6 ms·

The end of the road for OEMs

59 points by maxko87 14y ago

debacle 14y ago
Open computing as we know it requires choice when creating a system. I don't want to have to pick my poison when it comes to walled gardens the next time I want a new system.
Roboprog 14y ago
It's a shame nobody is going to make components for all of the data centers running Linux anymore. Also, I feel really bad for Apple and Google that Microsoft is going to deliver such an ass-kicking tablet that it puts them out of business, or at least into a distant second and third place. Yeah, that was sarcasm. My experience, over 25+ years, has been that MS products are almost always inferior to the competition (with the possible exception of XBox), and only exceed where they can exploit bundling. I don't see the leverage over tablet users. Also, how many places hung on to WinXP until support ran out, since Vista/7 sucks so bad? (7 might be less glitchy, but I still HATE the new UI, and I am relieved not to have to use it at home) I suppose if MS starts to bundle their own PC hardware with Win8 at WalMart and BestBuy, it will make traditional PC components more expensive, alas.
- debacle 14y ago
  Microsoft sells the best $20 keyboards and mice that money can buy, and has for the last 15 years.
  - Splines 14y ago
    Logitech does really well too (so maybe there is still room for OEMs?). I work at MS but I use a Logitech as my daily-driver mouse (it's hard to find a MS mouse that has a wheel with detents, is wireless, and has back/forward buttons).
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      I'm a Linux guy for two decades and all the hardware accessories I buy are from Microsoft - keyboards, mice, webcams, joysticks etc. I did do Logitech for a while, but they were incredibly user hostile - for example they didn't have drivers available for download, at one point wanted to charge for them, and then the final straw was a driver for a USB keyboard that refused to install on the grounds that I was pirating the driver! I detest the constant assumption in Windows that you are a vile thief stealing it, but the hardware accessories have been the other way around. Drivers always available, always worked, and even available for Mac. And on Linux the hardware has just worked out of the box.
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    I have two MacBook Pro's, I use Apple's aluminium keyboards, I have an iPhone, an iPad, and I run the latest version of OS X... but I will NEVER give up my Microsoft mice. I have two Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000, one for work and one for home. Unfortunately the USB cable is fraying on the one at work and I am looking for a replacement and they no longer make the Laser Mouse 6000, but I won't purchase a mouse made by Apple or Logitech. This Microsoft mouse has been with me since 2006 and has been the best mouse I have ever used. At this point they are 6 years old and I am thinking of replacing the USB cable to make them last even longer.
  - noarchy 14y ago
    I happily use a Microsoft bluetooth mouse with my Xubuntu-based laptop, as I can't seem to stand using a touchpad of any kind. Previous Microsoft-branded hardware that I've used (keyboards) have been quite nice, as well.
  - thenomad 14y ago
    Agreed. I had their Ergonomic keyboard from 2001 and clung on to it for grim death for 11 years, before eventually replacing it with ... their new ergonomic keyboard.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    At work (also MS) I use my personal IBM Model M keyboard...dated from 1993, the same year that I graduated from high school. You used to be able to find them for $10 in surplus stores, but these days you have to pony up $50 or $60, sometimes even $100. Why can't someone make a nice tactile keyboard at an affordable price? Humidity is getting at my keyboard and I'll need a replacement soon.
  - Roboprog 14y ago
    Fair enough, I even have one of their keyboards. I was thinking about their very ill software, though, which would be part of the bundle, crippling whatever it was the table did.
- ralfn 14y ago
  How exactly is the xbox an exception? Im not a console guy, my favorite desktop OS is Linux. But i like to play games, so i had a windows dual boot, and a Wii. But Windows requires way too much maintainace. And dual booting is annoying: i am an impatient guy. So i got an XBox. Because consoles are hassle free, right? Boy, was i suprised. The interface (metro) is horrible with a controller. Voice commands are not available in Holland either (not even in English). The thing boots slower than every other device in my house. Xbox live is flaky, and the thing has daily updates. It was the worst user interface experience in my life. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe the name itself should have tipped me off (this is aimed at 16 year olds with too much time, that like to tinker). Maybe Apple sand Google spoiled me, with iOS and Android, proving that a device could be simple, with low maintainance. Maybe i expected just a faster Wii. Or maybe, Microsoft is just very very incompetent. Maybe the PS3 is better, i would not know. The general consensus seems to be that xbox live is better than psn, but its hard to imagine, just how bad the ps3 would have to be. But seriously, how can anyone bring such a confusing pile of horseshit to the market. Its beyond my comprehension. In the end, it was just a slower booting windows, with a worse controller, and more updates, bullshit dialogs, and bugs. I hate the thing. It was the biggest purchasing mistake in my life. Oh, and kinect does not work. Not that i care about that much, but its a complete deception.
  - Roboprog 14y ago
    Sorry, I don't have an XBox, but they seem to have a following that really likes them. I seldom use my daughter's Wii, so what do I know about games...
    - ralfn 14y ago
