Of course not, I'm just speculating. Should have made that clear in my initial post.
But isn't it kind of obvious that this policy will have precisely the effect I suggested? It's well-known that they have an aging workforce and people that have worked remotely for years if not decades.
Asking people with families, kids in school, or folks who are near retirement to move to keep their job is clearly going to have more of an effect on their oldest employees. It's the young, single people or those that desperately need to keep their job that will move.
...when you know the real reason for removing their work-from-home policy and asking that everyone go to physical IBM offices.
They're not doing away with employees working remotely because they don't believe in it, they're doing away with it to encourage their oldest employees to retire or quit. Possibly also to weed out some employees who weren't really doing any work, which happens plenty with any job that offers telecommuting.
Once their oldest employees who aren't willing to relocate or move to keep their job quit, they'll offer telecommuting to their employees again.
Okay, I'll give it a shot. Quick answer, it's not really the products at all, though they look and work great. It's the ownership experience that makes people love the products.
I was a diehard Thinkpad owner for many years, and felt the same way. Made the switch to a Mac in 2009, and the best way I can characterize the difference is this: a different and overall superior ownership experience.
Speaking to Mac OS, reinstalling the OS or upgrading new to versions is fast and free. It also needs to be done very rarely. Fundamentally the machines just work. They absolutely do cost more initially than comparably spec'ed PCs, but have substantially higher resale value. They can also be used for many years without significant issues. We still use a 2009 iMac daily. It's a bit slow, but it works just fine.
Understood that you could make the same argument for a Windows PC regarding longevity--without question-- but take into account the pain of upgrading the OS, tracking down drivers from the company you bought the PC from, working with a variety of vendors when components break, and it's very different. With an imac, if at any point you have a problem with a machine that you can't resolve, you can get an appointment, bring it in to a store within a day or two and get it resolved. It may cost you some money, but it's an option that's readily available. Compare that to making numerous phone calls to Dell or HP and then shipping off a system. It's a big difference.
I also use iPhones. Here the difference versus my experience with Android is something similar. While many may find it frustrating that iOS isn't as customizable, the flip side of that is that core functionality on the iPhone nearly always works 100%. I went through several Android phones, culminating in a Samsung Galaxy S4, that despite my best efforts to continue to update the OS when possible and solve various problems, just flat out didn't work properly most of the time. Simple tasks like sending text messages and photos via SMS didn't work reliably. Photos would repeatedly just never send. Phone calls worked fine. The UI wasn't great. Here again, ownership experience. I have a problem with a Samsung Android phone, how do I resolve it easily? Phone calls? Trips to the AT&T store? With the iPhone anytime you have a problem simply take it into a store and they can help you sort it out. Understood that Android has come leaps and bounds since I last used it. I'm sure the experience on them is much better at this point. But the ownership point remains.
A few recent examples here. First my wife was having serious issues with the battery on her phone. Some of the iPhone models had a known battery issue that they were replacing phones for. We made an appointment, dropped by the store, and within 45 minutes were provided a brand new phone as a replacement. That was good. Another time we had a broken screen. Our fault. Here it was $120 to fix, but after repairing the screen the device still wasn't passing diagnostic checks properly, so again they gave us a new phone (we still had to pay the $120). In both cases we were able to resolve an issue to our satisfaction and get back to our lives easily.
So that's how I would boil it down. There really isn't much that you can point to and say something like, Apple products are better. They really aren't, unless you argue that build quality and design matter tremendously. Especially with the macs, the hardware inside is basically the same. With the phones the hardware is different but the capabilities are similar.
It may sound like a cop out, but that's it. The stuff is more expensive but you get a superior ownership experience with it. It's built to last, and when you do have problems, they are generally resolved easily and to satisfaction. That creates a love for the brand and the affection people have for their new devices.
Like when the iPhone Plus first came out. It wasn't 'Wow I can get a 5.5 inch screen on a phone!' that got people excited. Plenty of phones were already available at the time with a big screen. It was the fact that you could now get a great product and ownership experience on a 5.5" screen iPhone that got people excited.
Sounds great, looks great, but the price is the most important piece of information here and I don't see it. If it's as affordable as a Nexus 7, it's quite interesting. Priced at parity with ipad like Surface? Not nearly as interesting. Anyone know what the price is?
Good on Microsoft for doing this. I essentially hated my i7 laptop after upgrading it to Win8, until I paid $4.99 for Start8. Glad they've come to their senses. But it begs the question... why does it take them 6 months to realize the mistake, then another 6 months to release an update that is essentially a minor patch? It annoyed me paying for Start8, but seriously... almost a year to get an option to boot to desktop and the start menu back, when I could pay $5 to get it from a 3rd party basically on release day. No one gives a crap about having more Metro tiles... These options should have been added in via a Windows Update patch months ago, and instead we get a preview in June with release in time for the holidays...
To me this just boils down to... people want Office on their iOS devices. Rather than make the _hundreds of millions of dollars_ they would earn by delivering versions of Office for iOS, Microsoft has instead been content to use it as a carrot to try to get people to use Windows Phone and Surface devices. Whenever they learn that that strategy is stupid, they will make a ton of money. Until then, they're just leaving money on the table and alienating precisely the people that are trying to give them money. Microsoft: you _are_ Office. Put it on every platform, iOS, Linux, whatever. Get over yourselves. People want Office on whatever device they're using, give it to them and make the money.
