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Microsoft Backs Out Of Wi-Fi Equipment Market
Glenn Fleishman writes "Say it ain't so! Microsoft makes good consumer Wi-Fi equipment but is exiting the market, News.com reports. They'll sell out their inventory, but won't make new models or produce new product. I can't recall a case in which Microsoft had viable products and decent sales and exited instead of spending more money to compete more effectively. Or even when they had non-viable products (Pocket PC's original OS) and spent years and billions before they had something that worked. Perhaps competition from Cisco (Linksys subsidiary), NetGear, and even Apple (which has a disproportionate marketshare) made MSFT blink."
i liked their routers man! to think that they had a decent product for once ! and now its gone!
Maybe MSFT is reallocating the funds to another portion of their market? Perhaps Longhorn?
Either that or this is the first sign that MSFT is going belly-up. *g*
Doesn't suprise me. Hell freezes over here in Michigan ever year.
Well, now, this is the last thing I ever expected.
;)
I can't recall one instance of Microsoft backing out of a market once it had entered. Even when the competition has a staggeringly huge marketshare and better system in comparison (such as Microsoft Music Store coming soon vs iTunes).
Is this a change in Microsoft? Or are they just trying to focus their resources on monopolizing other markets instead?
Probably the latter
Clearly Microsoft is reeling under the impact of Linux, and is regrouping for a last stand.
perhaps it's a move toward their plans to make harware free*
Sales does not mean profits. Even though the sales of WiFi products more than tripled in 2003, the revenue growth of the market wasn't as good. Which means one thing - together with high demand the prices are falling down dramatically, and by now the WiFi equipment is heavily commoditized and thus outsourced to Chinese/Taiwanese/Indonesian manufacturers, which in the hardware world generally means no one else is expecting to make any money off of it (the same for Ethernet network cards, CD-Rs and other products).
The market will grow (in fact there are 700K WiFi networks right now, and much more are expected), but the margin range is just not there - I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year the WiFi prices hit such a rock bottom, that some manufacturers will in fact lose money.
Apple is doing very nice - 20.2% of the 802.11g market, the first-mover advantage, and leading in revenues, outrunning even Cisco (according to Business Week). But (a) we still have to find out what the profit margins are on Apple WLAN equipment and whether SteveJ got his R&D expenses back by now, and (b) Apple is one company that is uncapable of fighting price wars. Pitch Apple against a Chinese clone factory pushing millions of WiFi access points and networks cards at half the prices, and market share is eroded. Unless Apple finds some way to lock up consumers into buying its products (easy to do with Powerbooks, not so easy with Airport access point buyers), they won't do well either in this market.
I thought there were consumer protection laws that stipulate the availability of service and support for 7 years from the date of the original sale. Isn't two years a fairly short end of life cycle for a consumer electronics product?
Microsoft had no real way to apply "embrace and extend" into the networking world. When it comes down to it, there isn't much different between equal models accross the brands on the consumer networking shelf.
I've even noticed some AT&T-branded networking equipment showing up at CompUSA stores. More or less, that shelf was getting a little too crowded and stores were going to drop the weakest link if Microsoft or some other player didn't gracefully bow out soon.
Perhaps it is because they don't see anything great and revolutionary in Wireless LAN hardware- you obey a spec, the interesting part to the user is the software interface, and Microsoft controls that still.
The other examples (like PDA devices) represent entirely new niches in the market, or (like mice) represent strong branding oppurtunities- if you make a good product that someone handles everyday, that's decent profits and good PR (I'm a Logitech fan myself, even swapped out the MX300's red LED for a violet one).
I'm sure tech analysists and security experts thought of that long before you did. If your assertions were true, I think the case would have been blown wide open. Besides, it would be far too easy to pick up on any traffic reporting via any traffic sniffer.
Um, put it behind a machine you control, like a smoothwall, and monitor it?
How hard is that?
Woot for tinfoil hat, but seriously, who knows what they do with their OS to log your info, and now if you get one of their WiFi dealies...
Help! I'm being repressed!
Call me a tinfoil-hat user if you like. But how do I know they wouldn't be logging info I don't have access to and having it sent to their servers?
Just wondering, who is the official network equipment maker of the tinfoil hat wearers?
"Instead, the plan is to apply the knowledge we have gained in that category to future products and services."
Seems like the don't think their current product offerings aren what they see as being the big picture in the developing market. In the future, Microsoft will be back with new products (or rehashed old ones... which in marketing speak is new) that they think gives them better leverage, market penetration, monopoly power...er...er
Regardless, they'll be back.
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
MS also started Expedia and sold it off when it became popular. Bill Gates said that it originally started as a way to push MSN, and then turned into a travel agency and he had no experience there. He wanted the company to stay in it's core market.
