Microsoft's Shifting Strategy in Response to Apple

[tsice19]

If MS really wanted to compete, they'd be making they're own line of PCs in addition to selling OEM copies.

Microsoft Notebook

Microsoft Desktop

Microsoft WorkStation

And they'd all run Windows 7 and other MS software similar to how Apple Computers run Mac OS.

___

Even if they did that, I'd still buy Apple. I would hate to be tied up in Microsoft's proprietary system.

 

[bacaramac]

The zPhone!!

Can't wait to see this, the zPhone against the iPhone. I am not dissing the zPhone as I have no idea if this is reality, but hopefully it keeps Apple improving the iPhone.

zPhone, that is just funny to say.

EDIT: Oh yeah, zPhone, now available in S*** Brown and Green.

 

[dsachdev]

What I don't understand is: why is Microsoft and Ballmer so worried and so dead set on beating out competition? If they really are 30-1, why should they care?

The Innovator's Dilemma

"The Innovator's Dilemma demonstrates why outstanding companies that had their competitive antennae up, listened astutely to customers, and invested aggressively in new technologies still lost their market dominance. Drawing on patterns of innovation in a variety of industries, the author argues that good business practices can, nevertheless, weaken a great firm. He shows how truly important, breakthrough innovations are often initially rejected by customers that cannot currently use them, leading firms to allow their most important innovations to languish. Many companies now face the innovator's dilemma. Keeping close to customers is critical for current success. But long-term growth and profits depend upon a very different managerial formula. This book will help managers see the changes that may be coming their way and will show them how to respond for success. The Management of Innovation and Change Series."

The first few chapters of this book go into how the underdog with a small percentage of the market, but a different perspective on how to do things (or who to market to), unseats the larger competitor rather quickly because their focus was instead on incremental improvements rather then drastic or evolutionary new products.

 

[Eraserhead]

and leverage the large installed base of Xbox 360 into a profitable GAMES division (media service via Xbox Live being a perk, a necessary me-too, not an attempt to beat Apple in the media distribution and presentation racket).

Xbox isn't actually that successful, in the scheme of things it is much more worthy to drop than Windows Mobile.

 

[shabbasuraj]

Zune phone?

... M$ has engineered a new way to brick a cellphone..

 

[importluva]

People who believe that are setting themselves up for failure or mediocrity. Great businesses focus on making great products. People want great products. They don't care whether you make a profit or not.

Its true, many great businesses make great products, but they won't be businesses if they don't make money. And you are wrong about people not caring if businesses don't make money. Businesses are funded by investors and they invest because they want to see dividends and a return on their investment. These investors are again people who buy and trade stocks. People want to make money too.

My point was to establish that competition is what keeps businesses and consumers on the same page. When consumers have an alternative to go to in the market, the business needs to

A) Cut costs
B) Introduce new/improved features to attract and retain customers
C) Expand to larger/different markets

 

[137489]

Uhhh...

Macs use standard PC parts. They don't use some special, "high-quality" components". Just the same parts you see in a standard PC. Putting your own parts in should be absolutely no problem, and if you mess something up, clearly it IS your own problem.

And I personally would love to see more user customization available. Popping in your own parts that are exactly what you want would be great.

I would love to see more customizable options too, but....

There are to many hardware incompatibilities with MS's model. More times than not, I got that blasted BSOD or some other error message or freeze up when replacing a failing CD drive, floppy drive (eh - when I used to use them), modem, etc. and trying to find a driver for all that hardware... Even the hardware manufactur's first questions when calling for support:

1. What Version of Windows are you running.
2. What processor are you running on.
3. Are you sure it is not a Windows problem or an incompatibility with some other hardware?

Oh, and I just love when a device driver overwrites a file that is used by another driver and screws both drivers up......

That is the reason I stopped building PC's or even upgrading them. By the time I get through replacing parts, and the headache with them - I could have bought a new machine for the same price and been happier and using my machine faster.

I would love to see how MS plans on doing hardware support? they suck and charge an arm and a leg for support as is it now. And their whole "I'm sorry one question per call/submission thing?"

