Results tagged “microsoft”

I love headlines like these.

Makes me laugh.

NYTimes: On Release Date, Crucial Nokia Phone Is Hard to Buy in New York

AT&T said last month that when Nokia's new Lumia 900 phone went on sale April 8, it would benefit from the company's biggest product introduction ever, exceeding even the iPhone's.

The big day is here. But nearly all 39 AT&T stores within proximity of Times Square in Manhattan were either closed for Easter Sunday or did not answer phone calls. The few that were open did not have the handset in stock.

This is probably the last chance Microsoft has to prove itself relevant in mobile space as the traditional desktop PC is pulled from it's position as the computer for everyday use.

So what do they do? (I say *they* because former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop is running Nokia and made the decision to move all their smartphones to Windows Phone)

They launch their flagship phone on Easter Sunday. When everything is closed.

So smart.

When I see Microsoft/Nokia continue to make fumbles like this I wonder if it's something deeper than the fact Microsoft was run by an engineer who doesn't understand user experience and design until it was run by a man who knows neither engineers and developers nor design and user experience.

People half-jokingly have said Bill Gates has Asperger's Syndrome due to his social deficiencies. He understands how computers and software work inside and out, but it's the people who use his software he never seems to have a clue about.

So my theory is when Bill Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000 he transferred his inabilities to communicate with and make software for humans to the rest of the company --via some hybrid human/computer virus -- and subsequently, Stephen Elop and Nokia.

What else could explain such a fucked up product launch?

Actually, it could also be the people at Microsoft and Nokia aren't humans at all. Remember how the alien at the beginning of Men In Black wore the skin of that farmer to disguise himself?

Yeah, something like that could be happening too.

How bout this.

At a recent demo of Windows 8, Microsoft's tablet froze.

Ah, Microsoft. You never let me down. I can always count on you to let me down.

Now if you recall, Microsoft did not create a separate mobile OS like Apple did with iOS. Windows 8 was made for both desktops and tablets, so it's only fitting they share all the bugs of the desktop world with their new tablets.

It's only fair.

After watching this video on Gizmodo, that was my reaction - Windows 8 actually looks fun to use.

Now I have no idea how many holes are in Microsoft's new OS and I hate that it goes back into classic, 'non-Metro' mode, but how awesome would it be if Microsoft wupped Google's ass in the tablet market? You know, created an operating system people wanted to use?

Because based on my first impressions of Windows 8, I'd pick it over an Android tablet without thinking twice.

So Microsoft now thinks the Web is better without plug-ins (via CNet):

"Metro-style IE runs plug-in free to improve battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers," said John Hrvatin, Internet Explorer program manager lead, in a blog post. "A plug-in free Web benefits consumers and developers and we all take part in the transition."

How convenient. I guess that whole push with Silverlight to de-throne Flash is over, eh?

For the record, I was wondering Silverlight's relevance way back in 2007.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Madison teachers will soon be handing out Apples to students.

The School District for the first time plans to buy more than 600 iPads for use in the majority of schools this spring. Another 800 iPads are expected to be in classrooms by next fall, all paid for with money from a state settlement with Microsoft.

Microsoft better get over those Windows 8 tablet hurdles.

Via The Loop

Despite the thoughtful and elegant design of the new Windows Phone OS, it seems Microsoft is having trouble getting developers to design and build quality applications.

In response to this, Microsoft Canada has launched the Developer Movement, which gives away prizes for each quality application a developer makes.

I don't think Apple ever had to pay developers to ensure their applications were well-designed.

Where's that Ballmer chant when you need it?

WSJ: Microsoft, Nokia Flirted With RIM:

Microsoft Corp. and Nokia Corp. in recent months flirted with the idea of making a joint bid for Research In Motion Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter.

Really? Microsoft and Nokia flirted with RIM? This RIM?

Like the way Vinny, Pauly and the Situation flirt with grenades to bring home at the end of the night?

I think we need a grenade whistle any time a company gets close to RIM.

Do Microsoft and Nokia have technology beer goggles on that make RIM appear like a valuable acquisition?