I think that Cisco also doesn't want any competition for it's Linksys brand. They may have pushed MS. Cisco makes a lot of software and this may have been a deal to push some of their software to run on Windows. Vonage runs a system built by Cisco on Sun Microsystems, and this may be a backroom deal for Sun to push their software on the Windows platform.
I went to the store a couple weeks ago looking for a 802.11b card that would work under linux (prism or similar) and was the ms cards. *shudder* Now, I wasn't about to buy one (*shudder* again), but has anyone used one of these under non-windows?
Microsoft does have some decent hardware like the Intellimouse Explorer but for WIFI I'd stick with Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, Inc.
I WILL call you a tinfoil-hat user! What makes you think that only Microsoft would do this to customers (if they even do, which I doubt!) ? Are all other companies exempt from being evil?
Would you really give up a better product because you THINK that MAYBE they might invade your privacy? Besides, wouldn't you think that data being send to Microsoft servers would have been discovered already?
...has always made me look to other manufacturers. I mean, seriously. I'm not trying to be an anti-M$ zealot or anything, but I trust hardware manufacturers who SPECIALIZE in hardware, not software. It'd be like buying a Jello-brand car. Sure, they make great jello, but...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Let's hope the Insightful mod was for the "M$" part, no other part of the comment makes sense in this plane of reality.
MicroSoft couldn't figure out a way to create their own bastardized WiFi++ and force everyone who had Windows to use it... so they got out of the market.
Right now I think they are just putting their products into as many diverse markets as possible (xbox, USB mice, fat-reducing grills) so that should the opportunity to use their dominance of the OS market to take over with their own perverted standard - they'd be ready.
Or, conversely maybe they want to seed evidence that they can produce standards compliant products - and fail. That way, next time the States bring an AntiTrust case, they'll be able to point to a few instances of them not being anticompeditive.
Ryan Kennedy opposes comm
Don't know if anyone remembers these, but there is a precedent for MS releasing hardware and pulling it. They had a 900 mhz. "phone system" that had 2 cordless phones and a computer hub. Sold it for a year, pulled it. They released a speaker system that they pulled within a year or so. And, they have apparently stopped manufacturing SIDEWINDER gaming peripherals (sp?). Might be more. That's off the top of my head.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
I personally would have liked to have seen MS play a little bit harder in the Wireless space. Combined with their Kerberos implementation, we could have seen a commodity EAP-TLS system that worked out of the box. Boom! All of your wireless security concerns gone.
And no....don't talk to me about open-source here. I''ve played around with building an EAP-TLS system with Free Radius and after two days of solid effort it still wasn't working.
A real shame that opportunity has been missed.
Nike, for sneaker nets.
Life is not for the lazy.
"Perhaps competition from Cisco (Linksys subsidiary)...."
If the author means to say that Cisco is a Linksys subsidiary, he is completely wrong. Linksys became a Cisco subsidiary a while ago; it's Cisco's low-end division.
If the author means to refer to Linksys as a subsidiary of Cisco, then that person needs to study English a little bit harder in order to prevent such poor phrasing in the future.
Actually, there is another market Microsoft backed out of recently, game controllers. Microsoft's Sidewinder line of Joysticks and gamepads was actually quite good. Their gamepad was the defacto standard for the PC for quite some time.
Maybe they left the market because it wasn't a boom as they thought it would. I imagine wired networks are still outgrowing the wi-fi ones by a wide margin
did you forget to take your meds?
They're called microsoft, not microhard. Who would want their hardware? /typing on a microsoft natural keyboard.
How ya like dat?
Damn, I guess I'd better sell off my Micro$oft MN-700 802.11g router before everyone else catches this article!
:-)
I know, I know, M$ is the devil (I even use Gentoo Linux as my primary O/S) but I couldn't argue with a $65CND 802.11*G* router. Wanna buy a router?
--Mitchua
And the answer is in...
drum roll
the article!!! Yay for reading the article.
2 years of warranty service and nothing more...
I hope it is not Cisco
Microsoft made a sound card for MS-Win3.1 with voice recognition software. Both the card and the software worked well (I had one) but they dropped it after only a short time.
microsoft abandonned OS market and are planning to sell coconuts overseas instead.
And I happen to own and be satisfied by their MN-700 router. Oh well, keep it until it breaks and then buy something else.
Lots of the 802.11g products that have been manufactured in the last few months 802.11g are able to be firmware upgraded to 802.11i. The big question is if this will be considered "support" from MS. I'm going to be pretty pissed if I am not going to be running AES encryption because MS decided to dump its customers.
And now that I think of it, I believe Microsoft also had a line of PC speakers at one point in time. If memory serves, they were flat, and one of the first speaker products to have a USB connection
And I was looking forward to buying a 802.11 router based on Windows CE that breaks down every 3 hours.
