed over. Apple will continue to sell iPod music players, but the main push will be the next generation of the full screen iPod and the iPhones. Notice Steve drops the hint that iPods will evolve, but music will always be at their center. There will also be a push to get licensees to offer things that Apple will not. For instance, car stereo makes will begin offering models with built in storage and wireless updating from iTunes. Of course part of the equation is making money on licensing for devices, but with market domination, they will begin to make money on songs and other things sold through iTunes. With the Zune, MS is squirting the very thing they wanted over to Apple. Of course this is only one of Microsoft's worries. Another shift in power has already happened. For years MS dominated Apple by threatening to drop office. Now, with Dell and other major PC makers wanting to make Macs, with Google and Apple playing footsie, and with Open Source looming, most of the squirting will be sweat from Steve Ballmer's pores. Apple can now actually threaten MS. Push Steve Jobs too far and he might just begin licensing the Mac OS.
Yes, we agree on this.
One thing I've been saying for a long time (well, since the iPod's sales took off, and software became a big part of the company), is that if Apple's other business become the large majority of Apples sales and income, say 75%, Apple may then decide to license out the OS.
If that happened, even if Apple found its computer sales curbed a good percentage, the profits and sales of the OS, both embedded, and retail, would eventually more than make up for it. There would be a far wider audience worldwide.
My thoughts are that Apple, with its income dependent on hardware and other software, more so than the OS, could afford to sell the OS for even less than it does now. Once you get to levels of $60 to $75 for a single seat, and lower for multiple seats—remember that the Family Pack has five licenses for $200 before discounts, you are in professional Linux distro prices, RedHat, IBM, Novel, etc. Money can be made at those prices handily. That's what MS charges OEM's for Home versions. Server pricing could remain the same as it is already below pretty much anything else out there.
My thoughts are that Apple, with its income dependent on hardware and other software, more so than the OS, could afford to sell the OS for even less than it does now. Once you get to levels of $60 to $75 for a single seat, and lower for multiple seats?remember that the Family Pack has five licenses for $200 before discounts, you are in professional Linux distro prices, RedHat, IBM, Novel, etc. Money can be made at those prices handily. That's what MS charges OEM's for Home versions. Server pricing could remain the same as it is already below pretty much anything else out there.
I agree Apple should be more aggressive there and spreading the costs of R&D over both h/w and s/w is part of its advantage, but I bet they are making sure their OS R&D budget is nice and healthy in a sustainable way and they may have made the responsible decision that the OS license fees need to pay for the OS development costs. If you play around with having hardware pay for software, it is easy to uncouple resources from responsibilities in any organization.
I think the 800lb gorilla in the room is iTunes. I personally have about 11 gigs of music in my library, and I think that's not a huge amount (I have friends with hundreds). What would be the compelling reason for me to move all that? Even with a new computer purchase? With iTunes I just hook up the new one to the old one and I'm off to the races, right?
I think the 800lb gorilla in the room is iTunes. I personally have about 11 gigs of music in my library, and I think that's not a huge amount (I have friends with hundreds). What would be the compelling reason for me to move all that? Even with a new computer purchase? With iTunes I just hook up the new one to the old one and I'm off to the races, right?
Absolutely! But you are far from average. Most people have far less music in AAC. But, and I think it's official, it will play WMA, MP3, AAC, JPEG, WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264, as long as they are un-DRM'd, in addition to the new DRM'd format's that are just for Zune.
Yeah, its funny. MS fans always point to the Xbox as a "success", but it's lost billions....If that's a 'success', I'd rather fail thanks very much. ...
I don't think I would consider myself an MS "fan" by any stretch of the imagination but at this stage I am compelled to use WindozeXP2 99% of my time now.
Xbox and PS2 and GameCube are now older generation consoles, each with their own fan base and each enjoyable in its own right.
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
I have *absolutely no idea* though why MS is willing to bet millions/ billions of losses on Xbox/Xbox360 and Zune - all while pushing Vista as the next gen upgrade cycle and while still collecting big on existing Windows licenses.
It's amazing isn't it that we have corporations so large that they can be involved in massive new industries without having to make any profits for years and years. The stock price hasn't bloody gone anywhere in the past 5 years, do they even pay dividends to shareholders?
