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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."
I wonder if he'll make an attempt to buy Apple, and say it's his idea... It's like Coke employees drinking Pepsi.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
it's free apple advertising, and they're really not comfortable, at least in my ears.
I wonder if Microsoft employees use a disproportionately large number of MACs, or are more likely to be Firefox users. I mean, fast food workers never want to eat where they have worked, and people who work at many factories refuse to buy products from that factory. Maybe they feel hatred towards their employer.
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...
With SD Cards reaching 1GB in size, why don't people just use PDA's for music? A mystery or just an impending trend?
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
The iPod is the most popular digital music player. It's fairly like that if you take any subset of the population that the iPod will also be their most popular player.
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.
Can you imagine people using the most popular product of it's kind?? I bet many of them drive HONDAS too!!!! What will Bill do?? Micorsoft doesn't compete with Apples Ipod, why would anyone at Microsoft care?
So a Microsoft manager is comparing their own products to mind-altering substances? I won't dispute that!
Quick! Put that thing away!
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Why would people who spend all day on the computer have portable music players?
This comment was randomly generated by a school of piranhas chewing on the PCB of a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
Of course, Microsoft's software is used by dozens of competing music players from manufacturers like Creative Technology, Rio and Sony. Its Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format is supported by several online music stores, including Napster, Musicmatch and Wal-Mart.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
I think it'd be a total coup for Bill to be seen with one and just say offhandedly, "Oh, they're pretty good" and then go back to whatever he was doing. It boggles the mind that management at Microsoft has nothing better to do than chase down iPod users. That employees think they have to hide them is frightening. I can only imagine that meeting with the boss: "Uhh, yeah. We've seen you using an MP3 player made by someone other than us. We're going to have to let you go."
Well, I'm glad this popped up quick.
The answer is: NO. MS bought $150 million of Apple stock. Not even enough to be a voting share.
-mkb
Here you have it folks. Not everyone at Microsoft is hatching ill-conceived ideas; apparently it's only the Management.
The Ipod owns 80% of the digital media player market.
Of the MS employees who own a digital media player, 80% of them own Ipods.
So this means that MS employees are just regular people who happen to work at Microsoft?
This story is analogous to a breaking headline such as "Pizza hut driver seen eating Dominos!" "Adidas executive wears Nike for his morning run!" "Pepsi bottler drinks Coca-Cola at hot dog stand!"
Well, Microsoft workers or not, they all know what the best MP3 player is out there. I don't see too much of a problem as there isn't any direct competition that I know of. There are no Microsoft-branded HD MP3 players out there. I understand the incongruency of this, but it's not like I can blame them for having good taste.
Don't buy WoW Gold! Make it yourself!
Would management be pleased that their employees were using the Rio's or any of the other mp3 products out there? Is this because Microsoft has some displeasure of it's employees using a product that were not made by Microsoft? If that's so is the MS I-Pod killer that far around the corner?
Seriously, it's an I-pod. Get over it. If it was effecting their productivity that would be one thing but I doubt it's the case. And get over the fact that MS employees are using I-Pods. They're as much a consumer as you are.
-Teiresias
MS has an unsecured network for test projects - a little bird told me that when launching iTunes on this unsecured network (from within the MS campus) you can see dozens, if not hundreds of shared iTunes libraries--all being shared by Rendezvous.
who cares, good lord it is a stupid little music player, not teh end all of everything.
last time i checked MS doesnt make a portable music player either.
Until microsoft makes their own branded MP3, I can't imagine the DRM fiasco that would be
Perhaps the cutest line of TFA is:
Neither Apple nor Microsoft responded to requests for comment.
Apple need not say anything; the article said it all. As for Microsoft, there simply is nothing they could say.
I actually work for Microsoft (gasp! and I also read Slashdot!). My cube-mate owns an iPod. I remember the week after MSN Music was launched, he took his iPod with him into the cafeteria. He was waiting in line to grab his lunch and noticed that people kept cutting in front of him in line. He couldn't figure out what the heck was going on until he realized the people cutting in front were all from the music division. They had seen the white earphones and were "punishing" him for going with the competitor.
Sometimes people can be very petty here.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
The iPod has the best user interface and best looks of any hard disc player out there. Sure, it doesn't have ogg vorbis support and it is a little expensive, but it still beats all the competition that I'm aware of. It's got tonnes of geek appeal - of course every programmer is going to want one!
If Bill doesn't like it then Microsoft should bring out their own product. It worked with the XBox...
One good turn - gets all the covers.
Remember his old NBC / CBS jokes....a variation on them....could work for other companies.
1. Dave, you are recording the program now, what do you watch when you go home.
Of course, Leno - who watches CBS?
2. Today Les Moonves (CBS Boss) had a busy day. There are so many series to review, so many decisions to make, such a tough life. So when he reached home, he relaxed watching an episode of Friends on NBC.
I am sure other jokes can be built. But you have to imagine Dave speaking for these to have some effect.
I personally recall working in Reebok and a colleague wearing Nikes, and the trouble he got from management.
Slightly off topic, but I hope "Funny" moderators.
It's not like people are going to walk around with Media Center PC's slung around their backs.
Though I am sure that somewhere, someone has tried to do this and ended up flat on their back with several hundred dollars of busted equipment that didn't work right in the first place...
So what they need is a iPod case mod. Something plastic and industrial looking that would "snap-on" over the iPod.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
A 40Gb writable device that easily attaches to one's computer.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Perhaps there are a few employees that are sneaking in Knoppix CDs disguised as AOL disks.
if that many of the MS folk use ipods, somebody has got have a decent protected wma converter out there to put music from the media player stores onto their ipod without loss of quality.
Did Bill Gates check what kind of browsers his employees are using lately? Or where they go to search the web or check e-mail. Talk about elephant in the house...
They have company dope? Even Google doesn't do that.
The way Steve looked at it, this iPod was your birthright. He'd be damned if any of the slopes were gonna get their greasy yellow hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long months, he wore this iPod up his ass and disguised himself on the Microsoft campus. Then when he left because of dysentery, he gave me the iPod. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two more months. Then, after seven months, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the iPod to you.
Make sure the wire coming out of the headphone jack is not too thick. Sometimes it hurts but I can tell you that once you use iPod, you will never go back.
With apologies to Mr.Tarantino
Free XBox, PS2
1. if their own employees don't buy into DRM and WMA how can expect the general public to.
example. you work for MS. are you going to tell your parents to buy a Rio with WMA technology or an IPOD.
2. the "eat your own dog food approach" we'll how can you tell if your cooking sucks if your not "taste testing"
3. 7 degrees of seperation.
I.E. MS employees X number of people (i donno exactly how many but we will say 20k for exmaple) the average family is 2.3 people. so 46k people. each of those people has say 10 friends 460k people. and 2 extended families ( round to 5) or...2.3 mil people...