One less market for Microsoft to dominate. We should all be happy.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Perhaps competition from Cisco (Linksys subsidiary), NetGear, and even Apple (which has a disproportionate marketshare) made MSFT blink.
We are talking about the same MS, right?
The same MS who jumped into the game console market with Sony and Nintendo? Who wrote Word and Excel, when the market already had Wordperfect and Lotus? Those guys? The ones who wrote Internet Explorer when Netscape was already on it's third release?
You can say what you like about MS, but don't say competition scares them. They look at an unentered market the same way Peg Bundy looks at a bon-bon. They know that they can intimidate and out-spend anyone on the planet. Even the law can't stop them, because they simply view the fines as a business cost.
A better question to ask would be why. Why would they leave a market, just when they're gaining share? This is what they live for. Move number two in this game is to take revenue from the other near-monopolies and turn this market opening into another monopoly, to fuel the next market they wish to exploit.
It can't be that they view the market as a brick wall. They didn't view the DOJ as a brick wall! I'm supposed to believe that after that, Cisco scares them?
I don't know why they left the market, but believe me...they have a good reason, and it's in everyone's best interest to figure out what it is. Especially the people who make WiFi equipment.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I've never even considered a MSFT wireless product, much less seen one on the shelves. There are shadier products I've looked at.
On which shelves did Fry's keep them?
Eh? Perhaps you're trolling, but seeing as these home routers usually use tiny little ARM cpus with embedded operating systems, they couldn't use IIS even if they wanted to. IIS is certainly not a "small" web server, nothing I'd want to put on a router. They probably hand code their own web server, or use whatever came with their embedded os.
-twb
If the author means to refer to Linksys as a subsidiary of Cisco, then that person needs to study English a little bit harder in order to prevent such poor phrasing in the future.
Microsoft often introduces hardware products to "seed the market". The Sidewinder Joystick was the first to include "force feedback" which was supported by MSFT games. Now there are plenty available from other manufacturers, so MSFT has killed the product line. I have a MSFT USB speaker system which was early to enter the market and early to leave.
Home networking products were introduced to jumpstart that market. Now there is plenty of good hardware available so its time to move on.
There you have it folks. It's official on Slashdot.
Being cautious = idiot.
It looks like you're trying to trying to configure your wireless router!
Would you like to:
i work at frys electronics in san diego, ;) we still have 2 pallets of discontinued microsoft wireless products that have yet to be sold despite agressive marketing throughout the store.
and NO one ever bought into their wireless takeover scheme
They are naturally pulling out of this market because they were among the few remaining suppliers that still sold Prism2 cards which were usable in Linux. The other suppliers like D-Link and SMC had much better soloutions in place for delivering windows only hardware and changing chipsets from time to time to discourage reverse engineering. :->
--
They're primarily a software company after all.
The only thing I can figure is they enter hardware markets that will help them sell more software.
I can understand this for Xbox (break into the gaming market with loss-leader hardware, but eventually sell lots of lucrative game titles).
WiFi APs though? How was this going to help them sell windoze (or any other software)?
I was in FutureShop (.ca) this evening to spend a well deserved gift certificate. While browsing, I almost bumped into a MS WiFi equipment display. "Cool, since when does MS make WiFi stuff?" I asked myself.
I'm sure they were using me to know if they should stay or not in the WiFi business. Since I only found out about it today, they decided to pull the plug.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
so they're getting out early.
Cisco (Linksys subsidiary)
I think you've got that backwards. Cisco owns Linksys.
Unless I'm on crack. Not trying to harp on something stupid.
Who would want their hardware? /typing on a microsoft natural keyboard.
Actually , the MS natural keyboard was pretty good and their joystick was really awesome.
After careful evaluation, the Microsoft hardware group has decided to scale back its broadband hardware and networking business," a representative said. "Instead, the plan is to apply the knowledge we have gained in that category to future products and services."
Translation: After offering a product based on actual standards, which offer us no way to develop a strangle hold on consumers, we've decided to drop this product in order to devote more time coming up with a proprietary solution...
Yeah, all of your wireless security concerns gone. Real fucking smart.
Have you finished patching from Sasser yet? Can you imagine having to upgrade your firmware every week for the latest MS security hole?
I was a beta tester for the first round Microsoft Broadband Networking software & hardware. The networking software is very good, especially for home users who are new to networking. I have 2 laptops and 3 desktops wired with Microsoft wireless networking cards & networking cable. It was only when I got the base station and cards (beta) from Microsoft that I set up a "complete" network at home to replace my two desktop peer to peer network.
I guess I don't mind either way... I just won't be getting any more free MS hardware. I may now have a chance to check out "the competition."
