Comments on: Microsoft readies smartphone assault on Apple
Company is about to announce a new operating system, application store, and file backup service to help it compete with Apple's iPhone, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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(hey, we can all dream, right?)
Excellent comeback! Quite insightful and enlightening in regards to your ability to discuss things in a mature and polite manner too. Please do continue to demonstrate your communications skills in such an entertaining and whimsical manner. :)
You're a day late, and a dollar short - AGAIN.
You don't innovate. Innovate - or die.
Go home.
Most of these stupid Mac vs Windows comments accomplish nothing besides make arrogant, and apparently immature, Mac users feel good about themselves. The fact is nobody ever got convinced to switch operating systems based on the non-sensical rhetoric posted by over-zealous Apple users. You're either 9 years old or a complete idiot if it did.
Unfortunately, it only takes a few people to ruin the reputation of the rest. It is the actions and comments of people such as this that tend to make the phrase 'Mac fanboy' into a derogatory and insulting term. There really was a time when people could proudly claim to be a Mac fanboy, but now with this sort of person, it becomes a mark of shame where people would rather not admit that they use a Mac at all for fear they will be tossed into the same stereotype.
It doesn't matter what OS you use. People use what works for them. Chastising them for making that choice makes no sense at all to me.
Disclosure: I current use and support Mac, Windows, SGI IRIX, Linux, and Sun systems. And you know what? They all suck at some things and do great at others. Use what works for the task at hand.
Also note that the majority of apps are free and do not generate any revenue at all. That doesn't help sales or the bottom line. It's something all the players will have to deal with.
However, if MS or Google or Nokia or Palm or RIM had anything remotely near these numbers for their attempts at mobile online app stores, you can bet they would be crowing them far and wide.
BTW the download rate for the App store is on a steeper trajectory than the original iTunes store. now that is amazing.
So many things are expected of OS's these days. They've become these highly complex contraptions with so many moving parts. It's hard enough trying to make it work smoothly for a single machine configuration, just imagine trying to make an OS work for multiple configurations. That's what Microsoft is hoping to do.
It's just pretty much impossible to do it now without an expensive army of programmers and without ending up with buggy, multi-patched, bloaty software. As complexity increases, the cost of managing it rises exponentially. It's as simple as the number of permutations you can generate from a set as the size of the set increases.
That's not all. On top of that basic problem of complexity, Microsoft is operating at cross purposes with it's client PC and phone manufacturers. Microsoft wants the PC's and phones to be is a generic as possible to ease the complexity problem but the PC and phone manufacturers of course do not want to be seen as selling boring, commoditized products so each one wants their product to be as unique as possible. So don't wonder why Windows and Windows Mobile are buggy, bloated and painful to use. And why it takes Microsoft so long to roll out updates/
Apple understands the problem of complexity. That's why they will never license OS-X and are limiting the number of phone and computer models they offer . Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft is doomed.
It's a good shot but they haven't nailed it yet.
Apple also has the advantage of only having a small product range. It can focus. If Microsoft if the Ford Motor Co., pumping out affordable and usuable products for the masses, then Apple is Porsche, making expensive but near-perfect incrementations of its previous successes. Both have their place, and neither is 'the best' all round.
Personally, I think MS (who were in the mobile market way before Apple - I'm thinking HP iPAQ) need to learn from the obsession with detail and the philosophy of perfectionism that makes Apple products such icons for human-technology interaction.
MS also need to ditch the nasty legacy of a stylus and its influence on the UI and up the minimum hardware requirements to prevent being embarassed. Using my HTC can be like wading through treacle.
Those people who mistake Windows' market share as a sign of product excellence are mistaken. Windows' dominance is a sign of Bill Gates' shrewd monopolist instincts which he clearly demonstrated when he wrested the PC OS monopoly from IBM's clutches twentysome years ago. Without the initial IBM PC monopoly, MS-DOS would have just been an also ran and would probably have died an obscure, unheralded death.
Please, pull your head out and get over yourself. If a tired old argument about Monopolies is all you have then you have nothing. You toss around the word "Monopoly" like you actually know what it means. Back in the 80's there were plenty of choices. Nobody ever held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to use Windows. Everyone graduating to the same choice is an inevitable part of business and is in fact what most businesses strive for. Microsoft gaining a "Monopoly" in operating systems is legitimate no matter how you try to argue it. What they did with that position, such as the inclusion of IE, is what got them into trouble. Even your beloved Apple Inc. is having to face these issues now as they are under scutiny for doing much of the same things with iTunes. (If you think Apple isn't trying to monopolise the phone or MP3 player market then you're delusional)
If you want me to be pedantic then I'll use 'dominant firm' instead of 'monopolist'. You don't want to get into an argument with me about Industrial Organization.
