4 ms·

There are a couple of interpretations that makes this article interesting 7 years after it was written. 1. Is MS now "risking it all" with Windows 8? Windows

by beloch 14y ago

There are a couple of interpretations that makes this article interesting 7 years after it was written. 1. Is MS now "risking it all" with Windows 8? Windows 8 is certainly ballsy, but no, MS is not risking it all. The worst case scenario for Win8 is another epic marketing fail like Vista and slow adoption, followed by immediate uptake of Win9. Unlike companies such as RIM that have been largely banished from their core markets by Apple, MS's core market hasn't gone anywhere and isn't going anywhere. MS has expanded their hardware division somewhat (e.g. the Xbox), but to nowhere near the same extent as Apple. MS has not been pushed to the brink such that they need to risk it all to survive. MS hasn't shrunk in fact. The company just looks small now that Apple has shot past them to become so big. Win8 is not a desperate bid for survival, but rather, a new foray into areas MS hasn't been successful in to date. 2. Is Apple now in MS's shoes from half a decade or so ago? iPod - 2001, iPhone - 2007, Ipad - 2010. While Apple hasn't exactly disrupted any industries lately, it's not as if they've had a long dry spell. Still, there are some worrying signs. The iPod was immensely profitable for Apple because it took so long for halfway decent competitors to arise. The iPhone was under siege by Android in a much shorter period of time and the iPad in a shorter time-frame still. The iPad mini actually arrived after it's competition, with inferior specs and a higher price to boot. The only thing it has going for it is branding. Was this a fluke or is Apple losing ground? What is beyond question is that Apple is now a giant with everything to lose rather than the nearly bankrupt company of the late 90's that had just two choices: innovate or die. Apple is sitting on such a giant pile of cash that, instead of trying to innovate, they could easily decide to just keep making their stuff smaller (or bigger) and sue the pants off of anyone who makes anything similar. They could do this, but it's very premature to say that they have. Apple is leaking more product info these days, but it's not like a retina 13" macbook pro was such a surprise that it had to be kept secret. Apple may still have disruptive stuff under wraps somewhere in the dark recesses of Cupertino.

unfamiliar 14y ago
>The only thing it has going for it is branding. And the entire iOS ecosystem. It is essentially just a small iPad 2. The iPad 2 now seems to have nothing going for it, except for people with eyesight problems.
- podperson 14y ago
  If the iPad 2 had the new connector and a good camera it might still make sense, but yeah -- why would anyone want one? As for "people with eyesight problems" -- that's the majority of human beings!
aaronbrethorst 14y ago
> 7 years after it was written Funny, I didn't even realize this while I was reading the article. My only thought that aligned with this was "it's an odd mistake for him to refer to WinRT as WinFX."
- shrikant 14y ago
  The giveaway for me was where he linked the 'products' in "technically impressive new products" to the Windows Vista page..
  - adambyrtek 14y ago
    In his defense, the concepts behind Vista (or Longhorn) were truly revolutionary, only when the ambitious project started to run late Microsoft decided to cut corners.
mtgx 14y ago
If Windows 8 fails, there's no guarantee Windows 9 will save them. The situation is a lot different now than it was back when Vista and Windows 7 appeared.
- lmm 14y ago
  On the corporate desktop? Not really. Apple is still making no effort to sell to the enterprise, and few people are selling linux there. Apple might be gaining for home users, and that will hurt MS in the ultra-long term when people who grew up using Apple are making purchasing decisions, but for now MS' corporate bread and butter seems secure.
brudgers 14y ago
In a sense, Apple today is in the same sort of position as Microsoft's legendary competitors of the past - IBM, AOL, Netscape, and perhaps Apple itself. Apple only addresses part of a larger market - i.e. consumer electronics v. general computing [analogs: IBM and corporate computing market, AOL and non-corporate market, Netscape and the web (but not the desktop), the former Apple not growing vertically within the corporate environment]. Microsoft has continued to be profitable and technologically relevant because it scratches it's own itches (and eats its own dogfood). Microsoft depends on Visual Studio in it's workflow. It depends on Office, SQL Server, and [perhaps still] Project, in the same way. They gave a Surface and a Windows Phone to every employee because the design goal of those products is productivity for people who do the sort of things Microsoft's employees do. Microsoft is a B2B company. It's business model allowed Michael Dell to become a billionaire. Even IBM, for all their B2B savvy, doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen. Apple has adopted many aspects of the model of secrecy which led to the collapse of Boston as the center of the computing industry twenty odd years ago. It has rebuilt itself as an inward focused (and perhaps ironically, given the article, paranoid) company. Even the architecture of it's new headquarters reflects this. What the Jobs-less Apple is missing is not competent designers, but a person who has insight into the inefficiencies within an entire industry. The initial success of the iPhone may have been largely a function of it's design. But it's explosive growth was driven by Jobs' ability to change the structure of cellphone data plans. Without cheap data rates and ubiquitous fast networks, smartphones are just another gizmo. His success with Pixar was likewise the ability exploit an inefficiency (finding a suitable computer alternative to hand drawn animation).
YooLi 14y ago
"While Apple hasn't exactly disrupted any industries lately, it's not as if they've had a long dry spell" Just how often is a company supposed to disrupt an industry? Most companies don't even do it once.