And how long before you pay her back now that you're (lucky to be) earning $9 per hour on Windows techsupport at Raj's PC Barn?
What about the Actimates animatronic dolls? There were dolls in the shape of Barney the Dinosaur, Arthur, and the Teletubbies. When placed in front of a specially encoded computer game of VCR tape, the dolls would respond to parts of the on screen action.
This is the sole reason I choose not to buy it. Why fund a company that will screw me over. I wouldn't be surprise if even many of the non /. type of people felt this way as well.
* Pats IBM keyboard and logitech optical mouse
_Eighteen_months_ from now a lawsuit will be filed by _a_networking_manufacturer_ claiming that Microsoft violated a private, previously undisclosed agreement to exit the _Wi-Fi_hardware_ market if this company would _(pick_from_list_below_)_
- end support for MS competitors
- allow MS exclusive license this company's new technology
- provide legal support in a Microsoft trial or contract dispute
In the light of Microsoft's business tactics since the agreement, this company now regrets the contract and believes that Microsoft _violated_the_spirit_of_the_agreement_.So thats it! Microsoft apparently is in the wrong business - they're really a great hardware company making lousy software!
Add to this that there's a chance of a moderate-to-severe cash crunch for Microsoft sometime between now and when Longhorn finally (if ever) does come out, current cash on-hand notwithstanding. There's also some of uncertainty about whether demand will be there when it does finally arrive.
but with nothing following that leader ;)
;)) AP for $19.99 after (multiple, annoying) rebates.
;)
... someone still has my own Netgear, and she's unlikely to give it back I guess), usually paying $50 or less.
;)
Case in point: I saw today linked from Techbargains (too late to order, they were sold out) a combo package of Netgear 802.11 card and Netgear ("cisco"
Still, if they hadn't been out of stock, I would have gone for this deal. I keep finding people without wireless, and that's annoying when I'm looking for places from which to connect
The competition is such that I've bought APs, in some cases to give them away (or end up giving them away unintentionally
Which is a less technical way to say "me too!"
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
In fact, the documentation for this base station does not mention that WEP is enabled by default, and instead gives instructions for enabling WEP, and talks about the benefits of enabling WEP. For example (from page 13 of MN500_Base_Station_Configuration_Guide.pdf):
In any case, on my MN-500, I had to enable WEP, it didn't ship enabled. I don't know which Microsoft base station y'all bought. Do the other ones ship with WEP enabled?
I don't know what they sales were like compared to the DirecTV Tivo units, but perhaps UltimateTV is such a case?
I have one, and it is at least as viable as Tivo. They were behind on some features originally (e.g., nothing like "season pass"), but had dual tuner support first, and picture-in-picture. They updated the firmware a couple years ago to add all the good missing features, and it remains overall a better PVR than Tivo for DirecTV users.
I would like to just mention that I have had the same 802.11b PCMCIA card and access point for almost three years now, but on a recent business trip, it got broken.
Several trips to a SuperJumboElectroMegaHut (or a Best Buy, I can't remember which) later, the only 802.11 card that would work "out of the box" with my Linux laptop was a Microsoft MN-520. All the others on the shelf used one of the either not supported or barely supported 802.11g chipsets.
For various job-related reasons using non-standard kernel patches wasn't an option for me, so the few other supported cards were out.
It is getting harder and harder to find wireless cards that work well with the stock kernel (or the Fedora/RedHat kernel, which, of course, can't really be considered a stock kernel).
So I'm sorry to see Microsoft leave this market because they were the best provider of Linux-friendly Wi-Fi cards. Ironic, innit?
I hope this goes beyond just wireless. I needed to extend our network to serve two new employees, and had decided to use a Mictosoft switch tosolve my problem.
I plugged the thing in, and things worked.... when the phase of the moon was right. Having the switch plugged in actually caused problems with devices on our main switch, resulting in 60% packet loss in network... even between devices not on the MS switch.
A Netgear switch was cheaper and worked better to solve the problem. As soon as I swapped them, the network worked flawlessly again.
Microsoft: please stay out of sectors that are not your core business (hardware, media, etc) and stick with what you're good at (writing shitty code)
*ducks*
It ain't so. Microsoft makes crappy WiFi equipment. It's totally non-configurable, you get to change maybe 3 settings. Compare against Linksys where you can change most anything. (yeah, yeah, GPL issues, we know). My personal favorite in the WiFi market is D-link. My DWL-900AP has been going strong for 3 years now, and is completely manageable via SNMP in any OS. I even was able to write a DHCP-auto-registration script for my router (running Linux) so users can open a web browser, get redirected to a registration page, and register, and get added to the MAC address ACL on the AP and be online. Try doing that with an Microsoft AP. (Disclaimer: I have not actually tried doing that with a Microsoft AP)
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Can I buy some of that pot from you?
