Ah gee, like there will be 8 billion cool new pcs shipping with, what?, oh, Vista installed over the next few years. Ugh...cannnn'tttt --- sssstopppppp --- Visssstaaa (horrifying scream followed by dull thud).
Actually, it looks pretty cool and useful. Only problem - it won't install (click Run, whirl whirl hourglass, nothin); virus shield off, try again, rinse repeat. Nothin.
Guess I won't be squirtin' anyone through my huge tube.
Steevie's on to something. Apple has finally recognised that it is not a computer company but a brand. I have long thought that Apple is the only US brand that has a Sony-esque cachet (which Sony seems intent on destroying with bad behavour and bad strategy). It's all about product design, packaging technology and branding.
iPhone is an instant winner, I think. It recognises that the long-touted convergence of cell phones, pdas and handhelds is (finally) here. This market has been waiting for a killer ap(pliance) that has the style points and conceptual breakthrough that may even keep the long-irrelevant MacOS alive.
My guess: Apple will keep building this position with some hits and some misses. If it can follow-up the iPod with another market mover, its going to make some shareholders very happy.
In '92 or 93, just as Win 3 was gaining dominance, I was invited to participate in an MS sponsored focus group in Mountain View, California. A room full of Windows applications developers was being asked if they would pay for the privilege of putting the Windows Compatible logo on their product boxes. You can imagine the reaction.
Here we were, helping Windows get to critical mass by investing our development dollars in Win ap development, splashing their logo across the landscape in our ads and packaging and they wanted us to pay for the privilege by licensing the Windows logo? Wow. If there was a Nobel Prize for chutzpa...
Hate's a pretty strong word isn't it...er, no actually it's pretty apt. I think Microsoft's biggest problem is simply its ubiquity. This the the downside of being a monopoly. We (I) might appreciate the good things that MS has delivered (plenty of that) but we know we have about as much freedom of movement as... My life is wrapped in MS product, not because I choose it to be, but because it remains the best overall solution for my needs as a user. These boundaries include corporate adoption policy, bundling hardware with Windows, etc. Yes, I could be an O/S pioneer but I just don't have the energy, time, social support.
As a company Microsoft is strangely unconscious of the effect of its behavior on the customer. I think this comes from Bill, who telegraphs his contempt for users repeatedly and endlessly. It's wellspring is 'ubernerd' intellectual superiority. This gets played out in the market cynicism and naked hypocrisy present in so many acts.
Take those 'we see' tv ads, with cloying sentimentality and smarmy 'we're your best friend' crap. Customers are supposed to be grateful in MS's world view.
What to do?
I doubt there's much MS can do to improve its PR until/unless it experiences some of the pain experienced by its customers. Can a corporation have a heart? Be empathic? Probably not. MS, like everyone else in business is appropriately out to 'make a buck'. Nothing wrong with that, but think about doing it sustainably. Oh, and don't pretend to be my best friend and then stab me in the eye.
Here's the fundamental problem: the object of business is to win all the business. But, if you succeed you become public enema #1.
What's amazing about MS is how little they accomplish given their resources.
Windows is still bone primitive when it comes to basic housekeeping: your network administrator disconnects a drive that you 'share', you attempt to import a file into an Office ap and the system grinds to a halt - does windows intercept this? advise you? nay nay nay! You have to go to Google to even find out why it's happening. What about ID7s disregard of CSS conventions? We still have all those cryptic error messages. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Why doesn't Paint do anything reasonably useful after all these years - you can't even constrain a rectangle into a bleedin' square
Academics who sniff at Wik's uncredentialed content certainly don't get it. But the loudest Wik snipers are undoubtedly scared to death of the incredible magnet that the site has become.
Don't put Wik into the encyclopedia box. It's really a social knowledge network where opinion is just as entertaining as fact. It's engaging and addictive, especially around controversial topics. I think I spend more time on the Discussion pages than on the main pages. I enjoy (like many, I suspect) anonymously correcting little spelling, usage and grammar errors in Wik, just for the pleasure of it. I may never author an entry, but I'm Wikipedian, too.
Another key element of Wikipedia is its utility as a portal. I want to investigate a topic - click - there it is, ragged or elegant, but replete with interesting debate, useful links to current, socially vetted sources, etc. It is rich because it is messy. Messiness is info-liberation.
Wikipedia is probably more a threat to Yahoo and even Google than anyone else. I wouldn't mind if Wik was commercialised. This may be more productive than trying to police commercial messages and links out of Wik content.
If MS has one redeeming characteristic, it's persistance. Buying dot.zero is foolishness. This doesn't reflect much care for the customer but that's in intact reflection of the founder's narcisism. It's a kind of boomer disease. This cynicism has paid pretty well - but when I'm using Excel, I'm always remebering Multiplan (ouch).
But, the only thing worse than a world WITH Microsoft would be a world WITHOUT. I love the idea of Linux and Open Office, etc - but waitaminute! Without Bill, there'd be nothing to react against, no standard GUI to imitate. Oh!, and no mass market. And don't get me started on Apple, the most proprietary-minded company on the planet...
Zune won't be gone in six months, but next year's Zune may be unrecognizable.
In the late 80s the company I worked for flirted with moving our DOS-based CAD product line onto the Mac. I remember our one experience working with Apple at a big industry tradeshow - where we were to demo our product inside Apples floorspace. I placed a discete sign atop the monitor with our product name and company logo. Immediately, the partrolling Apple 'minder' swept over and ordered me to remove the little sign. "Why?," I foolishly asked. "It's an Apple request."
At every turn we encountered this arrogance when trying to 'partner' with these creeps. We soon decided not to waste time any more dealing with the "annointed ones" who run their business like its a branch of Scientologeee. Once Windows started to become half-ass usable, we had a graphics platform for our next gen producs. Game over. Mac never got much over 12% market share.
