According to some newly released court documents in the "Vista Capable" class-action lawsuit, Microsoft was worried about comparisons between its newest OS and the Mac OS before Vista was even out, and before Apple starting joking about it ("Redmond, start your photocopiers.")
In fact, what really got Redmond going was the WSJ's Walt Mossberg, who told his readers on October 13 2005: "You also won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows. Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and much more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista."
Padmanand Warrier, a developer in the Windows group--and potential future super-soldier by the sound of it--emailed around a link to his colleagues, including to Richard Russell, a Microsoft development manager.
Russell, in turn, responded: "My takeaway from Walt's article is that we have failed to communicate Vista's value."
I'd say that Microsoft has still failed to do that.
[via Slashdot]
Wow. Those are words I never thought I’d write. Even now, I wonder if perhaps I’m in some other bizarro dimension. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, Dell has postponed their plans to launch a digital music player, a project they’d planned to launch before the holiday.
We got wind of the project back in July, which counted among its advisors a certain favorite “analyst” of ours. The product was based on a platform called Zing that Dell had acquired a while back, run by a former Apple exec, Tim Bucher. It would have probably involved a subscription service and also a standard that would let you listen to music from a number of different service—a standard perplexingly not named MP3.
Look, I don’t think Michael Dell has ever quite gotten what they’d need to be doing to compete with Apple. Dell (both the company and its CEO) is about business, not about design, no matter how much they try. Case in point:
But since returning as the Round Rock, Texas, company’s CEO last year, Mr. Dell has emphasized design. In a conference call last fall, he said Dell would increase consumer sales by engendering “product lust.” Dell said it would “focus on ‘killer’ products, next-generation materials,” and a “shorter development cycle” to get products out “40% to 50% faster.”
I think the reason Apple’s designs are so effective is that they don’t attempt to “engender” product lust—they attempt to make something that looks good to them. And I think that’s why Dell will fail if they try to be Apple—the same way Apple would fail if they tried to be Microsoft.
Microsoft and Apple have traded shots at each other in advertisements over the past few months (well, on Apple’s part, technically past few years), but here’s a new tactic. According to reports, the big MS is now putting recording booths outside Apple Stores, asking PC users to make video commentaries about why they’re a PC.
Perhaps it’s just coincidence: the only one I’ve seen notice of so far is the installation pictured, which is outside the Bullring store in Birmingham, England. Such videos will likely end up in Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” commercials, the latest round of which features user-submitted videos.
So, does this mean war? Well, Microsoft likes to say that it’s inclusive. Heck, the FAQ on its “I’m a PC” campaign website says that you can feel free to jump in even if you own a Mac:
I have a Mac, can I participate?
Of course you can. A Mac can be a PC too, most notably when it runs Windows Vista.
Awwww, you’re just one big Microsoftie, aren’t you?
Another year, another general manager for Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit. Last year, the MacBU replaced outgoing GM and lackluster keynote presenter Roz Ho with former AOL Wireless general manager Craig Eisler. But the revolving door continues to, er, revolve, and Eisler has moved on to greener pastures at MS’s Entertainment & Devices division…which, strangely enough, is where Ho ended up too. In other news: cattle mutilations are up.
Eisler’s replacement is Eric Wilfrid, a 14 year Microsoft vet who’s been with the MacBU since its humble beginnings back in 1997. Previously, Wilfrid was a Product Unit Manager overseeing MacBU engineers; he started at Microsoft working on PowerPoint in ‘94 and, after joining MacBU, worked on seven releases of Office for Mac, as well as MSN and Virtual PC. Certainly seems tough to doubt his street cred.
That seems like it might be an improvement. Eisler seemed pleasant enough, but even at his appointment we weren’t sure why he ended up there, given that his prior experience had been working at AOL and on DirectX. Given that Wilfrid’s been at MacBU since the beginning, that would seem to bode well for his experience and knowledge. We’re looking forward to it.
Microsoft employees are well known for their calm and rational expression of thoug—DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS.
Ahem.