Microsoft has built a Windows Phone 7 simulator in HTML5. It lets you get a feel for it on iPhones and Android phones.

I tried it out, and yes, it would be better if the iOS chrome went away to give you the full experience, but it's still pretty cool.

I don't find myself saying this often, but Microsoft did a nice job with WP7.

Last month Microsoft treated us another one of their future-vision videos they love to do, since solving mobile and tablet computing in the present is so damn hard.

Not to be out-done, Nokia has released their own future-vision short.

I'd love to hear what Bret Victor thinks about this one.

via PSFK

From Electronista:

The iPhone 4S sold out in Hong Kong even faster than previously thought, a memo from Ticonderoga Securities' Brian White indicates. The analyst claims that both the city's Apple Store and all authorized resellers sold out within a space of three hours; Apple's local online store states that there is "no supply" of the phone left. Earlier accounts had just the Apple Store selling out by lunchtime.

China isn't just going to be a huge market for Apple, but for every big company.

People who have been saying the mobile battle between Android and iOS is going to be like desktop battle between the Mac and Windows — and that Apple is going to lose again — have it all wrong.

So many variables have changed since then, it's a completely different game.

Bret Victor, former human-interface inventor at Apple, intelligently rants about the future of interaction design. Inspired, in part, by Microsoft's wonderfully banal concept video that's been making the the rounds on the web this past few months:

As it happens, designing Future Interfaces For The Future used to be my line of work. I had the opportunity to design with real working prototypes, not green screens and After Effects, so there certainly are some interactions in the video which I'm a little skeptical of, given that I've actually tried them and the animators presumably haven't. But that's not my problem with the video.

My problem is the opposite, really -- this vision, from an interaction perspective, is not visionary. It's a timid increment from the status quo, and the status quo, from an interaction perspective, is actually rather terrible.

via @stevenbjohnson

Dan Frommer asks the key 'why' questions about Windows Mobile phones from Nokia:

• Why should any person buy this instead of an iPhone or the preferred Android phone du jour?
• Why should carriers favor Windows phones over Android or Apple phones, in either their in-store sales techniques and marketing?
• Why should carriers or consumers favor Nokia Windows phones over similar Windows phones from Samsung, HTC, etc.?
• Why should developers make apps for Windows or Nokia phones?

Windows Mobile phones are swimming a red ocean.

So what is a 'red ocean' you ask?

From Wikipedia:

Red Oceans are all the industries in existence today--the known market space. In the red oceans, industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. Here companies try to outperform their rivals to grab a greater share of product or service demand. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Products become commodities or niche, and cutthroat competition turns the ocean bloody. Hence, the term red oceans.

Red oceans are the opposite of blue oceans:

Blue oceans, in contrast, denote all the industries not in existence today--the unknown market space, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid. In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set. Blue ocean is an analogy to describe the wider, deeper potential of market space that is not yet explored.

Apple established the *new* smartphone paradigm (full touchscreen, no keyboard, multitouch UI) with the launch of the iPhone in 2007 that Google subsequently copied with Android. Apple's modus operandi since Jobs returned has been about focusing on blue oceans. Untapped markets.

Now Microsoft and Nokia are entering the market with the Windows Phone 7 platform, a platform that introduces a unique approach to the user interface.

Despite their fresh approach, they're still in a red ocean. Boundaries and known and rules are understood and as Frommer notes, they're going to continue to have a hard time distinguishing themselves in this already crowded market.

Microsoft is a company run by engineers. Engineers love science fiction, right? (ok, I do too)

So instead of focusing on the technology issues of today they make movies about possible tomorrows.

It's fun, but it doesn't pay the bills.

No, that ugly, bloated non-future-y Office and Windows pay the bills.

* see also Daring Fireball, here, here and here.

So Microsoft has decided to thrill us with another future vision video. They want to show us what the future is like.

Again.

I wrote about this in 2009 when they released their future vision piece for 2019. Everything I said then applies now.

This is why it's taken so long to get their new mobile phones and tablets to the masses - they're too busy planning our future! Cut 'em some slack!

It's be a year since you launched Windows Phone. Where we at, Microsoft?

