05.28.10
Posted in Home at 9:11 am by JohnB
It seems that Apple are catching up to Microsoft in terms of being the worlds most valuable technology company. The reasons are manifold but I think that there are a couple of key areas which have been critical.
Apple do niche and consumer devices very, very well. the ‘i’ series have become the ubiquitous brand – you don’t buy an mp3 player, you buy an iPod, even if it’s actually not an Apple device. They all work together well and have a certain appeal.
It’s certainly been said that “Apple fans will simply buy everything Apple” and although this is somewhat of a slur, the facts are that an appreciation of quality will promote further adoption. The point here is that the very fact such a slur exists shows that something has promoted a loyalty in the brand.
If we move away from the consumer space and into Enterprise then the story obviously changes. Microsoft are king here and for many of the same reasons. Microsoft’s business systems and applications work well together and there’s not really a significant alternative to the Office suite of servers and applications which it comes to interoperability. Apple have a presence in the Enterprise but it’s very small and provides an interesting challenge to IT/IS teams in terms of support, management and integration.
So why does the Cupertino firm seem to be vying for the top spot? I see it as a combination of things, there’s been a growth in the use of Mac machines across the board, for education, in-home and in the enterprise. Adoption has been through the “It just works” experience and the availability of effective applications to provide the services these groups want. The second element is Microsoft’s effort to move into the consumer devices space.
Media players (they do so much more than MP3 now) belong to Apple. The Zune, although a nice device in itself, simply hasn’t had enough of a differential to be a decision point for most folks. If anything they’ve been the protest vote of those who, for their own reason, simply don’t like Apple. Windows Mobile was a great idea let down in execution by Microsoft’s historical position as as software vendor, “We build the OS, you use it in your devices”, this caused performance issues, inconsistencies in functionality and a general frustration with the devices. Oh, for sure they hooked up to the Enterprise environment well for Exchange support, but with the licensing of Active-sync out to the other Phone OS vendors, even that has become diluted. The new portable OS – Metro – is very slick, very pretty and certainly provides a different experience to anything else on the market, and it’s use as the base for Windows Phone 7 makes perfect sense or at least it would if it existed in a vacuum. The problem is that the model for WP7 is so radically different than that for the older Mobile OS and that change is actually going to be a barrier to adoption rather than encourage it.
“The third screen”, as Steve Ballmer coined the mobile device space, is certainly important as more and more services become remote and the delivery mechanism becomes more portable. Phones are no longer phone, they’re terminal devices but does this mean that Microsoft has to compete there? I would say not, they don’t. Microsoft needs to do what it does best and that’s to make solid reliable Enterprise systems and solutions which can be accessed by devices in such a way that promotes their adoption rather than inhibits.
Already I can here the shouts… “They already do that!!”. Yes they do, and that’s where they are successful. The news that the Exchange 2010 web application will now provide the will user experience on Firefox, Safari and Chrome as well as IE shows that some thought is now going into the process. Organisations are more likely to adopt a central system if it’s able to be accessed from anything, than if there are limits on the client side.
Consumer cool is great for press releases and “Oooo – Ahhhh” product launches, but Enterprise efficiency is where Microsoft made it’s big bucks and that’s where it’s strengths now remain. The current leadership is one of corporate stewardship, the previous was one of technical innovation. The products should reflect that position and in some areas do – but that’s the problem, it’s only in some areas. Microsoft’s internal structure sometimes provides some real differentiation in their products – look at the success of the XBox – but sometimes it shows a real disconnect in strategies. The business units have to do their job and that job is to make their products sell as well as possible, you can’t fault them for that. Bu sometimes they seem to be acting at odds with other business units and it’s this disconnect which confuses people.
Apple have a singular vision with which EVERY product aligns but this can lead to accusations of ‘closed systems’ and the associated negative aspects.
Which is right, which is wrong?
