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Microsoft Reportedly Ends Zune Hardware Development
ideaz tips this Bloomberg report:
"Microsoft Corp. will cease introducing new versions of the Zune music and video-player amid tepid demand, helping the company shift its focus to mobile phones, according to a person familiar with the decision. The company will concentrate on putting Zune software onto mobile phones such as those running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, said the person, who declined to be identified because the decision hasn’t been announced. Zune software lets customers buy songs and movies, as well as pay a monthly fee to stream unlimited music."
And in other news, Poison Beer Incorporated has announced the end of the production of their Cyanide Cider line of toxic methyl alcohol coolers. A company insider, speaking on condition of anonymity has revealed due to the tepid reception of the drink that causes blindness, neurological damage and in many cases death, has lead to the decision. Poison Beer Incorporated will now be concentrating on Thalidomide Cola, where it sees the future of its toxic drink product sales.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
** crickets **
I'm curious how this will affect the 360. I haven't watched a video on mine since they removed the video marketplace and required you have Zune installed on your Xbox to do most things related to video. If they're discontinuing Zune, are they going to also roll back the Zune Marketplace requirements for the Xbox?
Microsoft Corp. will cease introducing new versions of the Zune music and video-player amid tepid demand, helping the company shift its focus to mobile phones
Presumably in the hopes that they can eventually rise all the way up to a tepid level of demand for their phone products too.
It looks like they're really making good progress. Windows 7, XBOX360, Windows Phone 7...All awesome products. It's good, since I really wouldn't want to live in a world dominated by Apple and Google.
I have to say I agree here. Lets see Bing for example. Live search was always worse than Google, but now they're really up to par, sometimes even better. While Google is spammed with all kinds of shitty websites, Bing is clean. Kudos to MS.
Zune wasn't actually a bad product and had some nice features that the ipad still hasn't got right. They were just a little late to the game.
They made a key strategic error with the Zune - they didn't realize that no one wanted a "poop brown" media device. Ooops.
Learn about Photography Basics.
I always preferred Zunes to iPods, even back in the 30GB days. I'm not really interested in getting a smartphone either. Guess I'm not most people.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
"Hey, I'm looking to buy a music player, like an iPod or something."
"Oh, okay, well what features you you want?"
"Well, I don't really care about having good software, an intuitive interface, or mind if my device will stop working on random days. I just want something that's poop brown."
"Great! Well we have just the product for you..."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Copying successful competitor isn't something to be ashamed of.
Unless you fail that is... Twice potentially...
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Wow, you suck at reading comprehension. Where exactly did he say he wanted a world dominated by Microsoft?
Netflix?
Those aren't crickets! That's a WMA file of recorded cricket sounds being streamed from Microsoft directly to my Zune!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
It all begins to make sense now. Nokia does windows phones and they get their multimedia content from the Zune store.
Ahhhh.
At least the UI. It's cleaner and faster, even if you compare it to iTunes on a Mac. They had some nasty music deleting bugs earlier on though, which is great fun when you paid for the tracks instead of having them on CD.
:D.
Zunes are durable too, at least 1st Gen. My ugly brown Zune is still going strong, and it was $100 at a time when a 30 gig iPod was $400
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The company will concentrate on putting Zune software onto mobile phones such as those running Microsoft’s Windows operating system
So something makes me think that this will be bundled with Nokia's future Windows Phone 7 devices. They will try to be like Apple with iPhone/iTunes.
Good luck with that.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Zune, Zune, Zune.... errrrmmm... oh, that thing!
Why? Seems to be pretty much spot on. MS has been playing catchup for years. Only their obscene warchest (and Office lock-in) has kept them going.
It's early days yet for Zune. Microsoft has immense resources to bring to bear, and the patience to see it through. No, wait. That was something else.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is exactly what happened to the N-Gage and N-Gage QD. It was getting outsold by so many other phones, so N-Gage 2 was just software for phones. Weird enough, Microsoft is shifting to go software only for phones media devices, like what Nokia did with the N-Gage, and Nokia is supposed to be doing a bunch of W7M phones.
The world is how you make it
Wow, you suck at reading comprehension. Where exactly did he say he wanted a world dominated by Microsoft?
And you suck at recent history. Domination is what Microsoft does best. Of course they will play that down now that Apple and Google prove resistant to their usual tactics. But make no mistake, Microsoft holds their cards close to their chest.
When Windows gets down to less than 50% of the desktop OS market, uses open standards wherever possible, is as compatible with other systems as possible including file formsts for things like MS Office, then we can talk as though you made a useful point.
Not to mention that they had great on-device software development, adding any software features that were released with new models to the older devices. Had a zune ever come out with 160GB capacity (or higher), I would have got one, quite likely... except: It's a device tied to one desktop client, and so far no one has been able to crack that. And it's a desktop client that does not serve my needs for music management, including limitations to fields that are arbitrary and significantly more restrictive than the ID3v2 spec allows for.
They should have called it Happy Fun Ball, then nobody would taunt them.
"...I Am Sparta!" at the top of his lungs.
"They should shutter their business and release all their developers to go work on real projects that have a hope of succeeding."
While their developers are probably first rate, they have been trained by the M$ management to produce sub-stellar products. If M$ goes away, all of those managers would infect other companies. Can the world really afford that?
Windows Phone 7 is an awesome product? If had to choose between WP7 and Windows Mobile, i'd choose Windows Mobile...
