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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

#41

Post by wildmXranat »

jwr wrote: post #32
programminggeek wrote: post #13

You know, the funny thing is that as nerds we tend to look at iCloud and say, "well I can already do that with Dropbox and Amazon Cloud Player". It's not revolutionary to us. Yet, can you imagine how many sales Apple will be able to take from Microsoft just by saying, "all your files are backed up and synced automatically between your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Mac devices." No more worrying about backups, losing y…

Actually, they were very careful to never use the word 'sync'. You don't "sync" anything, the files are just there, on all your devices, always up to date. I think that is an important point.

Yes, it's a new HTTP method ...

    THERE HTTP/1.1

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

#42

Post by runjake »

tjogin wrote: post #31
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…

I don't think it's a marketing problem, I think the problem is that the products suck.

I think you're only partially right.

There are numerous Microsoft products where I just shake my head and wonder why they don't publicize/market/tout it more.

OneNote is one example. PowerShell was, for a long while. And many other miscellaneous bits of software.

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

#43

Post by ltamake »

mnutt wrote: post #36
jccodez wrote: post #28

I think iCloud will be great for Microsoft, they are including vista and windows 7 in icloud. I know lots of people with PCs and iphones/ipads.

Then if it takes off, Microsoft will be locked into a competitor's platform. If someone's using Windows + iCloud, what's to keep them from switching to the (presumably better, more integrated) Mac + iCloud?

Price, converting all their Windows programs to Mac versions (or finding an equivalent), and the fact that they may not want a Mac. People I talk to own a PC because Apple doesn't offer the choices they want in a computer.

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

#44

Post by michaelcampbell »

CoryMathews wrote: post #38
rimantas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pressing Save on a document open You will not need to even do that. It's autosaved. Coming to Lion next month.

Auto-save coming to office, docs etc. since.. years ago.

Lion has revision history though, no?

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

#45

Post by ltamake »

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…

When Microsoft makes something, it gets a little coverage and then everybody forgets about it. I agree, they don't publicise their Internet-based products enough.

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

#46

Post by napierzaza »

MS has been humiliated by Apple for over a decade now. Bill Gates wrote an entire book about the home of the future. And how digital devices would rule it. Who came across and actually did that? iPod, iPhone, iPad and the AppleTV are all very successful and the "digital hub" is basically the same thing that MS has been saying.

MS has been doing a lot of catch-up "also-ran" devices trying to do what Apple has done. It's unfortunate that they could never leverage their huge lead to make it happen.

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

#47

Post by soundoflight »

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…

Microsoft does not really care too much though if these products do not take off because in their eyes there is not enough money in them.

Using SkyDrive to augment your Office installation is great. Hopefully, they integrate it with Windows as a whole. I have a feeling though that when they think about that integration Microsoft wonders if the antitrust hammer will come down on them.

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

#48

Post by napierzaza »

jasonkolb wrote: post #5

I don't know that anything Apple is doing is that revolutionary, the difference is that Apple and Jobs are phenomenal at presenting the idea so that people actually get it. I'm sure there are a lot of Microsoft execs right now that are saying "we already do that with product X" and pretty pissed off that they were never able to sell product X over 5 years the way Apple did in an hour. The bottom line is that Apple kn…

You're right, every Apple customer watches hours of keynotes before purchasing the device. It's not Steve Job's explanation that makes them so understandable. The device itself explains its own purpose better than any other device.

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

#49

Post by ltamake »

hussam wrote: post #33

Good god! Isn't it too early to prejudge iCloud? It will likely get a lot of users (it's mostly free and automatically integrated into their products after all), and it will likely succeed given mobility trends. But it is also too early to judge the future success or failure of Microsoft's cloud offering (though from what I'm seeing now, I guess it is likely to succeed as well). At this point in time, Apple's success…

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.

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

#50

Post by kenjackson »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #39
raganwald wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that this is about "getting" marketing. You may not mean it this way, but when people describe Apple as being a marketing company, the implication is that given the exact same product, Apple would succeed where Microsoft would fail. The truth is, Apple doesn't build the exact same products as Microsoft. What Apple does is what Dropbox did: They take a product and build what people actually want. People…

I think the point was about non-obvious features. Lets take the Aero snap feature in Windows 7. How many would know that it is possible to drag a window to the sides and the top etc. and have it snap into place for split screen view or to maximize? Most of the people who know would be either geeks, or someone who saw someone else do it or discovered it by accident. Contrast that to Apple's features, which are demoed…

Did you see the SkyDrive features at the MS event? No. Actually neither did I. In fact it wasn't in the recent MS events. In fact it was announced with with a blog entry:

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...

Why didn't MS talk about this at their special Mango VIP event? No idea. MS seems to think that getting too much attention for features is a bad thing.

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