BTW, Excel on Mac is crap. Fix it. I'm not going to switch away from Mac OS, but I will keep entertaining alternatives to Excel until you quit providing crap versions of Excel on Mac. Office should be awesome on every platform, and available on all platforms. Quit trying to push MS products with Office, just make Office great, and you will make tons of money.
My apologies for not being clear enough. The second part of my post was simply this: there's nothing stopping people from just installing Chrome or Firefox on existing XP machines to access Google Apps. Both browsers are free and run fine on XP.
So, for your organization, all the users of said multimillion dollar tools can keep using XP and IE 6 or 7 or whatever... and if they need to use Google Apps they can just install Chrome or Firefox. No need to upgrade machines or anything. So this few hundred bucks per computer or 'billions of dollars' you're talking about doesn't exist. There's no cost, just installing a free web browser and using that for Google Apps instead. Hence the lack of sympathy.
As far as my assertion that people should quit using IE; guilty as charged. Sure things were different 10-15 years ago. I don't think your firm really made a mistake. But to choose to use products that require IE at this point, when Microsoft keeps breaking old apps with new versions *and* requiring that you upgrade your OS to use the new versions... it's not smart. Not to mention it ties you to Windows platform when you can use Chrome or Firefox on Mac or Linux (which you can install on all those old machines running XP).
On the one hand I feel bad for folks that work in IT for companies that have apps they use which require IE. On the other hand, it's getting *really* tough to have sympathy. In a world where you have web browsers like Chrome and Firefox that are available on every major platform *and* free, what type of organization decides to use applications that only work in some version of IE? And furthermore, what is stopping those organizations from just installing FF or Chrome on every user's machine so they can access whatever applications they need to use that don't work right in IE? Nothing.
Unlike IE, FF and Chrome work on basically every version of everything.
Quit making stupid choices, then complaining when those choices hurt you.
It's pretty easy to guess where you're currently working. I work there too. Rather than compare the two offers, I'd consider a third option: shaking it up a little bit at your current employer. Talk to your manager and say that you just got a great unsolicited offer from another firm, and it made you realize that though you love the company, the fact that you're even considering it is freaking you out. Talk about some of your challenges, and that you think maybe you need to try something different. You like a whole lot of things about your job, you're just a little bored. Fix that part instead of taking a huge risk for slightly more money.
If it makes you feel better, there's no way Google patented because they want other people not to use it. They just need it for ammunition whenever Apple sues them directly. Apple's continued ridiculousness has made people realize that they should patent the s**t out of everything, obvious or not, so they can negotiate effectively with Apple when they throw their (also BS) patents around. It's clearly not 'we invented it first' but rather 'we got the patent for this obvious idea before you did,' and Google has admitted this many times. Google's stated philosophy is basically 'patent everything you think of so we can be equipped to handle all these stupid lawsuits, though we fully acknowledge the patent system is broken and will continue to push for reform'.
If I'm Apple, I'm starting to recognize the ramifications of my actions. Good luck bringing an LED LCD TV to market Apple, Samsung will sue you into oblivion. They've made rounded-corner rectangle TVs for years and you haven't, hence you copied off of them (!!) and deserve to not be able to compete. And good luck sourcing displays for anything from Samsung, that $1BN tag you hung on them means they won't ever sell displays to you again. And that's why you won't be able to sell as many iPhone5's as you want, because Sharp can't even manufacture the displays they promised you, while Samsung ships millions of better ones.
Apple can partner with Facebook and Twitter all they want, but only because both of those guys have the same 'screw everyone else' philosophy and it makes sense for them to work with you. They'll screw Apple in a second, just like Apple would screw them. Meanwhile, Apple can no longer partner with Google or Samsung for anything. How good of an idea is that for them in the long-term? Samsung makes the best displays, Google makes the dominant web browser...
So let me get this straight. For essentially the last 50 years we've been teaching children 'Don't have sex, it's dangerous!!' and, 'There are gangs and crime outside, you shouldn't be on the streets at night!'. And now that people have found something to do with their time while they are busy not having sex and not going outside and socializing at night... it's somehow a bad thing? Now all of a sudden it becomes "The kids these days, they never go outside and enjoy life and their environment. They never have real interactions and relationships with members of the opposite sex!!" Make up your mind already, this is what you wanted remember?
Or psychologists like Zimbardo (an idiot, I took his class at Stanford) could just quit caring and realize that people are just going to do whatever the fuck they want with their time. It's not like the planet is underpopulated or something. If some folks want to jack it and play video games their whole life, who cares-- there are plenty of motivated people out there that are doing whatever you think is Really Important(tm) for people to be doing with their time.
I really like TotalFinder. Folders on Top is great, even better is the fact that cut and paste can actually be used for folders and files (why is this disabled in Finder, WHY!?!). I just wish the author of TotalFinder would tweak out the file copy dialogs and logic. If we could have file transfer rate information that would be great (again, why not Finder?!?). I would also of course like intelligent queueing for multiple file copy operations, but I suppose that's a pipe dream-- even Windows Explorer doesn't do that. It boggles the mind that neither MSFT nor Apple has added this-- if I'm copying a bunch of stuff separately to a spinning disk, queuing it will massively reduce total transfer time.
I fully admit that Mac OS X is a better OS than Windows, but coming from Windows Explorer it's very, very surprising how much Finder sucks. I can't exactly go back to Windows since only 1 of the 4 machines in our house isn't a Mac, and thus all of our external drives are formatted HFS+, but I really do miss Explorer. It's a testament to how bad Finder is that the knee-jerk reaction from Mac zealots is 'just use Spotlight!'. Uh, yeah. If keeping your files disorganized and then using search to find them is the ideal solution, what does that say exactly? Why keep adding worthless things to the OS like Launchpad and Mission Control when the core file browser is so bad? I don't get it.