World dominated by Apple: the hardware costs a bit more for the computers, equal or cheaper for the devices, software is usually much cheaper than competitors but you can't do everything you want. Some features are limited or non-existant, but otherwise things run pretty smoothly, usability is first and 99.9999% of users don't need to rely on a "computer friend" to help them out.
World dominated by Google: things are usually free but spammed with advertising, you have no anonymity online and you don't control your personnal information and data, their goal is to let you access your data everywhere but in turn they must be able to access it too for advertising purposes. "Don't Be Evil" has been replaced with "Don't Screw Them Too Hard".
World dominated by Microsoft*: they are extremely prone to the "not invented here" syndrome, their software is not only really expensive but also not quite stable, their only redeeming quality is that they try to achieve backward compatibility to the point that most of the software bloat is to support users from a decade ago. Features are put ahead of security, usability is an after-thought at best, sacrificed for an overload of features that most people wouldn't even know how to use in the first place.
* we have proof since that's how it's been since the late 1980's.
They all have bad sides and good sides...
Don't be silly, bashing Microsoft is the only proven way to get modded up on Slashdot. Doesn't even matter if what you say is true or not.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Awwww, you love to hate Microsoft so much that you have to live in the past now? How sad.
Yeah, some days, I kind of wish I'd slept through the last five or so years, too.
So zune?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Who knows if this rumor is true, but it sure does sound plausible considering we haven't heard a thing from them. I don't have a Zune, but I always hoped that someday they would get around to making a real competitor to the iPod Touch. I can understand cell phone manufacturers not being interested because the profit margin is so much higher for cell phones, but I'd think a company like Microsoft would be a big enough company to subsidize such a project.
"Microsoft announces today that it will be suspending production on it's WinPhone. We want to focus our attention on the next big thing just as soon as Apples let's us know what that is."
Hey, I have an idea, why don't they focus on their core products and stop messing around with things they're no good at - everything where they don't hold a near monopoly.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They failed when they tried to follow Apple into the MP3 player market, and now they are planning on following Apple into the mobile phone market?!
Apple were not the first into either of those markets, so I don't know why you'd say "follow Apple".
If theyr're smart Windows Phone 7 will be next. Plus they are foolishly trying to bring laptop style Windows to tablets while Apple is selling millions using iOS.
I've never used it, so I'll see your "happy" and raise you an "ecstatic".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Squirt".
Just what kind of demographic did they think they were targeting with such choice of vocabulary?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Awwww, you love to hate Microsoft so much that you have to live in the past now? How sad.
Yes, of course hatred is the one and only reason to be honest about who you're dealing with. Such pure hatred couldn't possibly be tainted with lesser concerns like honesty, realism, or a comprehension of the fact that history tends to repeat itself. Nope. Those logical things would interfere with momentary emotions. I am glad you use dismissal and ridicule as your primary means of making your point, since that's clearly superior to the hatred of which you accuse me.
I hate to ruin your pity party and everything but the same personalities who perpetrated Microsoft's repeated past abuses are still running the company. Especially Ballmer. It's simply foolish to act like the last 10 years of abusive behavior didn't happen. In fact, that's precisely what enables more of the same, what makes it successful. Most of their strategic methods depend on people who never see it coming, like embrace-and-extend for example. I see you can be counted among those who facilitate this, no doubt out of some misguided belief that they have suddenly seen the light.
If there had been a significant change in management then I'd agree with you about living in the past. I'd say that the new managers deserve a fair chance to show us whether they're just like the old ones. But there are no new managers, not at the top.
What you're doing there, it's called denial. The only hatred happening here is yours for anyone who makes denial less comfortable for you. Here's the deal and it's real simple: it never occurred to me to think of Microsoft's leadership as ruthless bastards until they started repeatedly acting like ruthless bastards. That was their choice. If they really have turned over a new leaf then they should recognize that trust is an especially difficult thing to restore once it is destroyed. If you don't like these basic facts, that's tough shit for you. Being a dick won't change them, nor will it persuade anyone to see things your way. Not that persuasion seems to be your goal.
+1
"They should shutter their business and release all their developers to go work on real projects that have a hope of succeeding."
While their developers are probably first rate, they have been trained by the M$ management to produce sub-stellar products. If M$ goes away, all of those managers would infect other companies. Can the world really afford that?
True. That's just what happened when Compaq went down.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
nomoresquirt
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
The Zune was never better than a mixed bag. Horrible PC interface. Awful. No Mac interface. But the audio quality was very good.
I've got an old 30gb Zune that I bought refurbished on Woot! for about 60 bucks if I remember correctly, and it's been a hardy companion when I ride the bike. I bought it for my daughter but she scoffed at it's not being an Apple product so I ended up with it and was surprised and pleased by its stellar audio quality. It's hit the ground pretty often, so I've got no reason to expect it to keep working, but somehow it has. It's all scratched up and I've got reboot it once a week (par for the Microsoft course) but man it sounds great. For $60US it's been one of my more successful tech purchases. I've got an 8gig iPod touch, but the audio quality isn't nearly as good, and 30gb seems like a good size for a portable music collection. I wonder if the sound quality of the new iPod Touch 4g is better than my older model. Anybody know? I don't carry it on the bike much because I'm afraid it won't stand up the the abuse.