Sorry but I am not familiar enough with the game console market to comment.
Word and Excel were written by MS to sell Windows. At the time of their release there were NO other competing products that were native Windows applications. When Windows 3.0 was released, WordPerfect and Lotus both were DOS applications that ran in a DOS box and lacked the Windows eye candy.
At the time of its release, Windows 3.0 was not the hot seller that MS had predicted (remember, DOS was required, Windows was an add-on). By producing a slick looking word precessor and spread sheet application, MS hoped to boost slow Windows sales. It worked.
Your Cisco comment makes little sense. Cisco and Microsoft compete in two totally different arenas. While IOS is a pretty good router OS, it most likely will not appear on many x86 desktops. Nor will it become the de-rigeur (sp?) server OS. On the other hand, I really don't see a Lognhorn version for a 12K on the horizon.
MS's leaving the WiFi market is simple. They realized other solutions are far too entrenched in the corporate world. The home targeted WiFi products that MS sold were most likely a trial balloon floated to determine the viablity of an assault on network infrastructure products. It didn't work so they pulled the product. All other things aside, Microsoft understands PROFIT.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
Microsoft's wireless 802.11b products were awful. They worked great if you only had Microsoft wireless products 802.11b, but once you introduced any other brand or 802.11g products into the mix, nothing would work.
Don't know about their 802.11g devices, but I stopped recommending Microsoft to my customers after I got feedback from the 802.11b products.
Ok, set and off we go:
;)
Microsoft is entering the entertainment market. Pushing WMV9 as the new video standard, opening its own music store, acquiring numerous statewide cable network providers and trying to open the market for PCs and X-Boxen as the sole "Media Center" in the living rooms of everyone. In short: gain notable market share in distribution and licensing entertainment products, mostly benefitting from "software" revenues via licenses and controlled DRManaged downloads.
Is it possible that Microsoft would hurt itself by selling WiFi-Products? After all, they can and will be used to share entertainment files rather anonymously. They could even be used for the grassroots movement building a kind of wireless fido-net - totally to the contrary of what Microsoft would like to reach: monopolization of the entertainment and audio/video distribution market. A one-to-many market would be the extension of the classic MS business model into another branch. Wireless LAN could seriously hurt that if widely established with enough privacy measures.
That's why they stopped selling it. Sony faced a similar dilemma with MP3/MD players on one side and its media branch, the film studio and recording company on the other.
Why sell a product that cuts deep in your revenues once enough people have one? The usefulness of an access point benefits from a network effect similar to fax machines and instant messengers. Once there are many of them, the numbers will skyrocket. But you can't earn much if the Chinese enter the market, while a centralized control on the internet and entertainment market will vanish.
Enough of a rant, but someone had to point that out, sorry
Microsoft had no real way to apply "embrace and extend" into the networking world.
I sure wish I had another mod point to give you.
When I first read this article on the Slashdot front page, that was the first thing that jumped into my mind... that they're ditching commodity wifi because they can't find a way to proprietarize it and take it over.
while I agree on this for the most part, the Bluetooth Keyboard/Mouse Combo just plain sucks. The Mouse never goes into standby, so it's a big drain on batteries. Then 75% of the time, if the batteries die while the computer is off, you have to reinstall - which is very cumbersome.
you have to break out the good old wired versions to do this. They don't even offer a patch to fix this, just suggest a reinstall and or relocation of the bluetooth devices. Now why the hell do I want to reinstall every couple of weeks or so.
that's rilly the question
...took me a few seconds to figure out the parenthetical stuff was in RPN.
I still have my almost 5 year old SideWinder 3D Pro.... it is simply the most perfect feeling joystick I've ever used although many people I know prefer logitech...
Sure, you could buy a Saab Viggen, or you could buy a Saab Viggen.
Or maybe a Kawasaki motorcycle, or a Kawasaki satellite.
How about a Countach, or a tractor
Even software or hardware
Or the other guys
Lots of companies diversify. MS is plenty big enough to both if they choose.
The margins on the consumer networking margin have got to be slim, considering so many entrants. Microsoft's entry wasn't particularly low cost to make, as they used slicker packaging and such than even Linksys.
It's to bad, though. I have mostly Linksys gear, but I have a Microsoft PCI 801.11g card and it works pretty well and the software was considerably easier to install and configure than my Linksys PCMCIA 801.11g card. I've been told their router was also this way. The linksys router config page, while powerful, is convoluted and I spend a lot of time helping others to set it up.
You decide!
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
I know nothing of Linksys routers, but where I work their switches die early. I've been cycling them out with blue Netgears and they've been great.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You're obviously not a networking guru, as anybody who's worth anything knows that Linksys in a subsidiary of Cisco, not vise versa.