"Despite the displeasure of management, the iPod is the most popular music player on the Microsoft campus."
If they don't like it then make their own goddamn player and sell it to their employees.
Robert Scoble--one of the people mentioned in the article--has already written about it. "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees own an MP3 player. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in... the story is a non-starter. I know a lot of Apple employees who play Halo 2 too. Is that a story?"
Ed Bott has some good comments too: "Now read the story. Read it carefully.... Note that the entire thingis based on an interview with one "high-level [Microsoft] manager who asked to remain anonymous." From this one source, we are able to calculate with confidence that 16,000 employees at Microsoft's Redmond campus own iPods... taking an offhand remark from an unknown source (who may or may not have a hidden agenda and who may or may not know what he's talking about) and extrapolating it to the entire campus is just silly...
One thing they teach you in Journalism 101 is that when you have a single anonymous source, you don't have a story. That's still true."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"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."
Actually, Microsoft 'bought' the nonvoting stock to prevent Steve Jobs from suing their ass over blatent rips of Quicktime that was brought to his attention while Owner / CEO of NeXT. It meant nothing to him at the time because he was a scorned man, having been fired by the company he started several years earlier. Once NeXT was bought up and he was brought on as a 'consultant', he was once again in a position to care about Apple's goings-on and layed it on the line with Bill that Microsoft was going to be sued and even at their weakest, Apple had several billion in the bank (and to this day, in a much more liquid form than Microsoft).
As such, it was deemed that Microsoft would save face by 'investing' almost a billion in nonvoting stock that should have by all means been worthless after a few years with Apple's then track record, but at the same time, no one expected SJ to make a return as he had (most expected at the time, he'd transition NeXT to Apple and go to the next little 'big thing' he had planned). This also helped in the rublings of the Antitrust suit in Microsoft's advantage.
Microsoft was never supposed to make any money, but it nearly doubled their investment by the time they cashed out.
I got this info from one of the higher ups at Apple at a conference about the time of the investment...but as I'm posting as an AC, you should take this with a grain of salt.
... most Microsoft employees run Linux at home and discuss Apache configuration problems at the coffee corners using a special code language :-)
Oh yeah.. I forgot that iPods don't work within the windows operating...
Oh wait... no... One of the reasons that the iPod is so damn popular is because it works on the windows operating system. Why in god's name would Billy get upset over a piece of hardware being used? For that matter, why would he get upset with a piece of hardware being used that his company doesn't even compete against.
This would make more sense if microsoft had a handheld gaming unit, and everyone on the redmond campus was walking around with a DS or a PSP. I can see him getting pissed in that case.
"Hey! You with the iPod, put it away right now!"
"Yes sir, sorry sir."
"Ok, just make sure it never happens again. Wait a minute... is that Knoppix running on your workstation?!? Bill, for the last time..."
"But at the Windows Digital Media Group, which is charged with software for portable players and the WMA format, using an iPod is not a good career move.
'In the media group they all smoke the company dope on that one,' the manager said."
Don't take the brown acid, man!
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I wonder who the first Microsoft guy was that brought an iPod onto campus. That must've taken balls.
The mind reels with examples of ways in which Bill G. and his cohorts might go about acquiring someone else's iPod.
Business ethics are one of the few areas in life where I honestly do think things "trickle down." Petty theft isn't at all unheard of at big corporate "campuses."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
c'mon--cut him some slack. enjoy the irony of the story.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
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.
those percentages seem about the same as the general population. And since MS doesn't actually make or sell there own player I wouldn't be surprised.
http://www.leadmagnet.50megs.com
Why the hell would they use Macs?
Everyone needs a role model.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I work for a small group in Sony. At least half the group has iPods. I'm the only non-iPod user that I know of. I have an iRiver.
This is pretty sad as unlike Microsoft, we actually MAKE a player and get a substantial employee discount.
(Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.)
With SD Cards reaching 1GB in size, why don't people just use PDA's for music? A mystery or just an impending trend?
It seems most people already lament the battery life of their portable devices. If a PDA's battery already is marginal [in the owner's opinion] then the additional power consumption caused by playing music for an extended period of time would be Considered Harmful.
The power drain would come primarily from driving the speakers: even the small ones in headphones consume a certain amount of power. That, and the device would not be able to shut itself off or otherwise use some power management features.
I also suspect that 1GB would not be enough for some people. (Please - no inane comments about that urban-legend quote from billg.)
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
And this may come as a surprise to you, but some people there even like to play sports and stay in shape! Not everyone there is a stereotypical
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
they prolly modified it to include windows :p
Why the hell shouldn't they? MS makes some of the biggest Mac apps. after all.
That was classic intercourse!
Can't really blame them, I'm going to get flamed for this, but it is the best player out there on the market if you just "want something to work without playing with it" and looks good while it's doing it. The interface is intuitive, the wheel is hella cool and it takes about 10 seconds to learn how to use.
Added to that they look expensive, aren't that bulky. Not everyone at Microsoft is a programmer geek.
The "just sync, don't bother me" feature is nice too. Sometimes you just want your stuff to work without thinking about it.
The majority of the players out there for PC are DRM crippled and have shitty drivers, some 3rd parties even sell driver upgrades for mp3 players because the company does a shit job of it.
Not enough allow you to mount the unit as a drive and copy the files there.
Archos does, and they makes a bunch of nice units, but their designs are bulky, that isn't really a bad thing, they usually the newest features and their stuff is cheap and it works reliably, but it is sort of like comparing a pinto to a caddy.
Iriver had the H20 which were great, but they've been discontinued. They have some video one now, but it looks kinda crappy.
The article says it, people returned their Windows devices (ie PC Garbage) because they DIDN'T WORK. The Windows Digital Media division needs to get beat with the clue stick and start getting on the asses of lazy manufacturers who release shoddy products with a "windows compatible" sticker on the box.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Here are the products they are pushing on MS site http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/devi ces/category.aspx?categoryid=600
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/devi ces/category.aspx?categoryid=600
Mac centric? You are a few years behind the curve. I'll help you catch up:
10/23/2001 iPod announced, Mac-only
11/2001 First 3rd party Windows workarounds appear
7/17/2002 Apple iPod officially supports Windows along with Musicmatch jukebox
4/28/2003 iTunes music store launched (Mac-only)
10/16/2003 iTunes music store now supports Windows and iTunes is available for Windows
Regarding the "draconian DRM", is there anyone else who allows several different machines to share music downloaded with one account as well as burn tracks to CD and download to a portable player?
Finally, whether the iPod is too expensive for what it is (or not) is a personal choice and I'll leave it at that.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
The link in the article that the manager pointed employees to, http://experiencemore, doesn't seem to resolve to anything here - I wonder if that's an internal site, and what is on it? Or perhaps they just messed up the URL.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At another "campus," seeing that would have provoked a positive ton of good-natured ribbing. The person with the iPod would have given some back, and in the end maybe the music division would have gotten a(nother) quick sense of why even an MS employee could have made that choice. Might have resulted in an actual competitive advantage for the eventual MS product.
