Studying the competitors…via my son
Ted Wallingford writes: "If I were Steve [Ballmer], I would allow my kids to use Google and the iPod, observe their activities, and find out just what the heck Google and Apple are doing right! Will the Microsoft ever learn? Come on, little Microsoft!! I'm pulling for you… I really am!"
I agree. Heck, just hang out with my son for a few hours. He loves his Apple stuff, including his iPod (Dave Winer got him an iBook for his birthday back in January).
My brother-in-law, who works for Apple on the Mac team, loves egging him on too. Bought him some Apple shirts, one of which you can see him wearing at brunch on Sunday on Tara's blog.
I tell Patrick he better do his homework before buying anything, whether it's from our side of the fence or somewhere else. I want him to explain to me why it's better and what he didn't like about the competition and he better have a better answer than "it's cooler." Although that pretty much was his answer for why he bought an iPod. Turns out peer pressure on the playground is driving a lot of technology choices. Teachers tell me that's how MySpace ripped through their schools too. Patrick told me "my school is an iPod school."
He broke his iPod, by the way (dropped it and broke the screen) so he's saving up for another device that plays media. Will it be an iPod or will there be something else to catch his fancy? Right now he thinks he's gonna buy another iPod.
I'm a bad parent and a bad evangelist, what can I say? But on the other hand, if he ever switches away from an iPod, you'll be likely to listen to him. I'd love to send him to SteveB's house and see if Steve can convince him to switch.
Personal note to Patrick: finish your homework, update your blog (it's been a while), and don't play Second Life too much.
Oh, and Steve Ballmer: you'll be happy to hear that he's bugging me to buy an Xbox 360 — I haven't yet cause I've been home something like a handful of weekends since the launch, but that should change soon (he holds an Xbox camp for all the kids in the neighborhood during the summer) and he wants me to get him a SmartPhone.
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March 30th, 2006 at 2:22 am
Thanks for reaffirming that you have a healthy dose of good technology sense at your house, Robert. Send your son over to Ballmer’s house to talk about the new music player decision. I want to see your post after he gets back!
I got caught up in this “Ballmer’s Kids and the iPod” thing yesterday against my better judgement. I don’t like to regurgitate what obviously would be a done-to-death subject as Ballmer’s quote.
But, geesh, it just seemed so completely and utterly weird to me to have somebody who is supposed to be well-schooled in press relations say something so…. err…. poorly thought out. Seems like top MS management needs to be saying smarter things to the press than that!
Hopefully everybody at MS who DOES get it will just let stuff like that slide off their backs and into the trash bin and get on with doing good stuff.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:23 am
Sorry, but you’ll probably never have success trying to turn someone away from the iPod. I’m 14 years old and a freshman in high school — and virtually everyone in my class who owns an MP3 player owns an iPod (often the latest generation). Why iPod and not anything else? No one knows exactly. But the iPod gets rave reviews from pretty much every source, is easy to use, and so many people have it. I haven’t met a single person who says that the video iPod sucks.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:26 am
On the Ipod front, once you have your music in AAC format (the general public is not using mp3) you will need a really have a good reason to switch, I don’t think currently MS has a device that would provide ROI for switching formats. Maybe the French goverment (who would have ever thought) will help with their pending legislation to open up iTunes’ proctected AAC format.
I agree watching kids use competing technology can provide a view how to improve MS technology, it makes sense.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:33 am
“If I were Steve [Ballmer], I would allow my kids to use Google and the iPod, observe their activities, and find out just what the heck Google and Apple are doing right! Will the Microsoft ever learn? Come on, little Microsoft!! I’m pulling for you… I really am!”
If I were Steve Ballmer, I’d focus my efforts on making Windows and Office work and shipping these products instead of focusing on hurting companies that do things better in other areas.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Jason: they once said that about the Sony Walkman.
Yeah, I agree, competing directly with the iPod is pretty tough, but I remember 1989. Back then I thought that Apple’s Macintosh was so far superior to what was coming out of the Microsoft camp that it wasn’t funny. I thought Apple was going to be unassailable. I thought that Apple would end up taking over the world. Really, I did. I even was quoted in MacWorld magazine back then.
But the world didn’t evolve that way, did it?
March 30th, 2006 at 2:36 am
The only protected AAC tunes on an iPod are from the iTunes store.
And the numbers say that the total amount of songs bought from iTunes store per iPod is pretty low- 1 billion songs sold on 42 million iPods- around 24 per pod.