Horace Dediu tells us:

Windows Phone is in limbo. The company acknowledged that it has performed below expectations. During the last quarter for which we have data (ending June) I have an estimate that Windows Phone sold only 1.4 million units (Gartner's sell-through analysis suggests 1.7 million). That gives Microsoft a 1.3% share of units sold (Gartner 1.6%), a new low.

John Gruber gives us a nice translation of these numbers:

In other words, for that entire quarter, they sold about as many total Windows Phones in that quarter as Apple sold iPhone 4S preorders last weekend.

My first thought when reading this was how Microsoft has never been in this position before. They've never had to fight for the title of "Most Popular Operating System". This is a company still making most it's profits from Windows and their Office suite of applications. This is software they created decades ago and they've managed to ride the wave into the 21st century.

Back in the 80's and 90's it didn't matter if their software was shitty or great, they had a monopoly on it and because of this, had the muscle to squeeze out any scrappy, innovative underdogs.

Now Microsoft has to prove it's worth. Apple's iOS and Google's Android continue to gain momentum in the marketplace. People are voting with their wallets and so far, not many are voting for Windows Phone. On the other side of the OS, developers aren't voting for it either, unless of course Microsoft offers to pay them to develop.

Microsoft has never had to sell their products to people.

Remember, Windows was designed for businesses, not people.

For the first time in their history, they have to step into the ring and fight.

As I've been listening to people from Microsoft in the news over the last couple months I've noticed a recurring theme - they like playing games with semantics. Sometimes I think they get cutesy but sometimes I think what they say aligns with their business philosophy.

The first time I noticed this was when Steve Jobs described us as being in the 'post-PC era' at the D8 Conference in 2010:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that's what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn't care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars.

PCs are going to be like trucks. They're still going to be around, they're still going to have a lot of value, but they're going to be used by one out of X people.

I think that we're embarked on that. Is [the next step] the iPad? Who knows? Will it happen next year or five years from now or seven years from now? Who knows? But I think we're headed in that direction.

The next day at the conference, Ballmer responded:

I think people are going to be using PCs in a greater and greater numbers for many years to come. I think PCs are going to continue to shift in form factor. PCs will look different next year, the year after, the year after that... I think the PC as we know it will continue to morph form factor... Windows machines are not going to be 'trucks.' They will continue to be the mass popularizer of a variety of things that people want to do with information... I think there's a fundamental difference between small-enough-to-be-in-your-pocket and not-small-enough-to-be-in-your-pocket. There will be some distinct differences in usage patterns between those two devices.

So here we have Ballmer getting all philosophical. What is a PC? What is PC-ness? If we were to remap Jobs' truck analogy for Ballmer, Ballmer would have probably said everything is a truck. Scooters? They're just trucks without the flatbed and only 2 tires. Sedans? Sedans are trucks that are lower to the ground and have a trunk instead of a flatbed.

Fast-forward to Microsoft's BUILD Conference that happened last week and we can see that Microsoft's leadership is truly aiming for a PC experience everywhere with Windows 8. If you want to work within the Metro UI, go for it, but if you need that nasty, overly-complicated experience of the 'traditional' Windows, you can always jump back to it.

According to Steven Sinofsky, you never have to compromise:

Why not just start over from scratch? Why not just remove all of the desktop features and only ship the Metro experience? Why not "convert" everything to Metro? The arguments for a "clean slate" are well known, both for and against. We chose to take the approach of building a design without compromise. A design that truly affords you the best of the two worlds we see today. Our perspective rests on the foundation of the open PC architecture that has proven flexible and adaptable over many significant changes in hardware capabilities and software paradigms. This is the flexibility that has served as a cornerstone through transitions in user interface, connectivity, programming models, and hardware capabilities (to name a few).

And this leads me to the other big area I see Microsoft getting creative with semantics - their use of the word compromise.

A compromise is something created to appease people with opposing views on a topic. Each side has given up certain demands in order to come to an agreement. In my mind, when you compromise each side usually end up with something less than ideal.

