[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Robo The problem is that, in many ways, profit is a lagging indicator in business, and especially in technology.

Oh, trust me Robo. I'm fully aware that MS is in much more trouble than they are letting on. I'm simply pointing out that financially, MS is still healthy, which is why there hasn't been any real push to replace Ballmer.

Xbox isn't even selling at iPod levels.

Didn't MS sell like 10 million Kinects last Xmas? That's at least in the same ballpark as 15 million iPods.

Over time, yes, iPod has clearly bested Xbox. My point is that MS's recent history isn't completely devoid of successful product launches. It's possible to manipulate the data to create the appearance of a Microsoft that is healthy, which, again, is why we're still not hearing any real calls to boot Ballmer to the curb.

[Eugene]

Microsoft has sold 70M XBox 360s since 2005. Apple ships 35M iPhones a quarter. So while Kinect has sold very quickly, there is a pretty low ceiling for its success...

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Eugene Microsoft has sold 70M XBox 360s since 2005. Apple ships 35M iPhones a quarter. So while Kinect has sold very quickly, there is a pretty low ceiling for its success...

Yep. I know. Xbox + Kinect together is small potatoes compared to the iPod and iOS empire. But that doesn't stop most Microsoft apologists I see on the web from pointing at Xbox and saying "See! Look! Microsoft can be successful in the consumer space!" even though iPod, iPhone, and iPad are individually more successful than Xbox, much less put together.

[Jason]

Great article on Information Weekly that gives an insight into the problems MS faces with Surface.