I figure at the rate I'm going my old Zune will probably last another few months, but now I have to search for a new portable with really high audio quality. This time, I'm going for something that can play flac and ogg. What do you guys think? Cowon? Archos? Sansa has better audio quality than the iPod, but not as good as the Zune, but it let's me install rockbox, which is great. And the Sansa's batteries only seem to last a year or less (although to be honest, I've only bought refurbs, so I don't know how good the Sansa batteries are. Also, I've had a few Sansa's for my daughter that have both just up and died after about 5 months.
I guess my ideal player would be 32gb of flash with really good sound and as sturdy as the built-like-a-tank and almost as heavy Zune. I think in 2011 I shouldn't have to carry a mechanical hard drive in my pocket just so I can have all the music I want. Oh, and I want it to cost $150 or less. I want to be able to control it, skip songs, fast forward and change volume without looking at it or taking it out of my pocket so a touchscreen is not indicated.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If I've been lost in the desert for three days, I can still decide to follow the newcomer that just came along and looks like he knows where he's going.
Who would you say they're following?
What MS fanboys are no longer including Zune in the list? Zune was just in the list mere days ago.
Apple were not the first into either of those markets, so I don't know why you'd say "follow Apple".
You are following whoever is in front of you, regardless of whether that person is at the front of the line. Apple went, then Microsoft went. So Microsoft followed Apple.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
Even more unsavory, it's a poop brown device that "squirts". It would probably have sold better if they had bundled each device with with a packet of wet wipes and a bottle of Purell.
Apple were not the first into either of those markets, so I don't know why you'd say "follow Apple".
You don't? It's because they're doing it so successfully. Kind of like how kids wanted to be like Michael Jordan instead of being like whoever the first guy to play basketball was (meanwhile we future slashdotters were taking apart computers).
I'm not sure where all this fecal mania at Slashdot comes from. Every time there is a product that is brown, the fecalphiles come out of the woodwork and start claiming that the product looks like poop. It seems to be an obsession around here. Ubuntu did not look like poop. It was brown. It was earth tones. The Zune did not look like poop any more than an iPod looked like a hand full of semen. In other words. Not at all. Unpleasant things come in pretty much every color. Associating every brown product with poop speaks more to the person making the association than it does to the product.
I like how it "lets customers [...] pay a monthly fee to stream music" instead of "lets customers [...] stream music, for a monthly fee". Yeah, MS, I want to pay a monthly fee! You're brilliant guys!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Those aren't crickets! That's a WMA file of recorded cricket sounds being streamed from Microsoft directly to my Zune!
They actual crickets have been fed to the office toad, but the service lives on ...
Expect some delays if you ever need help, though.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Don't be silly, bashing Microsoft is the only proven way to get modded up on Slashdot. Doesn't even matter if what you say is true or not.
It's really true. I mean, I thought making outrageously disrespectful statements about your mom and her promiscuity would be an easy way to get modded up "funny" - but for some reason people seem to think those statements are true...
Bow-ties are cool.
Just get a Sansa Clip+/Fuze, or a View if you need to see video. Cheap and replaceable. My Cowon was great, but the processor was sluggish for higher quality oggs, and it died within a year(port went bad, wouldn't recognize being plugged in).
The end of Zune is not problem here - glad I stuck with my "Play For Sure" music player ... oh wait.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2004074417_playsforsure15.html
Learn lessons much?
They should shutter their business and release all their developers to go work on real projects that have a hope of succeeding. The only division worth keeping is the gaming division.
Ridiculous. If you owned the Windows and Office divisions, I seriously doubt you'd "shutter" them and concentrate on gaming. Those business make serious bucks, and shuttering a business is a bit more complicated than ranting about shortcomings of vision.
I'm sure if he was discussing the merits of the German Liberal Party you'd say "Oh vote Nazi and shut up. tl;dr and no-one else did either"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
You obviously haven't tried bashing Microsoft here in quite a while. There's plenty of MS fans and/or astroturfers with mod points these days.
I just got a 16 MB HD Zune and frankly it's everything I ever wanted out of a MP3 player. Plays MP3's. Check. Sounds Great. Check. Awesome Interface. Check. As for the Zune Desktop software. Bitchin is the only word I can used to describe it. Made me put Winamp down after more than 10 loyal years! I only download and listen to full albums and this thing lets me manage them with ease. And you haven't seen visualizations until you've seen the Zune pull up photos of your artist over a psychedelic background and start panning and zooming while "tracks plays" and the artists biography scroll across the screen.
A better analogy would be like saying "iTunes is like a toothpick to the right eye while Zune is like a toothpick to the left eye. Since I favor my right eye more, I think Zune is great!"
This. Windows Mobile was endlessly customisable. It allowed you to install software from cab files you'd obtained from various sources. You could flash custom Roms with pretty much any UI you wanted. You could use removable SD cards.
Windows Phone 7 won't run the old applications and the one application I really like on Windows Mobile - Pleco Chinese dictionary - won't rewrite to run on WinPhone 7. The specs prohibit removable SD cards and force you to install from their app store. It's like Microsoft thinks that the reason people like iPhones is because they are locked the fuck down.
I think people that like Apple will keep buying Apple. People that liked the flexibility of WinMo will probably end up on Android. Most of the ISVs for Windows Mobile will probably end up there too. Pleco runs on iPhone and is planned to run on Android.
Windows Phone 7 is one of those things that got a few good reviews but I think it is a much worse disaster for Microsoft than Vista in the long run. Windows Mobile may have been a minority choice but all Windows Phone 7 will do is drive that minority to Apple or Google for their next phone. IE their market share will drop to zero in the mobile market.
