Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
...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.
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 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?
I know of no such law. Once your warranty is up, you're at the vendor's mercy for what kind of support, if any, is going to be available to you.
This is more or less what always happens when a vendor discontinues a product line... you've got an orphan product that you might as well toss when it breaks.
Then again, what's the point of servicing a broken $50 router... most flaws that would cause it to stop working usually are more expensive to fix than the thing's worth.
Apple doesn't need to worry about all that shit.
They just need to put out a product that works 100% Out-of-the-box with a Mac and it will outsell the clones, at least among the Apple market.
The clones will sell more in total, but the clones are going into the hands of the 90% of the market that isn't Apple users.
Apple tries to keep itself on the leading edge, which allows them to attach a higher price to recoup R&D. USB, Firewire, 802.11b and now 802.11g were all available on the Mac before the major PC OEM's offered them. As these products grow in market share and shrink in revenue, Apple will find something new to break into.
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
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 think they've found a way with their high end base stations. The more expensive Airports have external antenna connectors, USB ports, and built-in modems.
There's very few other WiFi manufacturers chasing the dial-up crowd even though there's millions of them all over the place. For many the prospect of paying $30+ for internet access isn't too appealing when their $10 v.90 dial-up access suits them just fine. The modems other use is pretty sweet, the AP Extreme base stations can act as dial-in servers. You can dial into the base station and be on your network with all of your other systems.
All of the APs support USB printer sharing on the network which is typically a $100 device all by itself. There's also quite a few situations where external antenna jacks are a requirement for a WiFi base station. APs with external antenna jacks are rarely found in the $50 WiFi bargain bin.
Like their computers Apple's Airport base stations are more featureful products sold at a premium. Compared to cheapo base stations sold at Wal*Mart they aren't terribly good deals. Compared to other devices of the same functionality they're really competitive. I don't think they really need to do much to lock customers into their products, just offer the functionality that they want or need. It isn't so much about fighting price wars, just an unwillingness to cut out functionality to increase market share. Why compete with the Chinese clone maker cranking out millions of limited functionality base stations when they can keep selling more functional devices to the market that wants them?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I have tried quite a number of 802.11 base stations and receivers and found M$'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
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.