Sorry, but I'm not misinformed. I'm keenly aware of this, because I use a Mac every day for work. Have used Lion since it launched and previously Snow Leopard and Leopard. It's grey with stoplights, iTunes and iPhoto are still brushed aluminum. Finder is worthless for organizing files unless you replace it with TotalFinder or PathFinder, which I of course have. Want to cut and paste files? Nope, need a replacement finder. Want to merge folders? Nope, you can either replace or stick the files in manually. Want a proper tree view? Nope. Want folders to be shown on top? Use a replacement finder. The point is, the architecture of Mac OS X is superior to Windows. The hardware designs are superior to PC hardware. Finder and the UI? Nope.
Take away the one thing that differentiates you from Mac OS X-- the fact that your UI isn't ugly. We like Aero. If you make your UI ugly, why not just use OS X with it's ugly brushed aluminum and stoplights. Works for me.
Metro is cool on tablets and phones, ridiculous and stupid on desktops. Clearly we've got this 'every other release is crap' thing going on with Windows now. But keep in mind that it's easier than ever to switch to Mac these days. Sure the UI is ugly, but the architecture is clearly superior to Windows, and 80% of the time we're using a web browser anyway.
Make the UI suck and there's nothing left. Sure, Windows Explorer is superior to Finder (in basically every way), but that's not enough to keep us from using Mac OS X. If you thoroughly ruin the UI, there aren't many good reasons left to use Windows.
I see all these articles about how this is a stupid post, and that obviously every company should bar the use of company funds to buy competitors products. My reaction is entirely the opposite. If you want your products to be great, you *absolutely* want your staff to be exposed to as many of the competing products as possible.
Do all of you honestly think it's a good thing for MSFT employees not to be exposed to iPhone, iPad and Macbook Pro products? Really? They're way behind, and it's clearly in their best interest to understand why it is that consumers are flocking to their competitor's platform. If I were in charge of the Windows Phone team I'd want everyone that works for me to have an iPhone and iPad, because that's who we need to beat. If they want to grow their market share, they're going to have to get people who have iPhones and iPads to buy their stuff. Those people won't unless Microsoft builds a product that is even better.
By the same logic, do you think it's advantageous for a Ford employee to never drive a Toyota? Or a Nissan? It's ridiculous to think that a company actively wants its employees not to try out competing products, yet expects them to create products that are superior. How do you know what you need to do to appeal to the customers you don't have when you have no idea what those customers are experiencing? These are the people you are directly competing with in the marketplace. To not have your employees exposed to them and experience them at all is just idiocy. If all you want to do is keep your existing customers, fine. But if you want to take market share from competitors you have to appeal to consumers of those products. Creating a strategy to do that without even understanding what you're competing with is impossible.
Just a little background here. My wife, two boys and I recently relocated back to the bay area. My son (and wife and I) interviewed at the Waldorf school, and my son was admitted. We decided not to have him attend because 1) the cost was high (roughly $15K a year for 3 half-days a week for a pre-schooler) and 2) the people making decisions there are little bit... eccentric. They made it very clear that they are anti-computers and anti-video (TV or videos of any sort). That's fine, if a bit unrealistic.
Next they let us know that the teachers provided deep-tissue massage to the kids during each day's nap time. And explained how cell phones and electromagnetic radiation are giving people cancer. And talked about how a montessori education (aka actual learning in the classroom versus solely focusing on play as they do for preschoolers at Waldorf) isn't effective at an early age. I'm fine with these folks taking whatever positions they like, but I don't need my son to go to a school that believes technology is evil and learning is inappropriate in a preschool classroom.
We're paying roughly the same money for my son to attend a montessori school nearby (5 half-days a week) and are pretty happy with it. To each their own, but honestly the attitudes present there really didn't work for my family.
One thing they could do to speed adoption would be to make sure there are more than ZERO devices available at retail to work with it. I understand it's new tech, but to hype Thunderbolt all over the product description when you CAN'T BUY ANY DEVICES THAT USE THUNDERBOLT is a bit ridiculous. Do a search on Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, anywhere... you will find nothing. Meanwhile USB 3.0 outperforms FW 800 easily, and devices that use it actually exist.
I like what Apple is trying to do here, but they should spend more time convincing Lacie, Western Digital, Seagate, etc. to actually ship devices that uses it and less time selling us on its thus-far untapped potential.
I'm fine with being in a small space. I just need a desk for my laptop and a phone, plus a place to stash my bag and coat. But for the love of god, give me some privacy and quiet. I need to be able to talk on the phone with some privacy. I need to be able to think without putting on headphones. Bottom line, if you want me to come to work rather than work at home... you need to make it not be worse than working at home in every possible way.
I have a toddler and an infant at home, so one would think I would do anything to leave. Yet at the office I have two coworkers constantly talking to each other, others loudly talking on the phone, the temperature is ridiculously variant to the point that I have an extra coat in my cube and always wear layers, the cafeteria food is awful and oddly more expensive than fast food... plus I have to drive 15 minutes each way (an easy commute) to have the privilege.
