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iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus
bblazer writes "Wired is running an article about how despite the displeasure of management, the iPod is the most popular music player on the Microsoft campus. The article states that 80% of those who have digital music players have an iPod. Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it."
Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it.
Could be, or maybe they just don't want to get mugged. White iPod headphone do a great job of saying "I've got an expensive, easy to steal piece of electronics on me."
Also, iPod headphones suck. after half an hour my ears started hurting with the old ones.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Good god, this old chestnut again.
Microsoft bought a small amount of non-voting stock in Apple some time ago as part of a deal that kept IE and Office on the Mac platform.
Microsoft has long since sold those shares, at a fair profit I might add.
Microsoft doesn't own any part of Apple at present.
Two words... Battery Life
Most PDAs I've used just don't have the battery life that a dedicated device has. I know mine doesn't (HP iPAQ 1945), although that is the low end of PDAs anymore.
And I highly doubt anyone on this team would cut in line at the cafe because someone had an iPod. Many of us have iPods and other players. We don't discriminate.
They did. They also paid an "undisclosed" ammount of money under the table to settle any remaining possibility of litigation over stolen technologies, and agreed on a plan which would allow MS to make future purchases of Apple's OS breakthroughs.
However, in their haste to hype a "Microsoft buys Apple" story, the press often ignores three important facts about the purchase:
1. They were non-voting shares.
2. $150 Million is a very tiny percentage of Apple's publicly-traded shares.
3. Microsoft has already sold them off, and made a huge profit doing so.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I wonder if Microsoft employees use a disproportionately large number of MACs, or are more likely to be Firefox users.
No, they are not disproportionately Macintosh users compared to the rest of the software industry (unless they work for MacBU). No, they do not hate their employer. No, they are not more likely to use Firefox compared to other software professionals at other companies.
I base this on having worked there in the past.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
There is also the other factor of exposure to Apple products. The more consumers that buy Apple iPods, the more that may just buy a Mac Mini, eMac, iMac, iBook or PowerBook. That means less revenue to MS for their OS cash-cow.
I personally hope Apple kicks their butt with the iPod and become the defacto digital music format. The latest home DVD player I bought can play MP3's and WMA files. Maybe the next-gen of DVD players will drop WMA and pick up AAC w/FairPlay.
MS has a lot to lose if they don't control the major digital music format.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
TiVo may be a dead duck soon. DirecTV did not renew their contract with them. Their chairman and president just bolted. His example does support his thesis.
Excuse me - I'm in the media group, and the only people I know of on my team who have a portable media player have an iPod. In fact, some of the people who work on portable devices have an iPod. I can't speculate as to the reason, but I will point out that Apple is still ahead of the curve in releases. Sure, you can find a little Samsung device that has the same features as the Mini, but it's hard to find. Apple has their own store, and they're a much more recognized brand.
Paul "The Microsoft's Whipping Boy" Thurrott sez:
"Hide The Truth, Here Comes Leander Kahney
Leander Kahney is a reporter for Wired News. I've been doing a little research into him lately, after being hugely disappointed with his book "Cult of Mac," which is a collection of his Mac-oriented Wired articles. The problem? Kahney's not into facts. Instead, he likes to sprinkle his articles with anecdotal evidence and quotes from a single source, which he then sells as facts. No big deal, right? I mean, that's what most bloggers, tech new aggregator sites, and Mac news sites do too. Sure. But the problem is that Kahney writes for Wired. And thus, he is representing a respected source. That is, people believe this crap."
Read more @: http://www.internet-nexus.com/
Honestly, who in the right mind would want to believe Paul Thurrott?
Has Paul Thurrott even realized that he is the Rush Limbaugh of Microsoft?