      They sure do have a loyal following. Even here. I noticed the downvotes on my comment. In general it seems that both the PS3 and the 360 have a very loyal following, yet hate each others system. There seems to be a culture war there. This seems to distracts people from actually noticing the quality (or lack there of) compared to its potential. And its hard to have an honest debate about that, without all the fanboys showing up, and focusing on which system sucks less. I guess consoles are just not for adults. I don't have the time or the patience to deal with that all that crap. It's no easier than just running windows. It's actually worse. And we can't speak out, because it will be drowned out by the fanboys focusing on which console sucks more. All I know, is that, unlike what I expected, the 360 did not provide any value to me. And it's all because of the software and UX.
mtgx 14y ago
"For almost as long as Microsoft has existed, OEMs have ridden its coattails and made hundreds of billions of dollars in the process." So did Microsoft, thanks to those OEM's. I for one hope that Microsoft's goal is to kill the OEM's. I mean, imagine if all of the sudden no other company but Microsoft could create a Windows machine. No Windows XP, no Windows 7, no Windows 8. Do you think hundreds of millions of users all would just buy from Microsoft their PC's? I think it would create a huge vacuum in the market, and the OEM's would simply flood the market with Linux machines. Normal people would just buy those Linux machines, while the more savvy users would keep pirating Windows for a few more years until Linux becomes a more viable market. Sure, Microsoft might get say 20% of the "PC" market on their own, just like Apple has in the mobile market globally. But the vast majority of the market would be filled with OEM Linux machines, just like 70% of the market is now filled with Android phones from other OEM's.
- shurane 14y ago
  I think Microsoft has more consistent quality across a variety of hardware than Linux does. After all, they've put money into it, it's in the interest of hardware companies to support their brand of hardware with all its intricacies and driver compatibilities and what not.
  - fl3tch 14y ago
    Yeah, but if they had no choice but to use Linux, they would make sure their hardware worked with it. Can't really compare to the past, when Microsoft essentially got a 10 year head start on Linux and was a monopoly by the time it arrived on the scene.
    - mistermann 14y ago
      > no choice but to use Linux Where does this idea come from?
- mhurron 14y ago
  > Do you think hundreds of millions of users all would just buy from Microsoft their PC's Yes, if that was the only way to get Windows. Linux doesn't run their software. Windows does. They'll buy Windows.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
" incredibly easy ride, producing mediocre, commodity computers, and getting very rich in the process" My god! Another way to say that they did all the hard work(the hardware itself) and earned 1-3% margin in the process. ...while MS will earn margins bigger than 95% on Office and Windows. >30% margins as the entire company(Once MS spent billions trying to extend his monopoly to other sectors). OEMs are not going away. It is MS who is in danger. OEMs are the Vietcom, used to live on a cage or in the jungle, eating scraps. People that want cheap PCs will continue buying them with Windows 7, Linux or Android.
- jwoah12 14y ago
  I can't tell if "Vietcom" is a typo or a clever adaptation of Viet Cong to high-tech companies.
  - Metrop0218 14y ago
    Viet Cong that implement IUnknown. Crazy.
Splines 14y ago
I doubt all the OEMs would leave. Surface may be great, but there's still room at the high-end for powerful desktop-replacement laptops.
brudgers 14y ago
I think the tech-press is misreading the situation. What Microsoft is trying to avoid is a slew of mediocre former Android slates hitting the market with the release of Windows 8. Instead, they are trying to insure that there will be decent slate hardware available at the Windows 8 launch. It's not as if OEM's have been knocking slates out of the park since the iPad was released. And I suspect that the OEM's haven't exactly been clamoring for a Windows slate OS, either, considering the lackluster profits for everybody but Apple (and perhaps the Amazon ecosystem). Come 2013 Microsoft will have options - either to continue as a hardware vendor ala Xbox (and slates are a great product line extension); or having gathered meaningful data to scale back to OS provider as was the case with Kin. Sure the OEM's will not get to set the tone for Windows 8 slates right away. Given their love of crapware, that's a feature, not a bug.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  "It's not as if OEM's have been knocking slates out of the park since the iPad was released." I've worked with a number of OEMs and original device manufacturers (ODMs) over the years and they have been a hugely important resource for getting technology into consumers hands. But one of the things which I have learned is that they don't make products, they manufacture them. The difference between those two statements is subtle and important. An OEM will manufacture exactly what you ask them to manufacturer, they will write into the contract what it is and they will build it. If the device they build is not competitive to some other product it really isn't there fault, its "you" the person writing the contract's fault. iPads are made by FoxxConn, which is, an OEM. They make lots of stuff for lots of people. They aren't threatened by the 'newer than the new iPad iPad' because they know that Apple will likely ask them to build that one too. That the iPad is an iPad is because Apple drove a vision of what an iPad should be so hard they drove into FoxxConn's heads and they build them. But not all OEMs are product companies. They are just good manufacturing companies. And sometimes they say "Why should we let these guys push our price down and take all the profits?! They buy those from us for $X and sell then for 3X$! We want that money too!" And so these manufacturers try to make a 'product.' And they do make it by looking at it and making something as similar as possible, but they often don't "get" what it is that makes the product the product because they haven't had the vision drilled into their heads. So you get 'knock off' products. In all my dealings with OEMs the OEM assumes they are doing the hard job and the product design is the easy part, and the product guys figure they have the hard job and just making it is the easy part. They are both wrong, there is no 'easy' part.