If you want me to commute, make it worth it. As it is I do anything I can to avoid going to the office because I am _far more productive at home_. Make the office awesome for getting work done, or bail on the concept entirely. This "how little can we get away with" mentality is a waste of money and time for everyone.
Innovation is all about scope though. If the context is 'has ever been done on any technology platform ever,' then sure... what Microsoft has done with Xbox Live is not innovative. But, then that means that everything Apple has done over the past 5 years--that basically everyone classifies as innovative whether we like it or not-- isn't either. Ipod, done before. Iphone, done before. Etc.
If you focus the lens to video game consoles, what Xbox Live has done is without a doubt innovative. That you can use it without worrying about hardware requirements, operating system requirements and with a very low cost of entry is what has made it so successful. Live is the differentiator between Microsoft's console offering and what Sony and Nintendo are selling... and it has proven to be a solid advantage within a key segment of the gaming community.
Re: Office, I'm inclined to disagree with you. Sure there is some lock-in, but they have provided saving to xml and export to PDF for several versions now. People like me use Office instead of the alternatives because, frankly, the applications are superior to competitive offerings. Sure there is the myth that OpenOffice is as good, or within my firm (IBM) the concept that Lotus products offer the same functionality... but for people that spend hours a day with these tools Excel and PowerPoint are head and shoulders above the competition. Keynote is impressive, but there aren't enough people using Macs to make using that format a smart choice if you share content with a reasonably broad audience.
While the Xbox may seem to somewhat fit the 'throw money at it until it's relevant' idea you provide, Xbox Live on the other hand is innovative in many ways. It was innovative to include an ethernet plug on the original Xbox (ps2 offered this later, Dreamcast offered it as a separate $100 addon, etc), and then to have a network with gamertags and proper matchmaking. On the 360, Xbox Live is consistently ahead of the competition as well, offering in-game chat across games first, Live-only games for download with demos that always include the full version within them for a simple, in-game pay to unlock.. Etc.. Sony has been trying to catch up with PSN, but still doesn't offer some key features that Xbox Live provides, namely cross-game chat. For the most part, Sony has just been implementing whatever features of Xbox Live people seem to enjoy (trophies to replicate achievements, etc). They are also pushing the envelope with other services on Live... like Netflix support for Gold account holders and now the ESPN live functionality. They had TV episode and movie downloads prior to Sony, and Netflix long prior to Sony and Nintendo.
So.. like it or not, Xbox Live is hugely innovative. Aside from Live, however... I completely agree with your argument. I used to work at Microsoft, and embrace+extend is definitely the name of the game. Their problem lately, in my opinion, is poor leadership. Steve Ballmer takes the 'me too' nature of the company too far, consistently looking to copy others that are making money even when Microsoft has no competency to beat that competitor. Bing is the perfect example... Microsoft continues to try to beat Google at search, when it's apparent to anyone that they won't ever accomplish that (and no one else will either). Lately they have at least realized that their massive cash cows in Windows and Office are what deserve the most attention, but the company still needs to do a better job (any job) of focusing on their competencies and delivering against those rather than simply trying to follow the money others are making.
Of course they won't kill OS X, but it would certainly make some sense to put iOS on the cheaper machines and restrict OS X to the MBP's and Mac Pros. Mac Pros become a lot more appealing (despite their high price) if you need to buy one to have a legit Mac desktop machine for development. Think about it, iOS on Mac Mini, Macbook, OS X on MBP and Mac Pro. Justifies the high price they want to keep on MBP and Mac Pros, and also lets them go lower on the pricing of the mini, the iPad and the Macbook. I don't think this is farfetched at all.
Clearly they need to strike a balance, but let's be honest here. A few years ago, the 'pure' Discovery Channel you liked could take literally any topic, no matter how interesting, and make it a cure for insomnia. While I agree they've swung the pendulum entirely too far in the other direction, that doesn't mean that their 'HD filming of something interesting with a narrator putting you to sleep with a monotone commentary' style was somehow stellar tv either.
It's worth pointing out here that PSPGo accomplishes a few objectives for Sony, but also benefits the PSP platform as a whole by its existence. Case in point: look at how many PSP games are now available on the Playstation Store. 225. Before the Go came out that number was much lower. All of those 225 games can be downloaded and used on an original PSP. Which is great news for me, because I own a PSP 1000 and a PSP 2000, but loathe lugging around the huge and fragile UMD discs everyone is apparently so sad are no longer supported on the Go. I now have a much larger selection because of the Go's existence.
Also, developers have disliked the PSP for quite a while because retail stores don't carry a large enough selection of games. In fact it is the retailers themselves who refuse to carry a decent UMD selection that are now turning around and telling Sony they won't carry the Go because they can't sell the games for it. They said they hate UMD, and they got what they wanted. Too bad.
The existence of the Go does two things for the PSP platform: it forces the big developers to put their titles up on the Store instead of just on UMD. A win for anyone who prefers to download their games. But now smaller developers can compete on a fairly level playing field, knowing that at least when it comes to PSP Go owners they aren't competing for a tiny amount of shelf space with the likes of EA and Activision.
Finally, if you can't tell that this is very much an effort to get devs on board for a future PSP 2 that is digital-download only, you're pretty stupid.
I never would have believed they would add a video camera to the Nano and not the Touch. That's just dumb. The mid-range model has more functionality than the premium model now.
All I can say is, if this opens the door for a sequel to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 including all of the famous Disney characters I am all for it. It would be a lot of fun to whoop some Mickey Mouse or Snow White azz with characters from the Marvel roster. You know you want to, just admit it.
