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Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes
A reader submitted "Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes which is an interesting op-ed piece about the differences between the two companies, but also the intersection with a different type of business like that of television. I've read some of the same arguements before, but this piece ties it up nicely together."
- conspicuously repeating the cult-like phrase "recommends Windows XP Professional" in all marketing;
- never advertising PCs sold without an operating system, or with an alternative OS installed;
- applying Windows stickers to all PCs sold, and using a keyboard with a prominent Windows key.
Doesn't this go against the terms of the antitrust settlement with the DOJ?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Microsoft and all the other MP3 player companies combined don't come close to the amount of marketing that goes into the iPod. They can't compete with iTunes because 90% of people get iPods and iTunes is the only thing that works with it.
what airline I can fly to have an iPod built into my headrest, and a Ballmer-Zune hybrid for a flight attendant?
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
The fact that the market is saturated alredy with people who can use iTunes and who own iPods? What is the insentive to switch?
The U.S. DOJ settlement against Microsoft did very little. I would argue it basically did nothing of any relevance, certainly nothing that fundamentally changed Microsoft's business practices. If anything, it probably emboldened them, since the end of the settlement made it harder for a new one to be brought against them in the future -- it demonstrated that the U.S. government didn't have the political cojones to actually do anything meaningful.
Here's the DOJ's lame info site on the settlement:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms-settle.htm
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The Power of Monopoly
Interestingly, while Microsoft's monopoly power dominates the PC industry, it didn't achieve that position in the same manner as Apple found success with the iPod. This is very important to understanding why Microsoft can't compete with iTunes.
It has everything to do with choice.
More than 80% of Microsoft's revenues for Windows come from corporate volume licensing and OEM copies of Windows bundled with new PCs. That means the company doesn't have to compete to sell a product at retail.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Microsoft can't compete with iTunes because they are dead set on keeping their WMA DRM PlaysForSure-Maybe technology.
If anyone hopes to one day defeat iTunes, they'll have to do it by making music more convenient to listen to, not at least as hard.
Oh You POS
You learn something new every day.
* applying Windows stickers to all PCs sold, and using a keyboard with a prominent Windows key.
Hah. One of the first things I did, after building my first PC 4 years ago, was lever off the Windows keys, which flew behind my desk and haven't been seen since. Annoying pieces of shit. Everytime I accidently hit one for Ctrl or Alt fed the need to remove these unwelcome interlopers of QWERTY keyboards.
More than 80% of Microsoft's revenues for Windows come from corporate volume licensing and OEM copies of Windows bundled with new PCs. That means the company doesn't have to compete to sell a product at retail.
Which I've always said, Microsoft are lucky and they have never learned anything.
How was it that the scrappy Apple beat Microsoft in online music and movies? How was Microsoft's omnipotent empire defeated, and is there some chance that Microsoft will still have the opportunity to beat Apple at its own game with Zune, the company's solo effort at developing an iPod killer?
Simply put, without knowledge of how to build a business, Microsoft has been playing Follow-The-Leader for years. Throwing their massive profits from Windows and Office sales into subsidising these disasterous forays. It's kind of like watching the Soviets try to compete with the rest of the world with their Lada cars.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Enough said.
Except from what I've heard, Zune isn't going to use PlaysForSure, it's going to use some other DRM system that won't be compatible with existing (Sandisk, etc.) PFS players.
So they've basically written PlaysForSure off as a failure, it would seem -- or at least it looks like it. I don't know what you call a DRM system that you refuse to use on your own products, if not a failure.
But if you read TFA, the reasons for Microsoft's predicted failure are not just that it's hawking a more restrictive DRM system than Apple is (which I'm not sure most people care about) but because their experience just doesn't translate over into the new market. With the exception of the xBox, Microsoft really doesn't know anything about consumer electronics, and their major product is maintained through aggressive marketing agreements that don't allow for any consumer choice. In short, they're crappy at actually getting people to buy their stuff, when they have a choice. Apple, on the other hand, has been fighting an uphill battle for years and knows how to woo people, both via their brains and wallets.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Until an American company learns that I want to play my music in formats I define, I will not buy DRM-infested music from either store. Instead I will continue to use free music services I find by searching for "free music" on my favorite search engine.
Then, of the MP3 playing/listening market, you are on the fringe. More power to you, but you don't see a lot of grassroots products selling 100 million units.
I'm still on the fence about an mp3 player. I'll probably just get some poopy little job that works with USB flash RAM, that way I can plug it into my new car radio or take it with me. I'm not trying to make a fashion statement or raise consciousnesss. I'm just a consumer who wants to enjoy life a little bit more by having less conspicuous consumerism shoved in my face.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...Microsoft and Apple do things differently from one another.
In other news.. water found to be wet, fire still a hot property, and chocolate exhibits yumminess.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Historically thier success has been to follow the leader then make a similar product.
