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Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

arstechnica.com

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Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#51

Post by evo_9 »

Flemlord wrote: post #38

This is crazy talk. Microsoft needs a Windows compatible OS so they can leverage the millions of windows applications already written. To start from scratch would give up one of their main advantages. Best to stick with Windows, and focus on optimizing Windows 8 and Office 2012 for the tablet form factor. I love my iPad but I'd be willing to take a half-step back to a Windows tablet if it meant I could run Microsoft…

The problem with this is that they don't have a really solid established UI standard - or at least they make much less effort to promote or enforce it.

I've used a lot of shareware and small developer type apps on osx, windows and linux, and the osx stuff is noticeable better in the UI department; it's pretty brutal how little effort most small dev's put into the UI or even graphic design.

Even large developers have trouble creating well designed Ui's; I'm thinking of Quicken, which has always struck me as amateurish and dated though I haven't used it in a while so maybe it's improved.

Point being, if you simply put a desktop OS on a tablet, most developers aren't going to do anything to make the experience great. This is something clearly lost on Ballmer as well.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#52

Post by wazoox »

sp332 wrote: post #27
wazoox wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Well last time I ran windows it was win98SE, you know :) I'll go with the screencast instead.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#53

Post by Herring »

protomyth wrote: post #42
Herring wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably getting way too much money to risk killing windows. The last thing they want is a viable alternative.

eat your own lunch before someone else eats it Look at Apple, they are not afraid of killing the iPod market with the iPhone. edit: s/no/not/

Ipods & iphones share the same apps. Windows' greatest strength is its software. If you prove that it's easy to leave, nobody knows where the customers will jump next.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#54

Post by protomyth »

Herring wrote: post #53
protomyth wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eat your own lunch before someone else eats it Look at Apple, they are not afraid of killing the iPod market with the iPhone. edit: s/no/not/

Ipods & iphones share the same apps. Windows' greatest strength is its software. If you prove that it's easy to leave, nobody knows where the customers will jump next.

Well, they share one app (iTunes). I was more thinking iPod classic (I group iPod touch in with the iPhones), but I get your meaning. Yes, the risk is that they don't jump where you want them to go, but that is the same risk as you doing nothing. The users are going to jump.

Microsoft should have been fine, but it looks like they are so locked on what they are doing now and allowing middle managers to play politics instead of technology (see the Clear Type stories for instance) that they are heading to the iceberg. The Titanic was "unsinkable" until it hit the iceberg. Microsoft's software is not really geared for mobile and replacements with reputations are appearing on other platforms. I believe Microsoft's strengths now are inertia, document formats, and servers (specifically Exchange and SQL).

If I was in charge of Microsoft, I would probably do a modified version of the OS X -> iOS strategy. Use a beefed up version of Silverlight refocused on touch and make sure the new apps run under Windows 7 also. Make sure you ship an "App Store" to enterprise customers that automatically installs the right apps on machines and does backups.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#55

Post by code_duck »

extension wrote: post #28

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…

Huh, that's odd. I could have sworn it was a computer with a touch screen and no keyboard.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#56

Post by [deleted] »

mishmash wrote: post #47
sprout wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. They offered a very solid competing vision for what an MP3 player should be. It was a risky vision, involving a subscription and the innovative ability to share songs you haven't bought legally, wirelessly with the person standing next to you. I really think the failure was purely marketing, judging by the accounts of people who used the service, that and people's assumption that anything from Microsoft canno…

I see your point, but subscription-based music services had been around for five+ years before the Zune came out - and even so, all iTunes evidence pointed to a trend that users wanted to own their music. And the beaming feature may have been nice in theory, it was widely considered to be hobbled with DRM. Lastly, let's not forget the seemingly inane decision to bypass what little music people had from PlaysForSure c…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#57