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Of course not, I'm just speculating. Should have made that clear in my initial post.
But isn't it kind of obvious that this policy will have precisely the effect I suggested? It's well-known that they have an aging workforce and people that have worked remotely for years if not decades.
Asking people with families, kids in school, or folks who are near retirement to move to keep their job is clearly going to have more of an effect on their oldest employees. It's the young, single people or those that desperately need to keep their job that will move.
...when you know the real reason for removing their work-from-home policy and asking that everyone go to physical IBM offices.
They're not doing away with employees working remotely because they don't believe in it, they're doing away with it to encourage their oldest employees to retire or quit. Possibly also to weed out some employees who weren't really doing any work, which happens plenty with any job that offers telecommuting.
Once their oldest employees who aren't willing to relocate or move to keep their job quit, they'll offer telecommuting to their employees again.
Okay, I'll give it a shot. Quick answer, it's not really the products at all, though they look and work great. It's the ownership experience that makes people love the products.
I was a diehard Thinkpad owner for many years, and felt the same way. Made the switch to a Mac in 2009, and the best way I can characterize the difference is this: a different and overall superior ownership experience.
Speaking to Mac OS, reinstalling the OS or upgrading new to versions is fast and free. It also needs to be done very rarely. Fundamentally the machines just work. They absolutely do cost more initially than comparably spec'ed PCs, but have substantially higher resale value. They can also be used for many years without significant issues. We still use a 2009 iMac daily. It's a bit slow, but it works just fine.
Understood that you could make the same argument for a Windows PC regarding longevity--without question-- but take into account the pain of upgrading the OS, tracking down drivers from the company you bought the PC from, working with a variety of vendors when components break, and it's very different. With an imac, if at any point you have a problem with a machine that you can't resolve, you can get an appointment, bring it in to a store within a day or two and get it resolved. It may cost you some money, but it's an option that's readily available. Compare that to making numerous phone calls to Dell or HP and then shipping off a system. It's a big difference.
I also use iPhones. Here the difference versus my experience with Android is something similar. While many may find it frustrating that iOS isn't as customizable, the flip side of that is that core functionality on the iPhone nearly always works 100%. I went through several Android phones, culminating in a Samsung Galaxy S4, that despite my best efforts to continue to update the OS when possible and solve various problems, just flat out didn't work properly most of the time. Simple tasks like sending text messages and photos via SMS didn't work reliably. Photos would repeatedly just never send. Phone calls worked fine. The UI wasn't great. Here again, ownership experience. I have a problem with a Samsung Android phone, how do I resolve it easily? Phone calls? Trips to the AT&T store? With the iPhone anytime you have a problem simply take it into a store and they can help you sort it out. Understood that Android has come leaps and bounds since I last used it. I'm sure the experience on them is much better at this point. But the ownership point remains.
A few recent examples here. First my wife was having serious issues with the battery on her phone. Some of the iPhone models had a known battery issue that they were replacing phones for. We made an appointment, dropped by the store, and within 45 minutes were provided a brand new phone as a replacement. That was good. Another time we had a broken screen. Our fault. Here it was $120 to fix, but after repairing the screen the device still wasn't passing diagnostic checks properly, so again they gave us a new phone (we still had to pay the $120). In both cases we were able to resolve an issue to our satisfaction and get back to our lives easily.
So that's how I would boil it down. There really isn't much that you can point to and say something like, Apple products are better. They really aren't, unless you argue that build quality and design matter tremendously. Especially with the macs, the hardware inside is basically the same. With the phones the hardware is different but the capabilities are similar.
It may sound like a cop out, but that's it. The stuff is more expensive but you get a superior ownership experience with it. It's built to last, and when you do have problems, they are generally resolved easily and to satisfaction. That creates a love for the brand and the affection people have for their new devices.
Like when the iPhone Plus first came out. It wasn't 'Wow I can get a 5.5 inch screen on a phone!' that got people excited. Plenty of phones were already available at the time with a big screen. It was the fact that you could now get a great product and ownership experience on a 5.5" screen iPhone that got people excited.
Sounds great, looks great, but the price is the most important piece of information here and I don't see it. If it's as affordable as a Nexus 7, it's quite interesting. Priced at parity with ipad like Surface? Not nearly as interesting. Anyone know what the price is?
Good on Microsoft for doing this. I essentially hated my i7 laptop after upgrading it to Win8, until I paid $4.99 for Start8. Glad they've come to their senses. But it begs the question... why does it take them 6 months to realize the mistake, then another 6 months to release an update that is essentially a minor patch? It annoyed me paying for Start8, but seriously... almost a year to get an option to boot to desktop and the start menu back, when I could pay $5 to get it from a 3rd party basically on release day. No one gives a crap about having more Metro tiles... These options should have been added in via a Windows Update patch months ago, and instead we get a preview in June with release in time for the holidays...
To me this just boils down to... people want Office on their iOS devices. Rather than make the _hundreds of millions of dollars_ they would earn by delivering versions of Office for iOS, Microsoft has instead been content to use it as a carrot to try to get people to use Windows Phone and Surface devices. Whenever they learn that that strategy is stupid, they will make a ton of money. Until then, they're just leaving money on the table and alienating precisely the people that are trying to give them money. Microsoft: you _are_ Office. Put it on every platform, iOS, Linux, whatever. Get over yourselves. People want Office on whatever device they're using, give it to them and make the money. BTW, Excel on Mac is crap. Fix it. I'm not going to switch away from Mac OS, but I will keep entertaining alternatives to Excel until you quit providing crap versions of Excel on Mac. Office should be awesome on every platform, and available on all platforms. Quit trying to push MS products with Office, just make Office great, and you will make tons of money.