Microsoft makes good consumer Wi-Fi equipment but is exiting the market...
It was my understanding that their appliances were very easy to configure, but the performance is poor and the feature set is wanting. Still, I suppose this is somewhat disappointing since there is a need for easy-to-use gateways. Many users looking for uncomplicated solutions will probably turn to Linksys products instead, which are arguably worse.
Perhaps competition from Cisco (Linksys subsidiary),...
Your sentence reads as if you think Cisco is a subsidiary of Linksys. I am quite sure you meant it the other way or I am misreading your sentence.
Their keyboards and mice are, of course, made by Logitech. They are simply branded as Microsoft
Microsoft Keyboards are supplied by Keytronic. The mice are manufactured by Flextronics.
Logitech considers Microsoft their number one competitor in keyboards and mice.
I have tried quite a number of 802.11 base stations and receivers and found M$'s to have by far the strongest most reliable signal, to be the easiest to setup and manage, and to encompass all the important features a wireless system should have without being overly complicated or buggy. Oh, and how can I forget, their tech support for these products is light years ahead of most of the other wireless vendors.
I am really bummed to hear this news, but when microsoft never released any firmware updates for their 802.11b line of products for over a year (actually they did end up releasing one update I believe for the base station, however it was not available through the update feature included in the wireless software) and especially when they began releasing support for WPA in their OS but never released any upgrades to allow their existing wireless products to take advantage of WPA, I started to guess that they were not too serious about competing in this market.
ôó
Three WiFiMaps.com laptop stickers go to the uploader of the most Microsoft-brand MAC addresses durring the worldwidewardrive. Upload your wardriving results to WiFiMaps.com.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
They are doing what they assume the competition
should do when a niche market is ruled by a
dominant vendor: cut losses and drop out.
Perhaps Microsoft is bailing on all hardware items. I remember reading an article in Wired a few months back about guys growing diamonds which could be used to replace silicon in hardware, leading to a much higher heat threshold...maybe someone at the top thinks that hardware is going to go through such a revolution that it's not worth doing any more research on silicon-based products. Or maybe Bill Gates' kids needed a school economics project and he let them run with a product line for a year.
Many of the MS routers I bought for clients had to go back to the store for bad Ethernet ports.
Well, if you guys think Logitech keyboards are any better (and generally they're worse to be honest), you don't know keyboards.
/. about a truly minimalist keyboard suitable for Unix folks: can anybody point me in the right direction, please?
Sorry, this is OT, but I remember reading on
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Because any loss by Micro$oft is a win for OPEN SOURCE!!!!
I am whacking off over this right now.
I'VE GOT A MACROHARD FOR MICROSOFT!
It seems to me MS had (and still have) a lot riding on the success of wireless and it was in their best interest to invest as much as it took to ensure 802.11 found it's way into as many homes as possible to ensure it became the defacto standard. Now that the momentum is there there is no need for them to continue to drive such a low margin market. Instead you'll see a focus on convergence (MCE set top boxes, etc). I think that WiFi hardware was phase 1 of what I hope will prove to be a revolution where software ends up being the real story.
Damn! And here I thought that Microsoft actually refers to the size and the state of Gates' dick.
I suspect MS Minions are working hard here on /. today.
Microsoft is not in the hardware business. If they make hardware, it is to sell more software.
PocketPC and Tablets are a prime examples. They created the hardware platform so they could market software. I feel that their shortlived entry with sidewinder was to not only set a standard, but also to get other venders desiging hardware that takes advantage of Direct3D. Now that hardware supports it, more game developers will also suport it. It is the chicken and the egg story, but with microsoft making the rules. they tell the hardware that the software supports it and they tell the software that the hardware supports it. Then they show examples of sidewinder and Direct3D, it is so, thus said Microsoft.
I think their entry into home networking was a strategic push to get the quality and usibility up while pushing home networking as a feature of XP. and maybe, just maybe, I realy have no idea what I am talking about, but thought it sounded insightful for the karma.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
my netpassage 26G delivers config pasges with a .ASP extension - i'm very curious about its OS. it runs really hot, which makes me suspect it uses a powerful CPU - the kind you'd need to run IIS in an embedded device.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
they make games, OS, hardware , more software, joysticks, etc ....
Never underestimate the logical power of sarcasm
Sad thing was, the only thing my smart-ass could think of reading half of these comments are those "old" Apple "Switch" commercials? Are they too old to even get a good joke in here somewhere?
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
I agree to that - Linksys routers are equiped with a very weak cpu and very little cache.
Hosting a game server on my 768 ADSL line and the router dropped connections as fast as new ones opened... it was a nightmare.
