8 ms·

I really don’t think MS had the consumer product vision at the time to pull anything like a music store off. Apple had the vision to get from point A to point B

I really don’t think MS had the consumer product vision at the time to pull anything like a music store off. Apple had the vision to get from point A to point B and have huge swaths of consumers hop on board for the ride. Wild oversimplification, but I always felt that MS suffered from their monopoly during the 90s in that simply never had to make products people really cared about. Apple did. And when the consumer market exploded — especially after touchscreen phones hit — MS just didn’t have any good muscles to use in the fight. They’d been sort of cheating it for so long that the stuff they kept bringing to market was just a total mess.

dagmx 3y ago
I’d argue that Microsoft still doesn’t have a consumer product vision outside their gaming division. I think they’re quite content with that now though. They’re firmly developer, enterprise and gaming focused these days.
- chasing 3y ago
  I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers. And that means playing ball with the ecosystem and not just trying to crush it. Baby steps, I guess. But a lot of their product line remains a mess. (Although the Xbox shouldn’t be discounted — that was a consumer success.)
  - macintux 3y ago
    > I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers. Someone forgot to tell the Teams team.
    - scarface74 3y ago
      The definition of SaaS is basically where the buyer is not the user. The managers write multi year six and seven figure checks not the user.
      - esafak 3y ago
        It's not that simple. Look up "product-led growth". It's why Figma made Adobe eat $20b.
        scarface74 3y ago
        And Figma’s revenue was only $400 million before it got acquired.
  - chongli 3y ago
    I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers Some of them recognize it, but not everyone. The company also seems to be pretty heavily invested into monetizing users to the hilt with telemetry and advertising. This is the sort of approach that will slowly drive people away from the platform, as users gradually tire of the ever-increasing intrusiveness of the ads.
  - devnullbrain 3y ago
    Games consoles are a strange consumer product. They live and die on the ability to make deals with third parties and only a small number of companies have ever had sustained success.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  The 2019 Surface Pro X is an excellent little machine.
  - rawgabbit 3y ago
    I loved my Surface Book too. Until during the pandemic, Microsoft updates ran constantly. So I let the Surface Book powered on for several weeks. Foolish me didn’t realize that the CPU was maxed out and the heat would eventually cause the battery to swell and cause the display panel to become unglued.
- Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
  I think they're being "Appled" by Sony and Nintendo in the gaming industry though. The Xbox division has been on a downward spiral. Brand loyalty and Game Pass is arguably the only thing keeping them around. But as Sony continues to put out killer first party titles only on PS5, they will suffer. I think a lot of Xbox Series X/S buyers wish they had a PS5 or buy a PS5 as well to play Sony first party titles. And come next generation, if Xbox doesn't have anything to compete with the quality of Sony's games, then I think they're dead. We're 2.5 years into the current generation and Microsoft has almost nothing to show for it except Forza and Halo, which was a delayed mess of a game. Add in to that the fact that most third party games perform better on PS5. They've been on a downward trajectory after Xbox One, where they refuse to state how successful it is, with analysts predicting the PS4 outsold them 2-1. Xbox One was a terrible announcement and launch. Xbox Series X/S are great pieces of hardware but they just can't compete with PlayStation in every other aspect. They've let down developers with the Series S since developers have to target 2 separate SKUs for Xbox, increasing developer effort. And in some cases developers are withholding their games from Xbox if they can't run on the weaker Series S, as you are not allowed to launch on Series X only (see Baldur's Gate 3). If Microsoft changes the rules around this it will benefit developers but it will let down consumers. PS5 is predicted to be outselling the Xbox even more so this generation. There's practically no reason for a consumer to buy an Xbox unless you're a fan of their exclusives, which they have done an excellent job of killing interest in. I think next generation will be when Microsoft taps out and leaves the gaming hardware market, except for maybe their controllers. They will pivot to software only and focus on selling Game Pass for PC players and game streaming for the remaining consumers. Personally, I don't think that will have a good outcome.
  - etempleton 3y ago
    I respectively disagree. I think Microsoft has put Sony in an impossible spot and, with the Activision merger about to go through, Sony is going to have an even harder time. The pandemic, I believe, has masked that people are migrating more and more to PC. Migrating to PC is a win for Microsoft. Kids play Switch and then are jumping right to PC. I don’t hear about a lot of Gen Z kids talk about PlayStation and have even heard it referred to as a boomer console and anecdotally the PlayStation crowd seems to be predominately 30+.
rawgabbit 3y ago
Steve Jobs and Apple can put together a music store and iPod prototype that was sexy, easy to use, and wowed the music executives who knew Napster and iPods were the future. Meanwhile Microsoft still manages to infuriate their own users with things like Windows 11 start menu. Not to mention the Microsoft Zune was definitely a dud. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-68985/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/itunes-10t...
- junon 3y ago
  This. It's always been wild to me how tone deaf Microsoft has always been. I always read these internal emails thinking how wildly out of touch with their own users they are.
  - SCHiM 3y ago
    Sometimes I start edge when something does not work in firefox. Everyone knows you want your browser to be quick, snappy and use few resources. What does Edge do? It shows you a unskippable, un-closable "how-to" (as if I've never used a browser), and a make-an-account-and-sync nag. It takes a minute to click though, what a turn off! It hasn't popped up for me in a while, but it definitively happens sometimes.
    - siriusfeynman 3y ago
      Interestingly I've had the same experience with firefox, I keep it installed as a fallback if something isn't working in chrome but every time I (infrequently) use it I have to dismiss several popups about new features and how to switch to it as my primary browser/import history etc.
      - FullyFunctional 3y ago
        This resonates so hard. I really wish that SW stop assuming that if they are just installed, then the user is a complete ignoramus who needs to be educated and onboarded. I (for reasons) frequently install OSes from scratch and all the boilerplate is so tedious.
dustedcodes 3y ago
That’s still the case until today. Microsoft has zero innovation capabilities. Nothing they built themselves since the 90s became even remotely a product which consumers enjoy. Everything they have today is Office which is kind of okay and the rest are acquisitions.
- imwillofficial 3y ago
  Xbox is very popular.
  - mahmoudhossam 3y ago
    I'd argue that PlayStation is dominating that segment. And even if we're talking about PC gaming, Xbox wouldn't be the word you'd be thinking of.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      Not sure I'd say 'dominating', they have a 60-40 split IIRC.
      - Macha 3y ago
        Honestly I think the only reason it's anywhere as close this generation is because of the PS5 supply issues until very recently meant many people gave up and bought a Series X. I don't think it actually has that much to put it ahead of the PS5 other than availability, and the Xbox One generation was such a flop that it seriously dented their network effects
  - scarface74 3y ago
    For perspective, Microsoft has sold around 20 million of the latest generation consoles that have been on sale since early 2021. Back in the iPod’s heyday, Apple was selling 20 million iPods during the Christmas quarter. Apple now sells from 40-65 million iPhones per quarter according to third party estimates.
  - 3y ago
duxup 3y ago
I'd argue it has slowly gotten worse at Microsoft, and that's pretty bad. I login to windows and everything feels like they're coding / designing AT ME. It's like nobody making decisions is thinking about me accomplishing anything, more how they can make me do whatever it is they want. Don't get me started with the dozen (ok maybe not exactly a dozen) or so design languages inside Windows and how unfriendly some are.
criddell 3y ago
> Apple had the vision Yep. They know what they want to build and make fewer compromises than Microsoft. If Microsoft had developed the iPhone, it would have launched on every carrier possible and to do that, they would have had to allow the carriers to junk up the phone and restrict all kinds of user features. Remember the days of $3 ringtones and carrier run app stores? For all the problems we have with Apple and their products today, they did move us forward.