On a side note, I'm not sure if the XBOX360 and my AMD64rig can sit side by side on my table - not enough space. A lot of electricity draw..... But at least I don't have to get an extra TV or a flatscreen HDTV thingy. Hmmmm 8)
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
Two of things you state may not end up being true, depending on how things play out:
1) The Xbox360 may actually NOT be cheaper than the PS3 over the life of the console. Word is that the PS3's online gaming service will be free, while on the 360, they charge you. Add it up over the life of the console, and the PS3 comes in cheaper. This of course assumes that you want to play games online (a lot of folks do).
2) No one can say for certain the Xbox360 will be around at the end of the decade. They've lost billions on this stuff so far, and while they can afford to somewhat (due to their Windows and Office monopolies raking in phat $$$), at some point the stockholders might say, "Umm... WHY are we doing this again, if all we're doing is losing money?".
Not saying it WILL go down that way, only that it could.
And the iPod isn't much cheaper. It's 99 cents less, true, but if you happen to be one of those people who actually do want a radio, the price of an iPod flies above that of the Zune. (Granted, not all people want a radio, but some do.)
I don't think I would consider myself an MS "fan" by any stretch of the imagination but at this stage I am compelled to use WindozeXP2 99% of my time now.
Xbox and PS2 and GameCube are now older generation consoles, each with their own fan base and each enjoyable in its own right.
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
I have *absolutely no idea* though why MS is willing to bet millions/ billions of losses on Xbox/Xbox360 and Zune - all while pushing Vista as the next gen upgrade cycle and while still collecting big on existing Windows licenses.
It's amazing isn't it that we have corporations so large that they can be involved in massive new industries without having to make any profits for years and years. The stock price hasn't bloody gone anywhere in the past 5 years, do they even pay dividends to shareholders?
On a side note, I'm not sure if the XBOX360 and my AMD64rig can sit side by side on my table - not enough space. A lot of electricity draw..... But at least I don't have to get an extra TV or a flatscreen HDTV thingy. Hmmmm 8)
MS can afford to look ahead to the future like no other company can afford to. They make so much profit on OSes and Office, that they literally must throw money away in these ventures.
They feel that sometime in the future, networked gaming will be played by hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions. The income from that, even if it is little per player will add up to massive amounts of money.
If 15 years from now, networked gaming has 500 million people playing each month, and each player pays $10 a month, that's $5 billion a MONTH! $60 billion a year. They want very much to control that, as does Sony.
That is not out of line with projections. $10 a month 15 years from now will be like $5 in todays dollars. Not much really.
That's worth losing an easily affordable 7 or 8 billion over 9 or 10 years.
The other aspect is online payments.
Quite a while ago, in an interview that I read, Gates said that one of his goals was for MS to charge for every bit that flowed over the networks. Scary, eh? This would be a good place to start.
Insofar as the Zune goes, I've said it already, but I'll say it again. If MS loses control of the content playing software, and codecs, MS loses big all around. If Zune doesn't make it, then WMA is on the way out "for sure". So are all of their video/audio codecs.
We can see by the fighting in the content industries, just how those companies will fight to control ownership of standards.
That ownership means billions in license fees, royalties, patents, trademarks, etc. None of them want to give that up to a competitor.
Look at it this way: Both Sony and Phillips made billions on the CD. But their ownership of those standards have been expiring.
A company that owns those standards can expect to make at least $5 billion in profits from the fees gotten.
but if they don't own them, they can expect to pay a couple of billion to those that do over their lifetime.
The double whammy. Not only don't you get paid, you have to pay.
MPEG-4 contains Apple codecs, and MS codecs. That won't happen anymore id MS is neutered by Apple.
Therefore they lose not only money, but any hope for control how content is used over their own systems. They won't be able to produce anything that needs any codecs that Apple won't agree to license to them.
Not a position to be in. Though it's difficult to know what the courts might say, it seems to be a legal possibility that MS could do nothing.
And the iPod isn't much cheaper. It's 99 cents less, true, but if you happen to be one of those people who actually do want a radio, the price of an iPod flies above that of the Zune. (Granted, not all people want a radio, but some do.)
So, um.... yeah... That's all I got.
What MS has said about video, is that they lack the ability to download, and sell them now. The Zune would also need a firmware update for some reason I don't seem to remember.
That might be nice if I actually wanted the stuff they put on the Zune. For most people, I'd guess, this is nothing more than an ephemeral bonus. I don't think the pre-loaded content is going to be a much of a factor in selling Zunes.
What MS has said about video, is that they lack the ability to download, and sell them now. The Zune would also need a firmware update for some reason I don't seem to remember.
