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For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

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Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#121

Post by tomkarlo »

microtonal wrote: post #24
recoiledsnake wrote: post #4

Microsoft has a marketing problem, they have a lot of cloud services like Skydrive, Live Mesh etc. but are not able to grab the attention of consumers or media like Jobs is able to, on stage. However, Windows 8 seems to be coming with a ton of integrated cloud features so I don't know about the humiliation part.I just don't see that their marketshare is affected more than 1% specifically due to the cloud services in…

Taking all Apple's emphasis on design, marketing, etc., aside. It starts very simple: Steve Jobs looks like a sympathetic guy on stage that we could easily emphasize with. Steve Ballmer looks, let's put it bluntly, unsympathetic and rude. This difference is clearly visible in every fiber of marketing material from both companies. Apple marketing feels friendly and fresh, while Microsoft's tends to feel aggressive. So…

I don't think the issue here is that Jobs looks frail while Ballmer looks like he's been eating for two. People aren't buying tens of millions of iPhones out of pity.

Apple has made its recent success off developing and marketing products that consumers want to buy and that make them happy to use (look at how many people by an iPod or iPhone and go on to become Mac owners.) Microsoft mostly makes it way off of enterprise sales and bundling with PCs. That's fine, but it doesn't tend to lead to a culture that creates products that end consumers get really juiced about.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#122

Post by rahoulb »

babar wrote: post #57
kenjackson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Microsoft execs probably think they already do product X or Y or Z that Apple is doing, but I don't think they do X or Y or Z the way Apple does them: I think Apple does them right much more often than Microsoft does. Actually I don't think most MS execs think they build the same cloud product. I think they believe they have the feature set, but they realize, probably better than most, that they're not a…

How much of Microsoft's difficulty integrating things into Windows is a result of the anti-trust lawsuit they went through? People seem to forget that Microsoft went through 3 years of worrying that the government would break them up because they bundled a browser with Windows. That had to have changed how they felt about bundling new things into the OS. Or do people think it was long enough ago that the culture has…

Although the browser bundling is what people remember there was much more to it than that - just ask Be and Hitachi. At the time the consensus was that Microsoft got off lightly after being found guilty of abuse (although the EU was much stricter).

But yes - it takes generations to change a corporate culture, so it may only just starting to change.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#123

Post by shadowfox »

ice5nake wrote: post #12
dstein wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you market MS-only products when all the early adopters are using Macbooks?

"all the early adopters"? Isn't that's a bit hyperbolic? Can you clarify this?

Not an uncommon view. There are people who believe that no competent developer uses Windows machines for development, for example

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#124

Post by yumraj »

maercsrats wrote: post #114
neuroelectronic wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks, Google will host my personal data for free, and it works on all platforms.

Actually, the cost is your click habits. Google is all about getting advertisers to sign on by saying "we have better information on all these people because we house all their data." If you are comfortable with that, that's fine. Personally, I like Apple's (and for the most part Microsoft) "we don't give a shit about you unless you pay us money." When I stop paying them, I don't have to worry about them keeping any…

I think you're making an assumption that Apple and MS don't track your click habits, as you put it, in addition to charging you for it. Is there really a guarantee from Apple/MS that once you stop paying them they won't keep your data?

At least Google is sorta-kinda upfront that they're doing it.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#125

Post by MatthewPhillips »

paulitex wrote: post #96

Does anyone else feel like the cheers of success for iCloud are a little premature? It's amazing that since it's Apple we automatically believe the "No, really I mean it this time!". Shouldn't previous performance be taken into consideration (.Mac, MobileMe)? Boy who cries cloud? Until iCloud is launched (not til the fall ), all we have is old broken promises, vapourware, and some very expensive data centres. I want…

I agree completely. People forget about Apple's failures very quickly and continuously bring up Google's for some reason. Apple makes a lot of great products but they have as many duds as everyone. In the last year and half they've had at least 3 off the top of my head: Ping, GameCenter, and iBookstore. iBookstore isn't a total failure but it's not most users first, second, and sometimes even third choice. It was widely speculated to be a Kindle killer, but that hasn't been the case at all.

