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To Ballmer, Grabbing iPad's Market Is 'Job One Urgency'
Barence writes "Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has vented his frustration at the success of the iPad and said developing a Windows alternative is 'job one urgency.' 'Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a synthesis and putting a product out, and in which they've... they sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell, let me just be clear about that,' Ballmer told analysts. The Microsoft boss said the company plans to deliver a range of tablet formats in the next year, some based on Intel's next-gen Oak Trail processor. 'It is job one urgency around here. Nobody is sleeping at the switch. And so we are working with those partners, not just to deliver something, but to deliver products that people really want to go buy.'" In Microsoft's vision, slates will run a derivative of Windows 7.
Once again, Microsoft is late to the party and Ballmer's pissed. Hey, Steve, your company has never been a trendsetter! Deal with it.
I'm no Apple fan, but a company that can create markets out of thin air for products everyone else assumed would fail has to be doing something right.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
The iPad is old news. Wired reported on the existence of the iPad way back in 1999. Why wasn't Microsoft working on their iPad-competior way back then? More importantly, why are they trying to play catch up now? Should they not be working on the next big thing?
They killed the genuinely interesting-looking Courier before it ever got anywhere near production.
Can't think why the vultures are circling over Ballmer, can you?
This seems to be another "Johny come lately" attempt by Microsoft to catch up to Apple and Google. "Innovation" may be a big catchword these days by the large companies, but by making a competing project "job one urgency", it just underscore the fact that Microsoft is just trying to play a me-too game.
I don't mind if Microsoft does well or not, but why do they actively choose not to actually innovate? Do they not understand that the success of search engines, phones, tablets, and everything else that they've been late to the market on is because...well, because they're late to the market.
I simply don't understand why Microsoft doesn't get it. Innovating requires *new* ideas. Otherwise, they might as well be another Chinese second rate copy.
I own an iPad. It's nice for what it is, a media consumption device.
What amazes me though is the time it's taking for viable alternatives. It wasn't in any way a surprise that Apple launched this. It wasn't a surprise that this would be a new market segment - netbooks had already shown demand for lower cost highly portable computing devices.
I purchased the iPad for a specific function and it does its job well. However, I can see plenty of areas it could be improved. We're still waiting on multi-tasking. It has no camera a gaping hole in what would otherwise be a great device for grandparents to use for web/email and skype). No flash does limit some sites, and Safari is just okay, certainly not a great browser - you have to pay to get a browser that supports tabs!
The email client seems cumbersome, and from a business user perspective, Microsoft could really make a killing from a similar form factor but with outlook. Outlook is, after all, still king in the corporate world.
The competition needs to get in gear before the iPad becomes as entrenched as the iPod.
>they sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell
Not "we'd like to sell more", not "we'd like to supply their software and participate in their success like we did with AppleSoft Basic and Mac Office".
This is competitiveness in its pathological form, where the point isn't to win but instead to make sure others lose.
Microsoft, why don't you just write some QUALITY software for the iPad instead of trying to go head on in competition? That way, the more iPads Apple sells, the more software you sell. It's win-win.
But we, the consumers would lose. Without a healthy competition, there is no pressure to lower prices. And, there is no pressure to innovate on the existing iPad for Apple. So, yes, I would love to see many tablets - some with an Apple OS, some with Windows, and some with Android. What could be better than having the choice?
As Apple very well knows from the early desktop days, once a competitor has a solid lead in the market share it is very, very difficult to get the market back.
Really? Ask Wordstar, Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBaseIII, Netscape, and countless other companies what fat lot of good the early lead did for them?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They seriously don't get it. The very statement that it will be running a derivative of Win7 says that they are doomed from the start. Actually, not that Win7 is bad, on the contrary even as a MacFanBoy I like Win7 but it's not the right OS for a tablet platform. They keep trying to shoehorn the same thing to be a one OS meets all. They have no ability to step back and say what does the market need and what is the solution the users needs. All they seem to be able to do is ask "What is the problem and how can we solve it with Windows?". The concept of thinking outside the box simply does not exist in Redmond. Really sad as I'm sure at the worker level there are a ton of very smart, all be it ,very frustrated software engineers.
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
Today AAPL cap is $235 B, MSFT is 221 B, according to Google quotes.
If they only sold a bunch, one can rightfully assume that it's "Apple Fanboys", but they're not selling by the bucket-load, they're selling these things by the millions even if you're scratching your head "why?".
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/22/ipad-sales-accelerate/ iPad sales accelerate, 3 million sold in 80 days or one every 2.3 seconds
When someone is successful, it's useful to think about why they are successful - and sure if they stop doing "whatever they are doing wrong" maybe they will continue or prevent their future failure - or maybe there is something else going on and figuring out the reason can be quite informative. If you just think about the negative, you may never find out the truth. Who is buying it, what are people using it for, what are advantages - and it is a mistake to assume only idiots are buying it. Even if that is the case, remember the adage that you can learn from anyone, even an idiot.
I don't have one. I'm waiting to see what they do with V2.0. I'm thinking "why would I want one?" and I've been surprised that I have found a number of times where it could be useful.