Post by contextfree »

shortformblog wrote: post #39
Flemlord wrote: post #38

This is crazy talk. Microsoft needs a Windows compatible OS so they can leverage the millions of windows applications already written. To start from scratch would give up one of their main advantages. Best to stick with Windows, and focus on optimizing Windows 8 and Office 2012 for the tablet form factor. I love my iPad but I'd be willing to take a half-step back to a Windows tablet if it meant I could run Microsoft…

Their history with Windows is not an advantage if the design of it is cumbersome and full of compromises. Which, more than anything, is what the point of the article is getting at. Microsoft has had a decade of chances in this market to pull off the "business tablet" market you're suggesting. And, well, they just haven't done it yet. If this is such a competitive advantage, why wasn't the iPad put on a Mac OSX archit…

You could have made the same argument in 1989 about MSFT attempting to graft a GUI on top of the PC and DOS, though. They tried it a couple times with Windows 1 and 2 and largely failed, meanwhile Apple made a fresh start with the Mac and has been exciting everyone for five years, clearly MSFT's approach is inherently doomed to failure and they should either develop a brand-new HW/SW system from scratch or give up on GUI OS development and focus on Mac applications.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#58

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

MaysonL wrote: post #49
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).

Get a livescribe pen http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/ and get rid of that Windows partition. :)

Looks like an interesting gadget but I'm not sure that it really works for me. My handwriting is shite and my typing, while not always accurate, is pretty fast. I like the relative portability though.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#59

Post by sprout »

mishmash wrote: post #47
sprout wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. They offered a very solid competing vision for what an MP3 player should be. It was a risky vision, involving a subscription and the innovative ability to share songs you haven't bought legally, wirelessly with the person standing next to you. I really think the failure was purely marketing, judging by the accounts of people who used the service, that and people's assumption that anything from Microsoft canno…

I see your point, but subscription-based music services had been around for five+ years before the Zune came out - and even so, all iTunes evidence pointed to a trend that users wanted to own their music. And the beaming feature may have been nice in theory, it was widely considered to be hobbled with DRM. Lastly, let's not forget the seemingly inane decision to bypass what little music people had from PlaysForSure c…

>They made consumers re-purchase music

How many people actually bought PlaysForSure music? I don't really see how that's a huge deal. You could still use all of your existing MP3s, DRM-free AAC music from iTunes, and WMA files from Windows.

>it was widely considered to be hobbled with DRM.

Here I definitely think that's the anti-Microsoft spin machine at work. The problem with the beaming feature is that no one owned a Zune, so it was useless. If it had more market penetration, it could get really interesting. But people don't want to believe that anything coming out of Microsoft can get better, so the reviews said it sucked.

>it's reported that the entire iPod development process ... only took 18 months

Pro-Apple spin machine at work.

Re: Microsoft and Ballmer not getting the iPad

#60

Post by kiujhyghjkl »

Flemlord wrote: post #38

This is crazy talk. Microsoft needs a Windows compatible OS so they can leverage the millions of windows applications already written. To start from scratch would give up one of their main advantages. Best to stick with Windows, and focus on optimizing Windows 8 and Office 2012 for the tablet form factor. I love my iPad but I'd be willing to take a half-step back to a Windows tablet if it meant I could run Microsoft…

Windows apps like powerpoint ?

I just installed an iPad for our sales guy - the iPad acts like a giant remote control for powerpoint (or whatever the apple eqivalent of powerpoint is).

It shows you thumbnails of all the slides, lets you click between them and read notes - all while the iPad displays the main presentation on it's video port. You can even make edits with the on-screen keyboard - while the presentation is running.

Compare that with any conference you have been to with Powerpoint on a PC. During the 5mins of trying to make powerpoint appear on the non-primary display of the laptop you then get introduced to the owners desktop, the photos of his kids, all the little popup reminders from explorer, the cell phone sync software, the corporate login complaining that it can find the domain controller.

Then if they need to switch to another slide you have to drop back into edit mode, and wait while they navigate through powerpoint to the slide and restart the view again.

If I was presenting to anything more important than a parent-teacher conference, the iPad would be worth it for that alone.

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