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Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Microsoft's biggest blunder: Not fighting back vs. Apple
Well
by Nicholas Buenk - 6/27/08 3:53 PM In reply to: Sorry...not buying those arguments by SlikksterMicrosoft thought this whole social thing would be a big of enough innovation to deal with the iPod. But in reality, nobody even cares about that feature, and Apple has already found the next great thing while Microsoft is still catching up, touch-screen device that does everything. If Microsoft brought out a device like the iPod touch instead of the original Zune, they'd have had a lot more success, innovate don't just copy.
I have no desire to get a console either I don't think much of the type of games on consoles, I want a game that's complex and indepth, that gives you more than just fun, I guess that's why I'm a geek. I have a desktop PC for games, which I only use for gaming. And a Macbook Pro for all my actual computing. Where I don't even have bootcamp installed and boot windows in vmware maybe twice a month, biggest thing I need it for is to read/write to my friends USB drive, as it's NTFS and OS X only does read only for NTFS. But the reality is, I really don't need windows that much, everything I want to do I can in OS X, with no more difficulties and often less than in Windows. Tom Merrit's situation might be difficult, with all the cnet stuff he needs to run, but ordinary, you don't really need windows if you have a mac, it's more a luxury.
Ipod touch
by Slikkster - 6/29/08 7:43 AM In reply to: Well by Nicholas BuenkThe ipod touch is just ONE of the ipod's available. It's not like they dropped their entire ipod line to sell the "touch" only. And again, there are far better media players out there than your basic ipod, but ipods have the branding, not unlike Kleenex has the tissue branding. It benefits from top-of-mind awareness, which is why people who might not even have their first mp3 player might be tempted to say "I want an ipod", when there could easily be better options for their needs. That all goes back to marketing, which is the theme of this forum thread.
You're a Mac fanboy. That's a given, and you're entitled. I use both platforms, myself. I don't have anything against OS X or Macs, save for the fact that people who get them are stuck with the hardware Steve Jobs thinks you need. To each, his own. I like choice, and there are literally THOUSANDS if not more hardware choices to be made with Windows machines. Where Macs go, it's like the old mantra from Henry Ford when selling Model T's: You can get them in any color you want, so long as it's black".
All the arguments about better service and what not are simply due to the fact that Macs are an entirely closed platform. And with that business model, if you can't provide good service, you've got a problem. Seriously, how hard is it to provide service when you know there are very few hardware variables to deal with? Windows machines, on the other hand, bring in an incalcuable number of hardware variables. That's what choice brings. But hey, I don't want to live in a cookie-cutter world. Some people do. That's their right. Little pink houses for them.
Remember, everything you said about "actual computing" is the same for Windows. I don't know what "difficulties" you're having in day to day work, but I just don't see them on my Windows boxes. As for putting Windows on Macs as a "luxury", I seriously doubt there would be such a thing as "Bootcamp" if Jobs, et. al., thought it was a "luxury". They saw there was a significant demand for it, and they provided it.
Could it be a strategy play by Apple? In other words, give people the option for Windows on their Macs so they can slowly wean themselves off of it or at least make money on the hardware side? Sure. I wouldn't put it past them. Afterall, they're afraid to license OS X out for fear that it will be put on systems outside the Mac hardware $$$-making side.
Ok...
by Nicholas Buenk - 6/29/08 8:33 AM In reply to: Ipod touch by Slikkster"far better media players out there" Which?
I disagree about hardware variables. Pretty much, with modern PC's, it's either an nVidia or Intel motherboard. With a Intel or AMD CPU. And a ATI or nVidia GPU. There's actually not that much hardware out there these days, most of which OS X supports already, as the hardware in intel macs is the same hardware in the vast majority of PC's out there! Really, if Apple wanted to provide OS X for generic white boxes, their only real concern is supporting AMD systems, they already support Intel fully. It would not actually be a difficult task at all. Might get more difficult when it comes to various PCI devices like TV cards and sound cards, but that's really up to 3rd parties. I think Apple actually has to do more work than Microsoft in this area, because they're fully responsible for their own drivers handling both the hardware and software, I mean, who writes the video driver for a nVidia or ATI graphics card on OS X, Apple!
