Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#21

Post by GiraffeNecktie » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 11:55 AM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #18

rbritton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing Microsoft could do is to innovate and do something no one's done. Everything they've done of late is in markets where someone has already done very well in, and they've done such a half-assed job of it that it's a guaranteed fail. Think what you want of Apple, but their products have been things largely not done before. Microsoft is copying the wrong half -- the product ideas themselves -- they should…

> The best thing Microsoft could do is to innovate and do something no one's done. The last time they did so was when Allen and Gates decided there must be a market for BASIC on Altair and microcomputers in general. Maybe Traf-o-matic was an innovation, too. However none of their significant products afterwards was anything new : * common programming languages for different systems * MS-DOS, built from a borrowed clo…

Actually they have done one excellent innovative product. It's called OneNote and it's the only reason I keep a Windows partition on my laptop. I take lots of meeting minutes and the ability to record audio that is in sync with my typing is a killer feature. Damn, I wish someone would do that in Linux (this feature doesn't work in Wine).

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#22

Post by wazoox » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 11:59 AM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #21

wazoox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best thing Microsoft could do is to innovate and do something no one's done. The last time they did so was when Allen and Gates decided there must be a market for BASIC on Altair and microcomputers in general. Maybe Traf-o-matic was an innovation, too. However none of their significant products afterwards was anything new : * common programming languages for different systems * MS-DOS, built from a borrowed clo…

Actually they have done one excellent innovative product. It's called OneNote and it's the only reason I keep a Windows partition on my laptop. I take lots of meeting minutes and the ability to record audio that is in sync with my typing is a killer feature. Damn, I wish someone would do that in Linux (this feature doesn't work in Wine).

Interesting. Any pointer about this, a demonstration perhaps? Would it work as a web app?

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#23

Post by arethuza » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 12:35 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #22

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they have done one excellent innovative product. It's called OneNote and it's the only reason I keep a Windows partition on my laptop. I take lots of meeting minutes and the ability to record audio that is in sync with my typing is a killer feature. Damn, I wish someone would do that in Linux (this feature doesn't work in Wine).

Interesting. Any pointer about this, a demonstration perhaps? Would it work as a web app?

Only if you can work out a really slick way to take screenshots from a web application.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#24

Post by angstrom » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 1:05 PM UTC

todayiamme wrote: post #12

This is slightly off topic, but Ballmer has to be crazy to overlook the strengths they have. Microsoft owns Amalga (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Amalga ) which is an information retrieval tool for hospitals that ER doctors to reduce the time spent on searching for information. Now let's take a step back and see what it is. It's a tool which has the ability to manage 40 TB of data in real time and provi…

They have a nice system, unfortunately, the health information system landscape is a horrid mess of multiple proprietary data stores. Yes, I know there's DICOM, HL7, etc. The problem is that those standards don't preclude the difficulties of converting the TBs of proprietary niches behind them. This is going to be a multi-year endeavor; a marathon due the glacial pace of healthcare reform. It can take months to convert just one site. The tablet/slate/ipad war is a sprint. Otherwise, I agree, the potential profits Microsoft can reap from the healthcare vertical are enormous.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#25

Post by joezydeco » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 1:11 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #18

rbritton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing Microsoft could do is to innovate and do something no one's done. Everything they've done of late is in markets where someone has already done very well in, and they've done such a half-assed job of it that it's a guaranteed fail. Think what you want of Apple, but their products have been things largely not done before. Microsoft is copying the wrong half -- the product ideas themselves -- they should…

> The best thing Microsoft could do is to innovate and do something no one's done. The last time they did so was when Allen and Gates decided there must be a market for BASIC on Altair and microcomputers in general. Maybe Traf-o-matic was an innovation, too. However none of their significant products afterwards was anything new : * common programming languages for different systems * MS-DOS, built from a borrowed clo…

Comic Chat. We wouldn't have Jerkcity without it.

(Tangentially, we also got the Comic Sans font about the same time, so I guess that cancels out the good stuff.)

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#26

Post by elblanco » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 1:48 PM UTC

pavs wrote: post #13

junklight wrote: post #11

What I don't get is why a company like Microsoft - rich and no longer in the lead doesn't setup a couple of well funded skunk works companies. Drop the baggage (ie don't force them to use windows and allow a new culture to emerge) and give each one a target - touch computing or something else and let 'em go. Microsoft has all the pieces - money , good engineers, marketing etc. but it's not working. They have the fina…

> Microsoft has all the pieces - money , good engineers, marketing etc. They don't have the most important thing. Leadership. Everything about Ballmer reminds me of a salesperson who is trying over-hype a product in to selling it to you. With very little knowledge as to what the product actually does. Like Ballmer, Steve Jobs is also not a tech nerd (in the sense that they are not developers/programmers or engineers)…

Jobs has a wonderful concept of the user experience that he tries to enforce on all of Apple's products. If you notice, the underlying technology is really 2nd or 3rd on the list. How the user interacts with it, what their workflow is, how the software presents itself. These are all paramount.

Ballmer's focus seems to be on metrics and sales figures instead.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#27

Post by sp332 » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 2:30 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #22

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they have done one excellent innovative product. It's called OneNote and it's the only reason I keep a Windows partition on my laptop. I take lots of meeting minutes and the ability to record audio that is in sync with my typing is a killer feature. Damn, I wish someone would do that in Linux (this feature doesn't work in Wine).

Interesting. Any pointer about this, a demonstration perhaps? Would it work as a web app?

Here's a screencast demo http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote-help/demo-what-is-... and a downloadable demo http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/try/try-office-2010-FX1018...

ETA the downloadable demo is really cool. You can run the demo before it's done installing and it will download the rest of the program in the background, prioritizing features you're trying to use. Sweet!

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#28

Post by extension » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 3:28 PM UTC

The iPad is not a computer. The iPad is not a computer. Say it with me, Microsoft. Join in, half the tech industry.

Nobody framed it better than Apple themselves at the iPad launch. On the big screen was an iPhone, a MacBook, and in between them, an iPad. Steve called it a new category, and that wasn't just marketing speak. It really is a new kind of gadget, designed to make you do things that you previously did not do. This is why everybody says they have no use for it.. because they truly don't, until they have one in their hands.

With that in mind, Microsoft and the rest of the tablet me-too wave, probably don't appreciate what they are up against. There is no tablet market, there is an iPad market. Microsoft's best shot would be an X-Pad. Everyone else should get behind Google. But really, I think Apple is going to own this category for a good decade.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#29

Post by sprout » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 3:49 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #17

pavs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has all the pieces - money , good engineers, marketing etc. They don't have the most important thing. Leadership. Everything about Ballmer reminds me of a salesperson who is trying over-hype a product in to selling it to you. With very little knowledge as to what the product actually does. Like Ballmer, Steve Jobs is also not a tech nerd (in the sense that they are not developers/programmers or engineers)…

> Like Ballmer, Steve Jobs is also not a tech nerd Though Jobs isn't a certified engineer, he did wrote code, soldered chips on motherboards, etc. He certainly knows what parts a computer is made of, how software works, etc.

>he did wrote code

It's 'did write.' Just FYI, in case you're not native and that wasn't just an auto-complete gaffe.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#30

Post by sprout » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 4:01 PM UTC

dotcoma wrote: post #6

it doesn't come as a surprise, given that they didn't get neither the iPod nor the iPhone...

Actually, from the two people I know who actually owned a Zune (and from Jerry Holkins: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/5/15/), Microsoft did in fact 'get' the iPod, and outdid it in a lot of ways.

Microsoft just has shitty marketing. But maybe that's what you meant.