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Zune Business Dev Executive Moves On
An anonymous reader slipped us a link to the Seattle PI article discussing Bryan Lee's departure from Microsoft. The former business development VP for the Zune has parted ways with the company for personal reasons now that 'Zune was launched and on track'. This means that J. Allard will be stepping up into fill the void. Allard was instrumental in bringing the first Xbox console to market, and was the VP in charge of technical matters for the Zune. An analyst with Gartner is quoted as saying this move means not all is well in the land of Zune, but a rumour on the CrunchGear site indicates that Microsoft is planning on stepping things up later this year with a Zune cellphone. A smartphone designed to compete with Apple in that market it would seem, despite whatever problems may be going on, the company is still rather fond of the strange little brown device.
This might be the wrong name, but he sounds like a guy I talked about with my (occasionally gullible ...) mom about a month ago.
... the Xbox has been a loss for five years now. That doesn't sound like it's much of a success for MS yet."
... it's going to pay off eventually."
"Oh, [UbuntuDupe], did you hear the story about this genius they have at Microsoft and all this brilliant ideas?"
"Like what?"
"Well, he was the mastermind behind the Xbox!"
"Um
"But
"I'm sure. Anything else?"
"Well, um, they say he was also the head of the Zune project."
"...? The Zune is a basically a butt of everyone's jokes now and has sold very poorly."
"Well, they also said he has a new brilliant idea for an upcoming product."
"But it hasn't been released yet?"
"No..."
***
Btw, for those of your unfamiliar with American business, leaving "for personal reasons" is code for "We're dumping you, you miserable failure, but we'll sugarcoat it to salvage your dignity."
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
...but does anyone else find it a bit scary how you can read news like this on your Wii at night, then wake up the next morning to see it on Slashdot? I'm not complaining or anything, but it seems like Nintendo's news selection is amazingly in tune with the news on Slashdot.
;)
Or does the news on Slashdot have something to do with all the Slashdotters with their brand new Wiis? Hmmm....
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
like ethics, morality and a sense of dignity
And seeing as a lot of cell phones out there (Blackjack, Q, anything running Windows Mobile) are essentially windows devices already made by windows vendors ... Microsoft is not new to the cell phone game. If anything it is old hat to them. They definitely have a leg up over Apple, who only has the ROKR (which was a failure any way you look at it) to date.
I wonder if they squirted him his pink slip.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
Jeezus. Is there any single market that Microsoft WON'T try and get its grubby little hands into? I don't really get why companies like Microsoft need to invade every single market they possibly can for no other reason than "because it's there". They're like some sort of cancer. I wish they would just focus on making their OS and dev tools work. Every time my Visual Studio crashes, or my computer reboots without warning, and I lose productivity, I hate them a little more. Not because they are Microsoft, but because all their effort into trying squeeze every last drop of money out of every possible market takes effort AWAY from them making their other shit work right to begin with. How long have they been making OSes? You'd think that at least THAT would work right by now...
Maybe my coffee just hasn't kicked in yet...
Yeah, it's on track like the roller coaster in Final Destination 3.
It's on track to be the hardware equivalent of Microsoft Bob.
I've really been somewhat on the lookout for a decently open phone with fair storage, music playing capabilities and wifi.
Do you really think Microsoft is going to produce an 'open' product in this area? Given that they agreed to a 'music tax' on the Zune, and the limits they place on DRM'd music, I can't imagine that it would be more open than the iPhone (or even close).
Of course, the iPhone isn't the be-all, end-all either, since it too has it's restrictions (e.g. 3rd party applications).
As for the feature set, streaming video from the Xbox? Huh? You mean on your local network? Gee, that's useful. Isn't the Xbox already hooked up to a TV? If they mean from outside the network, that would require either some killer cell phone bandwidth or some way for the Xbox to be available through the firewall... not sure how that would work as a practical matter, and would you really want to leave your Xbox on all the time and exposed to the internet?
Then there's the business aspect... you've just finished alienating all of your "Plays for Sure" licensees, now you're going to alienate all of your Windows Mobile licensees? Also from a business perspective, going up against Apple's iPhone without the development time and polish, only to be released to a skeptical press in love with anything Apple produces... no thanks.
I'm sorry, this rumor just doesn't seem plausible.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So, this guy was in charge of marketing the device, while J Allard handled the tech?
By most accounts, the device had decent technology, but everyone thought it was crap?
Sounds like a failure of marketing...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Would be an accidental leak of firmware so that it could be more readily hacked to run Linux.
Think of the slobbering that would go on around here if you could easily use its wireless transfer on an open player.
One accidental "leak", and you know people would buy the heck out of these things.