I'd also point out that Apple is entering a market that it has traditionally not done well in and is pushing an unnatural definition of cloud that consumers will be forced to either accept or reject.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#126

Post by encoderer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #117
jodrellblank wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. They haven't delivered Live SkyDrive, or Windows Live, or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ or http://www.microsoft.com/online/exchange-hosted-services.asp... or http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/en/us/solutions/hostedcrm.a... or http://www.microsoft.com/online/sharepoint-online.aspx or http://www.hotmail…

In all of those things I see a "me too!" response to some other product. Windows Live Gmail services Azure Amazon AWS / Google AppServ Sharepoint DropBox / Google {Docs|Groups} Hotmail Gmail MSN Music iTunes But what the Chronicle was pointing out (and others here) is that the iCloud stuff is (if Jobs is accurate) the 'rest' of your UX experience with everything in their product line. For me its the difference betwee…

Of course, Sharepoint was released a decade before Dropbox.

And Hotmail a decade before Gmail. (nearly.)

And the web versions of Office are certainly more functional (tho arguably less usable) than Gdocs -- especially when Office Live launched and you still, at the time, couldn't do Find and Replace in a Google Document without seeing several "EXPERIMENTAL!" warnings all over it.

And something the GP didn't mention, but that can be added to his list, is that Microsoft invented ajax when it released the XHR object feature to enable web-based outlook.

Though, sure, Ajax-like behavior was possible (tho not popular and very clunky -- i know first hand) using iFrames. But come to think of it, I think Microsoft invented iFrames, too...

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#127

Post by powertower »

spitfire wrote: post #100
powertower wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the market is just not there, and it's more about the timing.

No. The windows tablets that have been available since the 1990's were simply shit. They were simply a flat screen running windows with a pen. and that idea hasn't changed a bit since windows for pen computing in 1991. Same old windows+a pen interface, and it's absolutely horrible. It wasn't timing, it was simply that Microsoft didn't get that a tablet was something different.

The problem is that a "flat screen running windows with a pen" was the pinacle of what could be brought to market at that time by anyone. Microsoft tried.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#128

Post by jccodez »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #117
jodrellblank wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. They haven't delivered Live SkyDrive, or Windows Live, or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ or http://www.microsoft.com/online/exchange-hosted-services.asp... or http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/en/us/solutions/hostedcrm.a... or http://www.microsoft.com/online/sharepoint-online.aspx or http://www.hotmail…

In all of those things I see a "me too!" response to some other product. Windows Live Gmail services Azure Amazon AWS / Google AppServ Sharepoint DropBox / Google {Docs|Groups} Hotmail Gmail MSN Music iTunes But what the Chronicle was pointing out (and others here) is that the iCloud stuff is (if Jobs is accurate) the 'rest' of your UX experience with everything in their product line. For me its the difference betwee…

I just want to nit pick you for one minute:

"Sharepoint DropBox / Google {Docs|Groups}"

There is no comparison: Sharepoint is not a me too product. SharePoint was Microsoft's fastest Billion, yes Billion, dollar product. For you to throw that in is not logical.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#129

Post by dstein »

ezy wrote: post #103

Microsoft killed their own brand. Through their own efforts, Microsoft means Office, which means corporate. Unsurprisingly, their best consumer success is only tangentially associated with their name. "Microsoft Xbox" sounds like "Accounting Bouncy-house" to most people. There's a little bit of a dissonance when you remember that, yeah, Microsoft made this game system. Even Windows, which is used by a majority of con…

Also "From the makers of Internet Explorer" doesn't exactly have a nice ring to it. Microsoft has a bad track record in exactly the areas that "the cloud" is supposed to fix (security, stability, backups, crash-free, virus-free, maintenance-free, "it just works"). Their PR team has a big job ahead of them.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#130

Post by msbarnett »

powertower wrote: post #127
spitfire wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The windows tablets that have been available since the 1990's were simply shit. They were simply a flat screen running windows with a pen. and that idea hasn't changed a bit since windows for pen computing in 1991. Same old windows+a pen interface, and it's absolutely horrible. It wasn't timing, it was simply that Microsoft didn't get that a tablet was something different.

The problem is that a "flat screen running windows with a pen" was the pinacle of what could be brought to market at that time by anyone. Microsoft tried.

> The problem is that a "flat screen running windows with a pen" was the pinacle of what could be brought to market at that time by anyone. Microsoft tried.

The problem is that, if a "flat screen running windows with a pen" is a shitty experience that nobody in their right mind would buy, you're better off not bringing it to market.

Microsoft didn't earn a gold star for "trying"; they wrecked their brand by associating it with ten years of shitty tablet products nobody wanted.

Sometimes it's better to realize that if the tech doesn't exist to let you execute your product well, you're better off not harming your brand by executing it poorly.

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