dagmx 3y ago

I’d argue that Microsoft still doesn’t have a consumer product vision outside their gaming division. I think they’re quite content with that now though. They’re firmly developer, enterprise and gaming focused these days.

chasing 3y ago
I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers. And that means playing ball with the ecosystem and not just trying to crush it. Baby steps, I guess. But a lot of their product line remains a mess. (Although the Xbox shouldn’t be discounted — that was a consumer success.)
- macintux 3y ago
  > I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers. Someone forgot to tell the Teams team.
  - scarface74 3y ago
    The definition of SaaS is basically where the buyer is not the user. The managers write multi year six and seven figure checks not the user.
    - esafak 3y ago
      It's not that simple. Look up "product-led growth". It's why Figma made Adobe eat $20b.
      - scarface74 3y ago
        And Figma’s revenue was only $400 million before it got acquired.
- chongli 3y ago
  I would say that they seem to recognize that they need to appeal to the users of their products and not just those users’ managers Some of them recognize it, but not everyone. The company also seems to be pretty heavily invested into monetizing users to the hilt with telemetry and advertising. This is the sort of approach that will slowly drive people away from the platform, as users gradually tire of the ever-increasing intrusiveness of the ads.
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  Games consoles are a strange consumer product. They live and die on the ability to make deals with third parties and only a small number of companies have ever had sustained success.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
The 2019 Surface Pro X is an excellent little machine.
- rawgabbit 3y ago
  I loved my Surface Book too. Until during the pandemic, Microsoft updates ran constantly. So I let the Surface Book powered on for several weeks. Foolish me didn’t realize that the CPU was maxed out and the heat would eventually cause the battery to swell and cause the display panel to become unglued.
Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
I think they're being "Appled" by Sony and Nintendo in the gaming industry though. The Xbox division has been on a downward spiral. Brand loyalty and Game Pass is arguably the only thing keeping them around. But as Sony continues to put out killer first party titles only on PS5, they will suffer. I think a lot of Xbox Series X/S buyers wish they had a PS5 or buy a PS5 as well to play Sony first party titles. And come next generation, if Xbox doesn't have anything to compete with the quality of Sony's games, then I think they're dead. We're 2.5 years into the current generation and Microsoft has almost nothing to show for it except Forza and Halo, which was a delayed mess of a game. Add in to that the fact that most third party games perform better on PS5. They've been on a downward trajectory after Xbox One, where they refuse to state how successful it is, with analysts predicting the PS4 outsold them 2-1. Xbox One was a terrible announcement and launch. Xbox Series X/S are great pieces of hardware but they just can't compete with PlayStation in every other aspect. They've let down developers with the Series S since developers have to target 2 separate SKUs for Xbox, increasing developer effort. And in some cases developers are withholding their games from Xbox if they can't run on the weaker Series S, as you are not allowed to launch on Series X only (see Baldur's Gate 3). If Microsoft changes the rules around this it will benefit developers but it will let down consumers. PS5 is predicted to be outselling the Xbox even more so this generation. There's practically no reason for a consumer to buy an Xbox unless you're a fan of their exclusives, which they have done an excellent job of killing interest in. I think next generation will be when Microsoft taps out and leaves the gaming hardware market, except for maybe their controllers. They will pivot to software only and focus on selling Game Pass for PC players and game streaming for the remaining consumers. Personally, I don't think that will have a good outcome.
- etempleton 3y ago
  I respectively disagree. I think Microsoft has put Sony in an impossible spot and, with the Activision merger about to go through, Sony is going to have an even harder time. The pandemic, I believe, has masked that people are migrating more and more to PC. Migrating to PC is a win for Microsoft. Kids play Switch and then are jumping right to PC. I don’t hear about a lot of Gen Z kids talk about PlayStation and have even heard it referred to as a boomer console and anecdotally the PlayStation crowd seems to be predominately 30+.

