5 ms·

Yes they will, most likely. Or rather they will collide in various areas struggling for consumer mindshare (with MS in a very disadvantaged position right now)

by zeruch 14y ago

Yes they will, most likely. Or rather they will collide in various areas struggling for consumer mindshare (with MS in a very disadvantaged position right now). I still argue that Apple is far less "innovative" than it takes obsessive interest in the packaging of already done things and has the greatest marketing arm of any corporation out there. "but you can't deny that the man [Ballmer] has passion" Maybe, but I don't think its for interesting product as much as a belligerently competitive business streak. That isn't a value judgement as much as an observation of character. Jobs was a bastard but one driven on what was produced. Ballmer is also a bastard but about as in the box a thinker as one gets for the industry. If MS can even put up a viabe fight it will be some time in, and will be more to grab the

maxharris 14y ago
obsessive interest in the packaging of already done things Already done for whom? If you buy a new product, and it has a feature you've never had before, it's new to you. Like anything else, this isn't subjective: you can count the number of people that have a given feature in their phones. There is a world of difference between someone doing something new in a lab somewhere vs. someone building something that I can actually use to improve my life. The earlier is only a mere promise of things to come, while the latter is something I can actually count on. In the context of a computer company, innovation means delivering excellent (and therefore original & novel) design, making the most of the latest technology available. Before the other companies do (if they ever do). Tl;dr: let's dispense with the fiction that innovation stops in a research lab. It doesn't! (I should know because I work in a research lab. What we produce is only barely tangible, and it's up to others to actually take it somewhere.)
- tmzt 14y ago
  In Microsoft's lab was a bunch of unfinished work on voice recognition and handwriting recognition. In Apple's was a complete port of their main OS to an ARM platform ready and tested for years. The board should have been called to account why the NT kernel hadn't been continually tested on ARM, leaving them to build WP7 on CE (but making it incompatible with CE apps due to the off screen buffer replacing GWES/Gdi) and the abandon the product. Surface looks great, the public stance is Ballmer owning it to the shareholders, failure should come with consequences at that level.
- zeruch 14y ago
  Yes, then let's also dispense with the fiction that great product & packaging is as novel and actually innovative as creating new technology (whether that be a protocol, or languages or manufacturing processes, or complete past the horizon breakthroughs, et al...sorry, but I dislike the use of "innovation" to be anything even mildly market "novel" instead of actually groundbreaking tech. Timing the market entry right is not the same as actually innovating something into it).
  - maxharris 14y ago
    I don't agree, and I think you completely missed the point of my original post. Is technology somehow good for its own sake, or is it good because it makes individual people better off? My view is the latter. Therefore, the answer to the question of who should get moral credit for bringing a technology to life is: everyone that had a consciously played part in making it so that person X could have thing Y in their lives.
    - zeruch 14y ago
      I didn't miss the point; I disagree with it. Yes, it "takes a village" to bring that technology to a marketable life, but ultimately the large part of that chain isn't doing the "innovative" part (the actual out the box conceptualizing to fruition of a truly novel concept) but taking said innovation and making it consumable by a perceived (or primed) audience. I am making a distinction between participants. What you are saying implies that its those because it makes something "better off" but I could say that about a lot of things that are not novel either (i.e. vaccination of poor populations that can't otherwise afford it), so innovation doesn't necessarily mean (or in my mind have to be) marketable to large numbers (i.e. novel new treatment for a niche disease). Innovation != "bring a technology to life" (take it to market), its proving/crafting something truly novel. Whether it makes it to wider usage doesn't make it any less novel, nor does successfully selling non-novel ideas at scale make that success any less valuable. I simply refuse to conflate the two.
  - maxharris 14y ago
    From an article I was just reading on Wired about HP's new memristor technology: “It’s sad to say, but the science and technology are the easy part,” Williams said at the recent conference. “Development costs at least 10 times as much as research, and commercialization costs 10 times as much as development. So in the end, research — which we think is the most important part — is only 1 percent of the effort.” "Most important"? That contradicts the rest of what he said in the very same quote! Every link in the chain from a new idea to a happy customer is important. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/

by zeruch 14y ago

maxharris 14y ago

obsessive interest in the packaging of already done things Already done for whom? If you buy a new product, and it has a feature you've never had before, it's new to you. Like anything else, this isn't subjective: you can count the number of people that have a given feature in their phones. There is a world of difference between someone doing something new in a lab somewhere vs. someone building something that I can actually use to improve my life. The earlier is only a mere promise of things to come, while the latter is something I can actually count on. In the context of a computer company, innovation means delivering excellent (and therefore original & novel) design, making the most of the latest technology available. Before the other companies do (if they ever do). Tl;dr: let's dispense with the fiction that innovation stops in a research lab. It doesn't! (I should know because I work in a research lab. What we produce is only barely tangible, and it's up to others to actually take it somewhere.)

tmzt 14y ago
In Microsoft's lab was a bunch of unfinished work on voice recognition and handwriting recognition. In Apple's was a complete port of their main OS to an ARM platform ready and tested for years. The board should have been called to account why the NT kernel hadn't been continually tested on ARM, leaving them to build WP7 on CE (but making it incompatible with CE apps due to the off screen buffer replacing GWES/Gdi) and the abandon the product. Surface looks great, the public stance is Ballmer owning it to the shareholders, failure should come with consequences at that level.
zeruch 14y ago
Yes, then let's also dispense with the fiction that great product & packaging is as novel and actually innovative as creating new technology (whether that be a protocol, or languages or manufacturing processes, or complete past the horizon breakthroughs, et al...sorry, but I dislike the use of "innovation" to be anything even mildly market "novel" instead of actually groundbreaking tech. Timing the market entry right is not the same as actually innovating something into it).
- maxharris 14y ago
  I don't agree, and I think you completely missed the point of my original post. Is technology somehow good for its own sake, or is it good because it makes individual people better off? My view is the latter. Therefore, the answer to the question of who should get moral credit for bringing a technology to life is: everyone that had a consciously played part in making it so that person X could have thing Y in their lives.
  - zeruch 14y ago
    I didn't miss the point; I disagree with it. Yes, it "takes a village" to bring that technology to a marketable life, but ultimately the large part of that chain isn't doing the "innovative" part (the actual out the box conceptualizing to fruition of a truly novel concept) but taking said innovation and making it consumable by a perceived (or primed) audience. I am making a distinction between participants. What you are saying implies that its those because it makes something "better off" but I could say that about a lot of things that are not novel either (i.e. vaccination of poor populations that can't otherwise afford it), so innovation doesn't necessarily mean (or in my mind have to be) marketable to large numbers (i.e. novel new treatment for a niche disease). Innovation != "bring a technology to life" (take it to market), its proving/crafting something truly novel. Whether it makes it to wider usage doesn't make it any less novel, nor does successfully selling non-novel ideas at scale make that success any less valuable. I simply refuse to conflate the two.
- maxharris 14y ago
  From an article I was just reading on Wired about HP's new memristor technology: “It’s sad to say, but the science and technology are the easy part,” Williams said at the recent conference. “Development costs at least 10 times as much as research, and commercialization costs 10 times as much as development. So in the end, research — which we think is the most important part — is only 1 percent of the effort.” "Most important"? That contradicts the rest of what he said in the very same quote! Every link in the chain from a new idea to a happy customer is important. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/