I never said Microsoft's OS dominance was illegal or illegitimate. You just made that up out of whole cloth all by your lonesome. What I said is that it is not a sign of product excellence. Back in the 70's, pre-IBM PC, there were a lot of hopeful personal computer manufacturers but none of them were mature, established companies that corporate America would trust. It took mighty IBM for corporations to finally take the plunge and deploy PCs en masse. Ever heard of the expression "nobody got fired for recommending IBM"?
So the original PC monopoly (oh, dominant firm, excuse me) was IBM. Not Microsoft, IBM. But Bill Gates was either very lucky or very wise. He did not give IBM exclusive rights to MS-DOS (and its successors). This allowed him to sell DOS to clone makers who eventually overwhelmed IBM thus allowing MS to wrest control of the personal computer industry. Oh yes, IBM realized their mistake and tried to fix it with OS2 but it was too late. And besides they were codeveloping OS2 with MS-- talk about revealing your corporate strategy to your competitor! So no mistake about it --without the initial IBM monopoly to piggyback on, MS would be nowhere near what it is today.
Of course Apple wants to monopolize the smart phone and digital player industry. All firms, if they are truly profit-maximizing will want to be monopolists in their industry. The difference is some firms try to dominate their market by building a better widget than their competitors. Others do it by offering a "good enough" product then relying on a combination of shrewd and coercive contracting with their suppliers and primary customers. I'm not sure what kind of dominant firm Apple is but Microsoft is certainly the latter kind. It's contract with IBM for MS-DOS was shrewd. But it's contracts with Compaq, HP, and other clone makers were coercive. [You pay for Windows based on the number of PC's you ship regardless of whether Windows is loaded in them. And don't you dare preload our competitor's software!]
Having schooled you in the finer points of the economics of monopolistic behavior, I suppose it's not me but you who needs to pull your head out of whatever orifice you've stuck it in.
Apple will embrace and use open source technologies (non GPLP ones) while Microsoft will try to reinvent the wheel and create something buggy and be way to late to the market....
A software company with the not invented here disease is doomed nowadays ... Open Source is the inflection point that Microsoft did not know how to react...
Microsoft still could react and maybe make ZFS the file system for windows instead of developing their own buggy garbage ....
Implying that the ZFS file system doesn't have it's own share of bugs and limitations only makes your statement a joke.
Zvonr said Apple does not suffer from "not invented here" disease and will "embrace and use open source technologies". Now how could you take that to mean that he suffers "from the delusion that Apple actually invented much of the technology behind all the products they ship"? What he said was the complete opposite of what you claim he means!
Users to MS: What? did you say "use an iPhone?" :)
I guess MS couldn't come up with a more original name, MyPhone = iPhone.
Thanks MS for reminding us who your main competition is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRKIDdIaFyE
Microsoft has innovated on several fronts, and contributed to several fields. The reason that most of you don't know about this is because a lot of those technologies weren't aimed at the consumer. Apple is a consumer oriented company, while Microsoft stretches across the board.
Sure, Microsoft has created a monopoly, and has leveraged that monopoly to marginalize their competitors. How can you blame Microsoft when you support the monetary system where corruption isn't some by product, but the foundation of this capitalistic world that we live in. Competition is the nature of business, and while I don't support the monetary system, I don't blame Microsoft for exploiting the system.
Ironically, I'm a huge fan of Open Source, but Microsoft does have better stuff.
- by kehrer February 9, 2009 1:30 PM PST
- I'm sure Apple is running scared after that brutal "assault" the iPod suffered at the hands of Zune. Oh!, not to mention the bloody beating Vista is delivering to Mac OS X. Oh! and we shouldn't ignore the colossal roadblock that all the Windows DRM stuff has been to Apple's music and movie strategy.
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- by viper396 February 9, 2009 5:55 PM PST
- "Has MS even had a single successful product in the last 10 years? - I can't identify any. "
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Showing 2 of 3 pages (142 Comments)Wow! this new Microsoft initiative may be the straw that breaks Apple's back.
Has MS even had a single successful product in the last 10 years? - I can't identify any.
Apparently you are either completely blind or lack the honesty to admit it. Windows own 90% of the Desktop market, Xbox 360, Office, the list goes on. Apparently these are failures in your eyes. Given the market dominace of these "failures" I'm certain many companies, even Apple, would love to also "fail" as Microsoft has.
Comment about Vista all you want but the fact is there are still more Vista users then Mac OSX users, ever. It's certainly not bad to have a "failed" product that still outsells it's competition. Heck, Vista's only real competition has been Windows XP. When the only real competition to your product is the previous version of your product, that's really not a bad thing. I'm certain Apple would have loved to have that problem.