Replaced it with an MR814 with a 50Mhz RISC processor and 8Mbit of cache - running stong ever since.
And all the auto-x ethernet jacks are just sexy!
I know it might be nice to think that competition makes MS panic, but if you look at thier history, it's quite the opposite. They deal very well with competition: they crush it. That is the goal of every large successful bussiness. You want to get to the point where you are the only game in town. Usually you can't do that, but you try all the same.
MS historicly does NOT back off, panic, or anything like that when faced with competiton. They just turn up the heat by any means they can, including some that aren't legal (hence the whole case against them). That isn't panicing, it's strategic response. When they see a market they want to be in, they get in it and usually don't quit until they are on top.
Browsers are an excellant example. It doesn't matter how they got in, people love to crow on about how they buy their way in. Yep, they do, that's how a lot of companies do it. See a good product in a market yo want to be in? Buy it. However once there, they just kept fighting and fighting with low (zero in this case) price and continuing improved versions. It worked too.
People seem to think that companies are supposed to like competition and if they try and destroy their competitors it means they are "scared" or "panicing". Not at all. CONSUMERS like competition, and it is important to a capatalism that we have it. Companies, however, do not. When someone competes with them, they compete back and try to drive the other person out of business. Both Intel and AMD are trying as hard as they can to drive the other out of the game. They aren't happily sitting and saying "ok, you take half and I take half". Hell no, they both want to have ALL the market and not have to worry about the other one.
MS is just really successful in this regard. It is partially their huge financial reserves and partially their corperate strategy. They DON'T get scared, they DON'T panic, they just keep fighting until the competition is gone.
My understanding was that the MS Wireless stuff was aimed mostly at validating Windows CE. Here are a few additional ideas about what Microsoft got out of their foray into the Wireless domain:
1. They found out what it was like to try to take a Windows CE product from design to market. This is very useful in identifying areas for improvement. Customers can complain and make feature requests, but there is nothing like making your dev team actually use the product. The WiFi program prompted a lot of improvements throughout the CE product line.
2. They showed potential customers of the CE OS that CE actually CAN work in a consumer system.
3. They influenced the direction of the Wireless market.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Not sure about the network hardware vendor but the official software vendor would have to be These Guys.
Don't tell anyone.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
You probably are going to have a real problem in life. I bet you use General Electric products, regardless of if you know it or not, and it's just hard to avoid. Why, because they do EVERYTHING.
In the consumer world they make products including but not limited to: Lights, appliances, phones, DVD players, security systems, thermostats, and air conditioners.
However that isn't even the half of their business. They also make industrial things like jet engines (civilian and military), power generators, and CT scanners.
Then there is their finincial services division, the largest in the world, which provides everything including direct health insurance.
Top top it all off, they own NBC.
Thing is, almost everything they do, they do well. GE jet engines don't suck just because they also happen to sell health insurance. They are a diverse company, and it works fine.
Results of Search in PGPUB Production Database for:
P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv. html&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PG01&OS=microsoft+AND+wireless &RS=microsoft+AND+wireless&TD=8601&Srch1=microsoft &Srch2=wireless&Conj1=AND&StartNum=&Refine=Refine+ Search&Query=microsoft+AND+WLAN
P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=microsoft&FIELD1=&co1 =AND&TERM2=wireless&FIELD2=&d=PG01
microsoft AND WLAN: 121 applications.
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
Also:
Results of Search in PGPUB Production Database for:
microsoft AND wireless: 8601 applications.
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
While it may often be easy to setup Wi-Fi hardware, security certainly is lacking.
I bought a 802.11b router from MS. Therouter requires SSID broadcasting to be always enabled in order to work (MS has indicated it is a *feature*), and can be hacked through a backdoor using the Modem Port (another *feature* and only way to reconfigure the router when in bridge mode -- go figure).
In addition, users are also recommended to turn off their firewalls otherwise the product simply doesn't install.
Jesus Mary. A little biased aren't we?
What has Microsoft ever done to you?
Quit being such a whiny little bitch, go cry in your Mandrake 10 Community installation and eat a dick.
I mean seriously. No one makes you buy their products. No one makes you read their press releases. You can go your entire computing life without being Microsofted. You can use the alternatives, you can buy different brands. You can use Wine for Windows programs. Really. Grow the fuck up and stop acting out to be cool.
No one cares. Microsoft is a software conglomerate. Whoop-de-doo. Linux is where all of the support and the heart of the computer world lies. So can we move on?
I know that you and MS had a bad breakup, I know he hurt you bad, you've burnt his photographs, you threw out his clothes, and you egged his house...but it still hurts doesn't it? So you have to run his name through the muck as well. You went crying to a linux distribution because your friend told you that you'd be hardcore, right? I know I'm right.