I've spent the last few days test-driving a Samsung Slate PC running Windows 8. It's quite similar to the Surface Pro tablet that Microsoft announced this week, and it's clear to me that the concept of a tablet that can run both the new Metro interface and older Windows 7-style applications is a winner. But concept and reality don't always come together according to plan, and Microsoft definitely has some major challenges making its new platform a contender in the same weight class as Apple and Android. It's not technology that promises to make things complicated for Microsoft: That part of the equation seems to be relatively solid. It's the non-technical side that needs serious help. The equation I'm referring to is what I call the three rules of success in the mobile/cloud commerce world. The rules are based in part on what has made Apple, the Apple Store, and iOS such a success, with a nod to how Amazon has been able to rule its increasing large corner of the e-commerce market. When Microsoft gets these three rules right, the market will have a new contender for Apple's vaunted position as the premier mobile/cloud commerce company. Right now, Microsoft has gotten one requirement right and has a fighting chance at acing number two. But number three, perhaps the most important of all, needs a major reset. My first requirement for mobile/cloud success is a great user experience. Microsoft has successfully nailed this one with Metro. It isn't just another touch interface, but one that's designed in ways that iOS users might even be jealous of. For example, you operate many important applications and system controls by swiping the left and right screen edges, with a finger if the tablet is on a stand and with the left and right thumbs if it's being held. Navigation is simple and intuitive, and remarkably different from the more simplistic swiping iOS affords. And then there's the fact that Windows 8 with Metro supports all the functionality of the Windows apps world. It's very much an OS for creating content as well consuming it. From a usability standpoint, this is a winning combo. The second requirement is to have a great choice of apps to deploy on the new platform. Microsoft has a long, long way to go to match the countless apps available to iOS and Android users. While this isn't a trivial issue in the least, I believe Microsoft has more than a fighting chance to build out a large portfolio. It plans to harness millions of existing Windows and Java developers, so at a minimum many developers will be able to target the Windows 8 environment using the dev tools they already use. This apps question will remain an issue for some time, but the stage is set for a large number of developers to build a lot of apps for Windows 8/Metro, and hence for nailing mobile/cloud requirement two. My final requirement is one that Microsoft has gotten half right and half wrong. And getting one half without the other is a guaranteed failure. The requirement is relatively straightforward--provide an easy, relatively pain-free and lucrative way for developers to sell their apps, and a concomitantly easy, pain-free, and simple way for customers to buy and deploy these apps on their devices. The plans for the Win 8 app store appear to favor developers, making it easier to get apps approved compared with the Apple Store, as well as giving developers a larger slice of the revenue pie. That's a good start, as both Amazon and the Apple App store have proven, the commerce model may be the most important of the three: It don't mean a thing if it's hard to go ca-ching. It's as simple as that. But the customer side of the Microsoft commerce experience has a long way to go if my recent experience with the Slate is representative of how things can go wrong, particularly in terms of how Microsoft wants to integrate its different online commerce systems. In a nutshell, three unforgiveable errors happened in the course of doing something as simple as buying a movie to watch during a recent business trip. And those three errors added up to a big fat fail for the commerce side of the Microsoft experience. The first problem by itself was pretty egregious: The Xbox back-office accounting system where the Metro Video app sent me to buy the movie has a well-known bug, well-known because once I talked to technical support, it was apparent they'd encountered it many times before. This little bug prevented me from linking a credit card to my account: I verified with my credit card company that the authorization went through on its end, just not on the Xbox side. That makes it hard to actually buy the movie. Tech support kindly spotted me the points I needed to rent the movie (points, as this is Xbox, a gaming site, so, you don't transact in actual currency--more on this problem later), but the only way I could buy any more movies for three days until they fixed the back-office bug was to purchase a pre-paid Xbox card. This bug is so well known that tech support even knows how long it takes to get it fixed. It's clear from the Xbox back-office bug that something is rotten in Microsoft's e-commerce strategy, especially as it's apparently a known bug that for whatever reason remains unfixed. That this can and should be fixed goes without saying, and it should be easy enough for a company with Microsoft's tech firepower. How it can persist for more than a few days makes me wonder if Xbox gamers are just more tolerant of this kind of nonsense, or if they have some other way to get the points they need from Microsoft. Regardless, it was strike one against Microsoft's commerce model. Strike two happened when I tried to watch the last two-thirds of the movie, and the Slate Video app crashed, yielding some arcane error code. Fair enough, this isn't the GA release, so I never expected the Metro experience to be bug free. But the problem escalated when I contacted Microsoft tech support to resolve the problem. Since I bought the movie from Xbox, I contacted Xbox account management support people. They hemmed and hawed, and finally said I'd have to talk to someone at Xbox Live support to resolve this issue. Okay, I thought, what do I know about Xbox and Xbox Live. But more importantly, why do I even have to know the difference to buy a movie? I should mention that support wanted to authenticate my account by asking me for the credit card I had provided, which meant I had to launch into the back-office software story. Luckily, there was a security question that I'd set up in my Microsoft Live account years ago that I actually could remember--on the second try. By this time, I had decided to download the movie onto to my Windows 7 laptop and watch it there. That should be easy, right? I bought the movie from Xbox, surely I could just move the download authorization to another device (something I can do with an audio book on my public library's website, so it should be easy). But Xbox Live support punted on this as well: Not only didn't they understand what was happening on the Slate, they couldn't help me download the movie to Windows 7. That, I was told, was a job for Zune support. Zune? I was on a Metro tablet buying an Xbox movie that now needed support from Zune, which, when last I checked, was a discontinued iPod wannabe. (Actually, the brand has morphed into a digital media store, though why the brand was worth preserving is beyond me.) And herein lies the gist of problem two: Microsoft has two commerce sites trying to serve a single customer with a single goal, and their lack of integration makes the consumer experience more than just problematic. Pain in the ass is the best way I can describe it. By now I'd been trying to resolve this Slate problem for an hour. Factor in the time I spent trying to add a credit card to my Xbox account, and I'd already spent two hours--pretty much the movie's entire runtime--without having seen more than the first 30 minutes of the movie. So now for Zune, which doesn't offer telephone support; chat is the only way to communicate. But they had a fix: I had to download Zune for Windows 7, sign on (using my Windows Live account), and then find my movie, download it, and run it on Zune. Right. I was on it. When I finally got the Zune process underway, believe it or not, I could no longer download the movie because the download timeframe had expired. Zune support generously offered to refund the points I had spent, but first we needed to verify my account using my credit card number! OMG! At this point, I hope you're laughing, because I was truly in stitches. This comedy of errors was beyond unbelievable. Luckily I knew the security question cold, so we got that settled quickly, the points instantly appeared, and my Zune download began. Now I'm on the airplane home, daring myself to actually try to watch it. If you hear about a Virgin America passenger who ran amok and started eating his laptop, you'll know this story didn't end well. On to problem three: The lack of an integrated customer experience. I have a Microsoft Live account that I use to sign into all sorts of things. It has a little graphical icon that appears when I sign on to use various non-commercial services at Microsoft (like registering for Microsoft conferences.) I had to use that same Live account for Xbox (a gaming site, though I've no interest in being a gamer), where it has its own funky Xbox avatar, and I used it again for Zune (another service I have no connection to), which created a third little graphic next to my account name. This multiple personality disorder is a mess and will be the nail in the coffin for Microsoft's aspirations to beat Apple if it doesn't get resolved. This problem isn't just a matter of signing on, of course. Buying movies with Xbox gamer points, making it hard to move content between devices, not to mention the support morass--all this will help Tim Cook sleep well for some time to come. The moral of the story is that Microsoft has innovated well on the tech side, but it has a long way to go on the apps side and even more so on the commerce side. While the groundwork has been laid for a critical mass of apps to emerge, I have concerns that the commerce side is showing Microsoft's infamous siloes at their worst, and it may take a while for this mess to be resolved. It's not just Win 8/Metro that's in release preview, it's the whole business model. My concern is that Microsoft is working away at making Win 8/Metro even better and setting the groundwork for a robust developer community, but it's asleep at the switch when it comes to the commercial experience. Hopefully I'm wrong, because if I'm not my Slate will end up in the pile next to my HP Touchpad. It would be a shame to see such a good start go to waste.