Where did it say it would need a firmware update?
"Lack of video" just means no video store. Playing back video has already been demonstrated with music videos. I assume users will be able to play other videos that are the right format (or convert them) as well.
"Lack of video" just means no video store. Playing back video has already been demonstrated with music videos. I assume users will be able to play other videos that are the right format (or convert them) as well.
the same person who stated that they couldn't sell them now said that. I really don't remember who.
The firmware might be simply related to playing a video bought from the store. Some DRM thing.
MS can afford to look ahead to the future like no other company can afford to. They make so much profit on OSes and Office, that they literally must throw money away in these ventures.
If 15 years from now, networked gaming has 500 million people playing each month, and each player pays $10 a month, that's $5 billion a MONTH! $60 billion a year. They want very much to control that, as does Sony.
That is not out of line with projections. $10 a month 15 years from now will be like $5 in todays dollars. Not much really.
I agree with you that MS is in it for the long haul, like a giant plodding crocodile sitting in the shallows, but I have a hard time imagining 500 million people paying monthly to play games. You do realize that only 300 mil live in the US right?
I agree with you that MS is in it for the long haul, like a giant plodding crocodile sitting in the shallows, but I have a hard time imagining 500 million people paying monthly to play games. You do realize that only 300 mil live in the US right?
You do realise that we have people from all around the world on this forum?
We will shortly be reaching 8 billion people in the world (13 years from now, in 2020).
Comments
Zune is a serious misstep. Apple makes tons of money on the iPod, but the endgame is about controlling the media formats, and that's especially what MS is interested in. I'm betting Apple will soon open iTunes to the many companies that MS just screwed over. Apple will continue to sell iPod music players, but the main push will be the next generation of the full screen iPod and the iPhones. Notice Steve drops the hint that iPods will evolve, but music will always be at their center. There will also be a push to get licensees to offer things that Apple will not. For instance, car stereo makes will begin offering models with built in storage and wireless updating from iTunes. Of course part of the equation is making money on licensing for devices, but with market domination, they will begin to make money on songs and other things sold through iTunes. With the Zune, MS is squirting the very thing they wanted over to Apple. Of course this is only one of Microsoft's worries. Another shift in power has already happened. For years MS dominated Apple by threatening to drop office. Now, with Dell and other major PC makers wanting to make Macs, with Google and Apple playing footsie, and with Open Source looming, most of the squirting will be sweat from Steve Ballmer's pores. Apple can now actually threaten MS. Push Steve Jobs too far and he might just begin licensing the Mac OS.
Yes, we agree on this.
One thing I've been saying for a long time (well, since the iPod's sales took off, and software became a big part of the company), is that if Apple's other business become the large majority of Apples sales and income, say 75%, Apple may then decide to license out the OS.
If that happened, even if Apple found its computer sales curbed a good percentage, the profits and sales of the OS, both embedded, and retail, would eventually more than make up for it. There would be a far wider audience worldwide.
My thoughts are that Apple, with its income dependent on hardware and other software, more so than the OS, could afford to sell the OS for even less than it does now. Once you get to levels of $60 to $75 for a single seat, and lower for multiple seats—remember that the Family Pack has five licenses for $200 before discounts, you are in professional Linux distro prices, RedHat, IBM, Novel, etc. Money can be made at those prices handily. That's what MS charges OEM's for Home versions. Server pricing could remain the same as it is already below pretty much anything else out there.
My thoughts are that Apple, with its income dependent on hardware and other software, more so than the OS, could afford to sell the OS for even less than it does now. Once you get to levels of $60 to $75 for a single seat, and lower for multiple seats?remember that the Family Pack has five licenses for $200 before discounts, you are in professional Linux distro prices, RedHat, IBM, Novel, etc. Money can be made at those prices handily. That's what MS charges OEM's for Home versions. Server pricing could remain the same as it is already below pretty much anything else out there.
I agree Apple should be more aggressive there and spreading the costs of R&D over both h/w and s/w is part of its advantage, but I bet they are making sure their OS R&D budget is nice and healthy in a sustainable way and they may have made the responsible decision that the OS license fees need to pay for the OS development costs. If you play around with having hardware pay for software, it is easy to uncouple resources from responsibilities in any organization.
I think the 800lb gorilla in the room is iTunes. I personally have about 11 gigs of music in my library, and I think that's not a huge amount (I have friends with hundreds). What would be the compelling reason for me to move all that? Even with a new computer purchase? With iTunes I just hook up the new one to the old one and I'm off to the races, right?
