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."

Comments

Representative of Microsoft's "vision"

[Gob Blesh It]

The Microsoft employee's open letter to Bill Gates almost made me choke. In case you haven't read it, let me paraphrase: "How do we make an iPod killer?" he asks rhetorically. "First we must harness the blogosphere!" he answers. "Then we'll design the interface by committee. Synergize, baby."

Anyway, I found it interesting how clearly the note reveals (what seems to be) Microsoft's general thought process. Never lead, always follow. I mean, how pathetic is this sort of blatant, shameless me-tooism? While innovators like Apple are trying to build the future, Microsoft employees like this guy are trying desperately to catch up... and they still can't figure out how.

Just my two cents from an Apple fanboy. Flame on...

Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision"

[eln]

Well, while your characterization of Apple as a ceaseless innovator may be a little over the top, you do have a point about Microsoft, one that demonstrates the dangers inherent in a monopoly or oligopoly controlled industry.

Microsoft doesn't innovate because they don't NEED to innovate. They know that they can be late to the party on a particular feature or product, and they will still be able to capture the majority of the market, because they can offer two things that no one else can possibly provide:
1.) the strength of the Microsoft name, and
2.) Seamless integration with Windows, a family of operating systems that over 90% of the public uses, and which only one company has full access to the internals of: Microsoft.

If the innovation does not fit into a category that can be exploited in this way, Microsoft can either purchase and rebrand the technology, or develop their own clones and bury the competition in predatory pricing and overwhelming marketing.

Why bother to innovate when it's so much easier not to?

Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision"

[Geekenstein]

Being a copycat has always been a strategic business move. Let some other company develop a product, spend countless revisions figuring out what doesn't work, have lots of expensive bombs and R&D costs. Then you simply make a cheaper version of the sucessful product without comitting your own resources to forging the path.

That, my friend, is known as smart business.

Need an example? Here's a quick one. Tivo and the satellite/cable PVRs. The content providers can do it cheaper, because they don't have those large R&D bills. Tivo, on the other hand, has to produce the product, pay the expenses incurred, and still somehow make a profit.

The innovator is usually the one who ends up going out of business. Apple is (currently) the exception.

Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision"

[Leo McGarry]

So apple invented the hard drive based mp3 player?

Basically, yeah.

You know who invented the automobile? Depending on how you define the term, there are as many as half a dozen possible answers, none of them later than 1893.

But do you know who really invented the automobile, for all practical purposes? That's right. Henry Ford, in 1908.

Apple is to the iPod as Henry Ford is to the car.

Re:Why iPod anyway?

[pdbogen]

Interestingly enough: The lack of a good player, no worthwhile eyes-off interface, and battery life. My iPod lasts a lot longer than my PDA would, if my PDA were playing music (empirical evidence)

That, and a 1GB SD card comes up on Froogle for $54. This is a third the price of the 1GB iPod shuffle, but does not include the cost of the playing device, which is almost certainly at least $100.

So, you've got a comparably priced solution, with a worse interface, and shorter battery life. Of course, a PDA is still a PDA, in the end.. So it really depends on what feature set you are most interested in.

Anyway, I have a 40GB iPod, which would be about $2,200 in SD cards, and it cost me less than $200 (thanks, freeipods.com)

Re:Bill buys Apple?

[Alan Partridge]

It's not a bit like Coke employees drinking Pepsi (which they'd be pretty dumb to do as they'd probably have access to all the free Coke they wanted). iPod is a neo-Walkman, the only way it threatens MS is in the fact that it totally ignores their pointless, me-too, proprietary .wma crapmat.

Re:Huh?

[colanut]

It is interesting because (from the goddamn article):

So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.

Microsoft doesn't currently make hardware, but the sure as hell make a competing media format. Balmer and co have made a lot of noise about the iPod as well. But the point is, how can you make an Apple killer if your own employees are using the competition.

Re:I wonder...

[SpottedKuh]

[F]ast food workers never want to eat where they have worked.

I have never worked in fast food, but I have worked in the food-preparation industry. And I can say that I am leery about eating anything from my former employer; and, it has nothing to do with hatred toward my employer. While it was only a summer job to get me through my first year of university, I had an excellent employer and the pay was good. Unfortunately, I saw the kind of sanitation practices that took place during the preparation of food (including, for example, people touching food with licked fingers).

[P]eople who work at many factories refuse to buy products from that factory.

This time I speak not from my own experience, but from that of a good friend of mine who worked at a pipe-fitting factory. While the factory and its management had strict safety protocols (regarding both its employees and its finished products), most employees blatently disregarded those protocols. Many close calls (including falling pipes barely missing people and chemical spills being sealed just in time) resulted from the lax attitude of most employees toward those protocols. More important for the consumer, though, many employees tried to slack off as much as possible, resulting in many pipes that were cracked or otherwise unusable, but were only discovered during the final phase of product quality checks. Arguably, with such an attitude prevalent, some faulty products must make it out of the factory. Hence, I would understand anyone's unease at buying from such a factory after seeing first hand (or, in my case, hearing second-hand) about the safety violations.

Of course, one could argue that such issues would exist at almost any factory or any fast food restaurant (or, almost anywhere, quite frankly), but I suppose something about our perception of a particular location changes after having experienced the issues up close.