Windows was not the first OS to market, neither was MS Office.
Reason #32767 not to use VB6: Integers are 2 bytes... Think about it!
In reality it's more like 75% (there's a nice chart on the second page of TFA), but you're right -- there are "iPods" and then there is "everything else."
If you're Apple, then you're going to be fighting for the 25% that's split among Sandisk/Creative/et al for "everything else," which is mostly sold to people who have made a conscious decision that they don't want an iPod.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...designs an MP3-player that actually does what it's supposed to, that's when I'll buy it.
:=)
What I don't want is an MP3-player that's DRM-infested, but doesn't even play their own, much advertised DRM format, an MP3-player with WiFi that can ONLY communicate with other MP3-players or an MP3-player with a navigational wheel that doesn't spin.
Congratulations Microsoft, at least you reinvented the wheel!
Blog -
So you are hypothesizing that Microsoft can only succeed if they can impose a product on people by means of it's monopoly as opposed to Apple who has to persuade people to choose to use their product? The interesting thing is that Apple is now in a virtual monopoly position on the online-music market precisely because it was so successful at persuading people to choose to use their iPod.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The fact that the market is saturated alredy with people who can use iTunes and who own iPods? What is the insentive to switch?
Apple's footprint is extended by the aftermarket, where Zune won't even have one for months or years. I was in CostCo a week ago and was stunned how many portable stereos there are with an iPod cradle. Must have been a dozen, all different manufacturers. While shopping for a new car radio I find lots of them offer an option to hook up your iPod.
Well. Looks like Apple doesn't just have a market, but a solid market. Apple's worst enemy at this point could only be themselves by changing something and screwing these aftermarket partners who provide them with greater value.
Microsoft could only achieve this quickly with some very large incentives ($$$$$$$$) given to manufacturers to adopt their platform and I don't see that happening soon enough for the holiday shopping season (which has already begun, dontcherknow.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Well, that was dumb (and it even made it through Preview). Here's how it should have read:
If you're NOT Apple, then you're going to be fighting for the 25% that's split among Sandisk/Creative/et al for "everything else," which is mostly sold to people who have made a conscious decision that they don't want an iPod.
Durh.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
They earn points by following certain rules Microsoft gives them, including:
...
2.never advertising PCs sold without an operating system, or with an alternative OS installed;
How can this not be viewed as anti-competitive behavior resulting from MS monopoly? Man, that sucks for the other OS's...
"Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes" .. "about the differences between the two companies"
Last time I checked iTunes was a product, not a company. Unless Apple has spun off a company to deal with just iTunes and it's online store, the correct phrase would be "Why Zune Can't Compete With iTunes."
People bash Microsoft, but if there wasn't so much DRM built into recent products (and there used to be not so much. I for one LOVED Win98. And if it were possible, yes, physically.), Microsoft would merely have the best product. Having the best product is not a monopoly. I'm going to write a song in the style of the Clash called "Waiting for the Mod-down."
Anyone that really wants a 2-4 gig mp3 player had it long before MS came out with their new player. Their software, no matter how great it is, really fails because there is nothing new and exciting about it. You can't tell someone that already has an iPod (the entire population of people that care about mp3 players), spend x$ on Zuma because it is from MS. Want to sell your product Microsoft? Get rid of the DRM and it will sell like hotcakes.
Development notes at http://devscribbles.blogspot.com
iPod wasn't the first MP3 player on the market, neither was MacOS.
I hate printers.
Cost and Marketing:
1. Cost
Apple's BOM costs aren't meaningfully higher than any of their competitors. I'm guessing their vig to the media conglomerates is about the same. They are working on the same cost structure which means microsoft has no advantage going in. It is very likely the zune will never operate as a profitable project by itself. It may be around for a while and they will destroy all of their OEM vendors business along the way. But, legitimate business that threatens the ipod it won't ever be.
2. Marketing
I had the great pleasure of seeing a zune poster pasted onto the temporary wall of a construction. Apple-class marketing it was not. I don't doubt that MS will throw a ton of money at the zune and it will have meaningful market share. But only because it will be cheap.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Nobody likes to see the rich get richer. We all want the underdog to userp! Now, MS is smaller than Google. So Google's "Not Evil" slogan is tarnishing... http://wimax-access.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-googl e-will-fail.html has a funny article about just that
Seriously, I love my old-school, IBM Model M, battle-ship tough, obnoxiously loud, buckling spring clicky keyboard. No Windows key, a proper layout, and very nice tactile feedback.
I see these things go at a premium. Solidly built and with a little adapter they should go on working for a hundred years.
I miss having that space between keys as a finger rest. I worked on terminals for decades and then had to work with these infernal things. There was a Penguin keyboard where you could get Tux on the key-caps, but I haven't seen them around for a while.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I was not aware that the antitrust settlement was a gag order that primarily prevented Microsoft from merely saying things (which are the three things you list). Sounds more like a gag order/ censorship package than any sort of antitrust settlement (which would be a limitation on actual practices, not speech).
