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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

#161

Post by netcan »

danudey wrote: post #158
JunkDNA wrote: post #79

The problem for Microsoft is that they continue to serve two masters: consumer users and corporate users. Corporate IT shops, especially within certain industries, can be exceptionally wary of anything that moves data outside their walls. Consumers are in general not nearly so picky. Corporations are MS's biggest customers and for years have had considerable influence on product direction. It's just not in Microsoft'…

It seems to me that, if Apple so desired, they could make a fair bit of money selling a 'private iCloud' service to companies looking to incorporate iPhones and iPads into their infrastructure in a big way. In the same way companies can set up their own BES server to provide in-house management of their data, the ability to set up an in-house iCloud server, to back up their employees' documents, data, settings, etc.,…

Apple have been going at a clip these past few years creating, scaling and tweaking a few massive products - ipods, itunes, iphone & ipads while outpacing competition with macs and still carrying a few fizzles (apple servers, apple tv...) and a few lower visibility but fairly important products (iwork, ilife..).

I think they just don't have the capacity to do more big things right now. When/if iOS gets put on medium heat like OSX is/was, then maybe we they'll try this. It's not really much harm waiting a few years to see if/how some of the newer Apple stuff (iOS, icloud) and its competition gets used by large companies.

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

#162

Post by ugh »

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…

All the standard stuff works without a hitch – exactly like MobileMe. MobileMe was never bad (except for iDisk which has always been slow for some reason), it was actually pretty great – but it cost money. That was its problem, not performance.

Mail, calendar, address book, bookmarks, iPad backup – all of that works without a hitch for me and it is fast. If the more important parts (documents API) work the same then I foresee no problems.

Once again, the big difference is price and the documents API, not performance. Sometimes that’s enough to make all the difference.

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

#163

Post by ugh »

neuroelectronic wrote: post #110
jolan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vapourware There's a beta. Register and download it.

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

Huh? iCloud is also free up to 5GB.

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

#164

Post by buyx »

sjs wrote: post #59
ltamake wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll get a lot of users because a lot of people own iDevices. The product can completely suck and people will still use it because it's Apple and unlike MobileMe, it's free. Microsoft doesn't understand the cult following that Apple has.

Apple is far bigger than their cult following. If you attribute their success to the cult you are only fooling yourself. A cult alone doesn't buy 200,000,000+ iOS devices. People generally do not use Apple products that suck, not everything they do takes off. They are just vocal about things that take off and very quiet on the rest, e.g. dismissing AppleTV as a "hobby" even though they clearly want it to take off. Yo…

They do put a lot of care into their products, but their cult following does seem to play an important part in protecting their image. There's another thread on the front page of HN where people are describing how their Apple laptop power adapters burst into flames.

I am typing this on an iPad that periodically loses its wifi connection. Googling the problem yields dozens of complaints about this issue. Apple supporters on these forums blame wifi routers, even though the iPad is the only device with these issues.

I like the App Store, but, by default, I can't buy games on my iPad - why? Because I live in South Africa, and unlike every other device manufacturer with an app store here Apple hasn't applied for self rating games, which, according to most sources, is a straightforward process. Again, Apple and its supporters don't bother mentioning this little detail.

Apple does put a lot of care into their devices, but I also think there is a tendency to deny issues, to brush them over and to rely on the cult to impart an aura of invincibility.

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

#165

Post by justincormack »

danudey wrote: post #157
dorian-graph wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs apparently thinks (Or thought) there was something wrong with them.

There was, at launch - they were terrible, didn't work properly, had a ton of downtime, etc. It got a reputation for being a slow, useless, unreliable service, and while the service got much better (I've been using it almost since its inception), its reputation never truly recovered.

They were terrible about merging conflicts, made them unusable to me. Hope Apple have worked out how to do this better now...

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

#166

Post by potatolicious »

dorian-graph wrote: post #145
ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

I have to agree with the Chronicle's basic point which is that Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. Its a very good example of the Innovator's Dilemma [1] in action, you've got some smart folks who see a future problem, and start creating interesting technology and vision around that problem, and then the reality that the company doesn't "need"…

How can any sane person say Microsoft has not delivered anything cloud computing related? That seems similar to saying the sun doesn't exist while staring at it. Unless you're blind or have not been paying any attention to Microsoft for the past ~ > 4 years . . Others have put forward [incomplete] lists of Microsoft's various 'cloud' services and I'll add one. Microsoft Azure. Hell, wasn't there a story on the frontp…

> "Microsoft Azure. Hell, wasn't there a story on the frontpage of HN a day or so ago that iCloud uses it?"

The moment someone like Apple starts running a MS-based stack... well, I'd stay inside for fear of airborne pigs.

Let's see - a company that is solidly 'nix (to the point where their own desktop OS is POSIX), who has zero track record of building anything using a MS stack, is suddenly going to use MS's cloud offering, despite there being as-good (more likely, better) 'nix based solutions?

Mmm. I'm willing to put money on that one :)

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

#167

Post by 6ren »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

I have to agree with the Chronicle's basic point which is that Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. Its a very good example of the Innovator's Dilemma [1] in action, you've got some smart folks who see a future problem, and start creating interesting technology and vision around that problem, and then the reality that the company doesn't "need"…

Christensen's dilemma is that incumbents' customers don't want it yet - it simply isn't good enough along the dimensions they value.

> As Clayton points out in his book innovation always loses in the 'risk' evaluation.

That's not my understanding - can you indicate where he says that?

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

#168

Post by 6ren »

Microsoft makes money from the desktop. The cloud threatens this, the current incarnation of the internet.

Over 10 years ago, the internet was supposed to undermine Microsoft, lead by Java. There was even a set-top box, that downloaded everything from the network (sound familiar?)

There was a joke about Java's ideal "write once, run everywhere", as "write once, debug everywhere". A similar joke about network-based computing's ideal of "access anywhere" is "no access anywhere". It's interesting that Apple's approach is not network centric.

    1. The network is reliable.
    2. Latency is zero.
    3. Bandwidth is infinite.
    4. The network is secure.
    5. Topology doesn't change.
    6. There is one administrator.
    7. Transport cost is zero.
    8. The network is homogeneous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Comput...

Of course, Java has basically achieved its aim. And, one day, the network will be good enough - when it's as reliable as the bus in your PC (or, more accurately, as reliably as it needs to be for specific tasks).

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

#169

Post by sasidharm »

justincormack wrote: post #165
danudey wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was, at launch - they were terrible, didn't work properly, had a ton of downtime, etc. It got a reputation for being a slow, useless, unreliable service, and while the service got much better (I've been using it almost since its inception), its reputation never truly recovered.

They were terrible about merging conflicts, made them unusable to me. Hope Apple have worked out how to do this better now...

Truth is on the cloud.

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

#170

Post by j_baker »

6ren wrote: post #168

Microsoft makes money from the desktop. The cloud threatens this, the current incarnation of the internet. Over 10 years ago, the internet was supposed to undermine Microsoft, lead by Java. There was even a set-top box, that downloaded everything from the network (sound familiar?) There was a joke about Java's ideal "write once, run everywhere", as "write once, debug everywhere". A similar joke about network-based co…

What gives you the idea that the network isn't reliable now? It's been around for what, 3 or 4 decades? Maybe 10 years ago you'd have been correct, but nowadays the internet's been pretty well broken in.

And cloud computing, while new (at least in name), has built billion dollar businesses like Amazon and Google.

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