tjic 14y ago
> You can empathize with the OEMs, though. For decades, these companies have had an incredibly easy ride, producing mediocre, commodity computers, and getting very rich in the process. I love how someone who's never worked in the sector asserts that it's all trivially easy to do and the money just rolls in. In reality, there is almost no market sector that's trivially easy. Problems are fractal. EVERYTHING is hard. I'm sure that if you dig deep enough into it, slicing bread is a tricky business to be in. Should the bearings be teflon or delrin? How do you compete with the new machines from China? What about that new OSHA mandate coming down the pike?
- mistermann 14y ago
  It's not easy, but in many respects OEM's weren't even trying. Suddenly, they all seem to have the technology to build ultrabooks, a year prior, one one had any technology that could even remotely come close? The same goes for so many aspects....battery life, screen resolution, looks....Apple blows almost every single other company out of the water on almost every important aspect, except perhaps price, and even there you can even make the argument that they are better. So yes, it is hard, but it didn't just suddenly become not hard in the last year where some OEM's are finally starting to come out with attractive products. And despite how hard it is, Apple somehow solves almost everything - the only thing OEM's seem to take an interest in solving is either hitting a very low price point (and they'll cut every corner it takes to get there) or the extreme upper end of performance.
  - ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
    > except perhaps price It's almost as if all computers were sufficiently powerful for 99% of use cases that that's the only thing most people care about...
    - mistermann 14y ago
      If Apple's percentage market share was flat in the last 5 years I'd agree with you.
grecy 14y ago
That article mentions the "design, specs, price point" of the Surface like the price point is known. Is it ?
cek 14y ago
Microsoft will make & sell, maybe 5M Surface units in the first 12 months. Maybe. Who's going to make & sell the other 345M PCs that are sold every year. This talk of Microsoft becoming a hardware company is crazy talk with no understanding of the underlying dynamics of the industry. I recently wrote a post on this: http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-dont-make-a-hardware-company/ http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-don...
emeltzer 14y ago
"seats upholstered with the tanned skin of Scandinavian virgins" Ew?
- Roboprog 14y ago
  Icky, but expensive.
- Roboprog 14y ago
  Icky, but expensive.
johnohara 14y ago
Some of the thin mini-itx offerings look interesting. http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/intels-thin-mini-itx-platform-gets-stuffed-inside-a-monitor/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/intels-thin-mini-itx-plat... https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/hardware-developers/thin-mini-itx.html https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/hardware-develop... http://www.missingremote.com/review/lian-li-pc-q05-thin-mini-itx-chassis http://www.missingremote.com/review/lian-li-pc-q05-thin-mini... True, you don't need an OEM to build them (and maybe that's the point here). But I don't quite get the Acer argument. Thin mini-itx devices easily bolt on to the back of their monitors. Last time I looked, the inside of my Vizio 47" had nothing but room too. Dell, Gateway, Acer and many others got their start with the DIY system builder -- and a Computer Shopper.
tmurray 14y ago
Buh, I think this article has totally missed the point. First of all, I think the reason why the iPad and iPhone have been so good hardware-wise while most Android devices have been lackluster in comparison is that the vertical integration that Apple can achieve allows them to make decisions at this point that would be completely stupid if they were just another OEM or IHV. Basically, because iOS is a very large ecosystem with a guaranteed large install base per product, Apple can afford to tape out chips that would have absolutely no chance of being profitable for a IHV (e.g., NVIDIA or Qualcomm). Since every iOS tablet sold for the next N years will use A5X, it makes sense for Apple to design and tape out their own SoCs specifically for that, but the device fragmentation inherent in the Android market makes it extremely difficult for IHVs to do the same. Look at A5X versus Tegra 3 in terms of die size. Tegra 3 is 80mm^2. A5X is 165mm^2. SoCs from IHVs (at least for the foreseeable future) need to be dual-purpose tablet/phone chips in order to deal the many devices the IHVs will need to target (differentiated using clockspeeds or binning), which means no huge die sizes allowed. Even if Android tablet sales increase to iPad levels overall, part of the reason for that is choice; OEMs probably won't be willing to use the same enormous processor in their $600 flagship as their $150 budget tablet due to their margins (or the chip wouldn't exist because IHVs wouldn't be able to make