And yes, it is a strategy play by Apple. If you buy a mac and can run windows on it, you don't need to worry about buyers remorse. Also that weaning seems to work, on Friday's podcast, Tom Merritt said he actually spends nearly all of his time in OS X.
I don't see how selling OS X for generic PC's would be good for Apple. Seriously, the only market for that is geeks. regular users don't change their OS, and enterprise likes Windows. It would never make up for lost hardware sales. As a user I don't like it, but if I was running Apple, I wouldn't do it differently.
Really?
by minimalist - 6/29/08 2:22 PM In reply to: Ipod touch by Slikkster<i>Afterall, they're afraid to license OS X out for fear that it will be put on systems outside the Mac hardware $$$-making side.</i>
Do you have any proof of this?
Apples most valuable asset is the reliability of their computers and the quality of their customer service. Obviiously this reliabilty is made possible from the vertical integration of their software and hardware and by the premium theu charge for their products. Why on earth would they want to throw all that away and let people install OSX on any old hardware they desire and then have to support that mess? It would destroy the very thing that makes Apple "Apple".
Actually it's both
by LunaticSX - 6/30/08 6:06 AM In reply to: Really? by minimalistApple makes most of their revenue from hardware sales (look at any of their quarterly reports).
Quality hardware, good customer service, FREE customer service if you go in to an Apple Store, a top-notch OS, inexpensive or free i-apps: They're all major selling points of their hardware.
Notice what happens when Apple buys a third party company that makes high-end software for video, audio, or other creative professionals? Two things: The next version comes out Mac-only, and they drop the price by an order of magnitude.
Similarly, when Apple bought NeXT they first dropped the price of WebObjects from very expensive to very reasonable (for its capabilities), and then they even made it free! The expensive NeXT development tools also were made free.
Apple's very focused on selling THEIR hardware, and these are all means to achive that goal.
The cloners were killing Apple more than they were helping it, and Apple was 100% correct in ending the licencing of Mac OS to them.
Microsoft's model is to make money off licensing their OS and selling software. Since Windows PCs have become commodities, the hardware margins are very thin. Microsoft's margins are fairly thin, too, but the whole system works for them and the PC manufactuers because they "make it up in volume."
Apple's foray into cloning brought them into direct competition with this, and it was a losing battle to fight from the beginning. (Remember how many pundits said Apple should drop their hardware and turn themselves into a software-only company? Idiots.)
Now, part of Apple's attack is actually to turn software even MORE into a commodity. By releasing tons of really good software, for free or very little money, they're cutting out the legs that Microsoft is standing on. Apple's major OS versions are a reasonable $129 for existing customers, and FREE with a new Apple computer! That makes buying Microsoft OS updates much less attractive (i.e. "OS updates are cheaper on a Mac") while pushing sales of Apple's hardware (guaranteed full version of the latest OS with every one). They even have a very reasonable "family pack" for use on up to five machines. Wait, though, Apple's OS updates don't need serial numbers, which allows you to use the same disk on as many machines as you like--so why would anyone buy the family pack? Well, there ARE some honest people out there... Might as well make it easy (inexpensive) for them to actually STAY honest.
iWork is only $79, and while it can't compete with all of the features of Microsoft Office, it's gradually getting better and better. As it does, more and more people may find that it does enough of what they need that they might not bother with MS Office.
With all of their other, free apps, Apple ensures that Microsoft can't get into a number of other, newer markets for which to charge for software. Instead, Microsoft has to compete by spending resources to develop their own free versions of software. Apple's win, here, is that their free software pushes sales of their hardware, on which they make large margins, while Microsoft's "me too" free software may not have much impact on sales of their OS at all.
Now this isn't to say that Apple doesn't make any money off their non-hardware offerings, but it's more incidental.
iTunes was released for free on Windows to provide access to the iTunes (Music) Store. They do make a little money off the iTunes Store, and probably hope to make more, but its main goal is to sell iPods. (AppleTV is a very strange beast in Apple's menagerie, here: It's hardware that exists to sell content on the iTunes Store. It's no wonder that it's not getting too much attention from Apple: Media extenders are just not high margin hardware products.)