Regards

[pscates2.0]

Also, the latest installments of Siracusa's Hypercritical and Gruber's The Talk Show podcasts cover this Surface thing quite a bit (especially Hypercritical, which pretty much takes up the entire show).

[pscates2.0]

An assessment from Mr. Gates.

I'm just gonna kinda let it hang there, and let the jokes/snark write themselves.

[Eugene]

Yeah, Apple better get in on the iPad craze before they get left out...

[torifile]

The crazy thing is that they really believe that they're on to something with the Surface "Pro". They really think that people want to poke at Windows with their fingers on tiny screens.

Touchscreen computers have never taken off. Why is that, I wonder?

Outside of that, the only "innovation" that the Surface has seems to be the kickstand? The keyboard? I really am wracking my brain for it...

[pscates2.0]

Don't strain yourself. This thing is going to be a bust, for all kinds of reasons (some Microsoft's fault/doing, some totally out of their hands or control).

Too late to the party, nobody looks to them for this sort of thing, it's hazy and undefined, misses some large points, tries to be all things to all users (which never works), and, frankly, the fact they saw fit to unveil it yet let nobody use it, or announce pricing or any real availability, speaks volumes.

It's the same old shit, different product. It'll come out late/delayed (if at all), and probably not do 1/3 of the things originally touted. It might be "priced right" (that's all some people seem to care about), but guess what? A "75% OFF!!" or two-for-one sale on turds still involves you purchasing a turd, so let's not get all goo-goo over pricing, as though that somehow magically balances everything out.



I'll keel over from shock if it makes one bit of a dent or impact.

On a related note, Gruber links to an interesting piece in Vanity Fair that is both damning and completely echoes everything I've heard from my former brother-in-law over the years (things I talked about here just two weeks ago...see my post on page one of this very thread, second from the bottom, in the "off topic" tags). Uncanny, almost as if I knew what I was talking about or knew the article was coming.

[709]

I truly believe that there will be a touch-screen iMac in the future, and that somehow iOS and OSX will wed in a very unceremonious and glitchy OSX 10.9. I'm not saying they'll merge, because they won't, but I'll bet on a tight enough integration that users will be like, "huh? I have to switch modes to work in Illustrator? OK. Easy enough."

Apple always has a plan. So if you think Retina Displays are just a thing that Apple is doing to stay ahead of the competition, well, you're right in the short term. But you're way off in the long term.

[709]

As far as the Surface Tablet goes.. well, I see nothing there that intrigues me except for the keyboard - which will be knocked off in 30 seconds.

I'd definitely need to touch one before I just order it for fun. Maybe not. We'll see.

[Eugene]

I don't see the point of a touchscreen iMac at all. The Magic Trackpad is quite enough for a casual user. If you think you need it for Photoshop/Illustrator, there's already a product for you... the Wacom Cintiq.

The biggest issue I have might be a small issue for others. I cannot stand fingerprints and smears on my monitor. I wipe down my iPhone screen constantly.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Eugene Yeah, Apple better get in on the iPad craze before they get left out...

Yeah, good thing Apple doesn't make a thin and light laptop with a real keyboard either...

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by 709 I truly believe that there will be a touch-screen iMac in the future...

Arm strain ahoy! Hope you like a workout with your iPhoto.

...and that somehow iOS and OSX will wed in a very unceremonious and glitchy OSX 10.9.

iOS and OS X are already "merged" in the ways you'd want them to be. They just have a different interface, which makes sense given you touch one and click the other. Maybe at some point we get touchscreen Macs that can run iOS apps, but I don't see it happening the other way around.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by 709 I truly believe that there will be a touch-screen iMac in the future, and that somehow iOS and OSX will wed in a very unceremonious and glitchy OSX 10.9.

They have been wedding since 10.5, really.