I guess my suspicions about the level of communication at MS are pretty well verified. It's never seemed like the people writing the "outline" feature in Word were talking to the people who wrote the "styles" feature. Partly it's just a big company thing, but I dunno, I'm tempted to think there's something more there...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
2. Some companies/schools don't like employees/students wasting their bandwidth on streaming music.
3. It helps block out the annoying and sometimes disgusting noises your coworkers/fellow students make.
4. The radio station at work/the common area really sucks.
5. Because they can.
Tell the guys as sony to open-source ATRAC & ATRAC3. Then maybe they'll get somebody else to use it.
Or do people over there view the ATRAC* stuff as the holy grail?
When I worked in the Pocket PC division, my boss carried around a Palm Vx. (as did many other people there, actually) They eventually started handing out free XDA's, which I believe won them a few converts...
I worked for Apple UK a few years ago and was told to keep a fujitsu server running nt hidden from senior management even though I was using it to support educational customers with nt servers!
And I suppose the Mac version of Office is developed on Windows machines and never tested?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Anyone who's been on the campus knows what I'm talking about...
On campus, you gotta eat the dog food. Its the only dog food in town. No one else makes dog food. If they did, its five years old.
In the data visualization group, Java was a currio. One member has Java books on his shelf dating back to 1997. That's the last time it was interesting, because its not the company dog food.
So... why is it an issue? Because the blinders are comming off. All that propaganda that the boys and girls are told about the company being the only company, and the only one that does cool things, is starting to look like its passed through a reality distortion filter.
Is there a reason why the bungie guys play golf facing towards the main parking lot?
I remember when Wang had the ad "Wang: the chink in IBM's armor."
How about "Apple: in the ear on Microsoft's eve."
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Somehow I find it hard to believe that Microsoft management would frown upon their employees' usage of iPods since it is after all a personal accesory of choice. Note that Microsoft does not make any music players though it does license media player technology.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
It seems like Playforsure http://www.playsforsure.com/Default.aspx is good...o d
but not good enough for Dogfooding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_one's_own_dog_fo
Employee1 : (Listening to music while tapping happily at his keyboard) ..Those people HATE you .....
Employee2: Hey u there , u cant fool me with those ugly black headphones, your face gives it away
Emp1: Whaa... No I dont have no iPod
Emp2: Hahaha always works, that old trick of mine
Emp1: Nooooo its not mine, I just wanted to 'test' it you know , becos we make really better products
Emp2: Yeah, tell me that some other time now hand that white thingy to me before I call the guards
Emp2:(Irritated) No not the cocaine dude, who cares about a 1000$ of trash, Give me that iPop NOW!!
Emp1: (Meekly) ok
Emp2:(Suddenly looking at the screen) WHAT !!! Thats Gentoo!!! You gay or something !! And I cant belive it , You are posting on slashdot AGAIN !!! Bill , you are sick. The therapy is not working. How can I convince you
Emp1(aka Gates): But but I thought now that I run Gentoo
Why can't they just make Windows Media Player compatible with the iPod? Windows already recognizes the iPod as an external hard drive.
Is there some Apple rule against it?
CKSCIII
Though the note about the headphones is a good thing.
:-D
People have been mugged because of the trademark white headphones. It's a sign that you may be carrying an expensive (in demand) iPod.
It's actually a safety thing. Get other headphones that aren't white... and keep the iPod in your pocket. Then a casual person on the street doesn't know if you have a $5 Walmart Personal Radio or a $400 iPod.
This reminds me of the time Microsoft fired an employee for taking a picture of a shipment of Apple PowerMac G5's arriving at Microsoft's campus.
I found this one detail rather interesting:
This thing would need to be built even faster than MSN Toolbar Suite (which was built in six months).
Hmm, the MSN Toolbar done in six months. What on earth could have caused such a panic that made that possible? The Google toolbar!! That just shows how worried they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know if it was just a fluke that you replied to mine but.. I was being terribly sarcastic. ;)
If the company I worked for started bugging me about me buying and using the digital music player of my choice (which I would do, being a music-fanatic all over, I listen to music almost all day long when I get the chance, wherever I am), that would really make me quit.
:D
I'm not kidding, I really am quite frank on this. No position of mine at a company, nor anyhow good salary could make me stay.
If MS doesn't like their people having iPods, then wait till they start ordering G5's and running Windows under virtual machines
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Seriously. There's something odd about this. I'm not a great Microsoft fan, but a lot of their software is reasonably usable. (Excel, for example). I like Apple's hardware, but lots of other companies make quality, thoughtfully designed PC's, laptops, and so forth.
Digital cameras are a good example of a whole product category that have to cram globs of electronics and boatloads of figures into a tiny package, and for the most part they do it quite successfully and gracefully. It's NOT usual to hear people say "I couldn't get my digital camera to work at all" or "it froze up on me in the middle of photographing the kids' birthday party."
The big knock on non-iPod players, echoed in many reviews of would-be "iPod killers," is that people just can't get them to work. The article says that Robert Scoble "said he's heard from several executives who dutifully bought Microsoft-powered players, tried them, failed to get them working, and returned them in favor of an iPod. He went through the same experience..."
I won't trivialize UI design by saying "it's not rocket science," but what exactly is wrong with all of Apple's competitors? It's not as if Apple didn't have DRM.
Are all the competitive products SO weighed down by all sorts of hidden evil goals and agendas that there's little time and effort that can be spared on serving the consumer?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I really will not pay too much attention to this type of thing until the management is tracking down employees with dual boot comp running linux. Now that would be fun to see
Wow, couldn't use your real name? What's the matter Ballmer? Were you afraid that somebody would castigate you for it? Eh, MonkeyBoy? :P
Using different headphones is not sneaky, it's neccesity. The ear buds are flag, muddy sounding headphones that you should throw away right now! Might I suggest some fantastic Etymotic headphones.
Back when I used to work at Motorola in Schaumburg, the CEO sent out a company-wide email saying how he was displeased at the number of employees seen with Nokia and other non-Motorola phones. So he offered free Motorola phones to the first 1,000 employees that responded and urged the rest to buy a Motorola.
He was especially pissed at the salesmen, trying to sign the big carriers to promote Motorola phones, who had Nokia's hanging from their belt! Makes sense for the visible people I guess.
Who gives a fuck what Microsoft employees use. If it isn't work related and doesn't interfere with work, they should be able to buy and use whatever they want. OMG!! This just in! A Sun worker uses XP! STOP THE PRESSES!