Absolutely! But you are far from average. Most people have far less music in AAC. But, and I think it's official, it will play WMA, MP3, AAC, JPEG, WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264, as long as they are un-DRM'd, in addition to the new DRM'd format's that are just for Zune.
you forgot riding down a rainbow astride a beautiful pair of unicorns.
Yeah, its funny. MS fans always point to the Xbox as a "success", but it's lost billions....If that's a 'success', I'd rather fail thanks very much.
I don't think I would consider myself an MS "fan" by any stretch of the imagination but at this stage I am compelled to use WindozeXP2 99% of my time now.
Xbox and PS2 and GameCube are now older generation consoles, each with their own fan base and each enjoyable in its own right.
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
I have *absolutely no idea* though why MS is willing to bet millions/ billions of losses on Xbox/Xbox360 and Zune - all while pushing Vista as the next gen upgrade cycle and while still collecting big on existing Windows licenses.
It's amazing isn't it that we have corporations so large that they can be involved in massive new industries without having to make any profits for years and years. The stock price hasn't bloody gone anywhere in the past 5 years, do they even pay dividends to shareholders?
On a side note, I'm not sure if the XBOX360 and my AMD64rig can sit side by side on my table - not enough space. A lot of electricity draw..... But at least I don't have to get an extra TV or a flatscreen HDTV thingy. Hmmmm 8)
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
Two of things you state may not end up being true, depending on how things play out:
1) The Xbox360 may actually NOT be cheaper than the PS3 over the life of the console. Word is that the PS3's online gaming service will be free, while on the 360, they charge you. Add it up over the life of the console, and the PS3 comes in cheaper. This of course assumes that you want to play games online (a lot of folks do).
2) No one can say for certain the Xbox360 will be around at the end of the decade. They've lost billions on this stuff so far, and while they can afford to somewhat (due to their Windows and Office monopolies raking in phat $$$), at some point the stockholders might say, "Umm... WHY are we doing this again, if all we're doing is losing money?".
Not saying it WILL go down that way, only that it could.
.
He has plenty of other rasons to slam the Zune, but the girlfriend thig kinda sucked.
I'm happy! That seems very normal for you.
But it's still *cheaper* than the Zune, which is also lacking functionality, like video.
Sorry, you're wrong about that one. Remember, the Zune comes preloaded with short films and music videos (in addition to music).
And the iPod isn't much cheaper. It's 99 cents less, true, but if you happen to be one of those people who actually do want a radio, the price of an iPod flies above that of the Zune. (Granted, not all people want a radio, but some do.)
So, um.... yeah... That's all I got.
I don't think I would consider myself an MS "fan" by any stretch of the imagination but at this stage I am compelled to use WindozeXP2 99% of my time now.
Xbox and PS2 and GameCube are now older generation consoles, each with their own fan base and each enjoyable in its own right.
I couldn't give a rat's ass whether MS makes money off Xbox or not, but compared with moving away from PC gaming into Console land, the Xbox360 looks attractive (720p minimum output to VGA (I can use my existing Sony 17" 1280x1024 LCD!!) , is stable enough a platform with good support for games - it's cheaper than the PS3 (whenever the hell it is going to come out) - and it's higher res than the 480p Wii which would look too pixelated on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.
As long as Xbox and Xbox360 is going to be around until the end of the decade (which it will, in all likelyhood), that's good enough for some fun console gaming.
I have *absolutely no idea* though why MS is willing to bet millions/ billions of losses on Xbox/Xbox360 and Zune - all while pushing Vista as the next gen upgrade cycle and while still collecting big on existing Windows licenses.
It's amazing isn't it that we have corporations so large that they can be involved in massive new industries without having to make any profits for years and years. The stock price hasn't bloody gone anywhere in the past 5 years, do they even pay dividends to shareholders?
On a side note, I'm not sure if the XBOX360 and my AMD64rig can sit side by side on my table - not enough space. A lot of electricity draw..... But at least I don't have to get an extra TV or a flatscreen HDTV thingy. Hmmmm 8)
MS can afford to look ahead to the future like no other company can afford to. They make so much profit on OSes and Office, that they literally must throw money away in these ventures.
They feel that sometime in the future, networked gaming will be played by hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions. The income from that, even if it is little per player will add up to massive amounts of money.