It's a shame really - my HD2 with the Cookie Energy Rom is a really nice device. There's loads of software around for WinMo too.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Just priceless
I've always thought that people who think som other media player/phone/service/tablet will be the [LEADING BRAND] killer are dumb as toast, but when one of the products they touted as [LEADING BRAND] killer just dies, I have to chuckle uncharitably at their expense.
San Francisco Photographers
software is usually much cheaper than competitors but you can't do everything you want
The Apple software I've run on Windows (iTunes, Quicktime) is pretty poor - Counter-intuitive UI, kludgy, bloaty (auto-install of Bonjour etc.). Does Microsoft software on a Mac suffer the same issues?
To add to your comment: if someone else starts first and you pass them, they then are following you.
Not that Microsoft entered the portable music device industry first but even if they did, they would still be following Apple's lead once Microsoft fell behind. Even Sony was following Apple soon after the release of the iPod and they had been making portable music devices for decades..
Mod parent up! Best Godwin I've read for a long time.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They all have bad sides and good sides
Which is why it's best if none of them win. Their bad sides all get a lot bigger when they are in a dominant market position.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It was pretty impressive. The less talented poster wouldn't even consider going Nazi when talking about portable audio players. It takes a special person to think outside the box that way.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, to be honest, FDP is pretty much superfluous - it is a single-issue party, and this single issue is corporate welfare. No merits whatsoever. It is called "Moevenpick-Partei" for a reason.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
...but this is absolutely pathetic.
Does anyone remember the original iPods? They were absolutely terrible, and had almost nothing revolutionary about them. And now they're the largest-selling portable media players.
Sure, the original Zunes (both hardware and software) were miserable to use, but the Zune HD and Zune 4 kick the shit out of iPods and iTunes in all of hardware, software, interface, and back-end service (iTunes Store vs. Zune Pass). I'd be willing to bet that almost every single negative comment about them here either a) have zero experience with them, b) used extremely old and out-dated versions, or c) didn't give the distinctly unique interface a second glance. I admit, it's very different and takes some getting used to, but it's hella better than any alternatives I've used (being Windows Media Player, WinAmp, iTunes, VLC, and MediaMonkey for the software, and iPod Nano and iPod Touch for the hardware) for music.
Point is: give shit a fair chance before nay-saying it. I don't mean "reading multiple reviews", "watch the keynote", "look at the screenshots", or "go to the store to check it out". For software, use it as your primary media player/internet browser/OS/word processor/whatever else for a week or more and see what you think and how you feel after that. For hardware, hell - go ahead and buy it. You've got 30 days to decide whether you like it.
Domination is what MS does best? MS in underdog mode is also pretty good. All their dominating products didn't come out of thin air. They kept plugging on while their competitors make mistakes (eg Netscape vs. IE5). IE5 was definitely better.
zuned as in being a term, like 'borked' ?
.... i dont know man, i got zunes in my stomach when i woke up"
.....
...
"It was so zuned that
or
"We got so zuned that we crapped out of our mouth for two days"
like that
Read radical news here
despite original ipods, ipod line had not been discontinued, service to ipods has not been ceased, and the buyers of the ipods are still able to play their music, whereas zune customers got shafted by drm.
Read radical news here
[Apple]...but otherwise things run pretty smoothly, usability is first and 99.9999% of users don't need to rely on a "computer friend" to help them out.
Good thing that apple support is free for all things, hardware failures never occur, and they dont need help setting it up. Oh wait, as an IT consultant I have to deal with all of those things... on Macs too.
Also, good thing their server offerings are so strong...
[Google]... everywhere but in turn they must be able to access it too for advertising purposes.
I like how you imply all the other search engines (and all other free online services...) including microsoft arent the same. And Ill note that in several of their products (Chrome/ium/OS, Apps, Postini), you can prevent them from collecting any data quite easily (in the case of apps/postini, its by GASP paying for the product).
[Microsoft] ...their software is not only really expensive but also not quite stable
Myth, If your Server 2008/Exchange 2010 setup isnt stable youre doing it wrong (and Im not really sure how youd even maange that). Compare its stability to such appliance OSes such as Freenas or pfsense, I think youll find its a hell of a lot MORE stable (since having a USB keyboard plugged into those causes a boot-crash)...
What is this "Zune" of which you speak???
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
Domination is what MS does best? MS in underdog mode is also pretty good. All their dominating products didn't come out of thin air. They kept plugging on while their competitors make mistakes (eg Netscape vs. IE5). IE5 was definitely better.
Naturally, being bundled with Windows by default and therefore coming automatically on over 90% of all desktop PCs makes no impact on the equation. Right. Keep drinking that Kool-Aid, dude.
Oh and IE5 had its heyday in the dim past. If that's your best example, the spearhead of your position, then your argument sucks cock. Save this bullshit for the fanboys, they might humor you.
How about this: if Microsoft's products are so clearly superior, why are they so terrified of competing on an open field? Why do they use so many dirty underhanded tactics to make sure it never comes to open competition? Like I said, keep drinking the Kool-Aid you fucking fanboy.
Microsoft decided they needed more time to study how to make second rate imitations of the latest Apple products. But they're even behind the curve on being behind the curve, and while dropping the copying of Apple's decade old iPod, for the 3 year old iPhone, they've neglected to begin full scale imitation of the Apple iPad released last year. Someone should explain to Microsoft the difference between innovation, and imitation.
