5 ms·

I doubt very seriously that they "don't get it". What's Ballmer supposed to say? "Hey guys, we completely missed on this. Apple brought out this really cool de

by enjo 16y ago

I doubt very seriously that they "don't get it". What's Ballmer supposed to say? "Hey guys, we completely missed on this. Apple brought out this really cool device that we have no answer for. Our bad. shrugs" No, I'm sure that they firmly understand what's going on. The question is, do they still have the technical expertise to actually do anything about it? I'm not really sure. They remind me of Nokia actually. Little known fact: Nokia was working on a touchscreen device LONG before the iPhone came out. The problem was two-fold: they didn't understand how to innovate the interface. Their attempt was largely click based. Your finger was supposed to be more or less like a mouse. Second, when the iPhone did come out they lacked the technical competency to respond. Their base operating system, S60, was a poorly engineered mess and at the lower levels everyone knew it. Trying to bolt on a next-generation interface was a dead-end, but that didn't stop them from trying. To this day, the engineering culture at Nokia shows little ability to actually keep up and compete. I fear Microsoft is in much the same position. Do they know they're getting their butts kicked on tablets (and mobile for that matter)? Yep. But unlike previous times they've gotten beaten up (think netscape/Internet) they just don't seem to have the ability to respond. In the past they'd hire their way out of it... but Google has already snatched up and incredible amount of mobile talent (like Matias Duarte). Not that it matters, because the culture at Microsoft appears to have become frozen. I'm just not sure that they have the will, as a company, to respond in any meaningful way.

jacobolus 16y ago
Did you read what Ballmer keeps saying though? He flogs Windows as the answer to everything, and points at the existence of pen-controlled laptop/tablets with flip-around screens that can run some special tablet-designed software (on top of stock windows) as evidence that Microsoft “gets it”. He talks about how wonderful the MS Surface (the giant table thing) is. Etc. Etc. Microsoft’s strategy would be completely different if they “got it”. They would’ve taken their billions of dollars in the bank, and hired a team of people who could get a new platform built. They’d have set internal expectations high, and kept a tight focus on meeting real needs with an interface that could delight users. I think the individual technical expertise probably exists somewhere inside Microsoft: they do all kinds of neat research, and employ plenty of smart people. Evidently, though, the institutional structure of Microsoft, with competing teams vying for resources and squabbling over areas of perceived overlapping expertise, has prevented them from executing. In my opinion, everything Microsoft has done over the last 5-10 years (if not forever) has been a game of catch-up, trying to copy competitors when they see those competitors as more successful, and seldom if ever really innovating, at least not in shipping products. The Microsoft product vision seems myopic and incoherent.
- flatulent1 16y ago
  The picture for MS and tablets doesn't look good whatever way they go. 1) The go with touch bolted onto Windows on x86. While it's understandable that they'd like to carry along a base of existing software, what are the chances of the interface working well? The CES demo didn't seem to show any more touch than flipping through pages in an e-reader someone else wrote. The lack of OS features and other apps to show off was very telling. It's doubtful many are surprised that HP hasn't shipped yet. There's been touch support in Windows since XP, but as an add-on, how can it being anything but an awful kludge? Even if they succeed with a Windows offering, it is apt to be a failure in the sense that it'd just be cannibalizing their own netbook/laptop sales. Vendors do seem to be waiting for Intel to ship a lower power x86 part, so a Windows kludge seems to be the most likely path. 2) They could go with something new... run on another CPU (different instruction set) porting some frameworks from Windows but using a new U.I. Can they pull off a great touch U.I? Can they write code that'll deliver speedy performance and good battery life with a low-power CPU? Can they write a few great core apps and make the platform attractive to developers? (They've got no phone to migrate an alternative base from). Can they out-Apple Apple? I don't think it's the competition that's going to be scared of big old Microsoft... more likely the users and developers, and to a lesser degree the stockholders. With something new, a so-so offering would fail big time. (Think Zune). It'd really have to offer something Apple doesn't. If lower price is the only draw, it may get sales without making anybody any money. Apple has room to cut prices if they want to. Having picked up Palm and WebOS and BeOS, I think HP has a better chance of cooking up a viable tablet OS (and hardware bundle) than MS and other partners.
  - Encosia 16y ago
    To be fair, Zune has sold many millions of units and is profitable. It hasn't dominated the market, but it's not very accurate to call the Zune a "big time" failure.
    - X-Istence 16y ago
      My friend has an iPod and on more than one occasion people have come up to him and asked him if that was a skin for an iPod. Personally, I consider that a failure. Even in the poop brown colour people still assume it is an iPod.
Tamerlin 16y ago
I'm not so sure about that. For starters, technical ability probably isn't a problem. The tablet didn't fail for technical reasons, it failed for business reasons -- mostly driven my Microsoft's insistence on not supporting it intelligently. After all, for years the Tablet PC platform carried a large price premium AND performance deficit... which ruled it out of pretty much every market that it would otherwise have appealed to -- a big one being CG artists. I expect that there are quite a few people at Microsoft that DO get it, but I'm pretty sure that Ballmer isn't one of them. Part of my evidence for this is based on the fact that the more Ballmer leaves things alone (games) the more successful they are. Microsoft produces a lot of great games -- and I am fairly certain that if Ballmer exerted more control over those games, they'd be quite a bit less successful.