Where were you when the voynix came?
Microsoft's DRM is fascist. If they could force you to pay a separate license for each ear for listening to music in stero rather than mono, they would. Even average customers are beginning to grow wise to Microsoft, and when Vista is released and they find to run Aero they have to add RAM AND a video card, and then later upgrade their hard drive (and reinstall because they won't have ghost or dd or partimage) and oops, sorry, they just used up their last activation, time to buy again per the EULA. . . or in the case of music specifically, they just bought a new MP3 player? It won't sync, too bad, so sad, Microsoft will tell you to buy it again.
Apple has discovered a balance between hindering blatent "piracy" and fair use which most people find tolerable, almost downright customer-friendly. If they were to offer iTunes for Linux, I just might buy music from Apple.
However, they (Apple) still have to realize that when I buy it, I OWN it, and I have the right by law to transfer ownership of what I purchased to someone else if I damn well desire to, just as I can sell or give away a used CD I no longer want.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
There is legit free music on google too. My favourite is the album from Harvey Danger.
Oh You POS
The article called Apple a minor player in the PC industry. Yes, I'll say 0% (Apple has yet to market a PC) is a rather small share.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"iPod wasn't the first MP3 player on the market, neither was MacOS."
Where did the article say that Apple was first with either?
Where were you when the voynix came?
"So you are hypothesizing that Microsoft can only succeed if they can impose a product on people by means of it's monopoly"
I'm not hypothesing this, I am quoting from the article. But I do agree with its sentiments. Do you believe otherwise, that 80% of revenues don't come from volume licensing and OEM licenses and that a large part of Microsofts' current and past sucess is derived from this. This looks to any disinterested observer as factual rather then hypothesis.
was Re:Hypothesizing...
davecb5620@gmail.com
Just look at the adverts on that site. PackardBell recommends Windows XP, Lenovo recommends Windows XP Professional, HP recommends Windows XP Professional, Dell recommends Windows XP Professional
davecb5620@gmail.com
Not long ago I was hearing how Apple is going to have trouble competing with Microsoft's iPod killer...
Next story please... How about something to do with HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray or maybe even VHS vs BetaMax!
"The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later." Blah. Success means failure. Where's my story fix?
Wish I could add more to the discussion, but the site is slashdotted, so here's the coral cache link.
When I get back from my meeting, I might think of something more useful to say.
The real reason WMA never took off was because while we were all getting music for free we were looking for and downloading MP3s off of Napster and then Kazaa or Morpheus. We didn't want WMAs because you couldn't just burn them to a CD that would work in your car or home stereo. Bad timing for MS basically. iTunes came along with MP3s and duped everyone into thinking you were getting DRM free MP3s because that's what we were used to getting. Trust me, there are people like me in the world that refuse to buy iTunes music for that reason. So despite the whole iPod/iTunes success story, I won't buy one, or a Zune for that matter, until they stop trying to force DRM down our throats.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
The same could be said for Windows.... there is Windows and there is everything else... With a 5% share is OS X even relevant?
With marketing prowess like this, it's very unlikely that they will be able to compete with Apple.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Why is it on ./ that we have articles like this once a week or so, yet I've never seen a headline like "Why Apple can't complete with Microsoft for Operating System", or "Why Apple will never amount to anything in the corporate environment"?
./ crowd still thinks Apple matters in Operating Systems. In the corporate market, Apple has basically 0% market share... so by the iPod "logic" used in this article, why should it even bother to compete.
Apple has less OS market share than the "minor" ipod-wannabes, yet the
Also, the market share for "other" in the portable music play market varies considerably depending on what you count as portable music players.... the biggest share is still CD/radio players if you include the auto market.
Given:
iTMS = iTunes Music Store.
iTunes = the iTunes application program.
A => B does not imply B => A.
iTMS => iPod does not imply iPod => iTMS
iTMS and its DRM'd AAC files are easily replaceable, just like 8-track tapes, casette tapes, LPs, etc. It is merely yet another content delivery system. The notion of a lock-in is a myth. MP3s are still the dominant music format. iTunes rips to both MP3 and non-DRM'd AAC files. iPods play MP3, non-DRM'd AAC, and DRM'd AAC. The average iTMS customer does not have a significant investment in DRM'd AAC files, and moving to a new format is far more convenient than with the previous mentioned formats. You merely need iTunes and it will exist along side the next-great-thing on your computer. iTunes will not wear out, it will be updated, unlike that 8-track player. History has shown that people can own hundreds of dollars of music and be quite willing to move on, and with software applications being the player the inconvenience of doing so is far less.
Some of us happen to favour brown.
People who don't like brown are racists. Racists only listen to crappy music. Crappy music is disproportionately laden with restrictive Digital Rights Mungling. Restricted music makes little 5 pound, 4 ounce Baby Jesus cry.