(10.5 introduced iOS's toggle control in the Time Machine preferences. Great idea on touch UIs; terrible idea on GUIs. 10.7 introduced a lot of iCloud integration, gestures, and more iOS-like Calendar and Address Book UIs. 10.8 brings even more.)

They're clearly doing an iterative "what good ideas can be bring from one to the other?". Sadly, they sometimes miss that a good idea on one platform may be a terrible one on the other.

Originally Posted by 709 I'm not saying they'll merge, because they won't, but I'll bet on a tight enough integration that users will be like, "huh? I have to switch modes to work in Illustrator? OK. Easy enough."

Modes are something to be avoided in user interfaces, though, and you haven't made a good case on why such a mode would benefit Mac users in the first place.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 An assessment from Mr. Gates. I'm just gonna kinda let it hang there, and let the jokes/snark write themselves.

Bill, it's too late. You should have your ZunePad ready two years ago.

[thegeriatric]

Originally Posted by Eugene The biggest issue I have might be a small issue for others. I cannot stand fingerprints on and smears on my monitor.

Nor can I.

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by thegeriatric Nor can I.

As far as I'm concerned, a truly oleophobic glass treatment is the next major innovation.

[pscates2.0]

Slightly off topic (my apologies), but it does address this most recent run above that 709 brought up. I'll tag it appropriately...

I don't think we'll ever see a touch-based iMac (or any OS X-based machine) for two simple reasons: ergonomics/comfort and the actual divisions/design of each respective OS. - Holding your arms up/out to manipulate a large iMac-like display is going to get old and tiring very fast. If you don't think so, simply pretend you have one right now and start doing everything with your hands/fingers on the screen (pretending you're moving things around, tapping icons, etc.). That burn you feel in your shoulders and arms, after about 3-4 minutes, is only the beginning...and it won't get better Apple's vision of "touch on OS X" is already (smartly) implemented in a way that makes sense for such a product: the Magic Trackpad (or Mouse or the trackpads on all their notebooks). Your hands are kept at their normal, comfortable positions and you use all these gestures to do iOS-like things (swipe, pinch, rotate, zoom, etc.), you just aren't doing it on a huge screen, two feet away at chest/head level, which just isn't practical or comfortable after the initial novelty wears off. I suppose Apple could redesign the iMac (or design an all-new Mac) in such a way that it lies flatter so you're using it more like a drafting table and you're sitting more above it and resting your hands on it (instead of having to elevate your arms). But then that leads to my second reason... - iOS is the Apple system meant for direct touch and use, and it's already in place and doing really well for itself. I don't think Apple will ever go the Microsoft route and try to be all things to all users, or attempt some bastardized hybrid of the two (where the combination actually sucks more than simply letting each thing stand alone and separately and play to its own strengths), and where users ever have to think about which one to use, or which one they're in, etc. That's just not Apple. They go out of their way to remove stuff like that from the user. I think Apple makes it easy by dividing that line by product...OS X on Macs, used with mice, trackpads and keyboards. iOS on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, used with your fingers. Two different systems, two different approaches, two different strength/plusses, two different navigations/manipulations, two different development environments, two different stores, etc...and never the twain shall meet. They can certainly share ideas and concepts, and influence each other over time (and they already are with that whole Back to the Mac thing, and various features throughout Lion and Mountain Lion), but I don't think we'll ever see an "iMac touch". In fact, I see both a 7-8" iPad and ~15" iPad before I ever imagine the above happening.

[709]

I respectfully disagree with all y'all.

I'm not saying (and never did) it would be the main input mechanism, just that there would be a touch-screen option in the future for Mac OSX devices. Who hasn't inadvertently touched their laptop screen in an attempt to scroll a webpage? I'd bet a lot of you, if you spend a lot of time in iOS as well as OS X.

I'm not positing a "touch everything" future for OS X, but I do still think that touch screens will come eventually. Probably laptops first.

Tear me up. History will vindicate me!


Hell, I've been clamoring for a paperback-sized iPad from the first day they came out. So there.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Me Maybe at some point we get touchscreen Macs that can run iOS apps, but I don't see it happening the other way around.

It's not that I think touchscreen Macs will never happen, because I think they will. But that's not what you said. You said you think iOS and Mac OS X are going to merge.

You said: "... somehow iOS and OSX will wed in a very unceremonious and glitchy OSX 10.9." That implies that either Springboard or Finder will be killed completely, or become a secondary interface, as the other usurps the limelight. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous, Finder is optimized for mice and keyboards, Springboard is optimized for fingers. Why would Apple force one upon the other?