If 15 years from now, networked gaming has 500 million people playing each month, and each player pays $10 a month, that's $5 billion a MONTH! $60 billion a year. They want very much to control that, as does Sony.
That is not out of line with projections. $10 a month 15 years from now will be like $5 in todays dollars. Not much really.
That's worth losing an easily affordable 7 or 8 billion over 9 or 10 years.
The other aspect is online payments.
Quite a while ago, in an interview that I read, Gates said that one of his goals was for MS to charge for every bit that flowed over the networks. Scary, eh? This would be a good place to start.
Insofar as the Zune goes, I've said it already, but I'll say it again. If MS loses control of the content playing software, and codecs, MS loses big all around. If Zune doesn't make it, then WMA is on the way out "for sure". So are all of their video/audio codecs.
We can see by the fighting in the content industries, just how those companies will fight to control ownership of standards.
That ownership means billions in license fees, royalties, patents, trademarks, etc. None of them want to give that up to a competitor.
Look at it this way: Both Sony and Phillips made billions on the CD. But their ownership of those standards have been expiring.
A company that owns those standards can expect to make at least $5 billion in profits from the fees gotten.
but if they don't own them, they can expect to pay a couple of billion to those that do over their lifetime.
The double whammy. Not only don't you get paid, you have to pay.
MPEG-4 contains Apple codecs, and MS codecs. That won't happen anymore id MS is neutered by Apple.
Therefore they lose not only money, but any hope for control how content is used over their own systems. They won't be able to produce anything that needs any codecs that Apple won't agree to license to them.
Not a position to be in. Though it's difficult to know what the courts might say, it seems to be a legal possibility that MS could do nothing.
Sorry, you're wrong about that one. Remember, the Zune comes preloaded with short films and music videos (in addition to music).
And the iPod isn't much cheaper. It's 99 cents less, true, but if you happen to be one of those people who actually do want a radio, the price of an iPod flies above that of the Zune. (Granted, not all people want a radio, but some do.)
So, um.... yeah... That's all I got.
What MS has said about video, is that they lack the ability to download, and sell them now. The Zune would also need a firmware update for some reason I don't seem to remember.
Sorry, you're wrong about that one. Remember, the Zune comes preloaded with short films and music videos (in addition to music).
That might be nice if I actually wanted the stuff they put on the Zune. For most people, I'd guess, this is nothing more than an ephemeral bonus. I don't think the pre-loaded content is going to be a much of a factor in selling Zunes.
What MS has said about video, is that they lack the ability to download, and sell them now. The Zune would also need a firmware update for some reason I don't seem to remember.
Where did it say it would need a firmware update?
"Lack of video" just means no video store. Playing back video has already been demonstrated with music videos. I assume users will be able to play other videos that are the right format (or convert them) as well.
Where did it say it would need a firmware update?
"Lack of video" just means no video store. Playing back video has already been demonstrated with music videos. I assume users will be able to play other videos that are the right format (or convert them) as well.
the same person who stated that they couldn't sell them now said that. I really don't remember who.
The firmware might be simply related to playing a video bought from the store. Some DRM thing.
I'm happy! That seems very normal for you.
8) I'll take that as a compliment...
MS can afford to look ahead to the future like no other company can afford to. They make so much profit on OSes and Office, that they literally must throw money away in these ventures.
If 15 years from now, networked gaming has 500 million people playing each month, and each player pays $10 a month, that's $5 billion a MONTH! $60 billion a year. They want very much to control that, as does Sony.
That is not out of line with projections. $10 a month 15 years from now will be like $5 in todays dollars. Not much really.
I agree with you that MS is in it for the long haul, like a giant plodding crocodile sitting in the shallows, but I have a hard time imagining 500 million people paying monthly to play games. You do realize that only 300 mil live in the US right?
I agree with you that MS is in it for the long haul, like a giant plodding crocodile sitting in the shallows, but I have a hard time imagining 500 million people paying monthly to play games. You do realize that only 300 mil live in the US right?
You do realise that we have people from all around the world on this forum?
We will shortly be reaching 8 billion people in the world (13 years from now, in 2020).
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop
I can certainly see 500 million playing in 15 years (2022). That would be less than one sixteenth of the population, less than 6%,at the time.
Eventually, there could very easily be far more than that playing.
After all, there are billions who watch Tv now, and billions who will shortly be on the internet.
Games won't be what they are today at all.
8) I'll take that as a compliment...
Do that!