These stories are free but worth money.
I would say yes, because within that 5% is 95% of the innovation in desktops.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
It's too big to be a space station...
! !!!
I'm caught in a tractor beam!
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
no text this time.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Though the article is interesting and enlightening, I could not help but notice that Firefox (1.5.0.7) did not render the page well. Some of the text from the article was underneath other text. It made the reading real annoying. On the other hand, the web page rendered well with IE.
It's like Bizarro world... A great article exposing Microsoft limitations and/or weaknesses, but it will not render well in Firefox. Because of that, I have to rate the article a 6.5 to 7 (on a scale of one to ten). Fix the rendering so that Firefox renders the text well and then it would probably rate as a 8.5 to 9.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Microsoft's DRM is fascist. If they could force you to pay a separate license for each ear for listening to music in stero rather than mono, they would.
Microsoft wants the killer feature of the Zune to be the sharing, but that sharing is severely limiting. The best thing to do would be to extend the convenient and useful type of sharing that Apple has in iTunes to the portable players. If they did that before Apple did, it might be useful.
What I'm thinking is this: Sharing is not limited as to the amount of time or the number of times a song is played, but by proximity. Songs aren't necessarily stored on the 2nd player's disk, but really just streamed and thrown away after listening once. The technical logistics of battery life, etc. might make it difficult to implement, but I think it would be more useful than MS's strategy.
Of course, the iTunes-style of sharing is convenient for fixed computers, like in an office, or in a dorm setting, but I think that would apply well to portable players, for places where people congregate, like libraries, lines for movies/concerts, buses, waiting rooms, etc.
I read your article about the "Microsoft fallacy", but you seem to have totally ignored the corporate market. If a Fortune 500 company really wanted to buy machines without Windows licenses they could easily cut a deal with Dell. Dell already sells machines without OS's (see the workstation/server pages) and can special price & configure machines--in fact, they'll even preload any OS/software you want on a machine (minimum quantities apply). However, big corporations really want Windows--it's easily remotely administered, works well with other applications (especially Exchange) and there is a large ecosystem to support it. From secretary training (how to log in, use word) all the way up to advance internals experts. From a corporate point of view, Windows just works.
Because the big corporation use Windows, all of the smaller firms that buy or sell to the big corporations frequently need to use windows. Sure I could deliver a presentation myself using keynote, but the first time I send it to a corporate client will be the last time with that client. Same thing with sending a document in a "weird" apple font (sure they can open it, but it will look strange--the question will come back "can't you just put it on a PC?".)
The iSeries (iTunes, iMove, iGarageBand) is essentially meaningless in the corporate environment. Apple has pretty much given up any hope of getting more than a pip of share in companies with more than 500 employees. The same thing is somewhat (although not completely) true in the educational market.
The training cost of a new hire who doesn't know how to use Windows/Office is higher than one who does--two identically candidate--one who is ready to go and the other who "gee I've only used a Mac, but boy can I operate GarageBand" which would you hire?
Apple are cool, shiny objects--just keep them at home.
Indeed. I was scanning todays so-called "headlines" and thinking there are probably only about 4 or 5 different topics ever discussed on slashdot. After years of reading regularly, it's beginning to seem more and more like a waste of time. If it weren't for the fact that work was the chief alternative....
Perhaps ZUNE/SanDisk/Sony/Reo/??? will be the 5% innovation now that iPods have stagnated (unless you count RED as an innovation)
Let's get to work, mods... if ever there were a perfect candidate for (Score:5, Troll) this is it.
"From a corporate point of view, Windows just works."
I think this point of view might be slipping from dominance. You speak of the population of pre-trained/semi-trained people who can run a windows machine. This is a good thing from the corporate point of view, but at the consumer's end this is what leads to the script-driven tech support system that (to me, at least) is extremely frustrating.
When I call my ISP for support, I want a guy who knows what an SMTP server is exactly, not a guy who asks what version of Windows I'm using or who starts off with "go to the Options menu in outlook express...."
I think this is a short-term benefit. How many of these semi-competent script-readers are going to be useful when Vista rolls out? Or the Excel interface changes drastically? Nothing's going to "just work" anymore until you spend big money retraining.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I would say the biggest reason is the whole cool factor thing. MS is just not cool. Not thing about it is cool. I mean nothing. Their software we use because we must if we want to be compatible with everyone else or play games. ;). I just got my first ipod video a couple weeks ago when my creative died on me, and I have to say I really is better. It's faster, it feels better in my hand, I just get the "impression" of it being a quality product. Same with itunes. Ok, it's not as intuitive at first since I cant drag and drop like I could with my creative, but really...it always works.
Take a look at that crappy zune! It really looks bad. The design is not bad, but the quality looks terrible. Bad materials and giant size.