by enjo 16y ago

jacobolus 16y ago

Did you read what Ballmer keeps saying though? He flogs Windows as the answer to everything, and points at the existence of pen-controlled laptop/tablets with flip-around screens that can run some special tablet-designed software (on top of stock windows) as evidence that Microsoft “gets it”. He talks about how wonderful the MS Surface (the giant table thing) is. Etc. Etc. Microsoft’s strategy would be completely different if they “got it”. They would’ve taken their billions of dollars in the bank, and hired a team of people who could get a new platform built. They’d have set internal expectations high, and kept a tight focus on meeting real needs with an interface that could delight users. I think the individual technical expertise probably exists somewhere inside Microsoft: they do all kinds of neat research, and employ plenty of smart people. Evidently, though, the institutional structure of Microsoft, with competing teams vying for resources and squabbling over areas of perceived overlapping expertise, has prevented them from executing. In my opinion, everything Microsoft has done over the last 5-10 years (if not forever) has been a game of catch-up, trying to copy competitors when they see those competitors as more successful, and seldom if ever really innovating, at least not in shipping products. The Microsoft product vision seems myopic and incoherent.

flatulent1 16y ago
The picture for MS and tablets doesn't look good whatever way they go. 1) The go with touch bolted onto Windows on x86. While it's understandable that they'd like to carry along a base of existing software, what are the chances of the interface working well? The CES demo didn't seem to show any more touch than flipping through pages in an e-reader someone else wrote. The lack of OS features and other apps to show off was very telling. It's doubtful many are surprised that HP hasn't shipped yet. There's been touch support in Windows since XP, but as an add-on, how can it being anything but an awful kludge? Even if they succeed with a Windows offering, it is apt to be a failure in the sense that it'd just be cannibalizing their own netbook/laptop sales. Vendors do seem to be waiting for Intel to ship a lower power x86 part, so a Windows kludge seems to be the most likely path. 2) They could go with something new... run on another CPU (different instruction set) porting some frameworks from Windows but using a new U.I. Can they pull off a great touch U.I? Can they write code that'll deliver speedy performance and good battery life with a low-power CPU? Can they write a few great core apps and make the platform attractive to developers? (They've got no phone to migrate an alternative base from). Can they out-Apple Apple? I don't think it's the competition that's going to be scared of big old Microsoft... more likely the users and developers, and to a lesser degree the stockholders. With something new, a so-so offering would fail big time. (Think Zune). It'd really have to offer something Apple doesn't. If lower price is the only draw, it may get sales without making anybody any money. Apple has room to cut prices if they want to. Having picked up Palm and WebOS and BeOS, I think HP has a better chance of cooking up a viable tablet OS (and hardware bundle) than MS and other partners.
- Encosia 16y ago
  To be fair, Zune has sold many millions of units and is profitable. It hasn't dominated the market, but it's not very accurate to call the Zune a "big time" failure.
  - X-Istence 16y ago
    My friend has an iPod and on more than one occasion people have come up to him and asked him if that was a skin for an iPod. Personally, I consider that a failure. Even in the poop brown colour people still assume it is an iPod.

Tamerlin 16y ago

I'm not so sure about that. For starters, technical ability probably isn't a problem. The tablet didn't fail for technical reasons, it failed for business reasons -- mostly driven my Microsoft's insistence on not supporting it intelligently. After all, for years the Tablet PC platform carried a large price premium AND performance deficit... which ruled it out of pretty much every market that it would otherwise have appealed to -- a big one being CG artists. I expect that there are quite a few people at Microsoft that DO get it, but I'm pretty sure that Ballmer isn't one of them. Part of my evidence for this is based on the fact that the more Ballmer leaves things alone (games) the more successful they are. Microsoft produces a lot of great games -- and I am fairly certain that if Ballmer exerted more control over those games, they'd be quite a bit less successful.