MS should just throw in the towel and dedicate more resources to MACBU and developing Linux applications. they already stated they back Novell Linux - which to me is a signal they need to give up the OS ghost and go back to what they used to be good at, OFFICE SUITES and other applications (even mac 2008 / win 2007 versions suck now).

I say stick with Apple's model. I have yet to have a software or hardware issue.

 

[SFgadgetman]

Ain't no way MS will pull this off.

They've had how long to figure this out? They could have just listened to consumers but nooooo.

I'm not a PC hater mind you I even bought a PC laptop but returned it after such a horrible experience with Vista. And I'd really love to snap up a new Netbook with XP simply because I know I'd have a somewhat reliable OS.

What I dislike is companies who don't listen to their critics or their customers. It seems to be a pattern with companies who have had years of success and dominance. Take a look at GM and you'll see the same issues.

It would be wonderful if MS could pull this off. It'd be great for competition meaning lower prices for all of us. I just don't think it's possible at this stage in the game.

 

[AppleNewton]

Can't wait to see this, the zPhone against the iPhone. I am not dissing the zPhone as I have no idea if this is reality, but hopefully it keeps Apple improving the iPhone.

zPhone, that is just funny to say.

EDIT: Oh yeah, zPhone, now available in S*** Brown and Green.

lololol zPhone....i can only imagine Ballmer's used-carsalesman like commercial for this.


"Get zPhone (zee phone) ...its for you!!!"

 

[Breegy]

The Innovator's Dilemma

"The Innovator's Dilemma demonstrates why outstanding companies that had their competitive antennae up, listened astutely to customers, and invested aggressively in new technologies still lost their market dominance. Drawing on patterns of innovation in a variety of industries, the author argues that good business practices can, nevertheless, weaken a great firm. He shows how truly important, breakthrough innovations are often initially rejected by customers that cannot currently use them, leading firms to allow their most important innovations to languish. Many companies now face the innovator's dilemma. Keeping close to customers is critical for current success. But long-term growth and profits depend upon a very different managerial formula. This book will help managers see the changes that may be coming their way and will show them how to respond for success. The Management of Innovation and Change Series."

That makes sense, but also helps back up my last point :

But if the ratios is really as Ballmer describes it, why is he even bothered?

I think someone is on an ego-trip because some better quality product maker is making him self-conscious.

And also that bit I said about how Apple has better customer service.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Personally, I have never had a huge problem with Windows software or hardware. I don't do a lot of customization, but I have changed plenty of components. I did have a lot of problems with spyware and such.

The main reason I switched though, is that I simply didn't enjoy using my old Windows machines (I'm speaking mainly about the OS.) They always worked more or less fine, but I never thought of them as particularly well-designed.

The same exact thing went for iPods vs. other music players. That's not to say Apple products are perfect, but they have generally been significantly better in my user experience.

 

[Unspeaked]

What I don't understand is: why is Microsoft and Ballmer so worried and so dead set on beating out competition? If they really are 30-1, why should they care?

That's like Wal-Mart being worried that my local Sweetbay is going to run it out of business.

Actually, it's more like WalMart being worried that Cotsco is going to run it out of business. And they are worried about that.

It's the nature of business to look at your competitors, regardless of size, and want to take them on.

In fact, Microsoft and Apple are much closer in market cap than WalMart and Costco

 

[gcmexico]

a Zune phone? very interesting, I wonder how they will pull that off

 

[rjwill246]

that's not the problem

As a loyal Apple devotee who's always dissed Microsoft, but who is also severely dissapointed in Apple lately (MobileMe disaster, 2.0 firmware bugginess, etc.), I'm looking forward to what MS has to offer in the future. I hope they can start kicking some ass, and force Apple to really get on their "A" game again.

The less than Apple experience a couple of weeks ago was not due to a unified company-wide slide in competence or excellence--- thus it was not about their "A" game now becoming a "B" game as the new norm. Look at what Apple did that week and marvel that it worked as well as it did. iPhone2 is far from perfect but it is still stupendous. MobileMe is still a little inexplicable but you can imagine that Apple has well and truly upended every stone to make sure this sort of thing does not happen again.