a profit at the cheaper levels because of the fab costs). Vertical integration also means Apple can eat the cost of large die size SoCs because they don't have to worry about margin on the SoCs alone. In other words, if bigger chips result in better experiences for tablets, right now the only way to guarantee that is to play kingmaker and only support one SoC. The way Apple has done that is to build their own SoCs and cut the IHVs out entirely. Yet, they haven't done this in PCs at all. PC hardware is all Good Enough at this point; there's no hypothetical 40%-perf-advantage-if-only-someone-would-build-it chip. As the mobile market matures, platforms become more established, OEMs combine, etc, the need for vertical integration will disappear because mobile hardware will become a commodity, largely indistinguishable in meaningful ways besides minor perf/W or perf/$ advantages. IHVs will see enough sales to do what Intel or the GPU companies do in the PC space and build one scalable architecture for all platforms, there will be relatively established price points, etc.
- shurane 14y ago
  I just want to mention that it's a lot easier to replace and swap parts in a PC than on a phone or tablet. Mobile devices are unmodular solutions that one can't swap out for 'newer parts', the way desktops, and to some extent laptops are. I would also like to mention that Android integration is a bit poorly designed, IMO. If a hardware manufacturer writes drivers for Windows, those drivers are still likely to work as Windows itself matures with newer releases. However, with Android, each new release of its OS leaves dozens of models behind on a previous release. Couldn't Android have designed their OS to be a bit more... upgrade-friendly?
old-gregg 14y ago
These two quotes make me feel very uneasy: Other companies do not physically possess the equipment or resources to produce anything that even approaches an iPhone or MacBook Pro and Perhaps Lenovo can subsist at the bottom end of the market, or maybe it too will shut up shop. While the rest of the article makes sense, I call the 1st quote a complete BS: Lenovo already makes vastly superior computers to Macbooks. They just lack the marketing (and confidence) to explain to the masses that cold and uncomfortable aluminum is actually a pretty shitty material for a laptop. The confidence situation is so bad that they even started replacing their supeiror keyboards with calculator keyboards. Because Apple does. Ughh... And my very first Android phone (Nexus One) had a vastly superior (and practical) construction than the iPhone of the time. The thumb ball was great for precise scrolling and you can tell up/bottom or front/back apart when holding the phone in your pocket. But once again, there was no marketing to rub that into the brains of the shoppers. Although it will indeed be irrelevant if Microsoft/Google push OEMs aside. For one, I am not looking forward to the depressing "glossy aluminum future". If nobody has ever managed a laptop even half as good as a Thinkpad, I am having doubts if Microsoft will.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeash 14y ago
  Can you elaborate on your aluminum complaints? I like Apple's metal-centric industrial design there, and have ever since they introduced the first Titanium PowerBook, but I'd certainly be interested in another perspective there. I haven't seen a plastic machine that seemed anywhere near as solidly built, but I may simply have never been exposed to the right hardware.
jamesaguilar 14y ago
> If the Surface tablet is a success — and with its design, specs, price point, and Microsoft’s marketing dollars, you have to assume it will be . . . Do you now?
rbanffy 14y ago
It's by now abundantly clear someone high up at Microsoft thinks the OEMs need them more than they need their OEMs. It will be interesting to watch.
zmmmmm 14y ago
This article seems really weak on a number of points. It holds up the Nexus Q as an example that Google is moving into its own hardware manufacture?! And it claims that OEMs are unable to "innovate" - but when you look at actual hardware innovation they have been the only ones innovating in the phone space; Apple has produced about 4 devices with identical form factors in 5 years. Contrast with Samsung and Asus who have produced all kinds of crazy stuff. It's not so much about innovation but quality, focus and finishing that the OEMs are not set up to do. Personally I think these things are just cyclical: it takes a vertically integrated company to really break through into a new domain, that much is true. But then that new area will always be commoditized and the most open, flexible and widely available platform will "win" in the end - until the next major innovation cycle begins. We need both the yin and yang of this cycle to move things forward. I do think MS may have unintentionally saved Android on tablets - the mere hint that Microsoft could possibly go its own way and leave the OEMs with nothing to sell will be giving them such nightmares that they will be doubling down on their investments in Android if only to give themselves a lifeline to future viability if the unthinkable happens. Without that I suspect half of them were probably ready to completely jump ship and leave Android behind as a bad experiment.
rogerbinns 14y ago
In Microsoft's case they have to get into the whole solution business in order to retain margins. Asymco has an excellent article with the numbers: http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts-tim-cook/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts-tim-... Quote: "So Microsoft faces a dilemma. Their business model of expensive software on cheap hardware is not sustainable. The future is nearly free software integrated into moderately priced hardware. For Microsoft to maintain their profitability, they have to find a way of obtaining $80 of profit per device. "

