iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus

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iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 2, 2005 @05:02AM from the along-with-everywhere-else dept.

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."

18 of 1,017 comments (clear)

Representative of Microsoft's "vision" by Gob+Blesh+It · 2005-02-02 05:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

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...
1. Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" by eln · 2005-02-02 05:13 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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?
2. Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" by Geekenstein · 2005-02-02 05:13 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
3. Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" by Leo+McGarry · 2005-02-02 05:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
First Sign of Intelligent Life at Microsoft! by Zemplar · 2005-02-02 05:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Here you have it folks. Not everyone at Microsoft is hatching ill-conceived ideas; apparently it's only the Management.
Re:This makes no sense... by slimak · 2005-02-02 05:14 · Score: 5, Funny

At my work, we are not allowed to use company resources for personal use. This includes playing audio CDs on our computers, playing digital audio on our workstations, etc. So a portable player is a good solution. I should probably not be posting to slashdot either...hmmm.
Re:Why iPod anyway? by pdbogen · 2005-02-02 05:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

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? by Alan+Partridge · 2005-02-02 05:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

--
That was classic intercourse!
Re:Huh? by colanut · 2005-02-02 05:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

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:No by SunFan · 2005-02-02 05:22 · Score: 5, Funny

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.
Re:I wonder... by SpottedKuh · 2005-02-02 05:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

[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.
Re:Bill buys Apple? by Golias · 2005-02-02 05:30 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Its called Group Policies by lysium · 2005-02-02 05:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
Re:Bill buys Apple? by AstroDrabb · 2005-02-02 06:02 · Score: 5, Informative

the only way it threatens MS is in the fact that it totally ignores their pointless, me-too, proprietary .wma crapmat.
Huh? How is that not significant? Do you have any idea how much money MS spent on their WMA format and DRM? Tons of development cash and marketing cash went into their media format/platform? MS is hoping to get a bunch of royalties off of their media/DRM platform. If their platform is not widely adopted or replaced by AAC/FairPlay, it puts a big dent in potential revenues for MS from multimedia.
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
Not like Coke employees drinking pepsi. by HockeyPuck · 2005-02-02 06:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

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...
1. Re:Not like Coke employees drinking pepsi. by richieb · 2005-02-02 07:37 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  As a Coke employee, if I brought a pepsi product to work ....
  It's much worse when a Pepsi employee tests positive for coke....
  
  --
  ...richie - It is a good day to code.
Bill using iPod in Teen Beat by Sophrosyne · 2005-02-02 06:18 · Score: 5, Funny

A little image I fixed up in photoshop :)
Here
Re:I wonder... by NaruVonWilkins · 2005-02-02 06:32 · Score: 5, Informative

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.