Counter-intuitive GUIs, definitely. Office '11 has improved over previous ones, but it's still not 100% native. Bonus for using the built-in media browser. There also seem to be some PPC-only apps (not the core ones, fortunately) left in the package, which is going to fuck things up when Lion is out (Apple are killing Rosetta).
From an article on the new release:
http://photos.appleinsider.com/office2011.004.jpg
I'm not sure I like that look even on Windows. Looks like somebody gutted a GUI builder all over it.
How did Zune customers "get shafted by DRM"? The only DRM-touched songs are those past the 10/month with Zune Pass. An extra $2.50 each month for unlimited streaming and non-permanent downloads. None of the Zune services are being touched, and I will still be able to get my HD serviced for years to come.
The only true part of your post was that iPods have not been discontinued, but Zunes have.
My psychiatrist always told me I was a very special patient.Oh and that I should try his liver and fava beans.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Those aren't crickets! That's a WMA file of recorded cricket sounds being streamed from Microsoft directly to my Zune!
No, no, the official terminology is squirting, as amply demonstrated by Ballmer's disturbing money quote:
I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation. That's a software experience.
Frankly, a bit too soft for my preference. Methinks the Ballmer needs more roughage in his diet -- and perhaps some time familiarizing himself with the connotations of his word choices, the better to avoid any similar outbreaks of logorrhea (a.k.a. "runny brain") in future.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Seriously, coupled with Zune Pass and the HD Dock, it's amazing.
How interesting that two extremely similar ID's both gush over Microsoft. Billy the Boy (2016540) and balls of steel (2016538).
Gee what an amazing coincidence that those numbers are so similar. It's as if they we
It looks like they're really making good progress. Windows 7, XBOX360, Windows Phone 7...All awesome products.
I kind of feel like Vista really lowered the bar and now people are happy with anything that isn't strictly worse than the previous version. I mean sure, Windows 7 has features that Windows XP doesn't, but most home users use it because it came installed on their PC and most businesses are upgrading to it primarily because they skipped Vista and they don't want to be still running XP when Microsoft discontinues support for it, rather than because it's so awesome that they had to have it.
And look at WP7: About the best you can say about it is that it's an improvement over WP6. But it still seems like a day late and a dollar short compared to its competitors.
It's good, since I really wouldn't want to live in a world dominated by Apple and Google.
I'll take Apple and Google over Microsoft any day. And realistically that seems to be the way things are going -- Android is well-positioned to become the mobile commodity OS with the lion's share of sales volume, especially in the budget market, with iOS securing the position MacOS has always held relative to Windows, i.e. lower volume but higher margins.
They kept plugging on while their competitors make mistakes (eg Netscape vs. IE5). IE5 was definitely better.
You're forgetting what IE was. Microsoft has never made a dime from IE other than as a lock-in strategy to keep people tied to Windows, nor did they ever intend to. So if your point is that Microsoft can execute a successful lock-in strategy then the point is well taken, but if you're trying to argue that their products are good for the consumer... I don't think lock-in is very good for the consumer.
Really? A bit more? Apple will double the prices as soon as Linux is the only alternative. Apple will be the only manufacturer, AMD will go out of business. etc. etc.
That's not how it works. Microsoft can't go out of business if most people are still paying them for Windows, which implies that people have switched to something else. Apple intentionally refuses to serve the budget market, which means that those people will have to switch to Linux. That's plenty of people for AMD to sell hardware to because the budget market has huge volumes (not to mention the server market, which is already Linux), and they're well positioned for those markets anyway. Plus, if a lot of people start using desktop Linux then it gets network effects which makes it more competitive and Apple can't really raise their prices that much.
If your Server 2008/Exchange 2010 setup isnt stable youre doing it wrong
Trouble is there are a lot of MCSEs out there "doing it wrong."
If I'm not mistaken, the Zune marketplace is just a poor rebranding of their previous Video Marketplace. You can continue to buy shows through the Zune marketplace just for your Xbox. You can also continue to play videos on the Xbox from your PC through your hard disk tab. And then of course there is Netflix on Xbox, which is better than their marketplace anyway.
The ______ Agenda
Windows 7, XBOX360, Windows Phone 7...All awesome products.
I happen to agree with you that many of Microsoft's new produts are big improvements over their previous entries when evaluated individually. However, I think Microsoft's problem is that new mass-market computer products can't be evaluated as "standalone" anymore. It's all about the "ecosystem." This is why the Zune and pretty much every other standalone MP3 player has such a tiny marketshare, and why Microsoft tablets have lost out as well.
In the brave new computing world (His Steveness likes to call it the "post-PC world"), success is about an ecosystem of products that work together, and the more you use them all, the greater the value. Only three companies really get this: Apple, Google and Microsoft.
MSFT has been dominant in the PC world for so long because they had a brilliant business-centric ecosystem: Windows + Office + Exchange. For a while, they even had a smartphone dominance (remember 2007?) because Windows Mobile hooked into those things and mainly business users bought smartphones. But their consumer "media"/portable ecosystem sucked: Zune + ZunePass + Underpants Gnomes? Or even PlaysForSureAsLongAsItsNotAZune? (To be fair: they also held something of a consumer PC dominance with an ecosystem of Windows + Visual Studio + DirectX, but that has not helped them with Zune or phones.)
