Zune Dead, Then Not Dead, Then Officially Dead

UnknowingFool writes "On Monday Microsoft updated webpages to announce a price drop for the Zune pass subscription, and it removed all references to the Zune hardware. This prompted many to suspect the Zune was dead. A MS spokesman then tweeted that the updates were in error and the Zune was not dead. Then MS later admitted that they will no longer produce hardware but would honor any existing orders. It appears MS has trouble with managing their PR."

Comments

Points to a larger cultural problem at MS

[elrous0]

There is no grand vision and it's got poor leadership, so individual parts of the company have no fucking clue what's going on in other parts of the company. By contrast, this is something that Apple (under Jobs, anyway) has always been MUCH better at.

Sadly, I'm starting to see this problem in Google too. Google seems to be going off in a million different directions lately, with no apparent overarching plan. They seem to be taking a "throw every dart at the board and hope one hits the bullseye" approach (similar to MS). Apple takes more the "throw a small number of darts, but aim them well and throw them hard" approach.

Re:Points to a larger cultural problem at MS

[Hazel Bergeron]

It's true. For all the justified dislike for Apple there is, Jobs has spent the last 30 years being excellent at picking the good ideas at the right time, which explains why they're such a successful and popular brand.

Mind you, MS is still the only one of these big three to have a committed interest in long-term research (the "grand vision" which has kept IBM alive despite a century of changes): Google, for all its PhDs, publishes very little interesting research, and Apple publishes nothing, only occasionally advancing the state of the art where it's been important for implementation.

Re:Points to a larger cultural problem at MS

[egamma]

MS is still the only one of these big three to have a committed interest in long-term research

MS does research? For real? I thought all they did was buy startups and competitors, some of which had done research in the past, or are winding down R+D after the purchase.

Please don't confuse research grants from the bill gates charitable foundation with "MS does long term research".

Why not visit Microsoft Research and see for yourself?

Also check out the Microsoft Garage

You may not like Microsoft but it's hard to deny that they do more research than, say, Symantec or Dell.

Re:Points to a larger cultural problem at MS

[Archangel Michael]

That is because, Microsoft, at its heart, is a "Windows (tm)" Company. That is what they do. Apple used to be in the "Macintosh" business, but they realized that they were more than that, and that they are a "technology" company.

Microsoft views everything through that pane of glass and everything is tied to leverage that marketshare. They shoehorn Windows onto Phones and Tablets and it just doesn't work because nobody wants Windows on a phone.

Re:Points to a larger cultural problem at MS

[macs4all]

No. Microsoft development doesn't pay attention to Research very much. Too much management fubar.

But Kinect (an actually impressive innovation, if useless) did come from Research.

Um, Kinect came from an outside company.

The "Kinect" technology was actually offered to Apple first; but the third party company (can't remember the name) turned it down, saying that Apple had too many "conditions" in their offer.