The most popular portable music player in the world is the most popular portable music player on Microsoft's campus?! How is that possible?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I work out with my Ipod at the Microsoft Health club all the time and it is the ONLY music player I see! Every once in awhile I will spot someone with one of those tiny little MP3 players but practically everyone brings their Ipod's to work out.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
So, uh, speaking as a Microsoft employee who does own an iPod and does use different headphones... when I got my iPod Mini (back when they were downright impossible to acquire), coworkers were always stopping by saying "Oh, you got one of those, they're so cool" and asking to try it out and stuff. I started using different headphones because the ones they came with, while nice, didn't do a very good job blocking out external sound. I've never gotten crap for using one.
I don't know where you people get the idea that everyone here drinks the Kool-Aid. We make Office for Mac, remember? People talk about their Macs at home all the time, make fun of MSN Search for sucking, listen to music on their iPods, run FireFox, and play Nintendo / Sony video games. It's not a cult
As for the guy that was using his iPod in the cafeteria, what the hell? It's lunch. Go with some friends. Talk. Socialize. Maybe people were cutting in front of him because he looks like a freakin' dork listening to music while buying food.
it's an I-pod
Actually, it's an iPod, not an I-pod. I can't imagine what rock you've been living under for the last year if you don't know how to spell it.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
... when they block iTunes at the microsoft.com firewall.
Or worse, leave it open and fire anyone who accesses it from work...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I don't think Apple does much innovation of that kind anymore. They seem to have taken another track to the typical "lead, follow, or..." paradigm: taking something that exists, and making it cool. Did they invent the portable music player? No, they made it cool and really usable.
Also, just to nitpick: TiVo supplies DirecTV's PVRs. I think TiVo is here to stay. But I realize you could have picked 1000 other examples that supported your thesis.
First off... what music player does MSFT make?
... if their OWN employees won't use it... maybe that's because they "innovated" too much? ...
Second, assuming they have a gizmo 2000
This article [or the posters resume] is just stupid. Why would using Apple products be bad at MSFT... MSFT WRITES MAC SOFTWARE!!!!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
shows the power of demand-driven bottom-up interest in digital music players versus the top-down directives from a supplier (i.e., marketing initiatives from the corporate office). the most successful marketing campaigns mix top-down from the supplier and the bottom-up from the consumer of course. in this case, microsoft is out of that product loop with their own employees.
And the posters above who claim that microsoft is not competing with Apple, you're wrong. In a narrow sense, it's true that Microsoft does not sell a portable music device. In a larger sense, Microsoft IS competing with Apple when it comes to digital consumer entertainment platforms.
That is why Microsfot has spent more than a year denigrating the iPod and promoting its "open" audio format and associated MP3 players. This is why microsoft has been pushing "http://www.digitaljoy.com/" at CES.
Just because Microsoft does not manufacture Intel hardware, are you going to say Microsoft doesn't compete with Apple b/c Apple sells computers? Sheesh!
Robert Scoble--one of the people mentioned in the article--has already written about it. "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees own an MP3 player. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in...
... Elton John ...[and] Shania Twain to work on designing an entirely new player from the ground up." link
He went on to state, "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees use more than 640k of ram. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in..."
Because, after all, if someone at Microsoft doesn't recognise people's usage patterns and habits, it can't be true.
Remember, this is the same guy who stated, "3) Pay whatever big money it'll take to get
I don't know what world he lives in. I don't think I want to. I do know they'd have fabulous, sequined and ruffled, faux 17th century french MP3 players with a disneyfied country theme. Kind of like Euro Disney, when you think about it. That's enough to tell me I don't want to live there.
Just because a source contradicts the original, it doesn't make it a good one.
Could it be ... could it be you've come up with a worthwhile reason why we have patents?
Breakfast served all day!
Yes, $99 is way too much to pay for a 512 MB music player that's so small you could conceivably swallow it.
Last time I checked MS didn't have an MP3 player on the market.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
I figured it was soemthing like an intranet site, you would think there was some way to reach the site from the outside.
:-)
But I don't think the site you pointed to is what they were talking about, since the context was digital music players that supported Windows Media. The site you linked to is all about XP and what it can do for you. Perhaps he was trying to halt the spread of Powerbooks on campus.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Rudeboy, you are my hero. I put that sig on a few days ago when the grammer nazis were driving me nuts. I thought it was simple, yet nobody grasps it. Do I need to reword it? I am sick of people worrying more about spelling than content. I do not have perfect spelling, and I make mistakes. I post here searching for someone to discuss/debate with, yet all I run into is idiots. Should I mention that I have a teaching degree (that always draws out the grammar psychos)?
Me neither, but I would be afraid of losing my job for assaulting a fellow employee. Even of there are no witnessess, people don't just "rip up their ankle" spontaenously.
I agree with what the others have said in this thread. Just walk away. It is indeed "petty bullshit", and it's not worth having drama over.
...well, blocking iTunes in the company firewall is not unheard of .. that's what the company I work for do. Not being in an iTunesMusicStore certified country, I don't mind, I've just noticed, that's all..
Unlike you, Microsoft knows the full power of Group Policies, and how the entire network can be configured to deny installation of external devices. Resorting to imperfect physical security would only annoy employees while failing to protect against cursory concealment techniques.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Now if we can get the figures to how many M$ employees use Google.
=)
Well, you'll never get a job at CBS with THAT attitude, young man!
If they won't do that, then shut up and let the employees use what they want. And maybe try to actually innovate and create a product with an experience that will draw them back.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
what is a 'microsoft powered mp3 player'??
do they mean non-aac playing?
this article is terminally stupid..
mp3 is not a microsoft format.
love is just extroverted narcissism
parent is a copy/past troll. Move along, nothing to see here.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Lets face it the earbuds Apple includes are ok, but compared to what you can get for the price of the wired remote they are absolute crap. Oh and Gates has always liked Apple, he kind of has a soft spot for it... soft as in he wont totaly destroy it but keep it alive to point to it as competition and remember the "good old days" (read less lawsuits against them).
This is an interesting issue because it brings up the question of the 'target market'.
To illustrate, consider the executives of a national mobile home builder. None of these executives live in the mobile homes they sell, but justify their actions because they are not in the demographic of the mobile home target market.
Conversely, consider the alternative "I liked it so much, I bought the company" situation where a product is so good and has such a broad demographic that everyone who works for them owns and uses the product.
I would argue that portable media players do not appeal to as wide a target market as say, Bic Pens. But at the same time, they are not as niche as the mobile home market either.
If Bic had their own staff showing up to company meetings with the other guy's pens, I would say they would be in same boat as Microsoft. But of course, Bic is not in that same boat.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
You can roll your own with a VIA ITX form factor mobo and get a small case too. It is a little larger than the Mac Mini but smaller than the ShuttleX. You get an option for installing your own CPU or you can use VIA's CPU in a fanless solution plus external wall power supply.
m in i-itx/
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/
Do a search and you will find more info.