59 points by maxko87 14y ago

Open computing as we know it requires choice when creating a system. I don't want to have to pick my poison when it comes to walled gardens the next time I want a new system.

Roboprog 14y ago

It's a shame nobody is going to make components for all of the data centers running Linux anymore. Also, I feel really bad for Apple and Google that Microsoft is going to deliver such an ass-kicking tablet that it puts them out of business, or at least into a distant second and third place. Yeah, that was sarcasm. My experience, over 25+ years, has been that MS products are almost always inferior to the competition (with the possible exception of XBox), and only exceed where they can exploit bundling. I don't see the leverage over tablet users. Also, how many places hung on to WinXP until support ran out, since Vista/7 sucks so bad? (7 might be less glitchy, but I still HATE the new UI, and I am relieved not to have to use it at home) I suppose if MS starts to bundle their own PC hardware with Win8 at WalMart and BestBuy, it will make traditional PC components more expensive, alas.

debacle 14y ago
Microsoft sells the best $20 keyboards and mice that money can buy, and has for the last 15 years.
- Splines 14y ago
  Logitech does really well too (so maybe there is still room for OEMs?). I work at MS but I use a Logitech as my daily-driver mouse (it's hard to find a MS mouse that has a wheel with detents, is wireless, and has back/forward buttons).
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    I'm a Linux guy for two decades and all the hardware accessories I buy are from Microsoft - keyboards, mice, webcams, joysticks etc. I did do Logitech for a while, but they were incredibly user hostile - for example they didn't have drivers available for download, at one point wanted to charge for them, and then the final straw was a driver for a USB keyboard that refused to install on the grounds that I was pirating the driver! I detest the constant assumption in Windows that you are a vile thief stealing it, but the hardware accessories have been the other way around. Drivers always available, always worked, and even available for Mac. And on Linux the hardware has just worked out of the box.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  I have two MacBook Pro's, I use Apple's aluminium keyboards, I have an iPhone, an iPad, and I run the latest version of OS X... but I will NEVER give up my Microsoft mice. I have two Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000, one for work and one for home. Unfortunately the USB cable is fraying on the one at work and I am looking for a replacement and they no longer make the Laser Mouse 6000, but I won't purchase a mouse made by Apple or Logitech. This Microsoft mouse has been with me since 2006 and has been the best mouse I have ever used. At this point they are 6 years old and I am thinking of replacing the USB cable to make them last even longer.
- noarchy 14y ago
  I happily use a Microsoft bluetooth mouse with my Xubuntu-based laptop, as I can't seem to stand using a touchpad of any kind. Previous Microsoft-branded hardware that I've used (keyboards) have been quite nice, as well.
- thenomad 14y ago
  Agreed. I had their Ergonomic keyboard from 2001 and clung on to it for grim death for 11 years, before eventually replacing it with ... their new ergonomic keyboard.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  At work (also MS) I use my personal IBM Model M keyboard...dated from 1993, the same year that I graduated from high school. You used to be able to find them for $10 in surplus stores, but these days you have to pony up $50 or $60, sometimes even $100. Why can't someone make a nice tactile keyboard at an affordable price? Humidity is getting at my keyboard and I'll need a replacement soon.
- Roboprog 14y ago
  Fair enough, I even have one of their keyboards. I was thinking about their very ill software, though, which would be part of the bundle, crippling whatever it was the table did.
ralfn 14y ago
How exactly is the xbox an exception? Im not a console guy, my favorite desktop OS is Linux. But i like to play games, so i had a windows dual boot, and a Wii. But Windows requires way too much maintainace. And dual booting is annoying: i am an impatient guy. So i got an XBox. Because consoles are hassle free, right? Boy, was i suprised. The interface (metro) is horrible with a controller. Voice commands are not available in Holland either (not even in English). The thing boots slower than every other device in my house. Xbox live is flaky, and the thing has daily updates. It was the worst user interface experience in my life. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe the name itself should have tipped me off (this is aimed at 16 year olds with too much time, that like to tinker). Maybe Apple sand Google spoiled me, with iOS and Android, proving that a device could be simple, with low maintainance. Maybe i expected just a faster Wii. Or maybe, Microsoft is just very very incompetent. Maybe the PS3 is better, i would not know. The general consensus seems to be that xbox live is better than psn, but its hard to imagine, just how bad the ps3 would have to be. But seriously, how can anyone bring such a confusing pile of horseshit to the market. Its beyond my comprehension. In the end, it was just a slower booting windows, with a worse controller, and more updates, bullshit dialogs, and bugs. I hate the thing. It was the biggest purchasing mistake in my life. Oh, and kinect does not work. Not that i care about that much, but its a complete deception.
- Roboprog 14y ago
  Sorry, I don't have an XBox, but they seem to have a following that really likes them. I seldom use my daughter's Wii, so what do I know about games...
  - ralfn 14y ago
    They sure do have a loyal following. Even here. I noticed the downvotes on my comment. In general it seems that both the PS3 and the 360 have a very loyal following, yet hate each others system. There seems to be a culture war there. This seems to distracts people from actually noticing the quality (or lack there of) compared to its potential. And its hard to have an honest debate about that, without all the fanboys showing up, and focusing on which system sucks less. I guess consoles are just not for adults. I don't have the time or the patience to deal with that all that crap. It's no easier than just running windows. It's actually worse. And we can't speak out, because it will be drowned out by the fanboys focusing on which console sucks more. All I know, is that, unlike what I expected, the 360 did not provide any value to me. And it's all because of the software and UX.