Grow up, get over Microsoft, and find a meaning for your life.
*YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO THAN TRAVERSE THE INTERNET BASHING A SOFTWARE COMPANY.*
Seriously. Get a hobby. Learn to crochet, play badminton, learn to code in C++, I don't know what it is that you people do.
And in the wireless market they are close to nil. Let's face it: Microsoft can charge $50 for a mouse and enjoy fairly good sales, but the public expects 802.11b/g wireless routers to go for around $60. The Belkins and other low-cost manufacturers pushed Microsoft out.
You forget that Microsoft is a publicly traded companies. So they are managed by bean counters. Because WiFi equipment is extremely competitive (keeping price down) they cant stay competitive with the other guys who are making the products that are going down in price to the sub $100 category. And keep a high profit ratio. The accountants at Microsoft don't care how well the product works just check to see how many are how much they cost to make (beyond just the parts), how much they sell it for and the percentage of profit they make. So even though they are making a profit selling the products it is not as high as the investors want so they stop the product line. The reason the Mice, Keyboard, Joysticks often sell better because the %s are better. Heck how much does it cost to make a mouse. Including labor $10 and you sell it for $20 They make a 100% profit. Or a keyboard which probably cost $12 to make and they sell it for $80. Those are pretty good ratios. now WiFi equipment is a bit more complicated then a mouse or keyboard. So they could cost $50 to make and they sell it at $75. So the profit ratios is way less plus they are not selling a ton of them like mice and keyboards, Plus the fact that wifi equipment you hide in a little spot in your house it doesn't have much of an advertising value like a mouse or keyboard would were everyone sees it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's a lot easier than trying to reinvent the wheel.
...whodathunkit.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
While MS still is doing well, it had to deflate future expectations in earnings. Despite the fact it has over $50 B in the bank, it just may be the time when they need to scale back to have earnings remain in the high expectation range.
They are naturally pulling out of this market because they were among the few remaining suppliers that still sold Prism2 cards which were usable in Linux. The other suppliers like D-Link and SMC had much better soloutions in place for delivering windows only hardware and changing chipsets from time to time to discourage reverse engineering.
...you're saying Microsoft don't know how to extend and embrace? If anything, they realized the market would embrace and extend itself and said "Cool. Let them!"
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
...Mac OS 9 and Apple's first 802.11b gateway. Before flaming, at least read my anecdote...
In Spring 2001 I bought a 1st gen G4 Powerbook and a 1st gen 802.11 Gateway from Apple. After tinkering with my Powerbook for a couple of days, I took the Gateway out of the box and plugged it in. I reached for the manual to see what to do next, when an alert popped up on my Powerbook screen: "A new Airport Basestation has been detected. Would you like to set it up?"
Cool: my Powerbook was already talking to my Gateway. I pressed "OK". A new alert popped up: "This computer is already connected to the internet. Would you like to use this computer's settings for the Airport Basestation?"
Why, yes! I would! I pressed "OK". A third alert popped up: "Please disconnect this computer from the internet, and connect the Base Station." I did, and pressed OK. "Updating Airport Basestation. Please Wait." A progress bar ticked off 5 seconds. Then, a fourth alert: "You are now connected to the internet." For the fourth time, I pressed OK.
And it worked...
I'm paraphrasing the alert text. Had I known it was going to set the bar for ease-of-use, I would have taken screenshots along the way. Interestingly, even OS X would not do this with the 802.11g Basestation I bought from Apple one year ago.
Seems to me that with the world beyond 802.11g looking a bit fragmented, the Wi-Fi standards aren't as settled as everyone is saying. Now would be a perfect time to "embrace and extend" the standards, and bend Wi-fi one way or another - if Microsoft wanted to. The only thing is it would cause more trouble than it was worth - causing potential trouble with the authorities, and partners. Here's my opinion on why they dropped Wi-fi hardware. Peter Judge
I don't care much what Linux distro you like the patches and updates to any of them are ten times the size of all current updates offered online to every Microsoft OS ever made.
Install any linux distro, wait 6 months, then download 300 Gig of patches. They ain't even patches, you have to download the entire application and install it.
I don't care, pick your poison, (err, I mean preference) Microsoft or Linux, but this argument is getting old. Linux distros lost this battle long ago.
The most perfect feeling joystick I've ever used is in my other hand right now. But each to his own!
I'd just like to say that it's about the best card you could want. Out of the three cards I tried, it was the only one that worked just by plugging it into my laptop (which runs Mandrake). It also consistantly picks up networks that others' cards can't. I imagine it works reasonably well under winduhs to, but I've never tried.
My only complaint is the lack of an external antenna jack. Still, I think M$, like many other vendors, switched to the non Linux-supported TI chipset. So nuts to them.