Well, as charming as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been over the years, he’s not the only guy at the company, right? There are bound to be some that have some nice things to say about Apple. And what better place than this week’s Professional Developers Conference, where MS rolled out Windows 7. Here’s Rick Rashid, head of Microsoft Research:
“If you use a Macintosh or an iPhone, which honestly I would not recommend, you would be using code that I wrote more than 25 years ago…” […] “It just shows you things really do survive and get used in interesting ways.” [emphasis added]
Zing.
Well, I guess we can’t hold too much against Rashid for expressing his opinion; I mean, he works for Microsoft, so it’s not like he’s going to come out and recommend a Mac any more than Steve Jobs is going to walk out and pimp the latest Dell.
Rashid’s reference is to the Mach microkernel that lies at the heart of OS X, which he worked on at CMU while he was a professor there. I can’t tell if he’s dissing Mach, or OS X, or what, but doesn’t it say something positive about Mach that it’s still being used a quarter of a century later? Like maybe it’s time-tested?
Then again, when you keep fundamentally changing your OS every couple years, maybe time-tested isn’t a concept you’re familiar with.
Just because Psystar and Apple recently decided to enter into arbitration instead of going to court doesn't mean that Psystar isn't going to try to sell as many machines as possible before the final decision comes down, no siree bob.
In fact, today, Psystar decided to one-up Apple, not only releasing a new model of clone, but one that comes with a built-in, patented Blu-Ray bag of hurt plus Nvidia's new 9800GT graphics card--beating Apple to the punch, at least for now.
I'm guessing that this will give Messrs. Cooperman and Yorio lots to arbitrate.
Oh my god, the horror. Just in time for Halloween, a slasher rampage has hit the virtual corridors of retail giant Wal-Mart, as they’ve cut prices on MP3 downloads. The company recently backpedaled on their decision to turn off their DRM server, which would have rendered useless music bought by many of their customers in the past.
Of course, Wal-Mart’s been trying to get into the MP3 game for a while now, without much traction. I’d guess that has to do with the fact that Wal-Mart’s clout is mainly focused around their brick-and-mortar stores, while the music download market is associated more with companies that are identified with technology or the Internet, like Apple and Amazon. I mean, when you think Wal-Mart, does that conjure images of music downloads or low low prices on cleaning detergent?
Regardless, Wal-Mart’s out to shake up that image by lowering prices on their MP3 offerings. Now you can pick from a catalog of over 3 million DRM-free tracks from the major labels starting at 74 cents per track. Plus, if you actually buy a physical CD in their store beginning in mid-November, you’ll get a free MP3 download (not sure if that’s of the album you buy or just a random track/album?).
And in case you remember our experiences with the chain’s dearly departed video download store, you’ll be glad to know that the MP3 store is not only compatible with both Mac and Windows, but it even works with other browsers like Firefox and Safari. So, does that sweeten the deal for you, readers? What with the recent proliferation in DRM-free music stores, I’m in the market for a good search engine that’ll scan them all and tell me the best deal.
Much as I hate stealing Derik’s thunder and lightning (very, very frightening), it’s a distinct pleasure to bring you the news that Netflix subscribers can, at long last, finally stream movies and TV shows from the company’s website to their Macs, with the help of Microsoft’s Silverlight.
Well, sort of. The company put out a press release this morning, saying that they’d begun rolling out their “second-generation” media player. Those of you still in a PowerPC way will be left out in the cold, as only Intel Macs are supported by the Silverlight-based player. And the software is being rolled out gradually to Netflix subscribers—it’s not showing up for me yet—though Netflix plans to have it available to all its customers by the end of the year.
And so the battle for dominance in the digital video market wears on, with no clear victor in sight. Netflix has already convinced millions of people to pay a monthly subscription for all their video-watching needs; seems but a short leap from getting those movies via snail mail to watching them on your computer. Later this month, Xbox 360 users will be able to start streaming Netflix movies directly to their TV. If Netflix can bridge the computer-to-TV gap for the rest of its subscribers, it’ll be a force to reckon with.