As a Coke employee, if I brought a pepsi product to work (say as part of my brown bag lunch), it's looked down on pretty harshly. It's almost to the point of being grounds for termination. It's not just a can of pepsi soda, but any of Pepsi's brands (chips, snacks, fruit juices etc...).
MSFT doesn't fire people for wearing iPODs...
Should any of the above matter?
What I find interesting is that Microsoft employees dont feel that they can purchase the music player they want without pressure. I mean, if they are pumped up and *want* to purchase a Microsoft based/backed product, more power to them. By the same token, if they prefer the Apple player, this should *not* be frowned upon.
emt 377 emt 4
Interesting how Apple fan-boys always come up with tid-bits like this. When MS bought those shares, they stated it was because they were helping out a "friend" and investing in their future. I seem to remember that everyone, except you apparently, saw it as an attempt by MS to prove to the DoJ that they weren't a monopoly.
Actually, Microsoft 'bought' the nonvoting stock to prevent Steve Jobs from suing their ass over blatent rips of Quicktime that was brought to his attention while Owner / CEO of NeXT.
That's odd that Apple doesn't own the patents to Quicktime. Most companies don't allow employees (even CEOs etc) to own such business critical patents, so that they can't leave the company and start taking their royalties etc. Of course this is the probably the case here as well, considering that only the inventor or the company the inventor works for can own an patent (Steve Jobs didn't write Quicktime).
You also mention that Apple had several billion in the bank. Excuse me while I laugh uncontrollably for several minutes. If they had that kind of money in the bank at the time, then they wouldn't have been pursuing bankruptcy on grounds of lack of funds to pay their debtors (which they were set to file bankruptcy right before they got the cash infusion).
One last thing, if Jobs had cancelled the alleged patent suit against MS because of the stock purchase, that would have been extortion.
Interesting version of history the Apple fan-boys come up with.
Make a good product and people will buy it. I really don't find this too suprising.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
...I just have one thing to say:
:-)
Neener neener!
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Yup...McIntosh is extremely high end audio gear ...I understand misspelling the name...but, what does the capitalization have to do with how you spell mac, Mac, or MAC? All the same to me? I just take it in context as to what they're talking about...though I never thought about all acronyms being all uppercase. Heck...most everything I type is in lowercase...so, I don't come across much other than that...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think I'm obligated by fate to respond to your post. See I work at Coke and my last job was at Microsoft :D
It is definately a career limiting move to use a Pepsi product at Coke as it should be. Everyone knows better so it's not an issue. It's a very cutthroat rivalry and just like you won't find an Eagles player wearing a Patriots jersey, you won't find a Coke employee holding a can of Pepsi.
As for iPods at Microsoft.. I call bullshit on the whole article. MS doesn't give a crap if people use iPods. The guys there are the most technology saavy group you'll find anywhere. The iPod has a natural appeal to them. Employee happiness is a huge priority for MS and it helps them retain great talent. They won't jeopardize it over something silly like that.
So Shenanigans on that article!
The big story here is how one software company went from embracing new ideas and technology to one which defends against it.
:)
Instead of making Windows interoperate better with the iPod, Microsoft instead chooses to push their flawed design on consumers. This lack of vision towards customer needs versus monopoly maintenance might lead to their downfall.
Speaking of design, lets compare the two. iPod is but a component of the digital lifestyle Steve Jobs has been pushing for years. The consumer friendly design and operation reflect this. WMP on the other hand was created to generate revenue. Utilizing the windows user base, Microsoft had hoped to sell WMA codec licenses to hardware manufacturers and content producers. Consumer friendly operation was not part of the design goals.
This is why the iPod selling so much is keeping Billy G. at the office late at night, When consumers and employees aren't buying WMP enabled hardware, manufacturers and content producers don't see the need to license WMA.
Kudos to Apple, HP and iPod owners. You just prevented an assimilation attempt by the Borg
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I wonder if 20% of the people who own digital music players at apple own something other than an iPod. Does Apple send memos telling them to not buy a Nomad? I'd like to see what the precentage is there too.
today is spelling optional day.
A little image I fixed up in photoshop :)
Here
Variations of the first two have always worked for me.
a better product,(expect for replacement batteries)
been marketed better,
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Question: What's the best way to find out what makes a product popular?
Ask a bunch of people, or, use it yourself?
I'm going with the latter on this one. Formats aside, MS doesn't have a product that competes with the iPod... but if they wanted to make one they'd better know what they're competing with first, don't ya think?
Pepsi is for the Next Generation. Coke is for drinking.
Well of course! iPod's earphones is the worst of them all. Makes me regret I didn't sell them before I tried them since people will buy them for $10. Also, anything after 2nd generation got this output impedance problem; you'll have huge distortions in the bass with any unamped headphones. Not to mention the bug with high bitrate mp3 in 3rd gens.
Apple does own the patents on 'quicktime'. But all in all, this wasn't even a patent issue, so much as a copyright issue. Direct lines of code were removed. Its the same with the old wave files were simply recoded apple standard files (those *WEREN'T* owned by apple, but used by them) with reverse byte orders to make them unplayable -- this was before WAVE became WAV and as much of a container file as Quicktime is.
This is the thing with Quicktime, it is a container file. It is HEAVILY patented on many layers. Steve Jobs didn't own the patent, but he had the inside scoop while he was with NeXT as a former Softie that have moved on to this company had wanted to give him a laugh about his former company that fired him.
As for owning a patent, you can buy and sell patents at will. The inventors name will be on it, but seriously, you don't know what you are talking about.
As for bankruptcy -- Apple was never near bankruptcy. This is an urbal legend. They own quite a bit in Silicon Valley propery -- the physicial dirt. At the worst, this dirt was worth almost as much as the intellectual properties and the products they had -- but they could have lived off the rent at the time. The dirty secret of all this is that when their stock was at its lowest, the hard cold properties were worth far more than all the stock valuation combined. It was said that the family of al Saud had actively tried buying the company because it would have been like buying the land for pennies on the dollar. They could have stripped the assets and turned the company back over and still made a lot of money.
As for extortion, yes and no. If you tell your sister you are going to publish naked photos of her and her boyfriend if she doesn't pay you $100, thats extortion. If you advertise these same photos to the highest bidder -- or merely the first $100 that lands in your lap with your sister having the right of first refusal, its not. Big difference for what ammounts to the same thing. Throw a lawyer into the mix, and most likely it is extortion, but legal extortion. Very few settlements actually ever make it to court. The preferred method to dealing with civil cases is to have it mediated outside the court first, before the courts will ever look at it. If this isn't the case, many judges will order a mediation and order the proceedings closed until such time as both sides meet privately -- and generally with a stern warning that they are not to waste the courts time again.