mtgx 14y ago

"For almost as long as Microsoft has existed, OEMs have ridden its coattails and made hundreds of billions of dollars in the process." So did Microsoft, thanks to those OEM's. I for one hope that Microsoft's goal is to kill the OEM's. I mean, imagine if all of the sudden no other company but Microsoft could create a Windows machine. No Windows XP, no Windows 7, no Windows 8. Do you think hundreds of millions of users all would just buy from Microsoft their PC's? I think it would create a huge vacuum in the market, and the OEM's would simply flood the market with Linux machines. Normal people would just buy those Linux machines, while the more savvy users would keep pirating Windows for a few more years until Linux becomes a more viable market. Sure, Microsoft might get say 20% of the "PC" market on their own, just like Apple has in the mobile market globally. But the vast majority of the market would be filled with OEM Linux machines, just like 70% of the market is now filled with Android phones from other OEM's.

shurane 14y ago
I think Microsoft has more consistent quality across a variety of hardware than Linux does. After all, they've put money into it, it's in the interest of hardware companies to support their brand of hardware with all its intricacies and driver compatibilities and what not.
- fl3tch 14y ago
  Yeah, but if they had no choice but to use Linux, they would make sure their hardware worked with it. Can't really compare to the past, when Microsoft essentially got a 10 year head start on Linux and was a monopoly by the time it arrived on the scene.
  - mistermann 14y ago
    > no choice but to use Linux Where does this idea come from?
mhurron 14y ago
> Do you think hundreds of millions of users all would just buy from Microsoft their PC's Yes, if that was the only way to get Windows. Linux doesn't run their software. Windows does. They'll buy Windows.

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago

" incredibly easy ride, producing mediocre, commodity computers, and getting very rich in the process" My god! Another way to say that they did all the hard work(the hardware itself) and earned 1-3% margin in the process. ...while MS will earn margins bigger than 95% on Office and Windows. >30% margins as the entire company(Once MS spent billions trying to extend his monopoly to other sectors). OEMs are not going away. It is MS who is in danger. OEMs are the Vietcom, used to live on a cage or in the jungle, eating scraps. People that want cheap PCs will continue buying them with Windows 7, Linux or Android.

jwoah12 14y ago
I can't tell if "Vietcom" is a typo or a clever adaptation of Viet Cong to high-tech companies.
- Metrop0218 14y ago
  Viet Cong that implement IUnknown. Crazy.

Splines 14y ago

I doubt all the OEMs would leave. Surface may be great, but there's still room at the high-end for powerful desktop-replacement laptops.

brudgers 14y ago

I think the tech-press is misreading the situation. What Microsoft is trying to avoid is a slew of mediocre former Android slates hitting the market with the release of Windows 8. Instead, they are trying to insure that there will be decent slate hardware available at the Windows 8 launch. It's not as if OEM's have been knocking slates out of the park since the iPad was released. And I suspect that the OEM's haven't exactly been clamoring for a Windows slate OS, either, considering the lackluster profits for everybody but Apple (and perhaps the Amazon ecosystem). Come 2013 Microsoft will have options - either to continue as a hardware vendor ala Xbox (and slates are a great product line extension); or having gathered meaningful data to scale back to OS provider as was the case with Kin. Sure the OEM's will not get to set the tone for Windows 8 slates right away. Given their love of crapware, that's a feature, not a bug.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
"It's not as if OEM's have been knocking slates out of the park since the iPad was released." I've worked with a number of OEMs and original device manufacturers (ODMs) over the years and they have been a hugely important resource for getting technology into consumers hands. But one of the things which I have learned is that they don't make products, they manufacture them. The difference between those two statements is subtle and important. An OEM will manufacture exactly what you ask them to manufacturer, they will write into the contract what it is and they will build it. If the device they build is not competitive to some other product it really isn't there fault, its "you" the person writing the contract's fault. iPads are made by FoxxConn, which is, an OEM. They make lots of stuff for lots of people. They aren't threatened by the 'newer than the new iPad iPad' because they know that Apple will likely ask them to build that one too. That the iPad is an iPad is because Apple drove a vision of what an iPad should be so hard they drove into FoxxConn's heads and they build them. But not all OEMs are product companies. They are just good manufacturing companies. And sometimes they say "Why should we let these guys push our price down and take all the profits?! They buy those from us for $X and sell then for 3X$! We want that money too!" And so these manufacturers try to make a 'product.' And they do make it by looking at it and making something as similar as possible, but they often don't "get" what it is that makes the product the product because they haven't had the vision drilled into their heads. So you get 'knock off' products. In all my dealings with OEMs the OEM assumes they are doing the hard job and the product design is the easy part, and the product guys figure they have the hard job and just making it is the easy part. They are both wrong, there is no 'easy' part.