.... because anybody would be sick of getting squirted on a daily basis.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
FTA about the record companies and the Zune:
loath to cooperate with Microsoft by easing the digital restrictions on music tracks
SO VIsta is focused on DRM while the Zune wants open exchange. Is this a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing? Is there a fundamental conflict here?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Steve Ballmer, 6 months later: "We've invented the ZunePony!" (pulls back sheet to reveal hideous brown zombie pony with mismatched eyes and visible stitching across its reanimated carcase and reeking of death and sulfer) "His name is Mordheim, and we made him from corpses, discarded auto parts and some leftover copies of Microsoft Bob. He can shamble nearly 20 feet in any direction, emit unearthly screams like a damned soul, and feast on the flesh of the living!" (At this point, the zombie pony stumbles toward the camera and starts eating the brain of an AP reporter. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to have any impact on the reporter's career.)
Newstory six months later: "Microsoft says it's quite happy to capture 2% of the Magic Pony market this year. 'Just wait for ZunePony 2.0!' said Ballmer. "We've added claws and horns!"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Honestly I was hugely disappointed with the also closed iPhone. It lacks features and touchscreen-only REALLY doesn't do it for me. Its pretty hard to drive and read your cell phone at the same time..
It doesn't have to be open but if it runs Windows Mobile, that is open enough for what I intend to do with it. I expect their phone will be just like most Windows-based PDAs, only it can make phone calls as well.
Obviously my opinions are against group-think but I am just speaking my mind. I'm anxious to see whats brought to the table by Microsoft, hopefully sometime this summer.
About 20 mins later crunch gear posted this article as well, which features a links to the Patent Applications they filed a few years ago, as well as a VERY interesting link to M$'s entire patent portfolio (5800+ patents !!)
Link to the Article on CrunchGear.
Its interesting to see that Microsoft was thinking about this a few years ago long before Apple announced their I-phone.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Taking the Xbox as example, I would not be surprised if :
_Microsoft seriously commits to this product long enough
_After several incremental iterations
This would end up being a fair product. If not good.
Especially when you read that some of the biggest user complaints stem from 'political decisions' made by Microsoft/media companies and do not come from a technical standpoint.
within 30 feet anyway.
Actually I think a zombie horse would be pretty cool, but that's not related to this...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Lest we forget: the uninspiring launch of "the Zune" appears to have overshadowed the fact that Microsoft has consistently viewed (and presented) "Zune" as a brand that will cover an ecosystem of interrelated devices, not the specific PMP that was released a couple of months ago. I'm sure that the company would have loved to have an immediate hit, they're in this for the long term. Think XBox: Microsoft is willing to put cash into short-term life support if they believe that there's long-term potential.
Remember also that even before anyone outside of Microsoft had heard the word "Zune," Steve Ballmer was hinting at a communications/music convergence device as one of the iPod-killing-project's outputs. In the March 2006 interview that gained attention for the "Ballmer has brainwashed his children" comments, Ballmer had this to say in response to the question "think you can crack the iPod market?"
This is not to say that I see very rosy prospects in the short (or medium, or long) term for the Zune, but simply that Microsoft's direction has been pretty clear for a while; unfortunately for them, it appears that this direction has been pretty clear to Apple, as well.
I've written about recent Zune-related happenings in more detail here, but the short version is that if I were Bryan Lee I'd be taking some personal time, too -- Microsoft isn't out of this game by any means, but despite their (apparently) best efforts, hardly a week goes by without something popping up that puts Microsoft in the position of playing catch-up on yet another front: weak Zune launch, disconnect between the marketing and the reality of "the social," the development of public "music download stations," the iPhone...it's getting to be a pretty long list.
It's going to be a brutal couple of years for the Masters of the Zuniverse, no matter what happens.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
Thats the whole point. If I have a physical button phone I don't have to read. I can dial numbers by touch in half the time.
Also if the phone is up to my ear why do I care about the buttons being displayed? Sure the screen real estate is useful for movies or whatever. I'm sure its much more intuitive for a PDA. The problem is that I, as well as many others, want our phone to perform as a phone before anything else.
I think the debate here is the same of that of MP3 players before the iPod. Well, many players are technically superior to the iPod. The Nomad had more space than the iPod. It's not so much that the iPhone brings a lot of new functions to smart phones. It's that the implementation of these functions may be better. Will the iPhone have a better UI? Will their browser and emails work well? I'm interested too in seeing how it works because most phones suck when it comes to UI. The other day a friend of mine asked me for another friend's number. I figure it would be easy enough to send a text message. For the life of me, there was no way I could do a simple cut and paste from my cell's phonebook. I had to write down the number type it in. It's the little things like that.
Remember, the Newton was technically superior to Palm, but Palm made their device much simpler and cheaper and they sold millions. Palm unfortunately has not been able to keep up with the demands of today's market which wants more functionality and, at the same time, ease of use.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
If Microsoft wants Zune marketshare, they should be basically giving it away. You're not going to remove iPod's cool factor with a device that costs as much, has the Microsoft name associated with it, and offers marginal, if any, improvement. And sharing crippled, DRM-laden, play-limited, songs wirelessly just isn't enough more. Your brown faux iPod just isn't going to impress your friends enough for what it cost you.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."