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Microsoft: Facebook Home Is a Copycat, Windows Phone Is the 'Real Thing'
colinneagle writes "Frank X. Shaw, VP of Corporate Communications at Microsoft, did not seem happy about Facebook's Home announcement when he wrote, 'I tuned into the coverage of the Facebook Home event yesterday and actually had to check my calendar a few times. Not to see if it was still April Fools Day, but to see if it was somehow still 2011. Because the content of the presentation was remarkably similar to the launch event we did for Windows Phone two years ago.' Shaw also posted Microsoft's 'Put people first with Windows Phone 7.5' video before writing, 'We understand why Facebook would want to find a way to bring similar functionality to a platform that is sadly lacking it.'"
Last time I checked everything microsoft has ever done is remarkably similar to things others have been doing for years.
Dear Microsoft,
Facebook tolerates you. It is thanks to them that you remain relevant. E.g., when Facebook Graph Search can't find a particular item, it currently defaults to Bing... but, that can easily change. Please, pretty please, just give them a reason to reconsider their allegiances, and I am sure they will happily discard you like the dead skin off a snake.
Never forget that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Besides, if Facebook has taught us anything, it's that regardless of who had the idea first, it's execution ultimately that matters. If you have to tell people that you've won, you've lost.
This was just a terrifically bad idea on Shaw's part. Desperately pleading that you did something first so you should get some attention is never going to win you sales or good PR. That said, it doesn't seem like Microsoft really has any other strategy (except perhaps for their video game market, where they bought their relevance.)
No the Facebook product is quite different. You have to stop thinking of yourself as the typical user and think about the real typical user. I would be concerned for Facebook addicts and this device that makes addiction simpler, quite a few people are going to find themselves in serious psychological trouble. The unrealities of who and who are not really friends, competition in perceived social acceptance and distortion of self image, makes this device and the actual greed driven intent behind this device in it's application quite nasty. Designed from the get go to be psychologically addictive for those susceptible to it. Facebook have demonstrated how nasty they are and how aggressively they will target those vulnerable to their manipulations. To be clear I did go through that whole laborious process of deleting my account because it became apparent how privacy invasive they truly were and definitely not to be trusted.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Seriously, I'm getting fucking tired of companies slagging off at each other, with either aggressive or passive aggressive comments made between various CEOs or VPs or whoever thinks they're important enough to get the spotlight for a few minutes.
Make good stuff that people want. If a competitor is doing something that's risks drawing attention away from your stuff, don't act like children. Just shut the fuck up and present something even better. If you feel you have to acknowledge the competition, do it with some old-fashioned class for goodness sake. This bickering gets old extremely fast.
Indeed. This seems more like a battle for a hill so small neither can stand on it.
Worse than that. Facebook puked up yet-another-UI-twist on top of their giant dataset that keeps people coming back through all the UI twists and Microsoft attempted to take credit for the design.
When was the last time somebody said something nice about Facebook's UI/UX? They're like the Ebay of social networking: network effects are very strongly in their favor; but everyone spends all their time loathing them for everything else. Why would Microsoft do anything but distance themselves from that?
Microsoft is successful because of their product managers who do a good job responding to customer requests. Their customers of course, are businesses, not consumers. And their communication with customers is amazing. They are a model of how to build a B2B company.
Their consumer outreach, including their marketing, has always been bad.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In my experience with a few Microsoft employees, I have yet to meet any of them who are highly critical about the direction the company is headed. They all seem to believe the radical decisions made by the company will pay off in some way despite the mass hatred towards them.
The only ones that are truly critical about Microsoft, no longer work there. I'm strongly of the belief that Microsoft has a very good indoctrinating and brainwashing methodology with their employees. This infallible belief in thinking they're at the forefront of technology and know what's best for tech can only be explained by mass delusion. Which horrifies me.
Both of them are based on the previous Adroid-based Motoblur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoblur
It's because most of us are sensible enough to recognise the hypocrisy of Microsoft and their Axis partners trying to get the crowds riled up over Google's privacy behaviour. In practice, as far as online services go, Google has better controls over misuse of data than the FUD spreaders.
So sure, you go ahead and use, Windows, Bing, Outlook.com etc. Contribute your data and statistics to the Microsoft cause. Just don't try to pretend it's not happening, because nobody's fooled by your parroting their "Scroogled" campaign talking points. It's got very old very fast.