tjic 14y ago

> You can empathize with the OEMs, though. For decades, these companies have had an incredibly easy ride, producing mediocre, commodity computers, and getting very rich in the process. I love how someone who's never worked in the sector asserts that it's all trivially easy to do and the money just rolls in. In reality, there is almost no market sector that's trivially easy. Problems are fractal. EVERYTHING is hard. I'm sure that if you dig deep enough into it, slicing bread is a tricky business to be in. Should the bearings be teflon or delrin? How do you compete with the new machines from China? What about that new OSHA mandate coming down the pike?

mistermann 14y ago
It's not easy, but in many respects OEM's weren't even trying. Suddenly, they all seem to have the technology to build ultrabooks, a year prior, one one had any technology that could even remotely come close? The same goes for so many aspects....battery life, screen resolution, looks....Apple blows almost every single other company out of the water on almost every important aspect, except perhaps price, and even there you can even make the argument that they are better. So yes, it is hard, but it didn't just suddenly become not hard in the last year where some OEM's are finally starting to come out with attractive products. And despite how hard it is, Apple somehow solves almost everything - the only thing OEM's seem to take an interest in solving is either hitting a very low price point (and they'll cut every corner it takes to get there) or the extreme upper end of performance.
- ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
  > except perhaps price It's almost as if all computers were sufficiently powerful for 99% of use cases that that's the only thing most people care about...
  - mistermann 14y ago
    If Apple's percentage market share was flat in the last 5 years I'd agree with you.

grecy 14y ago

That article mentions the "design, specs, price point" of the Surface like the price point is known. Is it ?

cek 14y ago

Microsoft will make & sell, maybe 5M Surface units in the first 12 months. Maybe. Who's going to make & sell the other 345M PCs that are sold every year. This talk of Microsoft becoming a hardware company is crazy talk with no understanding of the underlying dynamics of the industry. I recently wrote a post on this: http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-dont-make-a-hardware-company/ http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-don...

emeltzer 14y ago

"seats upholstered with the tanned skin of Scandinavian virgins" Ew?

Roboprog 14y ago
Icky, but expensive.
Roboprog 14y ago
Icky, but expensive.

johnohara 14y ago

Some of the thin mini-itx offerings look interesting. http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/intels-thin-mini-itx-platform-gets-stuffed-inside-a-monitor/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/intels-thin-mini-itx-plat... https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/hardware-developers/thin-mini-itx.html https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/hardware-develop... http://www.missingremote.com/review/lian-li-pc-q05-thin-mini-itx-chassis http://www.missingremote.com/review/lian-li-pc-q05-thin-mini... True, you don't need an OEM to build them (and maybe that's the point here). But I don't quite get the Acer argument. Thin mini-itx devices easily bolt on to the back of their monitors. Last time I looked, the inside of my Vizio 47" had nothing but room too. Dell, Gateway, Acer and many others got their start with the DIY system builder -- and a Computer Shopper.

tmurray 14y ago

Buh, I think this article has totally missed the point. First of all, I think the reason why the iPad and iPhone have been so good hardware-wise while most Android devices have been lackluster in comparison is that the vertical integration that Apple can achieve allows them to make decisions at this point that would be completely stupid if they were just another OEM or IHV. Basically, because iOS is a very large ecosystem with a guaranteed large install base per product, Apple can afford to tape out chips that would have absolutely no chance of being profitable for a IHV (e.g., NVIDIA or Qualcomm). Since every iOS tablet sold for the next N years will use A5X, it makes sense for Apple to design and tape out their own SoCs specifically for that, but the device fragmentation inherent in the Android market makes it extremely difficult for IHVs to do the same. Look at A5X versus Tegra 3 in terms of die size. Tegra 3 is 80mm^2. A5X is 165mm^2. SoCs from IHVs (at least for the foreseeable future) need to be dual-purpose tablet/phone chips in order to deal the many devices the IHVs will need to target (differentiated using clockspeeds or binning), which means no huge die sizes allowed. Even if Android tablet sales increase to iPad levels overall, part of the reason for that is choice; OEMs probably won't be willing to use the same enormous processor in their $600 flagship as their $150 budget tablet due to their margins (or the chip wouldn't exist because IHVs wouldn't be able to make a profit at the cheaper levels because of the fab costs). Vertical integration also means Apple can eat the cost of large die size SoCs because they don't have to worry about margin on the SoCs alone. In other words, if bigger chips result in better experiences for tablets, right now the only way to guarantee that is to play kingmaker and only support one SoC. The way Apple has done that is to build their own SoCs and cut the IHVs out entirely. Yet, they haven't done this in PCs at all. PC hardware is all Good Enough at this point; there's no hypothetical 40%-perf-advantage-if-only-someone-would-build-it chip. As the mobile market matures, platforms become more established, OEMs combine, etc, the need for vertical integration will disappear because mobile hardware will become a commodity, largely indistinguishable in meaningful ways besides minor perf/W or perf/$ advantages. IHVs will see enough sales to do what Intel or the GPU companies do in the PC space and build one scalable architecture for all platforms, there will be relatively established price points, etc.