Actually, I loved Apple once and had owned a II-Plus and one of the very first Fat Macs (Wow, 512k!). What I loved was this US company that had build the kind of brand cachet that Sony, Honda and Toyota enjoy. Apple should have gotten completely out of the proprietary hardware business by 1990 and focused on software, product design and marketing. The iPod success proves that Apple is not a computer company but a slick design house. But, what have they learned? - their proprietary meteor will burn bright and quick and, and, it may zune be a flickering 5% player.
No offense to the late Bill Lear, but how long did he really think that an 'endless' 2 mil sliver of acetate could make that torturous hairpin loop without getting stretched into distortion?
It's '67, and I'm not sure what's scarier - bad Acid or riding in my buddies old chevy with the Association singing 'aaaannnnndddd thhheeeennnn aaaalllloooonnnnggggg coommmmmmessssss Marrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy'
Slashdot Mirror
Ah gee, like there will be 8 billion cool new pcs shipping with, what?, oh, Vista installed over the next few years. Ugh...cannnn'tttt --- sssstopppppp --- Visssstaaa (horrifying scream followed by dull thud).
Actually, it looks pretty cool and useful. Only problem - it won't install (click Run, whirl whirl hourglass, nothin); virus shield off, try again, rinse repeat. Nothin. Guess I won't be squirtin' anyone through my huge tube.
iPhone is an instant winner, I think. It recognises that the long-touted convergence of cell phones, pdas and handhelds is (finally) here. This market has been waiting for a killer ap(pliance) that has the style points and conceptual breakthrough that may even keep the long-irrelevant MacOS alive.
My guess: Apple will keep building this position with some hits and some misses. If it can follow-up the iPod with another market mover, its going to make some shareholders very happy.
Here we were, helping Windows get to critical mass by investing our development dollars in Win ap development, splashing their logo across the landscape in our ads and packaging and they wanted us to pay for the privilege by licensing the Windows logo? Wow. If there was a Nobel Prize for chutzpa...
As a company Microsoft is strangely unconscious of the effect of its behavior on the customer. I think this comes from Bill, who telegraphs his contempt for users repeatedly and endlessly. It's wellspring is 'ubernerd' intellectual superiority. This gets played out in the market cynicism and naked hypocrisy present in so many acts.
Take those 'we see' tv ads, with cloying sentimentality and smarmy 'we're your best friend' crap. Customers are supposed to be grateful in MS's world view.
What to do?
I doubt there's much MS can do to improve its PR until/unless it experiences some of the pain experienced by its customers. Can a corporation have a heart? Be empathic? Probably not. MS, like everyone else in business is appropriately out to 'make a buck'. Nothing wrong with that, but think about doing it sustainably. Oh, and don't pretend to be my best friend and then stab me in the eye.
What's amazing about MS is how little they accomplish given their resources.
Windows is still bone primitive when it comes to basic housekeeping: your network administrator disconnects a drive that you 'share', you attempt to import a file into an Office ap and the system grinds to a halt - does windows intercept this? advise you? nay nay nay! You have to go to Google to even find out why it's happening. What about ID7s disregard of CSS conventions? We still have all those cryptic error messages. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Why doesn't Paint do anything reasonably useful after all these years - you can't even constrain a rectangle into a bleedin' square
What are they working on up there?
Don't put Wik into the encyclopedia box. It's really a social knowledge network where opinion is just as entertaining as fact. It's engaging and addictive, especially around controversial topics. I think I spend more time on the Discussion pages than on the main pages. I enjoy (like many, I suspect) anonymously correcting little spelling, usage and grammar errors in Wik, just for the pleasure of it. I may never author an entry, but I'm Wikipedian, too.
Another key element of Wikipedia is its utility as a portal. I want to investigate a topic - click - there it is, ragged or elegant, but replete with interesting debate, useful links to current, socially vetted sources, etc. It is rich because it is messy. Messiness is info-liberation.
Wikipedia is probably more a threat to Yahoo and even Google than anyone else. I wouldn't mind if Wik was commercialised. This may be more productive than trying to police commercial messages and links out of Wik content.
If MS has one redeeming characteristic, it's persistance. Buying dot.zero is foolishness. This doesn't reflect much care for the customer but that's in intact reflection of the founder's narcisism. It's a kind of boomer disease. This cynicism has paid pretty well - but when I'm using Excel, I'm always remebering Multiplan (ouch). But, the only thing worse than a world WITH Microsoft would be a world WITHOUT. I love the idea of Linux and Open Office, etc - but waitaminute! Without Bill, there'd be nothing to react against, no standard GUI to imitate. Oh!, and no mass market. And don't get me started on Apple, the most proprietary-minded company on the planet... Zune won't be gone in six months, but next year's Zune may be unrecognizable.
Actually, I loved Apple once and had owned a II-Plus and one of the very first Fat Macs (Wow, 512k!). What I loved was this US company that had build the kind of brand cachet that Sony, Honda and Toyota enjoy. Apple should have gotten completely out of the proprietary hardware business by 1990 and focused on software, product design and marketing. The iPod success proves that Apple is not a computer company but a slick design house. But, what have they learned? - their proprietary meteor will burn bright and quick and, and, it may zune be a flickering 5% player.
Sorry about Yours
Dude, 8 tracks.
No offense to the late Bill Lear, but how long did he really think that an 'endless' 2 mil sliver of acetate could make that torturous hairpin loop without getting stretched into distortion?
It's '67, and I'm not sure what's scarier - bad Acid or riding in my buddies old chevy with the Association singing 'aaaannnnndddd thhheeeennnn aaaalllloooonnnnggggg coommmmmmessssss Marrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy'