Microsoft's Sneak Attack On Apple: SkyDrive, Not Surface

New submitter curtwoodward writes "Microsoft won't become a hardware company — unless you count mice and keyboards, former Microsoftie Charlie Kindel argues — because that would mean competing with Apple on its terms. But Kindel says Microsoft may be embarking on a totally new business model by seeding its connected software services across all platforms. You saw more evidence this week with the release of SkyDrive for Android. 'For that to work, it can't just be Windows,' he says. 'As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices.'"

Comments

Not a hardware company?

[damn_registrars]

They really don't think of the Xbox as hardware?

Re:Not a hardware company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Surface (Either the old Big-Ass-Table, or new Tablet things). But that's missing the author's point. Those are afterthoughts, ways of getting the software out there.

Apple is a hardware company that uses software to move their hardware.

Microsoft is a software company that's now making hardware to move its software.

Re:Not a hardware company?

[greeze]

I think they think of the Xbox as a platform for which they sell licensing, content, and advertising space. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I'd be surprised if they're making much money on sales of the Xbox hardware alone.

Re:Not a hardware company?

[Missing.Matter]

I think the distinction lies in where and how the company is making money. Apple, despite taking a cut 30% cut on apps and all its iTunes sales, still makes the vast majority of its profits through physical hardware sales. Microsoft still makes the vast majority of its money through software sales and services. With the Xbox in particular, the opportunity for revenue lies in software and media services, especially as the console is starting to transition into more of a general living room entertainment device rather than a gaming device. Even Microsoft is experimenting with selling the hardware as cheap as possible and subsidizing it with an Xbox live subscription, which hopefully leads to future media purchases.

And as for the surface, I think it's already done its job. The majority of the tablets revealed over the past week by Asus, Samsung, and Sony are all very Surface-like (in that they all focus on hybrid design for work rather than pure content consumption slates), as opposed to being iPad clones like the earlier Android tablet generation. To me, Surface appears to be Microsoft's attempt to steer the tablet space in a different direction rather than an attempt to claim the tablet space with their own hardware.

Re:Not a hardware company?

[deltaromeo]

They really don't think of the Xbox as hardware?

No, they were thinking outside of the x box

Ohrly?

[dnaumov]

'As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices."

So what happens when it starts doing "too well" and gets banned from the AppStore for violating it's guidelines?

Re:Ohrly?

[sinij]

Lawsuits and probably retaliatory banning of itunes from all Win devices. MS isn't some shoestring app. developer.

Re:Ohrly?

[dnaumov]

'As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices."

So what happens when it starts doing "too well" and gets banned from the AppStore for violating it's guidelines?

The DoJ will start looking at Apple for anti-competitive behavior. It's one thing to screw over a bunch of tiny App developers with your capricious and arbitrary rules, but quite another to screw over the second largest technology company in the world.

Anti-competitive behavior is perfectly legal, abusing monopoly powers isn't and Apple does not have a monopoly on smartphones (you could argue they do have a monopoly on tablets though). In fact, App Store guidelines specifically state that apps that directly re-implement a feature already offered by Apple are forbidden. The fact that there are popular apps on the App Store that do this simply means that Apple either hasn't had a pressing need or the guts (due to potential backlash) to shut them down, but they absolutely and definately can and it would be perfectly legal.

Re:Ohrly?

[cpu6502]

You don't have to have a monopoly to be sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Microsoft didn't have one, nor Nintendo when for "blocking competitive software from being sold" on the NES.

Re:Ohrly?

[gbjbaanb]

yeah? 5 years later and the court sides with Apple and demands Apple reinstate Office 2012 on their new 2017 range of devices. Apple shrugs its shoulders and reluctantly complies.....

I can see it being a total lose-lose scenario for Apple...

Hotmail for storage?

[Dan667]

not sure I need that

Re:Hotmail for storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how they could expect people to want or trust their cloud services.
The concept seems to go against instinct.

http://gigaom.com/2009/10/10/when-cloud-fails-t-mobile-microsoft-lose-sidekick-customer-data/

http://www.webmonkey.com/2008/04/microsoft_kills_playsforsure__screws_over_loyal_customers/

Re:Hotmail for storage?

[cpu6502]

>>>based on microsoft's track record I don't think I would trust them with my data, both reliability and privacy.

But you would trust Google or Apple to keep your stuff private? Hahahahahahahahaahahaha! And let's not forget it was Google who suffered a major crash that lost people's emails, so you can't truth them on reliability either.

Memo to Microsoft

[Sparticus789]

"As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices."

Yes, please. Try fixing MS Office and Outlook for Mac before embarking on a SkyDrive project.