As for Apple Fan-boy, I might be. I've also been a consultant to both Microsoft and Apple at a number of times over the last 10 years. I was in Cupertino a three weeks ago. I like dealing with Apple far more than I like dealing with Microsoft, but at the same time, I like the checks Microsoft pays out a little more. They pay on time, and generally don't negotiate on the bill. But its all good.
Again, I am a Coward, so take this as you might.
Yes but maybe Microsoft understands that one of the tools to competion is understanding why your opponents are ahead.
This is a joke, right? In Microsoft's entire history, their responses to a competitive threat are:
1. Buy 'em out.
2. Stomp 'em out.
There's nothing in there about "understanding"; all problems are nails, and they've got a sledgehammer.
What's really pissing off MS right now is that none of these tactics will work w/r/t Apple and the iPod.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Why did he let them punk him?
I'm a reasonable guy and I'll let a friend or two join someone ahead of me, but the third guy gets told to get to the back of the line.
I was curious, so I looked up the 10-Q for Apple in summer of 1997..
Even though they were struggling (year over year), they still had over $1 billion in cash assets, $212 in short term investments, $1.2 billion in A/R .. this compared to around $1.9 billion total current liabilities.
Granted, compared to the latest 10-Q you can see they are definitely more financial secure right now.. but at the time, I don't think they necessarily needed the cash infusion to stay afloat -- they still had quite a bit of flex room.
This is in the same lines as working at a "Honda" dealership and driving a "Nissan". Lots of people do it.
A microsoft recruiter came by my school a couple days ago showing off some new digital media player toy that that microsoft came up with. When students started comparing it to the iPod, he admitted that we should probably just get Ipods if we didnt' care about pictures or music.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
Because, Cayenne- actually, can I just call you CAY? Because, CAY, a nickname for something, such as "Mac" for "Macintosh" is just a nickname, not an acronym, and with all capitals, readers think it actually is one; when people see me call you CAY, they'll thing it's something like "Computer-Adept Youth", rather than your name.
Clarity really is important, particularly in text communications.
-T
The iPod is obviously a vastly superior mp3 player, because that is what it was designed to do. However, a PDA is a better solution for some people, myself included.
Here's why:
I already own the PDA. I use it for all the typical uses (calendar, contacts, birthdays, games, reading news and documents, et cetera). A $50 SD card is a much more economical solution for me than a $399.99 iPod. An iPod would just be one more (expensive) thing I would have to carry around. Other, cheaper, mp3 players might not have the cost issue, but would still be one more thing to carry around.
I don't need more than a 1GB of portable music. When I'm in the mood for a different set of music, all I need are CONFIG_MMC, CONFIG_MMC_BLOCK, and a Perl script.
Battery life, as many iPod fans here have mentioned, has never been an issue for me. I've never had to stop listening due to low battery. RealOne Player for PalmOS actually takes battery life into account and shuts off the display when the Palm is only being used as an mp3 player.
Do not eat iPod Shuffle.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
This isn't fark. But it is a trap...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
a hot, wet SBD works for me.
love is just extroverted narcissism
if the price for twice as much ram and a player is the same as a shuffle, then why get the shuffle? anyway I only spent $60 on my SD-mp3 player, and it had built in ram as well...
... because the very stylish apple ones are pretty shit. what you want is some Sone MDREX71SL. Very good, and reasonably priced too.
I'd think employees would be more worried about being seen with an iRiver, since that runs Linux and all. An iPod doesn't have much direct impact to MS.
GM encourages their employees to ask for non-GM cars when renting so as to check out the competition. You steal ideas where you can find them.
One part of the article mentions Bellingham, WA:
"iPod shipments to Apple's nearby store in Bellingham."
But another part mentions the Bell Square mall:
"the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store"
If you know your Washington geography, you know that the Bell Square mall is in Bellvue, right next to Redmond. However, Bellingham is 2 hours to the north, near the Canadian border.
At first I could not figure out why all the Softies were driving all the way up to Bellingham to get their iPods, but this looks like a mistake in the article itself. This does not mean that the whole article is wrong, but just this part.
There's a better way.
h tml
Why not transmit the wave info in and analog form, using low frequencies, with some air compressing-decompressing device built on the gadget itself sitting on the desk, and then pick them up with some air-wave decoding thingy that we could have in our ears??
Think about that! you could even have no-earpiece Ipods!! that's even better than wireless.
Well, maybe there's prior art http://www.transistor.org/collection/spica/spica.
...probably not just for that. The simple thing is, the stock iPod headphones suck ass. And suck at that, too. Any sane person would buy a better pair.
thinks too much about himself. That's why he's not even a program manager, he's a technical evangelist. When you're not good enough to produce at least something (specs), but have been with the company for a long time - that's the position they give you at MSFT.
Don't judge Microsoft by what he says. There are some brilliant minds there. There are mediocre ones as well (as Robert clearly demonstrates). There are tons of people with iPods also, and some with apple stickers on their cars even. Nobody is hiding anything. When Microsoft releases a product that doesn't suck, I'm the first to buy it. Trouble is, that doesn't happen often, for one reason or another.
That your desire for a tasty burrito is stronger than your concern over being Coke's bitch every moment of your life.
- Jasen.
... Is that the smart co will see this and say 'how do we make our own dogfood better than this?', then go out and do it.
The dumb co will see this and put out a memo telling folks it's a CLM.
Gosh, I wonder which way this will go?
(And yes, I know M$ doesn't build the player hardware, but they _could_.. I mean, they build good HW (xbox, kynds, mice, joysticks)...)
Coke and Pepsi compete. Microsoft and Apple don't really compete. Microsoft makes software, Apple makes hardware. True, the PC is viewed as MS domain, but MS doesn't actually manufacture the hardware. On this specific topic, MS doesn't have a product to compete with the Ipod. Sure, .wma is the format that MS would like to see adopted as the standard format for media content, but they aren't actually selling content in that format.
MS even makes software for Apple computers. This would be akin to Coke making drink holders for Pepsi products if the analogy held true.
When I worked at MS, I used to get a kick out of wearing an imac shirt I got from an apple vendor a couple of years ago. Most people wouldn't give it second notice, but every now and then, a clueless drone would make a comment. Now if I showed up with wearing a 'Linux Roxorz MS Boxorz!' shirt, I'm sure that would raise a few eyebrows....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Sigh... we've been through this before
Apple demanded $1.2 billion from Microsoft for alleged patent infringements...
The negotiations that resulted led to a strategic agreement between the two companies in August 1997, one part of which called for Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple and for Apple to install Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the default Web browser for its customers... As part of his videotaped deposition, however, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates testified repeatedly that his primary goal was to resolve the patent issues with Apple and obtain a patent cross license.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
Quoth the AC:
"Again, I am a Coward, so take this as you might."