by beloch 14y ago

unfamiliar 14y ago

>The only thing it has going for it is branding. And the entire iOS ecosystem. It is essentially just a small iPad 2. The iPad 2 now seems to have nothing going for it, except for people with eyesight problems.

podperson 14y ago
If the iPad 2 had the new connector and a good camera it might still make sense, but yeah -- why would anyone want one? As for "people with eyesight problems" -- that's the majority of human beings!

aaronbrethorst 14y ago

> 7 years after it was written Funny, I didn't even realize this while I was reading the article. My only thought that aligned with this was "it's an odd mistake for him to refer to WinRT as WinFX."

shrikant 14y ago
The giveaway for me was where he linked the 'products' in "technically impressive new products" to the Windows Vista page..
- adambyrtek 14y ago
  In his defense, the concepts behind Vista (or Longhorn) were truly revolutionary, only when the ambitious project started to run late Microsoft decided to cut corners.

mtgx 14y ago

If Windows 8 fails, there's no guarantee Windows 9 will save them. The situation is a lot different now than it was back when Vista and Windows 7 appeared.

lmm 14y ago
On the corporate desktop? Not really. Apple is still making no effort to sell to the enterprise, and few people are selling linux there. Apple might be gaining for home users, and that will hurt MS in the ultra-long term when people who grew up using Apple are making purchasing decisions, but for now MS' corporate bread and butter seems secure.

brudgers 14y ago

In a sense, Apple today is in the same sort of position as Microsoft's legendary competitors of the past - IBM, AOL, Netscape, and perhaps Apple itself. Apple only addresses part of a larger market - i.e. consumer electronics v. general computing [analogs: IBM and corporate computing market, AOL and non-corporate market, Netscape and the web (but not the desktop), the former Apple not growing vertically within the corporate environment]. Microsoft has continued to be profitable and technologically relevant because it scratches it's own itches (and eats its own dogfood). Microsoft depends on Visual Studio in it's workflow. It depends on Office, SQL Server, and [perhaps still] Project, in the same way. They gave a Surface and a Windows Phone to every employee because the design goal of those products is productivity for people who do the sort of things Microsoft's employees do. Microsoft is a B2B company. It's business model allowed Michael Dell to become a billionaire. Even IBM, for all their B2B savvy, doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen. Apple has adopted many aspects of the model of secrecy which led to the collapse of Boston as the center of the computing industry twenty odd years ago. It has rebuilt itself as an inward focused (and perhaps ironically, given the article, paranoid) company. Even the architecture of it's new headquarters reflects this. What the Jobs-less Apple is missing is not competent designers, but a person who has insight into the inefficiencies within an entire industry. The initial success of the iPhone may have been largely a function of it's design. But it's explosive growth was driven by Jobs' ability to change the structure of cellphone data plans. Without cheap data rates and ubiquitous fast networks, smartphones are just another gizmo. His success with Pixar was likewise the ability exploit an inefficiency (finding a suitable computer alternative to hand drawn animation).

YooLi 14y ago

"While Apple hasn't exactly disrupted any industries lately, it's not as if they've had a long dry spell" Just how often is a company supposed to disrupt an industry? Most companies don't even do it once.