The Partnership That Could Have Changed Everything

DesertBlade writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, at one point, Microsoft had considered an Apple/iPod partnership before it released its own MP3 player. Microsoft was apparently displeased with MP3 players partnerships they had already made, notably the Creative and Dell models. This information came from court documents introduced in an antitrust lawsuit from Iowa. From the article: 'Microsoft had been working with partners on music devices for at least a year before Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and catapulted to a dominant position in the market. Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.' If this Apple/Microsoft partnership was formed how would this have changed the Microsoft and Apple dynamics?"

Comments

Re:And yet, five years on...

[peragrin]

It's quite simple. hardware manufactures have been creating products like MSFT creates a product. stuff it full of features work out most of the bugs, ignore the the bulk of the user Interface until the last minute and shove the whole pile of crap out the door.(Office 2007 is an exception, at least it's different)

There is one good thing about the iPhone. Maybe, just maybe someone will realize it's not what features you have and don't have, it's how you use it. cell phones, radios, dvd players, all put features in random locations. How long has voice mail been around? At least Cisco has a visual voice mail option that predates apples but only for landlines. So why haven't any of the other guys thought about it yet? It should be friggin standard, all phones with color screens should be able to do that. yet Every phone available to do requires you to listen to each message separately, wait to it's finished and then delete it. Why can't they list them by phone number called. so you can ignore the call from work while leaving you able to hear the message from your wife telling you to pick something up on the way home. It's not like it takes a genuis to figure this out. yet EVERY electronics company does it.

The real evolution of computers , hardware, and software, will be to make it actually easy to use. It's Apple call to fame. Whether you like the ipod or not, it's not hard to figure out how to use every feature present.