Sure. If you posted as l33t_sk1lz or some such I'd just take your word for it.
Does the cognitive dissonance hurt any?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
NONE of them can make a good profit because they entered into competition prematurely and with a Microsoft product (WMA).
And NONE of them can afford the usual Microsoft technique of surviving until revision 3.X.
This is NOT the desktop (the corporate market where corporate buyers just wanted compatibility,) and Microsoft can't dictate personal tastes.
As long as Apple sticks to its 'end-run' strategy around Microsoft, they're going to keep winning. Yeah Microsoft owns the desktop but that's ALL it owns, partly because of the anti-trust tactics it employed when it made sure that it owned it.
NONE of the hundreds of people in my building and the thousands of people who work in the bank is rushing out to buy a WMA product.
They just went out to J&R at lunch time to buy iPods though.
That's going to continue happpening.
There is NOTHING that Microsoft can do about it until it gets off the desktop (and that just aint happening.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
And people still won't listen when you and I and every "fanatical Microsoft hater" on the planet scream about illegal monopolies.
Sigh. I'm only partly joking about this, btw. Sadly, I would bet money that this scenario or something like this will happen in the next few years.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I was imagining Bill's business practices, played in microcosm as an attempt to filch that $400 piece of hardware. Imagine the equivalent of BSA strongarming, on that small scale. Golly, no, I was not literally suggesting that Bill needs an iPod.
(Sheesh.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Haha. Very funny. Sorry, not a fair comparison.
What Apple came up with was a high-capacity affordable music player with an interface that no one has betterted, to date, along with a weight/form/design factor that sits in an optimal tradeoff zone. They also championed a tight integration into a general music suite (as opposed to a separate tool that works on files).
Oh yeah, and then Apple built the music store into the same client that plays the music, organizes the music, and syncs your iPod. So far only iTMS and MusicMatch even try to do this as more than a token gesture, and it's hard to argue for MusicMatch over iTMS.
If that's not enough to make it an "innovation" then I don't know what is. Did carriage builders complain that the automobiel was really their invention, just without the engine and obedient steering?
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
It's the start of the slippery slope ! http://www.mantlepies.com/ipods.htm
The article said "About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod"...
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
"The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player."
.. both before I posted and before it was refered by slashdot.
No, that's what you say it says. What it says is
About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod
note the "who have" in that sentence?
That is, for every 5 people you see lurking around with earbuds in their heads, 4 will be iPod owners (regardless of the color of those earbuds, which is touched upon later)
I actually read the article
eachPersonsIndividualBonusInDollers=(yearsWithoutA ccidents*100)
Place your bets on how long it'll be until we see stories about crooks mugging the white-headphone people.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
When I was at school I saw a driver in his pepsi truck, drinking a can of coke. I'm seriously not kidding!
In an unrelated note I just realized that when i try to type "pepsi", the word, "penis" comes out. Weird? But I am serious about the coke truck thing, (note when I tried to write "coke", "code" came out... Wow, one of those days
Well, here is a piece on iPod related mugging early last year here
Furthermore other sources have reported simmilar cases
Perhaps the author used MapPoint...
So a Microsoft manager is comparing their own products to mind-altering substances? I won't dispute that!
I will dispute that. Most reports from users of mind-altering substances are far more positive than reports from users of Microsoft products, in my experience.
Try these phrases on for size:
"Hey man, that was some great Excel! Got any more?"
"Dammit, that f$cking bud crashed! I lost my whole report, and I have to present tomorrow!"
See? Doesn't work.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
I hope this doesn't turn out to be ironic.
Last time I've checked Microsoft was not producing portable MP3 player with hard-drive.
So it is not like parking your BMW car on General Motors factory parking lot, but rather riding BMW motorcycle to your work on GM factory.
Care to provide a link or something? For years I wasn'r able to find anything showing MS sold those shares. Contrary I think they were traded for voting stock.
So if someone cut you off in a lunch line, you'd walk away. Because clearly so you're so extremely mature... Except, in response to a message you didn't read right, you went off the deep end with a bunch of "This is crap! I'm above all that!" hoo-ey. You spewed attitude -- without actually reading what you were responding to.
Oh, no, you wouldn't be involved in office politics...
What you're so "uninterested" in is the reactions people have to your lack of social skills. You think when you alienate them -- "because you don't play those kind of games" -- that means you're a real straight talker. Good luck with that. Hope your job on the LAN team works out for you.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
In fact, they could seriously diminish the iPod sales by cutting salaries, yet providing the bonus of a free player running MS software. Wouldn't that go over well!
The real issues should be about listing to your iPod when you should be working. And not using the company Internet to download your DRM-infested music. I wonder if iTunes is blocked at the MS firewall?
It has got to be w00t to run the nearest Apple Store to the MS campus. The guy ought to put a live web-cam with sound in there. :^)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Men who love sausage and respect the law should not observe the making of either . . .
hawk
I was intern at Microsoft in Summer 2003. At the end of the summer, my group bought me a 15GB iPod, and it was paid for with the group's morale budget.
I don't think this is a big deal on campus, and I suspect most people replace their headphones because the ones that come with the iPod aren't all that great.
Seriously, who actually uses the white headphones? you're gonna get jacked within the year.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'm not the only one who pretty much stopped going there when the old enchirito was dropped. They have somethign now with the same name, but it's not even similar.
.
And at that time, if you managed to both spend $5 *and* eat it all, you'd be waddling back to your car. 59, 79, 99 . .
hawk
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?
Speaking of playlists. Is it possible to create one on the iPod? On the karma one can create playlists on the karma itself.
Yes. They're called "On the go" playlists, can you can create as many as you like, one at a time. In the menu system, when you are on a song/artist/genre/etc., you press and hold the selection button. The entry flashes and is added to the current "On the go" playlist. When you're done creating the playlists, you can save it off and begin a new one. These "On the go" playlists are synced back into iTunes when you get back to your computer so you can mess about with them.
There's a little animation at the top of this page.
And you're extremely dense. His point, to paraphrase was "Henry Ford is to the car as Apple is to the portable Mp3 Player"
And he's right. How many of those pre-ipod models had the market share the iPod does? Apple came and turned the iPod into THE mp3 player. They didn't invent the damn thing anymore than Ford invented the car - but they got it into the hands of hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people better than anyone else. Period. Next time think a little before being a negative shit.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
...but my two points of karma say you're spot-on.
""In the media group they all smoke the company dope on that one," the manager said.
:P
Mary Jo Foley, editor of Microsoft Watch, said "
I like how they have "smoke...dope" right before someone named "Mary J"(ane).
"Digital Joy" is a wierd name in that context, probably more meaningful to the OTHER convention going on down the road from CES.
