4 ms·
The problem for Microsoft is that they continue to serve two masters: consumer users and corporate users. Corporate IT shops, especially within certain industri
by JunkDNA 15y ago
The problem for Microsoft is that they continue to serve two masters: consumer users and corporate users. Corporate IT shops, especially within certain industries, can be exceptionally wary of anything that moves data outside their walls. Consumers are in general not nearly so picky. Corporations are MS's biggest customers and for years have had considerable influence on product direction. It's just not in Microsoft's DNA to ruffle the corporate customer feathers too much (whereas I get the sense Google and Apple almost take pleasure in it).
The biggest issue for MS isn't just that iCloud might be an embarrassment. It's a full on attack on the Windows monopoly. Apple telegraphed this in the WWDC presentation when they showed the stats on the numbers of people who don't own a personal computer (either Mac or Windows) in different countries around the world. The combination of iCloud + iPad means that the iPad can be a standalone device. This could potentially be huge in markets like China. How many SharePoint licenses does MS have to sell to make up for ceding a significant portion of the untapped Chinese PC market to the iPad?
- elehack 15y agoI think there's a huge opportunity here, that Microsoft is trying to enter with their "Private Cloud" advertising, for the Software plus Services model that runs against servers you own or lease. Sold properly, that could work very well with corporate clients - "Here, your employees can enjoy transparent sync, always-available-anywhere access, with all data stored securely on your servers."
- Hoff 15y agoHP is also aiming for that same private-cloud target, building that with operating systems including Windows, WebOS, Linux, HP-UX, OpenVMS and others, with "cloud-mapped" applications from HP and partners, with the rack-n-stack hardware and networking gear (of course), the management tools that they've built and bought, a veritable blizzard of marketing buzz-phrases, and with the usual aggregation of other pieces and parts, as well as offering the softwarte and hardware (and cloud) services to keep it going.
- neuroelectronic 15y agoAre you suggesting that Chinese will buy an iPad to do their computing?
- danudey 15y agoIt seems to me that, if Apple so desired, they could make a fair bit of money selling a 'private iCloud' service to companies looking to incorporate iPhones and iPads into their infrastructure in a big way. In the same way companies can set up their own BES server to provide in-house management of their data, the ability to set up an in-house iCloud server, to back up their employees' documents, data, settings, etc., as well as 'find my iPhone', distribute out custom books (e.g. corporate training documents, procedures, forms, manuals, etc.), and in-house apps, could be very appealing to a lot of companies. I'm sure Apple's considered it, but I doubt they see enough of a market in the product to bother packaging it up and selling it. It's obvious that they're not incredibly interested in the server or high-end enterprise market, and they're perfectly content to let their Activesync integration carry them for now.
- netcan 15y agoApple have been going at a clip these past few years creating, scaling and tweaking a few massive products - ipods, itunes, iphone & ipads while outpacing competition with macs and still carrying a few fizzles (apple servers, apple tv...) and a few lower visibility but fairly important products (iwork, ilife..). I think they just don't have the capacity to do more big things right now. When/if iOS gets put on medium heat like OSX is/was, then maybe we they'll try this. It's not really much harm waiting a few years to see if/how some of the newer Apple stuff (iOS, icloud) and its competition gets used by large companies.