My apologies for not being clear enough. The second part of my post was simply this: there's nothing stopping people from just installing Chrome or Firefox on existing XP machines to access Google Apps. Both browsers are free and run fine on XP.
So, for your organization, all the users of said multimillion dollar tools can keep using XP and IE 6 or 7 or whatever... and if they need to use Google Apps they can just install Chrome or Firefox. No need to upgrade machines or anything. So this few hundred bucks per computer or 'billions of dollars' you're talking about doesn't exist. There's no cost, just installing a free web browser and using that for Google Apps instead. Hence the lack of sympathy.
As far as my assertion that people should quit using IE; guilty as charged. Sure things were different 10-15 years ago. I don't think your firm really made a mistake. But to choose to use products that require IE at this point, when Microsoft keeps breaking old apps with new versions *and* requiring that you upgrade your OS to use the new versions... it's not smart. Not to mention it ties you to Windows platform when you can use Chrome or Firefox on Mac or Linux (which you can install on all those old machines running XP).
On the one hand I feel bad for folks that work in IT for companies that have apps they use which require IE. On the other hand, it's getting *really* tough to have sympathy. In a world where you have web browsers like Chrome and Firefox that are available on every major platform *and* free, what type of organization decides to use applications that only work in some version of IE? And furthermore, what is stopping those organizations from just installing FF or Chrome on every user's machine so they can access whatever applications they need to use that don't work right in IE? Nothing. Unlike IE, FF and Chrome work on basically every version of everything.
Quit making stupid choices, then complaining when those choices hurt you.
It's pretty easy to guess where you're currently working. I work there too. Rather than compare the two offers, I'd consider a third option: shaking it up a little bit at your current employer. Talk to your manager and say that you just got a great unsolicited offer from another firm, and it made you realize that though you love the company, the fact that you're even considering it is freaking you out. Talk about some of your challenges, and that you think maybe you need to try something different. You like a whole lot of things about your job, you're just a little bored. Fix that part instead of taking a huge risk for slightly more money.
If it makes you feel better, there's no way Google patented because they want other people not to use it. They just need it for ammunition whenever Apple sues them directly. Apple's continued ridiculousness has made people realize that they should patent the s**t out of everything, obvious or not, so they can negotiate effectively with Apple when they throw their (also BS) patents around. It's clearly not 'we invented it first' but rather 'we got the patent for this obvious idea before you did,' and Google has admitted this many times. Google's stated philosophy is basically 'patent everything you think of so we can be equipped to handle all these stupid lawsuits, though we fully acknowledge the patent system is broken and will continue to push for reform'.
If I'm Apple, I'm starting to recognize the ramifications of my actions. Good luck bringing an LED LCD TV to market Apple, Samsung will sue you into oblivion. They've made rounded-corner rectangle TVs for years and you haven't, hence you copied off of them (!!) and deserve to not be able to compete. And good luck sourcing displays for anything from Samsung, that $1BN tag you hung on them means they won't ever sell displays to you again. And that's why you won't be able to sell as many iPhone5's as you want, because Sharp can't even manufacture the displays they promised you, while Samsung ships millions of better ones.
Apple can partner with Facebook and Twitter all they want, but only because both of those guys have the same 'screw everyone else' philosophy and it makes sense for them to work with you. They'll screw Apple in a second, just like Apple would screw them. Meanwhile, Apple can no longer partner with Google or Samsung for anything. How good of an idea is that for them in the long-term? Samsung makes the best displays, Google makes the dominant web browser...
So let me get this straight. For essentially the last 50 years we've been teaching children 'Don't have sex, it's dangerous!!' and, 'There are gangs and crime outside, you shouldn't be on the streets at night!'. And now that people have found something to do with their time while they are busy not having sex and not going outside and socializing at night... it's somehow a bad thing? Now all of a sudden it becomes "The kids these days, they never go outside and enjoy life and their environment. They never have real interactions and relationships with members of the opposite sex!!" Make up your mind already, this is what you wanted remember? Or psychologists like Zimbardo (an idiot, I took his class at Stanford) could just quit caring and realize that people are just going to do whatever the fuck they want with their time. It's not like the planet is underpopulated or something. If some folks want to jack it and play video games their whole life, who cares-- there are plenty of motivated people out there that are doing whatever you think is Really Important(tm) for people to be doing with their time.
I really like TotalFinder. Folders on Top is great, even better is the fact that cut and paste can actually be used for folders and files (why is this disabled in Finder, WHY!?!). I just wish the author of TotalFinder would tweak out the file copy dialogs and logic. If we could have file transfer rate information that would be great (again, why not Finder?!?). I would also of course like intelligent queueing for multiple file copy operations, but I suppose that's a pipe dream-- even Windows Explorer doesn't do that. It boggles the mind that neither MSFT nor Apple has added this-- if I'm copying a bunch of stuff separately to a spinning disk, queuing it will massively reduce total transfer time.