Now I have always used creative devices in the past and never really used online music stores other then occasional Russia website
I don't know anyone who would buy a "zune" when they could have and ipod for about the same money. You will be that guy who is wearing the jeans which look like designer jeans only with a walmart logo and funky material, only you actually paid just as much. That's the way I see it anyhow.
There's not text here either.
Though I think the GP is right, most every version of Windows was better than the last one.
So what's your point?
I wrote a long article about how important DRM control was to content and content distribution. I even wrote out how some of the historical events over the past 10 years has made for Microsoft's monopoly. I then correlated the DRM to future market control and the building of a greater foundation upon which they will maintain their monopoly status.
I erased it all because some of the younger crowd probably would see it as some sort of conspiracy theory. Those that lived through the 80s and 90s working in the industry know how Microsoft got into their monopoly position.
Suffice it to say that DRM locks you into a company and props up their profits. For example, if you buy Microsoft's products you are locked into their DRM, and hence in order to change (for any valid reason) you either give up all you purchased and move on, or you stay with them realizing that over the years you may have purchased hundreds if not thousands of dollars of DRM conent from one providor. The only thing you can do to keep from being locked in is to purchase your content from multiple sources (and hence be stuck with multiple incompatible content, and players). For instance, you could buy Zune and an iPod and purchase content on both. You can't interchange those sorry to say. DRM and the laws that protect that (such as the DCMA) keep you from moving that content to a better player, a more competitive company, etc. Maybe someday Congress will see that and change the laws once they realize what they created by allowing such an Act to be created.
Anyway, we all know how Microsoft controls the Office market by virtue of controlling the windows API. We see the same thing in interoperability standards for networking--the very thing that the EU has been on MS about. The secretive portions of the API are just like having DRM in a way.
Microsoft doesn't control the networking world but they did gain significant inroads into the market overnight taking away Novell's 90% marketshare (overnight). The same thing happened with word processing and spreadsheets. Granted, the companies that were the defacto standards back then are responsible too. We know though that Microsoft has used it's position in control of the OS to manipulate the office productivity and networking markets and lock to vendors and consumers.
If Zune grabs any significant portion of the market expect the MS DRM to do the same thing to content creation, IP rights holders, and you the consumer. Everyone who chose them will be locked into a convicted monopolist's way of doing things.
Consider for yourself how many times you would be willing to repurchase the same music or videos (even after years of using one vendor's products). I doubt many of you would want to do that. Imagine the iPod owner that has filled their iPod up with Apple music store purchases. Can you image a 30 gig iPod filled with 7,500 songs at $.99 a piece? Would you, if you were in the same position consider giving that up to go with another vendor knowing you can't transfer that content?
I don't think any time before Apple's iTunes store and the iPod has a vendor/reseller ever held such control over the pricing of products in the way Apple has been recognized to have. (IP rights holders wanted a sliding scale based on popularity and Apple called them greedy and got them to concede to its' pricing plan). In reality it was Apple who was greedy and had there been another mechanism as easy to distribute and collect payment as Apple had we would not have seen that happen. Microsoft sees this and knows that they can gain participation due to their name and resources. One wrong move by Apple and BAM! Microsoft will be their to offer their service. They know that once they control the content via DRM you are stuck with them. They also know that Apple is very very strong and it will be hard to use any Apple mistake to their advantage.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Does someone have another link? Just "squirt" it onto a reply to this post. Thanks.
Can I bum a sig?
a little box called the Apple II. about a year or so after they made one of the most popular microprocessors in early history, a naked board with a 6502 on it. 9 years before IBM introduced their first PC.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
MARKETING!!! Microsoft won't beat Apple because of marketing. First, ZUNE? Who came up with that name? What is Microsoft's answer to iTunes Music Store? I don't know and I am not sure why I should care. Second, complexity. Wirelessly share your music but with certain restriction and depending on liscensing with the particular albumn....alright, I already have a headache. In Computer Science 101, I was told to always, "Keep it simple, STUPID!". Third, IMAGERY! The biggest consumers of music and music players is teens and a player should have a the "Cool" factor associated with it. There is nothing cool about Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. The ZUNE should noy be seen in public with those two!
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
because they have deep, DEEP pockets.
It doesn't matter if it's an absolute failure the first time, the second time or even the third time.
Remember windows didn't even catch on until 3.11
By that time, they had learned, bought or stolen enough tech expertise to score a win.
Then they leveraged their position to strong-arm sellers (not buyers) into carrying it.
But this time, I am not sure that they can win because of their prior 'success.'
The battle for the desktop was won but it has turned out to be a stright jacket for M$.
They're on the desktop of too many offices to ever break out of the perception that they belong there.
And its taken them way too long to even come up with something better than IE. They have made the internet a morass and a minefield for web surfing. And that is not helping them.
In strong-arming tech and forcing Apple from having any competive position, they forced Apple's image out of the office and into the retail space. (And guess where the money is?)