I don't think they've done a compelling job so far telling the average consumer why it is bettre to stick with Windows Media.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 23, @11:20AM
.78" thick 6.5 ounces. 5 GB HDD, 10 hr battery life, charged via FireWire. Works as a firewire drive as well. Works in conjunctions with iTunes 2. Here are Live updates". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.
The BrownFury writes "At an invitation only event Apple has released their new MP3 player called the iPod. iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by
First iPod article on slashdot.
haha, this is why I browse at +6 Troll.
Look up PJB100 on google and you'll find out about the first widely distributed HD MP3 player.
Nice player, it is considered big these days, but battery life is excellent, and the sound is terrific.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Bullshit. Those crappy white headphones that come with it suck balls and you should only use them if you think the iPod is a status symbol rather than a solid device. People aren't using other headphones to hide the fact that they're using an iPod. They're using other headphones because the white ones suck ass.
They hurt and if you have to take them out - which, being a portable device you probably will frequently - they have to be held onto or something so they don't flop to the ground. Get a set of headphones that have some sort of connection between the two earpieces so they can be quickly hung around your neck and then replaced just easily.
Newsflash Apple, people's ear canals aren't round.
I prefer Sony MDR-A44L's over anything but currently it costs half as much to have another pair shipped (mine finally broke after 5 years of abuse) as it does for the headphones themselves. Like $15 headphones with $7 shipping. grrrrr
My second favorite pair is are these Yamaha studio-like ones that are remarkably light and comfortable enough to wear for 8+ hours (as are the MDRs), but with a 6' cord. However they are basically like a pair of ear muffs they can make your head too hot in a hot room (my office is).
I miss my MDRs.
Question everything
Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it.
I have an iPod and I use different headphones because the ones included aren't very comfortable. They don't sound that great either. As great (and expensive) as the iPod is, it should include better headphones.
The PJB100 was never intended to take the market. It was simply first. Hango had no presence in the U.S. market, and still doesn't.
They simply made a gadget that proved there was a market. The software was not pretty, but it had one great feature that iTunes does not:
It can/could rip a song from a CD and save it directly to the player.
Which is just trivia.
The point is that Apple didn't invent the MP3 player. They didn't invent the HD MP3 player. They didn't even popularize the MP3 player. But they managed to take it from the realm of gadgets into people's pockets. That's a big deal. And its enough of a big deal that we don't have to exaggerate and say "Apple invented the MP3 player".
Sony didn't invent the transistor radio, but they sure made them popular.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
It's impossible to have any sense of shame after you've sold your soul.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
But-but-but... That's not how I learned it in "The Pirates of Silicon Valley"!
Man, I had put off seeing that movie until I discovered a VHS copy in the G/F's brother's old apartment. Watched it a couple weeks ago for the first time.
It dawned on me why so many nerfherders out here on the internets are so obstreperously clueless about the MS/Apple investment deal, not to mention how the development of the mainstream GUI actually transpired...
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Parent is right. Microsoft does not have a product to directly compete with the iPod, so it seems perfectly logical and acceptable for MS employees to use the iPod.
They do it. You can go to ANY GM plan and see Fords and Chrysler cars right next to the GM cars. You will even see Cheap foreign cars. You might get some flack but not too much. It depends who you are as well...
Your Average Joe
...I know, because I've been rereading it this week.
~Philly
.."received permission from Xerox to use concepts Xerox had no plans to put into a marketable product, in exchange for letting Xerox invest $1M in Apple stock," then yes.
If you were implying they just stole the GUI from PARC, then you're incorrect.
There was an implicit quid pro quo-- $1M investment in exchange for a tour of PARC and demo of their stuff. In "Triumph of the Nerds," former PARC employee Adele Goldberg explains that she flat out refused to demo the stuff in question to the Apple contingent until she was directly ordered to do so by her superiors, and even explained the reason for her refusal to them. And they ordered her to do the demo.
~Philly
" Microsoft needs pretend competition. Rather than let the "alternative types" go off the the uncontrollable Linux, Bill Gates can contain them in the Apple world."
It's true. It's like when I used to play Civilisation a lot, I used to play it with the goal of making the highest population (number of citizens) I could possibly make, which basically meant wiping out all the other nations and planting cities on every possible square of land.
But here's the thing, if you wiped out all your competitors completely then it was game over, much like it would be for Microsoft and their tenuous anti-trust situation. So what I would do would be to leave one enemy city alive (usually on a tiny single square sized island and stick a few battleships next to it to keep it totally isolated. That way you can keep playing the game and build up your massive mono-culture and the competition doesn't bother you much but is just enough to stop the game from continuing.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
That should end "just enough to stop the game from finishing"
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Example: The reporter claims Bellevue Square Mall is in "nearby Bellingham". A quick check of a map--Microsoft supplied or otherwise--will show that Bellingham is two freaking hours away from Microsoft campus. So where could Bellevue Square be? Um, Bellevue, maybe? A city which is, oh, yeah, right next to Microsoft's Redmond.
Face it: if Wired's reporter can't even be bothered to fact check a MAP how can you even believe that this article isn't a piece of overblown crap? The only difference between this Wired article and most Slashdot comments is that Wired actually prints on paper. This is a fine example of a fanboy whipping on Microsoft for instant anti-establishment credibility.
"Do you care if it falls?"
"What?"
"The Roman Empire."
A pause. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck it..."
He'll get over it. I was pretty enthusiastic during my first year there, too. Then the whole Dilbert-likeness of it all started driving me insane.
Still, at least the Softies have hard ons for something good. ;-)
I know that Carlsberg brewery gives it's higher level employees ONE cartoon [sic] of beer per month
You mean something like this?
;-)
Remember, Ballmer said that iPod users are thieves and that the most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'.
i would like to see his response to the rampant "thievery" by the company's own loyal staff.
Then again, Ballmer probably can't put his money where his mouth is, coz his foot is blocking the way.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
OK, so what happens when M$ people start requisitioning imac mini's etc to feed their iPods?
Or they need some Flamebait -1 to offset all that other good Karma they've been getting. :^)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That would explain a few things...
... and, so began, the legend of the Five-point Atkins Exploding Heart Technique!
"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous.
The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player -- that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft's corporate campus."
Uh, I think that's 80% of whatever % of the 25,000 have music players.
Moderation -1
100% Flamebait
I summarize the article, and suggest a joke solution to the problems it expressly identifies. That's "Flamebait"? TrollMods work for Microsoft brand security.
--
make install -not war
Once the war is won, the Police maintain the status quo. They aren't interested in creating markets or inventing new products, they just want things to say the same and keep making cash for their organization. In many ways, this is Dell.
Though, from another perspective, Dell is innovative in their sales, manufacturing, and logistical model. So, while they don't care about the novelty of the end product, the reason for their success is what they do to create those products -- faster, cheaper, etc. than the competition.
Dell killed IBM's PC business and is on the way to killing HP's.
-Stu