In the new world where mobile devices (including MP3 players) are based on consumer ecosystems, Apple has: MacOS X + iLife Applications + iOS + iTunes App Store + even Apple TV now that all work together and add collective value ... the more parts of that ecosystem you use, the better they work together and the greater value you as a user get. (e.g. an iPhone/iPad syncs up all your iTunes music/videos and iPhoto pics brilliantly and you can play them on the Apple TV as well.) Similarly, Google has Google search + amazing Google apps (Gmail, their first "killer app;" GTalk; Google Maps; Picasa; Google Docs; etc.) + Android + marketplaces + Google TV on some newer TVs. These two ecosystems have sucked up the new consumer markets and are now bleeding over even further into enterprise spaces. Google even has Chromium to enter the PC space... you can see how they really "get" the ecosystem thing and both companies are now duking it out for the throne. (I also think this is why you see RIM losing out in the smartphone market now... they nailed one part of the equation but had no answer for the others.)
To your point ... these are better products now from Microsoft, and there is more of a consumer ecosystem today (XBOX + Windows Phone 7 WP7 App Store + Bing + Silverlight) than there was before. But Microsoft's problem is they didn't "get" the consumer ecosystem space until too late, and their offerings have all been a day late and a dollar short.
P.S.: you'll note that neither Apple nor Google have "gotten" social networking as part of their ecosystem. (Microsoft at least had the sense to buy part of Facebook a few years ago.) I firmly believe that if either Apple or Google ever co-opt social networking through partnerships or acquisitions, the game will be over.
P.P.S.: when some Gartner consultant reads this and figures out what the "big strategic issue" is for Microsoft and puts it in a research note, please send me a check.
"95% of all Slashdot
... Linux?
Seriously, is there a port? I get the feeling that some cheap hardware will be coming on the market.
Have gnu, will travel.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
you are about 15 years old--so it makes sense.
Still sad to see this generation equating Apple with Microsoft's willful monopolistic mis-conduct during the 80s and 90s. Now go tweeter about how oppressed you are.
I highly doubt it, though I'd expect them to rebrand the "Zune Marketplace" with a new name in the next 6-12 months to distance it from the failed hardware platform.
Microsoft Reportedly Ends Windows Phone Development
Posted by TmTvlr on March 14, 05:33 PM 2014
from the breaking-news-from-the-future dept.
"Microsoft Corp. will cease introducing new versions of the Windows Phone and Windows Tablet amid tepid demand, helping the company shift its focus to whatever Apple happens to be doing at the moment, according to a person familiar with the decision. The company will concentrate on integrating Windows Tablet software onto desktop computers such as those running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, said the person, who declined to be identified because the decision hasn’t been announced and won't be announced for three years. Windows Tablet software lets customers buy songs and movies, as well as pay a monthly fee to stream unlimited music."
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Not renaming their portable music player to anything else when Zune didn't do that well. I mean how well would Win7 do if they marketed it as Vista 2.0.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Zune sales stopped five years ago! ;-)
Seriously, the thing wasnt even sold "worldwide", and its not Mac compatible, hey guys, you know the hot new platform, that all the cool kids are buying? And this group dont seem to care about up front cost, when they want good quality, great design?
I've been trying to get a BROWN Zune secondhand, just to add to my collection of failed products. It would go great with my CueCats, Power Glove and Newtons
---
My psychiatrist always told me I was a very special patient.Oh and that I should try his liver and fava beans.
He told you to eat his liver?
What are you smoking?
XBOX overheats, and windows 7 mobile has many issues with bad icons and has single digit marketshare.
Apple and Google have
http://saveie6.com/
I think he's referring to anyone who bought PlaysForSure music and found out that the Zune wouldn't play even though it came from the same company, MS. And how MS wanted to shut down the PlaysForSure authentication servers so that owners would be stuck without any way to authenticate their music in the upcoming years. The music would play fine as long as you never lost your HD or had to rebuild your computer or buy another computer. After some pressure MS agreed to leave a few of them running. MS never clearly stated why they felt it was necessary to even shut them down.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
To your point ... these are better products now from Microsoft, and there is more of a consumer ecosystem today (XBOX + Windows Phone 7 WP7 App Store + Bing + Silverlight) than there was before. But Microsoft's problem is they didn't "get" the consumer ecosystem space until too late, and their offerings have all been a day late and a dollar short.
It seems like a big part of their problem is that their individual bits don't complement each other -- even where they obviously could. For example, XBOX should have shared 99% of its DNA with Windows -- the only thing different should have been a TV-optimized UI for XBOX, and even that should share the same API. You should be able to plug an XBOX controller into a Windows PC's USB port, put the XBOX game in the PC's DVD drive and play. But you can't.
Likewise, the whole DRM thing in general -- why are there so many mutually-incompatible flavors? Even embracing it at all was a huge mistake -- Apple can only barely get away with it because their customers are loyalists, and even they take a huge amount of flack for it. They need differentiators to separate themselves from Apple and being DRM-free would be a major one if they would give up the pro-DRM zealotry.
But the more basic trouble seems to be that their products don't really fit together. They're just copying whatever their competitors do. Hey, let's copy Google and make Bing. Copy Adobe and make Silverlight. Copy Apple and make phones with app stores. Copy Nintendo and Sony and make XBOX. Throwing everything at the wall with the hope that something sticks is a stupid plan -- most of the time it doesn't work because they're late to market with a product that isn't really better than what already exists.
They're just copying products without a strategy: iPhone fits with with Mac and iTunes because an iPhone is just an iPod with a radio in it, but Zune and WP7 have nothing to do with one another. Adobe makes Flash to sell Flash Creator and succeeds because Flash Player already runs on most platforms and is installed on most computers -- if Microsoft wanted to sell copies of Visual Studio they should have either made Silverlight output as HTML5 and javascript or BSD licensed the Silverlight client; the way they've done it makes everyone skittish about lock-in. I could go on. Where's the strategy?