I fully admit that Mac OS X is a better OS than Windows, but coming from Windows Explorer it's very, very surprising how much Finder sucks. I can't exactly go back to Windows since only 1 of the 4 machines in our house isn't a Mac, and thus all of our external drives are formatted HFS+, but I really do miss Explorer. It's a testament to how bad Finder is that the knee-jerk reaction from Mac zealots is 'just use Spotlight!'. Uh, yeah. If keeping your files disorganized and then using search to find them is the ideal solution, what does that say exactly? Why keep adding worthless things to the OS like Launchpad and Mission Control when the core file browser is so bad? I don't get it.
Sorry, but I'm not misinformed. I'm keenly aware of this, because I use a Mac every day for work. Have used Lion since it launched and previously Snow Leopard and Leopard. It's grey with stoplights, iTunes and iPhoto are still brushed aluminum. Finder is worthless for organizing files unless you replace it with TotalFinder or PathFinder, which I of course have. Want to cut and paste files? Nope, need a replacement finder. Want to merge folders? Nope, you can either replace or stick the files in manually. Want a proper tree view? Nope. Want folders to be shown on top? Use a replacement finder. The point is, the architecture of Mac OS X is superior to Windows. The hardware designs are superior to PC hardware. Finder and the UI? Nope.
Take away the one thing that differentiates you from Mac OS X-- the fact that your UI isn't ugly. We like Aero. If you make your UI ugly, why not just use OS X with it's ugly brushed aluminum and stoplights. Works for me. Metro is cool on tablets and phones, ridiculous and stupid on desktops. Clearly we've got this 'every other release is crap' thing going on with Windows now. But keep in mind that it's easier than ever to switch to Mac these days. Sure the UI is ugly, but the architecture is clearly superior to Windows, and 80% of the time we're using a web browser anyway. Make the UI suck and there's nothing left. Sure, Windows Explorer is superior to Finder (in basically every way), but that's not enough to keep us from using Mac OS X. If you thoroughly ruin the UI, there aren't many good reasons left to use Windows.
I see all these articles about how this is a stupid post, and that obviously every company should bar the use of company funds to buy competitors products. My reaction is entirely the opposite. If you want your products to be great, you *absolutely* want your staff to be exposed to as many of the competing products as possible.
Do all of you honestly think it's a good thing for MSFT employees not to be exposed to iPhone, iPad and Macbook Pro products? Really? They're way behind, and it's clearly in their best interest to understand why it is that consumers are flocking to their competitor's platform. If I were in charge of the Windows Phone team I'd want everyone that works for me to have an iPhone and iPad, because that's who we need to beat. If they want to grow their market share, they're going to have to get people who have iPhones and iPads to buy their stuff. Those people won't unless Microsoft builds a product that is even better.
By the same logic, do you think it's advantageous for a Ford employee to never drive a Toyota? Or a Nissan? It's ridiculous to think that a company actively wants its employees not to try out competing products, yet expects them to create products that are superior. How do you know what you need to do to appeal to the customers you don't have when you have no idea what those customers are experiencing? These are the people you are directly competing with in the marketplace. To not have your employees exposed to them and experience them at all is just idiocy. If all you want to do is keep your existing customers, fine. But if you want to take market share from competitors you have to appeal to consumers of those products. Creating a strategy to do that without even understanding what you're competing with is impossible.
Just a little background here. My wife, two boys and I recently relocated back to the bay area. My son (and wife and I) interviewed at the Waldorf school, and my son was admitted. We decided not to have him attend because 1) the cost was high (roughly $15K a year for 3 half-days a week for a pre-schooler) and 2) the people making decisions there are little bit... eccentric. They made it very clear that they are anti-computers and anti-video (TV or videos of any sort). That's fine, if a bit unrealistic. Next they let us know that the teachers provided deep-tissue massage to the kids during each day's nap time. And explained how cell phones and electromagnetic radiation are giving people cancer. And talked about how a montessori education (aka actual learning in the classroom versus solely focusing on play as they do for preschoolers at Waldorf) isn't effective at an early age. I'm fine with these folks taking whatever positions they like, but I don't need my son to go to a school that believes technology is evil and learning is inappropriate in a preschool classroom. We're paying roughly the same money for my son to attend a montessori school nearby (5 half-days a week) and are pretty happy with it. To each their own, but honestly the attitudes present there really didn't work for my family.
One thing they could do to speed adoption would be to make sure there are more than ZERO devices available at retail to work with it. I understand it's new tech, but to hype Thunderbolt all over the product description when you CAN'T BUY ANY DEVICES THAT USE THUNDERBOLT is a bit ridiculous. Do a search on Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, anywhere... you will find nothing. Meanwhile USB 3.0 outperforms FW 800 easily, and devices that use it actually exist. I like what Apple is trying to do here, but they should spend more time convincing Lacie, Western Digital, Seagate, etc. to actually ship devices that uses it and less time selling us on its thus-far untapped potential.
I'm fine with being in a small space. I just need a desk for my laptop and a phone, plus a place to stash my bag and coat. But for the love of god, give me some privacy and quiet. I need to be able to talk on the phone with some privacy. I need to be able to think without putting on headphones. Bottom line, if you want me to come to work rather than work at home... you need to make it not be worse than working at home in every possible way. I have a toddler and an infant at home, so one would think I would do anything to leave. Yet at the office I have two coworkers constantly talking to each other, others loudly talking on the phone, the temperature is ridiculously variant to the point that I have an extra coat in my cube and always wear layers, the cafeteria food is awful and oddly more expensive than fast food... plus I have to drive 15 minutes each way (an easy commute) to have the privilege. If you want me to commute, make it worth it. As it is I do anything I can to avoid going to the office because I am _far more productive at home_. Make the office awesome for getting work done, or bail on the concept entirely. This "how little can we get away with" mentality is a waste of money and time for everyone.