M$ = Eerie-Bucyrus; winners in their 'space' of huge earth-movers, but unable to make the transition to any other space, like back-hoes.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"fool, Apple INVENTED the PC...a little box called the Apple II"
I know it is a long time ago and easy to forget, but there were a lot of other companies around then. Commodore's PET came out about the same time as the Apple II. The TRS-80 came out a couple months after. There are likely other earlier models I'm probably forgetting. They were called "microcomputers" at that time. The marketing term "personal computer" was introduced a little later, but it never really caught on until the IBM-PC. Also, if you actually did recall the Apple II, it was hardly a "little box" (being bulky and heavy).
"about a year or so after they made one of the most popular microprocessors in early history, a naked board with a 6502 on it"
Contrary to this alternate history, a naked board with a chip on it is not a microprocessor. The chip itself happened to be. It (the 6502 itself) was invented by MOS. There were other machines along with the Apple 1 (at that time) that made use of it. Apple was one of a few early microcomputer companies in the pre-PC era, but that is about it.
Where were you when the voynix came?
For your point #2 you can check this list of manufacturers that sell pc's with Linux pre-installed and with no os installed.
...it was because this was slashdot and Microsoft can't do anything right.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Service pack 1 of Vista comes with one free Zune player. Service Pack 2 comes with two free players and Service Pack three will have three Zune players bundled with it. All remaining players will be divided evenly in Service Pack four, they are expecting to give four to six players with each service pack four upgrade. Gates apparently has coined a new term, Attrition Marketing".
Hate to call a party line mac user what he is but consider these points: Apple Keyboards have Apple keys. Apple hardward all have Apple Logos on them. Apple is proprietary and hardware is sold specifically for the apple pc/laptop. So by nature they are exclusive on their hardware. If Open GL is so great why does Microsoft have a stangle hold with their direct X. If they can compete in that space against EVERYONE else why shouldn't they? Adobe is sueing microsoft for adding "Save as PDF". Guess who is in bed with Adobe? Ipod charges .99 cent a song regardless of use. Urge a microsoft/MTV backed product offer full rights for the same price you guessed it .99 cents and it can be burned to CD Rom. So what was your point about itunes being a freer medium? Their price model is the same.
So really your stomp dance amounts to Mac cult propaganda that is not factual and does not mention the mirror image of strategic moves used by Apple. This is the mark of bad journalism.
So when did Microsoft ever "compete" with any other company? That's not how they do business, y'know.
...
Consider that they got their start as a subcontractor for IBM, and used IBM's economic clout to enforce "agreements" with retail vendors that effectively locked out other startups. That was so successful that they've never had much of a motive to "compete" in any ordinary sense of the word. They don't compete; they make deals. When they have to, they engage in classical price wars, but that's a last resort. They used a price war to bankrupt Netscape, of course. But their usual approach is more like how they're now trying to lock out all those pesky vendors of Windows security software. They'll succeed at that, too, as they have with all sorts of other software.
That's how big business works in the Real World [TM], y'know. You don't profit by competing. You profit by ensuring that the customers don't know about and can't easily find the competitors' products.
The iPod is an abberation. MS screwed up, and failed to take the appropriate steps before the masses became aware of this new product. It's a bit late for them now, though they still have a chance of winning if they can make it sufficiently difficult for Windows users to use iPods. As a last resort, they can give away their own player "free", i.e., with the price included in a Vista system.
Let's see what they do
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Ssshhh microsoft is evil
apple is good or some other zealot nonesense like that.
Instant DRM nullification.
Instant transfer of music to Zune.
Apple may prefer you stick to iTunes, but it doesn't force you.
Video content, on the other hand, hasn't been given the ability to transcode yet.
GPL Deconstructed
Sony or SanDisk maybe but the Zune is just a copy of the iPod, unless you count BROWN as an innovation. And Rio no longer exists.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
"The Apple OS was more successful before Microsoft's OS dominated"
When you are looking at? Microsoft's OS was in the PCs a couple of years prior to the Mac and was already running away with the OS market. If you want to go into the early 1970s, the two were so intertwined as to have the same "success": the Apple ][ OS with Microsoft ("Applesoft") BASIC in it. So, in the Apple ][ era, the two were interjoined, and in the Mac era, the Microsoft OS's always had a lot more sales and domination success. Can't find any time of Apple OS "dominance" over Microsoft OS in terms desktop penetration.
You are entirely correct, though, about others dominating Microsoft for a long time when it came to "office" and word processing.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Personally, M$ doesn't need to compete as far as media players (software such as WMP, VLC, foobar2000), is because they have about 20 or 30 third party media players available.
When I first really started listening to music on my PC about a year ago, I started with iTunes, which was great for me as a beginner, but then I got fed up with it sucking up between 50 and 70 mbs of RAM, not to mention even with the "Keep my folder organized" option disabled, it would still seem to take all my nicely organized directories of "top level/artist/album" and I end up with about 3 different directories for 1 (one) artist... what a pain in the ass...