Apple hasn't even begun to approach the level of evil that seeps out of Redmond on a regular basis. One word: MOOXML.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
MS in underdog mode is also pretty good.
An unsuccessful thug is still a thug, not an underdog.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'd say it was the Bing that gave him away, but to be fair maybe he is a Twitter style fanboi. I mean the X360 and Windows 7? Most folks will admit those are damned good products, especially Windows 7 which I have to say is about the best damned OS I've ever used, and this is coming from someone who couldn't stand the Fisher Price GUI in XP and absolutely fricking hated Vista.
But Bing? The GUI is shit. It is friendly for the mom types maybe, everyone else will probably be driven up the wall. Personally I'll stick with Yahoo Search with its better GUI and less Google Spam. So if he is an astroturfer frankly they should fire his ass for being lame and going for the crap product.
As for TFA? Kinda sad but not unexpected. I've talked to a few people that own a Zune and they are quite happy with them, say they are rock solid and easy to use. But sadly the public has a one track mind when it comes to PMPs, and that track has iPod written on it.
When I'm out in the spring enjoying my Sandick M series (love being able to change out the battery with bog standard AAAs, as I never have any luck with L-ion batteries) it never fails I get "what kind of iPod is that?" and I say Sandisk and get "Is that a new iPod?". For the public PMP = iPod, Just as I've had to explain to customers that the search bar on the Yahoo portal they insist I set their homepage to can actually search for things and isn't just a way to get to Google, because sadly they've heard "Google it" for so long they think Google is a different thing or something because Google is a word now. Maybe it is that whole "choice equals badness for consumers" or something.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
And how much of the lack of spam on bing is down to the spammers simply not bothering with it?
All the search engine optimization sites target google, trying to influence bing results wouldn't get you many extra hits.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Once the companies make it to the top and the founders step down, there's no reason to spend money on innovation. The ones left behind to run things are more than happy with their cushion jobs, as long as they just keep on collecting that money leadership isn't going to care. I would bet that there are many Microsoft employees who have a lot of great ideas for some new amazing tech, but the people running the show wouldn't even give them a chance to start up another project.
Here are the two products Microsoft has produced that the future will remember for a while, that is Windows and the X-Box. For apple it will always be their odd computer and laptop designs, and for of course the ipod and iphone, apple right now has the coolest brand out there. I mean look at the Ipad, I would say the reason most people purchase them is because of the brand name alone. The pad thing has been around for years before, and you can do a lot more with a netbook, but because it has some shiny apple glass and charges twice as much as a netbook the people with money buy it as a status thing. I bought one for my wife because it's what she wanted. Sony will always be known for their sound systems, televisions and of course their gaming systems.
Innovation gets us to the moon, however many people do not like change.
AC you ignorant slut (Sorry Ackroyd) because those of us that lived through it know NS 4 was absolute shit on a stick and deserved to die.
Here let me give you a nice example of what Nutscrape 4 was like "Oh look my dialup is humming and I'm ready to go! I'll just load up this webpage /Nutscrape crashes/ ohh...well that must have been a glitch. I'll just load up a different /nutscrape locks hard/...crap. Alright lets try this again.../Nutscrape locks hard and BSODs the machine/ %$&^%$&^%$!
And it is THAT, that right there, that killed NS and NOT MSFT. I knew plenty of people that happily bought NS after MSFT released IE, got tired of having their fricking desktop freeze or crash, and went to MSFT. Was MSFT wrong to bundle? I don't think so, it is their product and you didn't have to use IE then nor do you have to now. I use Dragon and FF personally. But that is why we have this little word called competition where if you don't like a product you should buy something else instead of bitching.
What MSFT SHOULD have been busted for was the checks cut to OEMs, same as I would argue that Intel deserves to be branded a monopoly and punished for doing the same shit, because THAT is using one's power to rig the market in your favor. But IE VS NS is a bad example because the best product won and I'm sure we're ALL very grateful, unless you like having to break out your CC just to have a browser? Because THAT was what we had before MSFT came along and made IE free.
NS pre 4 was a decent browser, although they had a ton of proprietary shit in it (remember the blink tag?) but NS 4 killed that company dead, not MSFT. you put out a POS release that crashes and takes out the OS more than it runs and you expect different? Happened all through tech history, just ask the guys at DBase.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Maybe, but the original poster criticised Microsoft for merely following. Apple, of course, did exactly the same - just more successfully. How much of that success was due to technical merit and how much was due to good marketing, of course, is a different matter.
Did a quick check to amuse myself. Hmm, first 6 adds on every Bing search result are spam, pretty much guaranteed. Beyond that definitely more spam on Bing than on Google, oh wait, I am using https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/optimizegoogle/ to filter out crappy sites (including ebay). Well since you seem to be doing M$ advertising, is there a similar addon for Bing on IE to Optimize Google on Firefox.
Back on topic, I guess Ballmer's uncle is going to be really really disappointed to hear no more Zune, their number one customer. Using you phone to listen to music and watch streaming video is neat and convenient, apart from battery life and data download limits http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phone-battery-life-charts/.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Hey, if it give the results you want, who cares? It's no effort to use Bing instead of Google, and when the spammers start targeting Bing, it won't be any effort to move on to something else.
That said, I don't plan on switching from Google any time soon.