Re:Memo to Microsoft

[aristotle-dude]

Someone let Apple know, that Itunes on windows is garbage.

iTunes seems to work fine for me on windows as well as OS X. Maybe you are doing something wrong. Are you trying to run it on a machine with less than 4GB of memory on Windows 7? Two GB of ram is the bare minimum for Windows 7 let alone running other applications. Even with 2 GB or ram, it runs reasonably well in windows with a fairly large library.

Re:Memo to Microsoft

[jfengel]

I'm not sure if there really is an alternative for *everything* iTunes does. It exists to support a particular proprietary device. But that doesn't mean that the application can be slow, unresponsive, and clunky, as it is in Windows.

I assumed that "slow" and "unresponsive" were due to a mismatch in the threading model, and that "clunky" was just "unfamiliar to a Windows user". (For a long time it was also crash-prone, though that's been fixed, at least for the ways I use it.) But I've heard from multiple Mac users that it's no more familiar to them; it has idiosyncratic ways of doing things that don't match up with their expectations from other Mac software.

I use it because it does the one thing I rely on it to do very well: it downloads podcasts and automatically (more or less) syncs them to my iPod. But it remains slow and unresponsive, and the iTunes Music Store interface for seeking out new podcasts remains barbaric.

Part of the problem may well be that it does *everything* that it does, and that the whole thing needs to be refactored into orthogonal applications. But that's up to them; I don't use most of its features.

Re:Memo to Microsoft

[SQLGuru]

The current (soon to be dead [sadly]?) Zune software does a good job. Plenty of reviews (even by sites that favor Apple product) have said as much. And it has parallel features to almost every feature in iTunes (I don't use iTunes, so there may be some obscure ones that it can't match -- but the major features are covered).

Re:Memo to Microsoft

[Kalriath]

You should see Safari. On OS X, you have a 50/50 chance of it simply vanishing when you open a new tab. Most unstable piece of shit I've encountered on the Mac. It doesn't hang as often as iTunes though.

Re:Ohrly? Simple:

[mujadaddy]

Microsoft sues for anti-trust.

Too bad

[falcon5768]

Google beat them to the punch with Google Drive. Likewise with reports that after the Samsung spat Google and Apple are talking about sharing their IPs with each other, I dont think Apple has anything to fear with Redmond anymore.

Re:Too bad

[DaHat]

Too bad Microsoft beat them all (Google Drive & iCloud) with Live Mesh back in 2008.

Re:Too bad

[Missing.Matter]

Beat them to what punch? Skydrive has been around longer and offers more storage (way more if you've been a user for a while. My account has 25 GB for free), extra space is cheaper, it integrates with more mobile platforms, it integrates with a cloud and desktop office suite... I can't see any reason I would want to use Google Drive over Skydrive.

Re:Too bad

[quacking duck]

The AC referenced the wrong services, but an Apple service did pre-date Live Mesh.

The MobileMe service replaced .Mac, which replaced iTools. The first version of iDisk was part of iTools, and came out January 2000 (as noted further up the second page you linked to).

The AC inadvertently mentioned a service that preceded even iTools: i-drive launched its online storage service in August 1999.

Re:Ohrly? Simple:

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Microsoft sues for anti-trust.

After all, they have irony clad arguments to do that!

Microsoft has no advantage in the cloud market

[JDG1980]

The fundamental problem is that if Microsoft "[moves] away from its licensed operating system business model", it is throwing away its primary competitive edge – the whole multi-billion-dollar Windows ecosystem – in favor of other markets where competition is fiercer, profit margins are lower, and (most importantly) Microsoft doesn't have a massive legacy advantage. Businesses pay billions of dollars collectively for licenses to Windows and Office because: (1) they need them to run legacy programs and read legacy documents; (2) all their employees already know how to use them; and (3) everyone *else* is using them, so they need to do the same thing for interoperability. Steve Ballmer doesn't seem to understand these basic facts, so he is undercutting the core business of Microsoft to chase after newer, sexier markets.

Re:Oh, the irony

[ColdWetDog]

The problem with Office for Mac is that, even if it's neglected and not maintained, it works better than Office for Windows. More stable, follows OS user interface guidelines better than Office for Windows (or, in fact, most Apple software). Better file compatibility between versions and systems. Faster. Less crashing.

Weird.

Re:not true

[LDAPMAN]

You seem to be unaware that iOs devices work great with Bluetooth keyboards...just like the Surface keyboard. Anybody that wants one is free to use one.

Uh, yeah right

[BurfCurse]

Windows couldn't make Windows Live Mesh run on their own platform. What makes you think they can make Windows SkyDrive work on someone else's?

Microsoft not only attacking Apple with SkyDrive

[Taco Cowboy]

Perhaps TFA has overlooked the other elephant in the room - Google

Microsoft's SkyDrive attack is not only aimed at Apple, but also Google as well

I have to agree that the move is sneaky, but then, business is business

Google better sits up and takes notice, and do something about this