MobileMe is going to be cross-platform on Mac and Windows, and it's going to be $99/year. This'll give Apple a bit of profit, but look at its selling slogan: "Exchange for the rest of us." Yep! It's Apple chopping away at Microsoft's Exchange Server leg, another of their lucrative markets. Why doesn't Apple make MobileMe cheaper? Well, there's gotta be operating costs to cover, and they already have historical sales of .Mac to use as a guideline for its price. Also note that Exchange Server only becomes economical for companies beyond a certain size, because the basic licence cost is fixed. Apple is targeting smaller markets with MobileMe, where it doesn't make so much sense to go with the large initial outlay for Exchange Server. $99 per head adds up, sure, but at what point does it become less economical versus a full Exchange installation? Plus, don't forget the salaries of the person or persons needed to maintain that Exchange Server and keep it up to date. Obviously an unstated selling point of MobileMe is "no server admin needed."
Who knows, though, at some point Apple might drop the price of MobileMe down to $79, or $49 or something.
Regardless, it still ties into their hardware sales: It gives you Exchange-like services for your iPhone, connecting them to either Macs or PCs, and it works with your home machines, not just your work ones. (Don't forget Apple's major target market is NOT businesses!)
All of this is not to say that Apple isn't also enjoying the benefit of freedom from having to support their OS on any machine a vendor might choose to cobble together. Notice the Vista drivers issue: How many fingers were pointed Microsoft's way?
So how does Microsoft compete with the fact that it's Apple's hardware sales that provide the majority of the funding for their software development, while Microsoft's software development has to be funded solely by sales of the software itself?
To address the original topic of this thread: How does Microsoft turn THAT into a marketing message?
The ironic thing about MobileMe....
by Nicholas Buenk - 6/30/08 7:54 AM In reply to: Actually it's both by LunaticSXIt's actually based around a Sun product, running on Solaris
http://www.sun.com/software/products/messaging_srvr/index.xml
The hardware is sold on the reputation of the OS
by minimalist - 6/30/08 7:27 PM In reply to: Actually it's both by LunaticSX<i>Apple makes most of their revenue from hardware sales (look at any of their quarterly reports).
Quality hardware, good customer service, FREE customer service if you go in to an Apple Store, a top-notch OS, inexpensive or free i-apps: They're all major selling points of their hardware.</i>
Yes, the hardware makes sales make up the majority of their income, but the hardware is being sold on the reputation of a rock solid OS and a series of consumer apps that seamlessly integrates with that hardware. Damage that reputation and they have nothing other than beautiful boxes to sell.
As I've said else where in the thread...
by Nicholas Buenk - 6/30/08 9:45 PM In reply to: The hardware is sold on the reputation of the OS by minimalistIf anything Apple has it harder than Microsoft... Intel and nVidia etc do the drivers for Windows. Microsoft leaves supporting the hardware to the hardware markers, they have less work to do!
Apple has the advantage of being in control entirely themselves of making sure everything works properly, but I don't think that at all makes it easier in terms of the engineering challenge.
And it doesn't magically make driver bugs go away. Yes, you get driver bugs even on OS X even though it's all coded by only Apple. Apple ships a 0.0.1 update to OS X every 2 months or so. That features bug fixes, security updates, and patches to drivers.
OS X is not really more reliable than Windows you know, well I guess it doesn't slow down over time like windows, is a little easier to troubleshoot and you don't have to worry about viruses destroying the OS. But it crashes just as much. Bugs happen no matter who you are.
OS stability
by LunaticSX - 7/2/08 8:25 PM In reply to: As I've said else where in the thread... by Nicholas Buenk"OS X is not really more reliable than Windows you know, well I guess it doesn't slow down over time like windows, is a little easier to troubleshoot and you don't have to worry about viruses destroying the OS."
So it's really not more reliable... except in the areas in which it IS? 
"But it crashes just as much."
