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CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

money.cnn.com

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Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#111

Post by mkr-hn »

motters wrote: post #95
lkrubner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office" I would think that the real problem is Microsoft's unwillingness to become something completely new, something other than Windows and Office. Apple was a computer company, then it became a cell phone company, a music company, a lot of other things. Microsoft now sort of reminds me of Sun circa 1999: yes, they…

It seems very unlikely that they will be able to depend upon Windows and Office as their primary revenue stream for very much longer, so their survival depends upon being able to go into new territory. They've done this to some extent with games, but have been struggling to compete with mobile.

They can fall back on development tools and expand to other platforms if all else fails.

Though that might not happen before they've spent too much of their reserves (and don't have enough coming in) to do it.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#112

Post by potatolicious »

points wrote: post #85
gboyer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a little strange that they haven't tried to put IE on the Xbox--but I'm glad they haven't. The whole reason I have a game console is to have an appliance that is dedicated to video games. I have plenty of other devices that provide a superior browsing experience.

I agree with you - I wouldn't use a webbrowser on a games console. But the population disagrees - they do :/

I'm an avid gamer and own both the PS3 and Xbox. I've used the PS3 browser, it's an unmitigated disaster of poor functionality and even poorer usability.

The Wii browser, having used that also, is pretty much the same, plus muscle pain.

I know a lot of gamers and have yet to meet a single person who uses the browsers with any sort of regularity. In fact, the only instances where people use browsers on consoles nowadays are when the game brings it up by itself (DLC purchases, news updates, etc), and even then it's always more painful to use than a native menu would've been.

You need to cite your sources, because from where I stand - which is that of an avid gamer heavily involved in the gaming community, I simply do not see any significant usage of console browsers at all.

> "Even when a tiny DSi has a very capable browser, smart phones have browsers. And a big gaming console from a supposed software company doesn't even have a web browser?"

The major obstacle with browsers is not platform hardware, it's usability. Smartphones and the DSi have browsers because the web is (as we discovered with the iPhone) very easy to navigate with a touch device, particularly a finger-driven touch device.

It is significantly less awesome when it's driven with a joystick. In fact, the experience is downright terrible. Implementing a browser on a console with joystick (or Wiimote) controls is a waste of time and energy, and can only serve to tarnish your brand as your users struggle with why the hell you implemented such a dumb thing.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#114

Post by mkr-hn »

gaius wrote: post #82
cryptoz wrote: post #3

I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office. Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. Peo…

you can't have a modern Web experience using only Microsoft products How soon we forget! There would be no AJAX today had Microsoft not introduced XMLHttpRequest to make Outlook Web Access work...

And where would we be if AOL hadn't given us all unlimited dial-up access for a low monthly price?

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#115

Post by dstein »

gaius wrote: post #82
cryptoz wrote: post #3

I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office. Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. Peo…

you can't have a modern Web experience using only Microsoft products How soon we forget! There would be no AJAX today had Microsoft not introduced XMLHttpRequest to make Outlook Web Access work...

Yes there would. You could do "ajax" style communication using tags in Netscape 4 even before IE4 came out.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#116

Post by rbanffy »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #23
cryptoz wrote: post #3

I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office. Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. Peo…

This is an excellent point and to add to it I want to point out that Microsoft exacerbates this problem by not hiring the best web people to build their products. They believe that they can put a bunch of smart people in a room and they'll come up with stuff people want to use, and this has largely been self fulfilling because of the dominance of Microsoft in the computing space. Now that dominance is fading away, yo…

> Microsoft exacerbates this problem by not hiring the best web people to build their products.

There is a problem here: the best web people will not work with MS tools and that's exactly what MS management will demand.

> Why isn't Microsoft hiring the best Javascripters, CSS, html5

They can't even ship a browser with proper HTML5 support. How do you expect them to be able to hire the best Javascripters, CSSers and HTMLers on the market? They lack the tools to distinguish between them and the low-end of the spectrum.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#117

Post by joshuacc »

stuhacking wrote: post #22
alanthonyc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also scared of phones. Check out their Phone 7 commercials. They appear to be catering to people who think people with phones are douchebags who walk around staring at their screen all day. I'm not sure how well this marketing strategy will work, because I am one of those douchebags, but it doesn't make me want to get one.

It really is a strange market niche to aim for... People who don't want to use a smartphone but want to own a smartphone... Is it even there at all? I know people who don't like phones and they buy the minimum phone necessary to suit the need... A £30 handset on a top up based tariff. I don't know people who will spend a lot of money on a phone they intend to use as little as possible.

"People who don't want to use a smartphone but want to own a smartphone"

I think that sums up a lot of the Blackberry owners I know. Company mandates a smartphone, but employees want to use it as little as possible.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#118

Post by rbanffy »

sprout wrote: post #21
cryptoz wrote: post #3

I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office. Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. Peo…

I stopped reading the article after they wrote that the browser is almost more important than the OS, and then in the next paragraph said that Windows Phone 7 shows promise.

I access twitter through a browser on my netbook that runs Linux, on my wife's notebook that runs MacOS or on a PC running Windows (unlikely - I'd never type my password on one).

The OS is a "computer driver". The browser is the API.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#119

Post by rbanffy »

face wrote: post #35
points wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. The fact the xBox gaming console has the power of a supercomputer, as evident from its fans and overheating problems, but doesn't even have a simple webbrowser is all the evidence we need. MS has never understood or indeed wanted the www to happen. They were able to hold back www development for 5 years+ with their IE6 shenanigans, but the cats out of the bag now.

An Xbox 360 has a 3.2GHz Xenon (three cores) and 512Mbs of ram [1]. Saying that it has the power of a supercomputer is a bit of a stretch (by about three orders of magnitude, #500 on the top500 list has five thousand cores [2]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 [2] http://www.top500.org * edit: formatting

You forgot to count the GPU. A modern GPU can pump numbers much faster than the fastest general-purpose CPU.
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