Overall, there is nothing MS can do now to kick Apple's ass. MS is the loser in long race that required determination, excellence and a viewpoint that apparent simplicity is king-- not acceptable mediocrity.
I have no fear that Apple is resting on its laurels and is accepting a new lower standard.

 

[137489]

Why not look towards Ubuntu as great choices moving forward rather then Microsoft?

I do not trust they will be around and software on Linux is well, not as impressive or lacking at best.

Slackware - gone

Caldera - Gone

FreeBSD - still out there but why when you can have a mac which is Darwin on FreeBSD implemented better.

Mandrake - you might still be able to find a copy somewhere, but not mainstream

Suse - Gone bought out by Novell

Novell - I seen maybe one or two copies for sale on a shelf at books-a-million

Red Hat - Not Mainstream anymore, I think I read somewhere RH started Ubuntu.

Lindows - Gone and sued by MS for the name infridgment.

I also think there were a few others that dropped by the wayside. Too bad, Linux did look great - once. they are only useful as a server model, as desktop development never took off and the x11 was so slow.

I think mac has got the "Unix" market as far as where to look other than MS and if you wish to have a "unix" on your desktop.

I would love to see what I use most on MS get ported to run on a mac.

MS-SQL server
.NET
Office 2003 (windows implementation - not the crap they tried to pass off on mac 2008 and win 2007 versions)
OneNote (well, for you one note lovers. I gave up that ghost for circus ponies and never looking back CP got onenote beat and it does not chew up my harddrive space either).

Other than that, everything else I have is better on a mac. I am also about to ditch another one of my PC's for a mac for my wife.

 

[fuziwuzi]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D052; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

Steve B, you don't sell PC's, so how are you outselling Apple 30-1?

that is an interesting point. apple make more from a sale of OS X (due to hardware) compared to a sale of vista.

but MS is notorious for comparing things that don't add up once questioned. recently gates stated that vista was selling strong, something in the order of 140M copies. fact is, when u buy a PC now you are pretty much forced to get vista, i have heard many people complain about vista, and some of those roll back. so when people don't really have a choice in their OS cause it's bundled in hardware how can u say that uptake is strong; and then u have to consider those that continue to use vista.

i seriously think that MS has adopted the hegemonic practices of the govts etc, and it's really frustrating to be told one limited view on thins

 

[BongoBanger]

There are to many hardware incompatibilities with MS's model.

Like what?

More times than not, I got that blasted BSOD or some other error message or freeze up when replacing a failing CD drive, floppy drive (eh - when I used to use them), modem, etc. and trying to find a driver for all that hardware...

I find this difficult to believe since virtually all peripherals come with driver disks. Examples, dates and hardware please.

Even the hardware manufactur's first questions when calling for support:

1. What Version of Windows are you running.
2. What processor are you running on.
3. Are you sure it is not a Windows problem or an incompatibility with some other hardware?

Right. Because all devices that work with, say, OSX work on all variants of Mac OS. They ask you that to make sure you haven't done something silly like buy hardware which isn't compatible.

Oh, and I just love when a device driver overwrites a file that is used by another driver and screws both drivers up......

Examples please because you really have to make a mess of things to do that.

That is the reason I stopped building PC's or even upgrading them.

Because you're not very good at it?

By the time I get through replacing parts, and the headache with them - I could have bought a new machine for the same price and been happier and using my machine faster.

Which is what the vast majority of Windows PC users do and which is why the vast majority never have any issues.

I would love to see how MS plans on doing hardware support? they suck and charge an arm and a leg for support as is it now. And their whole "I'm sorry one question per call/submission thing?"

They'll probably steal the good staff from one of the manufacturers to set up a service.

MS should just throw in the towel and dedicate more resources to MACBU and developing Linux applications.