Hmm, I was actually thinking of getting a Zune HD in order to use it to receive HD radio broadcasts from home and in the car. Most of the other receivers I'd seen were pretty expensive. Any good alternatives there?
Still, disappointed that our local NPR station considers most of their programming "talk radio", so Prarie Home Companion and This American Life play in low bitrate mono. FM sounds much better with the handful of shows that would make me actually want to upgrade to HD radio :-P
Ugh! Noooooo! I bumped up to the 30gb gen 1 Zune (black to my dismay instead of the chocolate) from a 10gb Toshiba Gigabeat. A tremendous leap forward. I was alaways impressed by the durability of the hardware, succinct interface, and the software on my PC. Their iterations were right on the nose. My only gripe was the usb/wall charger thing was brutal on the cord. I have had this Zune for about four years now and I have been eyeballing jumping to the HD. It seems the HDs will be a bit cheaper (or spike in price due to collector's items?). So kudos there.
Man what a waste. Hopefully my Zune HD last for ever!
"even more so for Apple"
- Why even MORE for Apple? Because you just blindly hate Apple?
" recent 30% forced charge on subscriptions"
- WRONG! There is NO 30% forced charge on subscriptions. That is what greedy content providers are saying, but it is absolutely false. Content providers can sell a subscription outside of their app and not pay one dime to Apple. All Apple asks (and fairly I think) is that if a content provider sells subscriptions outside of the app then they also must give the option to sell it inside the app for the same (or better) price. In other words if Apple brings the content provider money through their ecosystem then Apple gets a cut (as is fair) and if the content provider gets a subscription outside of Apple's ecosystem then Apple does NOT get a cut (which is fair).
Please understand a topic before you comment on it. As with most blind Apple haters you don't know wtf you are talking about and end up making ridiculously misinformed statements.
Quicktime on the Mac is fine. Quicktime on Windows is less appealing. Personally I'm inclined to blame Windows because it seems everything sucks a bit more on Windows. I'm just going with the preponderance of the evidence.
Ha!! I wish I could remember where I heard that exact quote before, was it Ballmer or a faux "journalist"? Either way, good for a laugh. Another example of MS thinking they could buy/bully their way in and they obviously don't have a clue.
And then Microsoft copied it... see? So evil that when another company creates something evil they steal it!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I got the brown Zune from Woot also & mine is still cranking along too. I agree that the Zune software isn't perfect, but I do like it better than itunes for two reasons - it finds new music when I add it to my Music directory, and it lets me do a wireless sync. I use other software to rip & prep my mp3 tags before adding them. I keep mine in a dock on the kitchen counter jacked into ceiling speakers, and use the radio, podcasts & music daily; the wireless sync is nice to keep the podcasts updated. If it dies I'd think of getting another from ebay, they're pretty cheap.
I think he must mean the Plays for Sure customers got shafted by DRM. Still a MS circle-jerk, but it was their previous attempt to dethrone Apple's lead in this market.
You are the one with blinders on. What if Netflix/Amazon says that, if a user buys a iDevice because of them(if they install Netflix/Kindle and log in to iDevice with their account), they deserve a 30% of the cost price of the iDevice? And enforce it with strict DRM? Would that be fair since they're causing many people to buy the iDevices?
Apple's move might result in higher prices for the user, how is it fair to them then?
If that makes me a blind Apple hater, you're a deaf iNumbnut with an iBodyPart in your ears.
There are a lot of 3rd party apps that are way better on Windows than iTunes. Just see Safari vs. Chrome on Windows, and you might find that Apple can suck even if you can't admit it.
The Zune was introduced to the market after EVERYONE had an iPod. Once people use apple products, they are too stupid to even consider using better products, which is why sales of Zune hardware have more or less failed. Zune also comes out with way better earphones that last more than 10 minutes.
I know you're just a lying piece of crap, but just in case you're not... you need to stop buying Dell. I upgraded my older PC to Win 7 and it plays every game I throw at it perfectly. I don't have any DirectX 11 games; they are all 9 or 10. And this is on Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit.
Awwww, now you need to pick a fight with me? Your hatred is overwhelming.
No, what I did there was call out your hatred, which is based on the past. Durr. You shouldn't let your emotions blind you into assuming all sorts of points that I didn't make or even allude to.
Sure, a world dominated by Apple and Google would be a bad thing...
But is a world dominated by MS any better?
MS already have a stranglehold over various areas and they are way ahead of Apple or Google in that respect...
Apple and Google may have significant market share in their respective areas, but they have not leveraged that share to keep people locked in nor have they used it to try and strong arm their way into other areas of the market, similarly they have not achieved dominance in a particular only to let that area stagnate for years. MS have done, and continue to do all of these things.
So sure, Google/Apple domination would be bad, but based on past form i'd much prefer that to MS domination even tho neither situation is ideal.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
So basically you would have got one except they were too small and the software was shit?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Totally, and 16MB should be more than enough for anyone.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Don't be a tool. 137 Albums 2122 songs so far, and there is about 4 gigs to spare. Be real. I don't want a hard drive based mp3 player. My SanDisk was a flash based player too. It's not like I don't sit in front of a computer all day if I want to change some albums out.
Yeah, that's the one downside, I guess. I'm running with an SSD for boot, then 500 gigs internal and 1 TB external, so 120 megs didn't warrant a second glance for me.
Also, weird, because the fully-installed program is a little less than 80 MB. Still, something to note if you're running an SSD exclusively, though.