It would be great to have Microsoft delivering systems – either in-house or on-line – which could be accessed by the BEST remote / mobile devices available. That’s what will happen eventually, but Microsoft need to stop tying to be cool and remember what they do best and that’s Enterprise Efficiency
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04.23.10
Posted in Home at 10:16 am by JohnB
Lets get one thing VERY VERY clear. I am NOT a basher of all things Microsoft. I hope that over the months and years my stance on ‘the right tools for the job’ has become well enough established that I can avoid the religious rants that other lapse into.
There are some great if not exceptional tools and systems available from the Redmond giant and I’m more than happy to use, endorse and promote them in the right space, but the presentation on Window Phone 7 I attended the other day left me wondering what they must have been thinking!
The pitch and positioning of WP7 was interesting in a number of different ways:
- The “Chassis” approach Microsoft is taking to the release plan shows that WP7 is not being positioned just as a Phone OS for vendors to buy and load onto their devices. It’s going to be released to support very specific chassis – i.e. hardware – specifications only.
- The OS build is “ground up”, so this isn’t a further tweaking or set of modifications and enhancements to the old CE/Mobile base. It’s brand new. This however means that it’s lacking a little functionality in some areas – there’s no Cut-Paste for example, neither does it support multi-tasking. I seem to remember a certain other device being lambasted for such shortcomings byt Windows Mobile users… times they do change!
- Application development and management. Int he old days, anyone could pick up a copy of the Windows Mobile SDK and write themselves a little application – and lots did, there are quite a few, very specific, applications out there running to provide monitoring updates and information feeds written by and for technical teams (I’m sure there are many others too). Now though, all applications will have to be put through a formal approval process before – wait for it – being made available to install through a Microsoft owned and controlled portal! I’m having weird flashes at this point and the rest of the room are chuckling and exchanging glances too!
- Windows Mobile Phone v6.5 will remain supported an available “For the forseeable future” to allow for applications to be ported over and to cover the lower end of the market, the sub £200 devices.
- WP7 outfitted devices will, at launch, be pitched as “Premium”, this in price terms is £250 plus.
Well, well, well there is much hay to be made here isn’t there?! The comparisons are obvious and not a little invidious too and I for one can’t see why I’d buy something which looks and works like and iPhone but has – at launch – far inferior functionality. And it’s not just the iPhone either, Googles Android on top of HTC’s hardware is looking more and more like a platform people can relate too and ‘own’.
I left Windows Mobile 6.1 behind because, frankly, it simply failed to work properly. My TyTn II wouldn’t obey the backlight settings and I had to repeatedly switch the thing on if I needed the keypad during a call, even to hang up at the end! I eventually resented even having to pick the thing up and use it. Am I therefore likely to return to something unproven, with less functionality? Well of course not. I got an iPhone last month – my first one – and to over-use an over-used phrase, it just works.
Reasons to change to WP7 demonstrated so far = 0.
It used to be said that Apple created and maintained a niche market of brand-fans and I’m sure this, in some respects, was true but it was interesting to note a couple of things from the day. On my train to London, 3 out of 4 of us at the table were using iPhones, the 4th had a BlackBerry. At the event itself I’d estimate that a good 50% plus were touting Apples device too, if you factor in the BlackBerry horde and a good sprinkling of Nokia’s the Windows Mobile presence could not have been high. Are Microsoft then pitching a device at a hard-core fan base? Are we looking at MS-geeks replacing Apple-geeks? Perhaps…
My feeling is that Microsoft got stung, very badly too, by the iPhone and by Android. The very fact the WP7 is a brand new OS shows an acknowledgment that the old OS along with Microsoft “We do software” position simply wasn’t right. The death of the Windows phone has been predicted, it may happen, but it’s going to have a struggle to take ground back from the empires of Apple and Google.
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01.29.10
Posted in Home at 12:18 pm by JohnB
I was hooked. All day Wednesday I was looking forward to Steve Jobs speech and the announcement of the Apple Tablet device – that which we now know as the iPad.