What for? They have less than 5% of the global market between them and, bluntly, that's not likely to change much.

they already stated they back Novell Linux - which to me is a signal they need to give up the OS ghost and go back to what they used to be good at, OFFICE SUITES and other applications (even mac 2008 / win 2007 versions suck now).

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you? They're good at writing and marketing operating systems. That's why 95% of all PCs run them. And Office 2007 sucking? What the hell? Go on explain why.

I say stick with Apple's model. I have yet to have a software or hardware issue.

And you wouldn't with an OEM Windows PC either.

that is an interesting point. apple make more from a sale of OS X (due to hardware) compared to a sale of vista.

No, they make the money from the sale of the hardware.

but MS is notorious for comparing things that don't add up once questioned.

Have you seen the Mac vs PC ads? Because, you know, they're classics of this kind of thing.

recently gates stated they vista was selling strong that the they had something in the order of 140M copies. fact is, when u buy a PC now you are pretty much forced to get vista,

Yeah and when you buy a Mac you're totally forced to use OSX. What's your point again?

i have heard many people complain about vista, and some of those roll back.

Translation: I've never used Vista so I base my experience on blog articles written by clueless hacks.

so when people don't really have a choice in their OS cause it's bundled in hardware how can u say that uptake is strong.

Because they're not:

a) Buying Macs
b) Buying Linux machines

i seriously think that MS has adopted the hegemonic practices of the govts etc, and it's really frustrating to be told one limited view on thins

Whilst being quite happy to present one yourself.

 

[Saladinos]

Very interesting development, indeed.

Ballmer is exactly right about Apple's narrow but complete products. Just as he is right about Microsoft's broad and unfocused products. I very much prefer Apple's strategy - it's better to have a device which is limited in functionality, but works extremely well, than a device which is open to all, but works shoddily and has an unoptimised interface due to all possible configurations needing support.

It's why WinMo phones won't work with a touch interface - the OS and all applications need to work with phone's that have the standard button interface as well. Apple do it one way, and stick to it. They focus their products.

 

[Breegy]

Actually, it's more like WalMart being worried that Cotsco is going to run it out of business. And they are worried about that.

It's the nature of business to look at your competitors, regardless of size, and want to take them on.

In fact, Microsoft and Apple are much closer in market cap than WalMart and Costco

I was refering that to the 30-1 ratio Ballmer throws out, despite the fact that Windows doesn't even sell PCs. Many more people shop at Wal-Mart than smaller food chains. A few exceptions would be Publix and WinnDixie and a few others.

It's just that the Microsoft seems so dead set on becoming a monopoly by stomping out competition. He address all of his competitors. Why can't he just let them be? Apple, while it may advertise against them, isn't trying to eliminate them.

To me, the guy just seems a little crazy. Like he's got to get rid of them all. Again, the guy seems a little ego-tistical and is getting self-conscious because he's got a competitor who's making better quality products.

Also, it's ridiculous to take all the praise for these comptuer makers like Dell and Gateway and so on. Microsoft didn't make those computers. He shouldn't get to throw out his whole "30-1" ratio when he didn't do anything.

 

[jsetliffe]

Numbers aren't everything

Steve Ballmer often quotes the rather dubious, "we sell 200 million PCs while Apple sells 10 million" figure

What he means is, "There are 200 million PCs out there that are forced to run Windows as they don't have an alternative"

So there are more PCs running some MS OS, big deal. Bud out sells Guinness, does that mean Bud is a better product? No, of course not. Not even close. How many of the people using one of the 200 million Windows boxes would switch to being on one of the 10 million MACs if given a chance?

 

[sanford]

Xbox isn't actually that successful, in the scheme of things it is much more worthy to drop than Windows Mobile.

Oh God Xbox is a $3 billion sinkhole at the moment, no doubt. I only call it out because MS is conspicuously attached to the brand, hemorrhages cash into it, and they have, in installed base, a hit AND preposterously loyal early and middle adopters considering the absolutely jaw-dropping approx. 1/3 initial runs hardware defect rate that persisted far, far beyond the length of time such a massive defect rate can nominally persist in consumer electronics -- and it's STILL not low enough to be a nominal consumer electronics defect rate. Yet still Xbox 360 gamers stick with. I think though Windows Mobile has far deeper market penetration, their WM customers are far less loyal to that brand than Xbox customers are to that brand.