shurane 14y ago
I just want to mention that it's a lot easier to replace and swap parts in a PC than on a phone or tablet. Mobile devices are unmodular solutions that one can't swap out for 'newer parts', the way desktops, and to some extent laptops are. I would also like to mention that Android integration is a bit poorly designed, IMO. If a hardware manufacturer writes drivers for Windows, those drivers are still likely to work as Windows itself matures with newer releases. However, with Android, each new release of its OS leaves dozens of models behind on a previous release. Couldn't Android have designed their OS to be a bit more... upgrade-friendly?

old-gregg 14y ago

These two quotes make me feel very uneasy: Other companies do not physically possess the equipment or resources to produce anything that even approaches an iPhone or MacBook Pro and Perhaps Lenovo can subsist at the bottom end of the market, or maybe it too will shut up shop. While the rest of the article makes sense, I call the 1st quote a complete BS: Lenovo already makes vastly superior computers to Macbooks. They just lack the marketing (and confidence) to explain to the masses that cold and uncomfortable aluminum is actually a pretty shitty material for a laptop. The confidence situation is so bad that they even started replacing their supeiror keyboards with calculator keyboards. Because Apple does. Ughh... And my very first Android phone (Nexus One) had a vastly superior (and practical) construction than the iPhone of the time. The thumb ball was great for precise scrolling and you can tell up/bottom or front/back apart when holding the phone in your pocket. But once again, there was no marketing to rub that into the brains of the shoppers. Although it will indeed be irrelevant if Microsoft/Google push OEMs aside. For one, I am not looking forward to the depressing "glossy aluminum future". If nobody has ever managed a laptop even half as good as a Thinkpad, I am having doubts if Microsoft will.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 14y ago
Can you elaborate on your aluminum complaints? I like Apple's metal-centric industrial design there, and have ever since they introduced the first Titanium PowerBook, but I'd certainly be interested in another perspective there. I haven't seen a plastic machine that seemed anywhere near as solidly built, but I may simply have never been exposed to the right hardware.

jamesaguilar 14y ago

> If the Surface tablet is a success — and with its design, specs, price point, and Microsoft’s marketing dollars, you have to assume it will be . . . Do you now?

rbanffy 14y ago

It's by now abundantly clear someone high up at Microsoft thinks the OEMs need them more than they need their OEMs. It will be interesting to watch.

zmmmmm 14y ago

This article seems really weak on a number of points. It holds up the Nexus Q as an example that Google is moving into its own hardware manufacture?! And it claims that OEMs are unable to "innovate" - but when you look at actual hardware innovation they have been the only ones innovating in the phone space; Apple has produced about 4 devices with identical form factors in 5 years. Contrast with Samsung and Asus who have produced all kinds of crazy stuff. It's not so much about innovation but quality, focus and finishing that the OEMs are not set up to do. Personally I think these things are just cyclical: it takes a vertically integrated company to really break through into a new domain, that much is true. But then that new area will always be commoditized and the most open, flexible and widely available platform will "win" in the end - until the next major innovation cycle begins. We need both the yin and yang of this cycle to move things forward. I do think MS may have unintentionally saved Android on tablets - the mere hint that Microsoft could possibly go its own way and leave the OEMs with nothing to sell will be giving them such nightmares that they will be doubling down on their investments in Android if only to give themselves a lifeline to future viability if the unthinkable happens. Without that I suspect half of them were probably ready to completely jump ship and leave Android behind as a bad experiment.

rogerbinns 14y ago

In Microsoft's case they have to get into the whole solution business in order to retain margins. Asymco has an excellent article with the numbers: http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts-tim-cook/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts-tim-... Quote: "So Microsoft faces a dilemma. Their business model of expensive software on cheap hardware is not sustainable. The future is nearly free software integrated into moderately priced hardware. For Microsoft to maintain their profitability, they have to find a way of obtaining $80 of profit per device. "