The secret was poorly kept, key figures had dropped hints and clangers and at least one NDA seemed to have expired 12 hours too soon, but nonetheless the anticipation for the formal unveiling was significant. I’m a reader, I like to read and my library will testify to this. Not only do I consume new books at a significant rate, I’m also happy to re-read books often a number of times. I’ve also out in quite a few air and hotel hours over the years and I do enjoy killing time with a good book. For this reason I’ve been hanging my nose over e-Book readers for the last few months looking for ‘the one’ which would satisfy my need for ease of use, portability, battery life and library access. The number of books being ‘e’-d is on a significant upward curve and this was pushing me more and more towards an electronic rather than paper buying habit – much the same way that I now purchase pretty much all of my music on-line (good by DRM and good riddance!).
The problem I had was that all of the e-readers I picked up and tried left me feeling decidedly bleh. They were, it felt, a bit… backward, a bit simple and just a bit one-dimensional. Certainly not something I could justify £200 and upwards upon.
I love my Macbook. It’s just a simple Black one, nothing ‘Pro’ here, but it’s in almost constant use, even at home where I’ve got the big machines, and I have used it to read stuff on too, but the problem is that it’s the wrong shape. Wide-screen is great for movies and I love having desktop acreage to spread out upon but it’s 90 degrees out from what I want when I’m reading – web-sites are bad enough but at least these are, mostly, formatted for the standard screen. And then there’s that big bit sticking out the front… the keyboard. Great when I’m typing (some would say essential) but decidedly in-the-way when all I want to do is read. Plus I need to put in on something, it’s not a hold-in-your-hand device. The MacBook is not an e-book reader.
The iPad though, certainly looks like it could be. iBookstore fills me with a warmth of anticipation which (I know inside) is going to be tempered, at least initially, because my favourite SciFi authors won’t be available. The reader application looks like it’s going to deliver the ease of access and flexibility that I’ve been looking for too. So far – tick!
Now then, let’s look further ahead. The Times application they showed was lovely. Seriously, newspapers online should be multi-dimensional and this one is a massive step in that direction. I don’t read a daily paper in print, but I consume a huge amount of information from “Teh Internetz” – SIDEWAYS STEP! do you remember Ananova? This little darling was touted as the rebirth of news consumption, aggregation of the stories YOU wanted and delivery to you personally. It fell far short of this, but I’d probably put a few pennies a day into a service which delivered this to me in a digestible and multi-dimensional format ir not just text.
Anyway, the morning news is something which people ‘do’. My partner Sarah drags over the MacBook in the morning and scans three or four websites every day. Scrolling up and down, up and down because the laptop is the wrong shape for this kind of information. The iPad would certainly make this exercise easier. Once again, for making life easier – Tick!
But here’s where I start drifting off. Remember the iPhone initial release? Remember the depression that set in after the hype blew over? Remember how everyone said it was a mistake for Apple to get into a market which Nokia, RIM and Microsoft were tearing up? Remember how utterly, utterly wrong everyone was!
My problem is that I can only ‘feel’ the use I’d get out of the iPad, I can’t describe it in any way which would justify the £4-500 it’ll cost me.
My email I can happily do on the lapdog, as can my notes, scribbles and musings which get turned into various documents and psts along the way. My music lives on my iPod and will continue to do so. Movies are a significant variable, I still love DVDs and will more that likely switch, formally, over to BluRay in the near future. Or will I? Am I destined to ‘go digital’ in this area too? Anyway, the point is that this is not currently a consideration for me.
I want an iPad, believe me! I want the beautiful technology, the ergonomic lines and the overall sleekness and beauty of the idea. I’m a geek and happy to be one (although in more formal circles I use the term Technologist!). And PLEASE, this is not a “Well PC tablets have been around for ages – the new <ASUS, HP, Acer, blah> one will do all of that too” argument. Yes they may, I’m sure.
This is about my gut feeling, and that says “you’d like using this”. I’m having trouble finding a reason to disagree.
It does look good though...
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