Also, I wasn't suggested they drop it, per se. Just that it mutate to a profitable "also-ran" in smartphone OSes (in mindshare, even if it exceeds others in installed base); failing that, then perhaps kill it off.

 

[137489]

They've had how long to figure this out? They could have just listened to consumers but nooooo.

I'm not a PC hater mind you I even bought a PC laptop but returned it after such a horrible experience with Vista. And I'd really love to snap up a new Netbook with XP simply because I know I'd have a somewhat reliable OS.

What I dislike is companies who don't listen to their critics or their customers. It seems to be a pattern with companies who have had years of success and dominance. Take a look at GM and you'll see the same issues.

It would be wonderful if MS could pull this off. It'd be great for competition meaning lower prices for all of us. I just don't think it's possible at this stage in the game.

Truthfully, buy the time MS lines up all the hardware makers; decides there standards, etc - it will be a couple of years as the lawyers would have to review it.

I think MS would only hurt themselves in terms of the amount of time it will take them to roll something like this out. I mean, to change the whole mindset of a company, get people on board, implement, switch of personell (yeah someone's job will either be cut or they will quit because of the hassles, or they are no longer needed due to not offering X anymore).

 

[glennyboiwpg]

Uhhh...

Macs use standard PC parts. They don't use some special, "high-quality" components". Just the same parts you see in a standard PC. Putting your own parts in should be absolutely no problem, and if you mess something up, clearly it IS your own problem.

And I personally would love to see more user customization available. Popping in your own parts that are exactly what you want would be great.

Ahh... but its not the parts thats the problem... Its the DRIVERS!

IF apple knows what exact parts are in their machine, then they can make sure that quality drivers are on the machine and they can test each configuration.

THAT is what you lose when you start throwing in different parts.

 

[fuziwuzi]

I do not trust they will be around and software on Linux is well, not as impressive or lacking at best.

Slackware - gone

Caldera - Gone

FreeBSD - still out there but why when you can have a mac which is Darwin on FreeBSD implemented better.

Mandrake - you might still be able to find a copy somewhere, but not mainstream

Suse - Gone bought out by Novell

Novell - I seen maybe one or two copies for sale on a shelf at books-a-million

Red Hat - Not Mainstream anymore, I think I read somewhere RH started Ubuntu.

Lindows - Gone and sued by MS for the name infridgment.

you are wrong with some of these, if you followed linux you'ld know.

slackware - http://www.slackware.com/ has an update june 2nd NOT GONE

mandrake - became Mandriva - still going strong

Red hat - has become fedora core, is maintained by a different group and is still a strong linux contender.

Suse - previously their OS has a proprietary installer and had to be purchased, novell has since released it free under open-suse. it still a strong distro and well maintained.

please, before you start spouting about linux dying, do your ****ing research.

 

[SinfonianShrek]

This is the way I see it: Microsoft's resident windbag is just expelling exhaust, as usual.

Microsoft can't do an "end-to-end" experience with Windows. They'd either have to go the full Apple route and manufacture their own hardware and stop selling their OS to other manufacturers (doomsday for Microsoft, financially speaking).

That or they'd have to spend GOBS of money to have compliance staff and engineers hosted at all major component and system manufacturers' offices. The second option is far more likely but still too costly and invasive for it to work. Let's not even think of the expanded support center and staff they'd have to build up to handle the inevitable flood of support calls the manufacturers would begin funneling to them since they'd be wanting to supply an "end-to-end" model...

As for the Zune phone? Sorry, but I have yet to meet anybody who bought a Zune. There's no market saturation for them to build on. Now, if they make their own Windows Mobile phone and really focus on making the damned OS work properly on the device I'd like to see that.

So I see nothing coming of this unless Microsoft is willing to lose OS market share in order to improve customer satisfaction, which they'd be stupid to do from the viewpoint of stockholders.