John Gruber wrote a great post in response to this 'compromise' a few weeks ago:

Like I wrote yesterday, Microsoft and Apple are going in two very different directions, especially when you compare iOS to Windows 8. Apple has embraced compromise. The compromises in iOS are, for many people in many contexts, what makes the iPad better than a Mac. The compromises enforce simplicity and obviousness in design, and at a technical level they lead to iOS's excellent battery life.

Now I don't disagree with Gruber's core argument, again I disagree on the use of 'compromise'. If Apple's goal is to create the best tablet experience in the world, compromises can't be made, because compromising implies negotiating down from some ideal vision. If desktop-level applications aren't needed or appropriate for a tablet, then not supporting them is not compromising.

Giving a motorcycle two wheels instead of four doesn't mean you're compromising. What you're doing is giving a motorcycle the thing that makes it great.

Microsoft wants to have it's cake and eat it too by creating the Metro UI while holding on to the Windows (desktop) legacy UI. It's appeasing both sides of Windows. It's like driving a truck around with with a scooter attached to the side like an escape pod. Microsoft is compromising.

I think the big reason for this all-in-one approach to Windows 8 lies both in Microsoft's dependance on the Windows/Office franchise for the bulk of their revenue as well as their late entrance into the tablet race. It's too late to capitalize on the newness of the tablet market (they're 2 years late already) and they're afraid to put all their chips in on a Metro-only mobile UI. What they do have is the largest install base for PCs so they're backpedaling into the tablet market by way of the desktop PC.

Notice during the demos at the BUILD conference, how it's been a macro focus at the Metro UI on all devices, rather than a micro focus at just one form factor, the tablet. I think Microsoft feels that a Windows tablet can't stand strong on it's own, because, by extension, Windows Phone has not been able to stand strong on it's own.

Apple can do the iPad without their desktop business because it has an ecosystem grown from the iPhone. Conversely, as Windows Phone hasn't really taken off, their biggest ecosystem is on the desktop. So we end up in fun game of semantics where "everything is PC" and you can have "Windows everywhere" and compromising on your operating system becomes not compomising.

But let's be clear - not everything is PC, just as not every motorcycle is an automobile.

And when you're making concessions on the mobile side and desktop side when developing your next operating system, you're comprimising. You're not not compromising.

So Ben Brooks imagines an alternate universe for Microsoft:

What if Microsoft bought HP's PC division to start producing their own hardware: the higher quality PC?

So you're imaging Microsoft turning into Apple.

Microsoft has begun building Microsoft stores, they would have a nice, existing, retail presence. They have deals with all major retailers. They likely have more brand trust than any current PC maker.

Ok, sure. I agree these retail stores could come in handy if they ever figured out how to make money from them.

In this scenario Microsoft wouldn't become another me-too PC maker -- they would be setting the standard. The standard for: price, quality, design, and speed.

Quality, design, speed. Microsoft. Right.

This is not out of the realm of possibility -- though it would be a risky move.

That's exactly what this scenario is - out of the realm of possibility. What Mister Brooks is proposing implies a complete change in business strategy for Microsoft. Microsoft started with the mission statement: "a computer on every desk and in every home". From day one they've always been about quantity over quality.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven so. Windows Phone was so refreshing when it came out and I was genuinely excited to see another strong contender enter the mobile OS arena, but then they started showing their plans for Windows 8, where some aspects would be in a traditional-Windows UI and other aspects would be in their new Metro UI. Nope. Still the same old Microsoft. Trying to be everything to everyone. Decent at some things, great at nothing.

This is also the company who recently got all excited about their revamped Windows Explorer.

I've been following MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson on Google Plus (yeah, it's the Tom who used to show up as your first friend on MySpace) and he's been on a roll lately with some insightful and witty posts.

This one was particularly interesting. It's a slide presentation by Vincent Wong on what Google Plus is really about:

So everyone has a big hard-on for Nokia's new N9 and they're even flaunting it on their site.

One of the videos is the SVP of Design talking, and the other video features a well-produced, simulated N9 interface.

Are they planning on showing the real thing?

And what about that broad, strategic partnership with those guys in Redmond? The N9 doesn't look to be running Windows Phone 7 based on that introduction video.

Update: Engadget has a few hands-on videos of the N9 and the interface looks pretty polished.