In my experience running both, when I was using XP at my previous job it would give me a blue screen of death or a hard lock up every two weeks or so. I finally got them to buy me a Mac (the first the company had ever bought) and I don't recall the OS itself then crashing for the following three years I was there. After playing around with a Mac for the very first time when configuring that one for me, one of the two IT guys in that company switched to Macs, also.
Once Apple introduced the Mac Mini, I asked the IT department how much they were paying for the Wintel boxes they put on (under) everyone's desk. They said about $700 each, which was more than the Mac Minis cost. When I asked them if they'd buy Mac Minis for the people in my staff and anyone else in engineering & design who wanted one, they readily agreed, since every Mac they got would actually give them fewer IT headaches.
On my Macs at home I can't remember the last time the OS crashed, even though they're in constant, heavy use. (I only wish web browser software was as stable as Mac OS X...)
Now, YMMV, and Vista may be more stable out of the box than XP (I've only ever used XP for an extended period of time), but customer satisfaction data seems to point to more people experiencing fewer OS crashes on OS X--at least vs. XP. Maybe now that XP is no longer officially available there'll eventually be enough Vista users available to get a decent amount of customer satisfaction sampling of it and see how well it compares. Of course, there are all those exceptions for people who don't want to get Vista, like PCs "pre-downgraded" from Vista to XP, and XP on "nettops" like the Asus Eee PC, so Vista's adoption rate might still remain fairly low.
Well..
by Nicholas Buenk - 7/6/08 1:32 AM In reply to: OS stability by LunaticSXThat could easily be a hardware problem or a buggy driver.
1: Pick the market. 2: Target that market
by LunaticSX - 6/30/08 6:50 AM In reply to: Ipod touch by Slikkster"there are far better media players out there than your basic ipod, but ipods have the branding, not unlike Kleenex has the tissue branding."
Better for WHOM? People who want to have a solid media player that "just works," or people who want a media player that also raises their geek cred by five points?
Which product has the bigger market: Something simple, straightforward, and good at its main task, or something where its other features get in the way of using it for its main task?
"It benefits from top-of-mind awareness, which is why people who might not even have their first mp3 player might be tempted to say 'I want an ipod', when there could easily be better options for their needs. That all goes back to marketing, which is the theme of this forum thread."
I'd agree that this is about marketing in so much as Apple knows the target markets for their products VERY WELL, and they sell those targets just what they're looking for; no more, no less.
I'd disagree with the implication that with equal amounts of marketing to achive "top-of-mind awareness" that the other products on the market would do as well.
That's, of course, my opinion, which cannot be proven in just as much the same way as the opposite opinion couldn't be proven.
"there are literally THOUSANDS if not more hardware choices to be made with Windows machines."
Ever hear of "the tyranny of choice"? (I'm not going to try to summarize it here. Anyone who wants to can go look it up.)
"All the arguments about better service and what not are simply due to the fact that Macs are an entirely closed platform."
Entirely closed? This isn't the mid-'90's. The hardware's the same, now. Thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web, a heck of a lot of the "software" is exactly the same, now, too.
Apple simply makes reasonable quality hardware, now, and backs it up with additional quality software as a value-add. IMHO, YMMV, etc.
It's all about broader markets
by LunaticSX - 6/27/08 4:36 PM In reply to: Sorry...not buying those arguments by Slikkster"I'll take your 'I'm kidding' about the iPhone and iPod and go easy on ya."
You're so kind.
I'm not going to debate Zune vs. iPod or Windows Mobile vs. iPhone, here, though, based on a bit of humor. Those are whole threads on their own, and they've been done to death already anyway.
"MS can easily brag about offering two excellent platforms for serious gamers. The notion of the 'tricked out' gaming pc is not germane, either, since many of today's generic pc's (dual-core, mid-range video, few gigs of cheap ram) can do gaming quite well."
And there's the crux.
Hardcore gamers are going to get a tricked out gaming PC anyway, and most likely an Xbox as well. The point, though, is about NON-hardcore gamers: Not the smaller group at the top who demand the best performance, but the much larger group below them who just want to play some games more casually.
Yep, "many of todays generic PCs" can do gaming quite well. At that level, so can consumer Mac hardware.