Innovation is all about scope though. If the context is 'has ever been done on any technology platform ever,' then sure... what Microsoft has done with Xbox Live is not innovative. But, then that means that everything Apple has done over the past 5 years--that basically everyone classifies as innovative whether we like it or not-- isn't either. Ipod, done before. Iphone, done before. Etc.
If you focus the lens to video game consoles, what Xbox Live has done is without a doubt innovative. That you can use it without worrying about hardware requirements, operating system requirements and with a very low cost of entry is what has made it so successful. Live is the differentiator between Microsoft's console offering and what Sony and Nintendo are selling... and it has proven to be a solid advantage within a key segment of the gaming community. Re: Office, I'm inclined to disagree with you. Sure there is some lock-in, but they have provided saving to xml and export to PDF for several versions now. People like me use Office instead of the alternatives because, frankly, the applications are superior to competitive offerings. Sure there is the myth that OpenOffice is as good, or within my firm (IBM) the concept that Lotus products offer the same functionality... but for people that spend hours a day with these tools Excel and PowerPoint are head and shoulders above the competition. Keynote is impressive, but there aren't enough people using Macs to make using that format a smart choice if you share content with a reasonably broad audience.
While the Xbox may seem to somewhat fit the 'throw money at it until it's relevant' idea you provide, Xbox Live on the other hand is innovative in many ways. It was innovative to include an ethernet plug on the original Xbox (ps2 offered this later, Dreamcast offered it as a separate $100 addon, etc), and then to have a network with gamertags and proper matchmaking. On the 360, Xbox Live is consistently ahead of the competition as well, offering in-game chat across games first, Live-only games for download with demos that always include the full version within them for a simple, in-game pay to unlock.. Etc.. Sony has been trying to catch up with PSN, but still doesn't offer some key features that Xbox Live provides, namely cross-game chat. For the most part, Sony has just been implementing whatever features of Xbox Live people seem to enjoy (trophies to replicate achievements, etc). They are also pushing the envelope with other services on Live... like Netflix support for Gold account holders and now the ESPN live functionality. They had TV episode and movie downloads prior to Sony, and Netflix long prior to Sony and Nintendo.
So.. like it or not, Xbox Live is hugely innovative. Aside from Live, however... I completely agree with your argument. I used to work at Microsoft, and embrace+extend is definitely the name of the game. Their problem lately, in my opinion, is poor leadership. Steve Ballmer takes the 'me too' nature of the company too far, consistently looking to copy others that are making money even when Microsoft has no competency to beat that competitor. Bing is the perfect example... Microsoft continues to try to beat Google at search, when it's apparent to anyone that they won't ever accomplish that (and no one else will either). Lately they have at least realized that their massive cash cows in Windows and Office are what deserve the most attention, but the company still needs to do a better job (any job) of focusing on their competencies and delivering against those rather than simply trying to follow the money others are making.
Of course they won't kill OS X, but it would certainly make some sense to put iOS on the cheaper machines and restrict OS X to the MBP's and Mac Pros. Mac Pros become a lot more appealing (despite their high price) if you need to buy one to have a legit Mac desktop machine for development. Think about it, iOS on Mac Mini, Macbook, OS X on MBP and Mac Pro. Justifies the high price they want to keep on MBP and Mac Pros, and also lets them go lower on the pricing of the mini, the iPad and the Macbook. I don't think this is farfetched at all.
Clearly they need to strike a balance, but let's be honest here. A few years ago, the 'pure' Discovery Channel you liked could take literally any topic, no matter how interesting, and make it a cure for insomnia. While I agree they've swung the pendulum entirely too far in the other direction, that doesn't mean that their 'HD filming of something interesting with a narrator putting you to sleep with a monotone commentary' style was somehow stellar tv either.
It's worth pointing out here that PSPGo accomplishes a few objectives for Sony, but also benefits the PSP platform as a whole by its existence. Case in point: look at how many PSP games are now available on the Playstation Store. 225. Before the Go came out that number was much lower. All of those 225 games can be downloaded and used on an original PSP. Which is great news for me, because I own a PSP 1000 and a PSP 2000, but loathe lugging around the huge and fragile UMD discs everyone is apparently so sad are no longer supported on the Go. I now have a much larger selection because of the Go's existence.
Also, developers have disliked the PSP for quite a while because retail stores don't carry a large enough selection of games. In fact it is the retailers themselves who refuse to carry a decent UMD selection that are now turning around and telling Sony they won't carry the Go because they can't sell the games for it. They said they hate UMD, and they got what they wanted. Too bad. The existence of the Go does two things for the PSP platform: it forces the big developers to put their titles up on the Store instead of just on UMD. A win for anyone who prefers to download their games. But now smaller developers can compete on a fairly level playing field, knowing that at least when it comes to PSP Go owners they aren't competing for a tiny amount of shelf space with the likes of EA and Activision.
Finally, if you can't tell that this is very much an effort to get devs on board for a future PSP 2 that is digital-download only, you're pretty stupid.
I never would have believed they would add a video camera to the Nano and not the Touch. That's just dumb. The mid-range model has more functionality than the premium model now.
All I can say is, if this opens the door for a sequel to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 including all of the famous Disney characters I am all for it. It would be a lot of fun to whoop some Mickey Mouse or Snow White azz with characters from the Marvel roster. You know you want to, just admit it.