After my initial encounter with iTunes I went to Winamp, which worked ok for a month or 2, by which time I had loaded it with enough plugins it was permanently broken - even after a complete removal of the plugins and Winamp with a reinstall of the player, it still wouldn't work. Oh ya, did I mention I ended up removing more than 80% of Winamps default plugins since they were useless to me?
At this point I went to foobar2000 - if you don't want it to do something, it doesn't do it, find the plugins/extensions you want, load em up, change the UI, etc and it loads ONLY the ones you have. The UI uses the "TAGZ" language (if thats what you call it) - the same that Winamp uses, except about 5x more extensively and provides documentation on most if not all of the commands - in other words, if you want something to say "Songs" instead of "Playlists" you can change it yourself. Basically its everything I could want - customized the hell out of the interface (well, ok it is missing the ability to lose window chrome and a skinnable toolbar, and no mini-mode is a downer, but hey - rainmeter widgets answer that for me) and it doesn't try to reorginize my stuff so that I can micromanage that myself like I want to.
LOL. Your rant is the mark of typical peach-fuzz commenting.
Yes minor player... just like how in every marching band of thousands, there's just one guy in the front showing it where to go.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Neither "iTunes Music Store" nor "the iTunes application program" is a proposition, or statement with a true/false value. Your attempt to apply Boolean algebra to these phrases probably indicates that you learned about Boolean algebra last week, and still don't understand it. Thanks.
;-)
The following are neither propositions nor statement, but rather definitions of abbreviations:
iTMS = iTunes Music Store.
iTunes = the iTunes application program.
I offer my apologies for confusing you.
makali: Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.
jwz: I am fully in support of this proposed audio-cock technology.
If Open GL is so great why does Microsoft have a stangle hold with their direct X.
Microsoft Flight Simulator, and other flight simulators and programs that use multi screens.
Microsoft broke OpenGL for multiple screens, even for systems with identical cards and with manufacturers that supported multiple screens, while making sure that DirectX worked and that Microsoft Flight Simulator worked with it.
That meant that every game manufacturer had three choices:
Support DirectX *as well as* OpenGL, with attendant developer and support costs.
Support openGL only and deliver an inferior experience for people who wanted mltiple screens on Windows.
Support DirectX only and abandon the Mac market.
Double score for Micrsoft there.
Guess who is in bed with Adobe?
Not Apple. Adobe has been boning Apple hard since the mid-90s. They used their position to kill Rhapsody: they refused to cut a deal for Display Postscript that let Apple price Rhapsody for a consumer market, and then refused point blank to support OpenStep. Apple had to go back and come up with a transition API for moving OS 8 apps... Carbon. Apple had to come up with a replacement for Display Postscript. Aqua. Then Adobe dragged their feet out on Carbonizing Photoshop, and they're going to be the *last* major Mac app converted to Intel.
This is just Adobe finally showing Microsoft a little of the face they show Apple.
...it would take at least an hour pointing out all the blatent inaccuracies (I'll give the benefit of the doubt and not call the author a liar, for now), which could be better spent on actual work, and would probably get modded -57 anyway for taking a non-anti-microsoft stance on an issue on Slashdot and never be actually read by anyone. I will, however, voice my agreement with the "fud" tag applied to the article.
"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience."
SATA/eSATA
USB
Bluetooth
Demise of the floppy
Modern OSes with a usable GUI (Still waiting for Windows to come around on that one)
and so on and so forth.
Better a colorful shell than an eternity of beige and black boxes. Even there Apple led.
Yes, practically every time you touch your PC you can thank Apple for what happens next. Yet strangely you are not. I hope your mother does not realize you are such an ungrateful wretch.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You have falled for the fallacy of equal percentages.
5% of x is not equal to 5% of y
5% of the music player industry = nothing to brag about
2.2% of the world wide PC industry = $12 billion company
Thanks for playing though.
Ugg, me fail english! That's unpossible.
I wonder if it can play the brown note?
Take off every 'SIG'!!
I bought a 1Gig ILO at Walmart for about $100. It has a slot for an SD card and uses a single AAA battery (about 12 hours on an alkaline) I bought a 1Gig SD card for $40 about the same time. Most of my music I buy from audiolunchbox.com ($.99 DRM-less MP3s).
The thing I like about this player is I can keep my favorite 1Gig of music on the built in memory, and change the music on the expansion card as needed. It also has a mic for recording and an FM receiver, but I never really listen to the radio any more. (I have used the mic several times already though for taking notes.)
BTW: I do buy music from iTunes for some groups. I just burn a CD-RW and re-rip. My hearing isn't good enough to hear the difference anyways.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
I'd just like to point out that you are the 823,273's poster on Slashdot who basically said, as for me, I rip all my CDs, although others pirate music. It's funny how this seems like a requirement when discussing music downloads, a blanket denial that you personally have ever downloaded anything copyrighted.