It's entirely possible for Mac OS X to get touch functionality without "merging" it into iOS. It's entirely possible for Apple to polish up the iOS simulator and let people run iOS apps on a Mac. But neither of those has "merge iOS and OS X" as a requirement.

[709]

Originally Posted by Kraetos It's not that I think touchscreen Macs will never happen, because I think they will. But that's not what you said. You said you think iOS and Mac OS X are going to merge. "...and that somehow iOS and OSX will wed in a very unceremonious and glitchy OSX 10.9" implies that either Springboard or Finder will be killed completely, or become a secondary interface, as the other usurps the limelight. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Finder is optimized for mice and keyboards, Springboard is optimized for fingers. Why would Apple force one upon the other?

I misspoke. Apologies.

I do think they are going to merge quite a bit more than they are in Mountain Lion. But I feel like Apple will eventually go the same route as Surface. Both OS's on one machine (the OS X machines, not the iOS machines). That's what I was getting at, mostly. I may be completely wrong, and as such be willing to eat some bird feathers.

And I really don't see why (as mentioned in my experience above) touch couldn't get integrated into OS X without ruining anything productive.

[edit]:

Originally Posted by Kraetos It's entirely possible for Mac OS X to get touch functionality without "merging" it into iOS.

This.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by 709 Both OS's on one machine (the OS X machines, not the iOS machines).

Lion (hell, even Leopard) already does that. It's called the iOS simulator and you get it with Xcode. With a little polish they could totally release it on the App Store.

And I really don't see why (as mentioned in my experience above) touch couldn't get integrated into OS X without ruining anything productive.

Nor I, as long as the mouse/trackpad and keyboard remain the primary input mechanism.

[709]

Originally Posted by Kraetos Lion (hell, even Leopard) already does that. It's called the iOS simulator and you get it with Xcode. With a little polish they could totally release it on the App Store

OK. I'm not a developer and have never opened Xcode in my life, so I'll take your word for it.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by 709 OK. I'm not a developer and have never opened Xcode in my life, so I'll take your word for it.

It's actually pretty cool. When you use it, the mouse turns into a translucent white circle that hovers over the screen to simulate a finger. Apple could release a commercial "run iOS apps on your Mac" solution with minimal effort, they're already 90% there. And I think you're right, it's probably going to happen eventually.

[pscates2.0]

This thread seemed as good a place as any (surely the following isn't worth its own thread)...

Delusional much?

Okay, in the technical sense they are "competing". But they're not competing.

[Jason]

Good article in Vanity Fair about MS in the last decade.

One excerpt:

Today, Microsoft stands at a precipice, an all-or-nothing opportunity that may be Ballmer’s last chance to demonstrate to Wall Street that he is the right man with the right plan to lead the sprawling enterprise into the future. With Surface, the recently unveiled tablet, Windows 8, Windows Phone 7, Windows Server 2012, and Xbox 720 in the offing, he could be on the verge of proving his strategies—including last year’s controversial, $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype. But whether these succeed or not, executives say, the Microsoft of old, the nimble player that captured the passions of a generation of techies and software engineers, is dead and gone. “I see Microsoft as technology’s answer to Sears,” said Kurt Massey, a former senior marketing manager. “In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Sears had it nailed. It was top-notch, but now it’s just a barren wasteland. And that’s Microsoft. The company just isn’t cool anymore.” Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft. No, really. One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2...-steve-ballmer

[wtd]

With their OS upgrade prices coming down tremendously, who thinks Surface is just the tip of the iceberg, and Microsoft will actively pursue hardware sales in laptops and desktops to offset the revenue loss?

[torifile]

Originally Posted by wtd With their OS upgrade prices coming down tremendously, who thinks Surface is just the tip of the iceberg, and Microsoft will actively pursue hardware sales in laptops and desktops to offset the revenue loss?

I think they have to. Apple is eating their lunch with their rock bottom OS upgrades and office suite prices. With Dell and HP flailing badly, Microsoft almost has no choice but to take matters into their own hands. I doubt they'll do it successfully but they will (or should) at least try.

That said, I don't think they'll even do it. They have no courage as a company.

[alcimedes]

I just paid almost $200 the other day for n upgrade license for my Windows 7 machine. At that price, I think it's going to be the last one I buy for another decade. Way too much money for a simple upgrade, and unless they totally stop supporting 7, I think I've found my Windows end point. (unless whatever comes out after 8 in 4 - 6 years time is decent).

By then, Apple will have released what, at least another 3-4 OS'es? How is MS going to keep up?