rawgabbit 3y ago

Steve Jobs and Apple can put together a music store and iPod prototype that was sexy, easy to use, and wowed the music executives who knew Napster and iPods were the future. Meanwhile Microsoft still manages to infuriate their own users with things like Windows 11 start menu. Not to mention the Microsoft Zune was definitely a dud. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-68985/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/itunes-10t...

junon 3y ago
This. It's always been wild to me how tone deaf Microsoft has always been. I always read these internal emails thinking how wildly out of touch with their own users they are.
- SCHiM 3y ago
  Sometimes I start edge when something does not work in firefox. Everyone knows you want your browser to be quick, snappy and use few resources. What does Edge do? It shows you a unskippable, un-closable "how-to" (as if I've never used a browser), and a make-an-account-and-sync nag. It takes a minute to click though, what a turn off! It hasn't popped up for me in a while, but it definitively happens sometimes.
  - siriusfeynman 3y ago
    Interestingly I've had the same experience with firefox, I keep it installed as a fallback if something isn't working in chrome but every time I (infrequently) use it I have to dismiss several popups about new features and how to switch to it as my primary browser/import history etc.
    - FullyFunctional 3y ago
      This resonates so hard. I really wish that SW stop assuming that if they are just installed, then the user is a complete ignoramus who needs to be educated and onboarded. I (for reasons) frequently install OSes from scratch and all the boilerplate is so tedious.

dustedcodes 3y ago

That’s still the case until today. Microsoft has zero innovation capabilities. Nothing they built themselves since the 90s became even remotely a product which consumers enjoy. Everything they have today is Office which is kind of okay and the rest are acquisitions.

imwillofficial 3y ago
Xbox is very popular.
- mahmoudhossam 3y ago
  I'd argue that PlayStation is dominating that segment. And even if we're talking about PC gaming, Xbox wouldn't be the word you'd be thinking of.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    Not sure I'd say 'dominating', they have a 60-40 split IIRC.
    - Macha 3y ago
      Honestly I think the only reason it's anywhere as close this generation is because of the PS5 supply issues until very recently meant many people gave up and bought a Series X. I don't think it actually has that much to put it ahead of the PS5 other than availability, and the Xbox One generation was such a flop that it seriously dented their network effects
- scarface74 3y ago
  For perspective, Microsoft has sold around 20 million of the latest generation consoles that have been on sale since early 2021. Back in the iPod’s heyday, Apple was selling 20 million iPods during the Christmas quarter. Apple now sells from 40-65 million iPhones per quarter according to third party estimates.
- 3y ago

duxup 3y ago

I'd argue it has slowly gotten worse at Microsoft, and that's pretty bad. I login to windows and everything feels like they're coding / designing AT ME. It's like nobody making decisions is thinking about me accomplishing anything, more how they can make me do whatever it is they want. Don't get me started with the dozen (ok maybe not exactly a dozen) or so design languages inside Windows and how unfriendly some are.

criddell 3y ago

> Apple had the vision Yep. They know what they want to build and make fewer compromises than Microsoft. If Microsoft had developed the iPhone, it would have launched on every carrier possible and to do that, they would have had to allow the carriers to junk up the phone and restrict all kinds of user features. Remember the days of $3 ringtones and carrier run app stores? For all the problems we have with Apple and their products today, they did move us forward.