Then, for a bit more dedicated gaming, that much larger group could get an Xbox.
The point is that availability of the Xbox could be serving to to satisfy more people in that gaming market who just want a little more gaming horsepower. This reduces the desirability of buying a dedicated PC gaming rig down into an even smaller percentage of people at the very top. That gives Microsoft less advantage in its ability to tout Windows on PC hardware as the best choice for gaming.
Again, it's not about "serious gaming." They're not the market that Microsoft needs to worry so much about, so they really don't need to brag so much about "offering two excellent platforms for serious gamers."
It's about the larger market just below the serious gamers who can now see the Xbox as an alternate step up from consumer hardware over getting a slightly higher-end PC for gaming. That gives them more choice in their consumer PC hardware, and they could just as easily get a Mac.
"the overwhelming majority of games on pc's are written for Windows, not OS X."
And again, for that large percentage, casual gamer market those games will run just as well on Mac hardware.
It's less relevant that those games still require Windows, because Apple's hardware now runs everything. The advantage of "choice" is now Apple's: Everything you can do on a Mac, and everything you can do on a PC, all in one box.
"In your world, there would be no need for hardware OEM's other than the select few that exist on Apple platforms."
The point is that with the inside components all being so similar, now, the playing field is much more level.
It's harder to argue that Apple doesn't give the consumer as much choice when the basics have become essentially the same and any consumer machine is just about as capable as any other.
It's not so much about the techies who want to pick and choose all the little details on their machines, it's about the much larger market of people who DON'T want to have to go to all that hassle! For them, when the CPUs are the same, the RAM is the same, the disks are the same, etc. the choices they need to make become simpler. "I can buy this machine that runs only Windows, or I can buy this other machine from Apple that can run both Mac AND Windows. Hmm..."
(No need to bring up the cost argument: Beyond the bargain basement commodity PCs that Apple chooses not to compete in, the prices now come out pretty close for equivalent specs on quality hardware.)
"people putting Windows on their Macs. You really have no stats to back up your claim about who does it and why they do it, so it's just your supposition"
I doubt either us have actual stats here to make our argument, so we can just agree to disagree. You say it would be a good idea for Microsoft to publicize the fact that some people run Windows on their Macs, I say that would be just giving Apple more publicity. Ok.
"Tom Merrit is on record saying he uses Windows on his Mac much more than OS X. Why? He likes the Mac for its fit and finish (no argument from me), but finds Windows to be much more useful to him in his day to day use."
Tom's around here, somewhere. Perhaps he could chime in with his own reasons why he does what he does, rather than having words put in his mouth.
"Apple marketing is slamming Windows at every turn, and for some reason you think it would hurt MS to do the same to them? That, my friend, is interesting logic."
More precisely, I think it would give Apple free publicity to do the things that you describe, which in the end is not a positive result for Microsoft.
We'll just agree to disagree...
by Slikkster - 6/29/08 7:19 AM In reply to: It's all about broader markets by LunaticSX'Nuff said.
Macs are still the best
by kennt111 - 7/15/08 11:40 AM In reply to: Microsoft's biggest blunder: Not fighting back vs. Apple by SlikksterInteresting to note all this talk about Windows users having such a great variety of hardware to choose, but I have looked at it and it looks like 20 Chevettes all in the same colour. Nothing very inspiring at all. Did you notice that Microsoft's main journalist Paul Thurrott has just bought a new MacBook as his main laptop to replace his previous laptop which was .... a MacBook? He uses them mainly to run Vista and this speaks volumes. This guy could have any laptop on the planet and chooses MacBooks to run Windows.
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/06/16/i-bought-a-new-macbook-to-run-windows-why.aspx
We don't need 100 different types of hardware, we just need the best.
Fight back with What
by djcolley - 7/17/08 4:23 PM In reply to: Microsoft's biggest blunder: Not fighting back vs. Apple by SlikksterI've bought WIN 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows XP. I've bought PCs and I've built PCs. I never truly had a good computing experience. Now they have the heavy media sponsored Vista. Do you see a trend here? Look, you smart people can continue to run MS products. I have given up on them.
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