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
Count again. USB? PCs had it at the same time as Macs. I even had a PC that had USB before the iMac even came out. The difference is that PCs did the better thing and always offered legacy ports alongside USB, so the users had a choice and didn't have to ditch their useful peripherals. That's because you have a bunch of manufacturers that compete to best serve the users, rather than one company that decrees from on high "non-USB is immoral" and rams the decision down everyone's throat, to the great delight of conversion-dongle vendors.
SATA? Can't really verify this one. IS there a reference that it was on the Mac first?
Demise of the floppy? Apple bungled on this one. The got rid of it when it was still useful. It lingered in the PC world until people actually did not NEED them anymore, then it vanished. This one should not have been on the list. Getting rid of a useful feature is not a good thing.
"Modern OSes with a usable GUI"? Most users find the other non-Mac OS to suit their purposes better than the one from Apple. Besides, the version of the Mac OS prior to OS-X were crippled and harder to use due to lack of command-line flexibility. Because, no matter what the GUI, it has its flaws and there are always some tasks that are easier and quicker on a command line. The best OS will offer users the choice of command line and GUI. The Windows and Linux world always knew this. Apple only learned relatively recently.
Bluetooth? can't find who is first on that.
Firewire? Yes, look. It wasn't on your list. Apple did have this first. I'm giving this one to you. Now most PCs have it. I know about this, because I used the Firewire port a couple of years ago. Have not used it since. "Better a colorful shell than an eternity of beige and black boxes. Even there Apple led."
Because the color of the box is much more important than what is on the screen? Well, actually, I checked: most machines by Apple, Dell, and everyone else are the same old black, beige, silver, and white. These are the same colors most all computers have had since the late 1970s (Apple's was beige then).
"Yes, practically every time you touch your PC you can thank Apple for what happens next."
Rarely, if ever. I still have an iMac colored USB hub, however. I guess I can thank Apple for that. In some cases, we can be pretty sure that certain Mac "advances" will always be ignored by more free-market (usefulness-driven) computers, such as the Mac's missing media eject buttons and the single-button mouse. There is one Apple "advance" that did make it to the PC world, unfortunately: the terrible Aqua color fad. When I saw mp3 software skins with UNREADABLE low-contrast pale control bars, I know that Mac was influencing things again.
I'll close by thanking Apple for its most influential design: the funny iMac colors. I still use my George Foreman grill with the semitransparent turqouise shell.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I would say yes, because within that 5% is 95% of the innovation in desktops.
Whoa, dude... are you, like, saying that 95% is, like, the OPPOSITE of 5% or the RECIPROCATE or something...cuz like, they both add up to 100!!!!!!!!!!!
They just need to find a way, where when someone is buying a brand new x86 machine, they are also somehow unwittingly buying into Microsoft's music stuff. Did you buy a Dell? You're now Another Satisfied Customer for everything Microsoft offers in all markets.
They need to find a way, when someone creates a document (MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, etc) and sends it to someone else, that "someone else" needs to have Microsoft's music software in order to read the document (and also presumably execute the malware inside the document as a bonus ;-).
Just look at Microsoft's track record, and you'll see how they "compete": by not competing. It's effective and it can work, as long as Microsoft remembers to use it. When they don't remember to use it, their product falls into obscurity. When they do remember, their product becomes the new defacto standard.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Duh, thats because Apple make them - just as a Toshiba Laptop says "Toshiba" on it.
Microsoft do not make the keyboard sold with the PC, nor do they make the Toshiba laptop you buy - yet it still has a MS Windows key & a collection of MS stickers.
* Game Over * High Score: 264,846,927 -- Your Score: 14
Too bad their "new-and-improved" wheel is square...
Warning: Contents May Be Flammable. Keep Out Of Reach Of Children.
I can't just delete a song from the player I want I have to delete it from itunes and then sync the player.
You can change that in preferences. In my experience most people do.
I have a collection of my music on an external sata drive and I don't want to copy my music from their to the itunes library
You can change that behavior in preferences so that music is not copied.
iTunes just sucks all over unless you want to purchase apple DRM based songs which you can't transfer to any other sort of player. You are committed to Apple when you buy their DRM based songs.
You can remove the iTunes Store from the interface in preferences. And you can set iTunes to rip your CDs automatically. It'll even identify the CD and add the album art. Most of my music is from CDs. Works just fine.
I can also edit tags while the song is on the player and I can rename and manipulate the files in other ways.
Once again, iTunes can do this. Just set your prefs to "manual", not "automatic".
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
Yeah, those fuckers! PUT OUT MORE iPODS DILL HOLES! I mean if there's not some new style of iPod out every month it must be from lack of creativity. I can't believe it took them a whole fucking year to make the shuffle smaller.