I think the general public is still using mp3’s very much, all my friends have all their mp3’s from the last 10 years playing fine on their ‘pods.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:39 am
oops, that last was for Steve’s comment.
“On the Ipod front, once you have your music in AAC format (the general public is not using mp3) …”
March 30th, 2006 at 2:43 am
I agree with anon (comment #4).
Just like there will never be a true iPod killer, Mac OS is never going to take over Windows, no matter how many seemingly clever features they add that Windows doesn’t have. Not only is the Windows operating system itself better than Mac, for the $2000 or so it takes to get a decent MacBook Pro, I could get an extremely good Windows laptop.
All in all, I’m no expert, but I do agree that Microsoft should continue to improve its Windows and Office product lines. Forget about search; if it ever comes close to Google-quality, Google will undoubtedly find a way to make theirs beter.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:55 am
I don’t own an iPod because they’re too expensive.
Only problem is, the actual competitors to iPods are of low quality and are not too stylish.
The Nano was brilliant…there has to be a cheaper competition to the Nano, and then things will get interesting.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:02 am
No, I don’t think so. It’s gotta be something else–the “cool” factor of the iPod that others can’t duplicate.
I remember seeing a commercial for some Wendy’s burger during the TV timeout of the NCAA tournament games: “Some things you just can’t copy.”
March 30th, 2006 at 3:11 am
Jason: it’s not just “cool.” There is an elegance to the iPod that permeates all the way through every experience you have with it.
Starting in the signage you see along the road. To the stores when you go into to buy it. Continuing to the bag when you take it home, not to mention the box design.
The first hour with the device is easy and almost always works properly, and then the device has a high “fondability” factor. It feels good, from the wheel material chosen (none of the other input devices have matched that yet that I’ve seen) to the screen to back, which says “Designed in Cupertino.”
Then, once you feel good about the purchase, you have white headphones, which in the early days were rare and caused tons of conversations to happen. Even lately I still hear conversations about the iPod. “I see you have an iPod, do you like it?”
At every step of the way Apple has done an extraordinary job. Kudos.
So, if you wanna beat Apple you’ve gotta do all that AND you’ve gotta do something else. It’s gonna be tough to meet that bar.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:16 am
Kids are just amazing! My son wanted to learn to play World of Warcraft, but couldn’t figure it out (he was eight). I forced myself to sit down to this STUPID game, and got hooked! Of course he can figure out an iPod and switches effortlessly between a windows machine & a Mac. He doesn’t even seem to notice the difference which bemuses me!
We would all do well to pass what we do for a living by our kids to make sure we’re not being too pompous, convoluted, and smart for our own good. If a kids can “get it” maybe it will succeed?
March 30th, 2006 at 3:25 am
Scoble: True. There’s one more thing you’re forgetting: the device’s popularity. If all your friends have it, then you’d think you should have it too….
March 30th, 2006 at 3:31 am
Jason: good point. Although that can turn against it, too. My son always wants to one-up his friends. If something even cooler comes out, he wants to have that too. But at some point things get too popular and then you're just buying it to "fit in." It's a tough world on today's playgrounds.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:42 am
It’s interesting you should say that about iPod. In the UK, channel 5 TV demonstrated that at the technical level, there are better alternatives. But…people have bought into the Apple brand. It was one more reason I made the switch after 24 years of Wintel.
At 53, it’s a heck of an age to be admitting that herd values still apply to me. But then if something is cool - as the PowerBook G4 most certainly is - then it is hard to resist. That, along with the fact I found the Apple Geniuses to provide excellent customer service. They didn’t sell me a thing, they advised. What I wanted.
And with so many applications of the kinds I need being delivered as services, why would I return to the Windows platform? Of course the PowerBook may turn out to be a long term dog. Reports indicate this is a machine that can fatally fall over. So even more of my stuff goes out to the Internet. I don’t yert trust the Intel powered stuff to make a sort of hybrid transition. But I would if I could see genuine value. The ‘cool’ of Apple combined with the ubiquity of windows apps? Who knows?
March 30th, 2006 at 4:00 am
I admit to being very impressed with OSX. Take off the table for a minute that I work at Microsoft. There are a couple of things that’ll keep me on the Windows side:
1) Outlook. I live in it. I can’t stand the online email systems. Sorry, Steve Gillmor. Will that change someday? Maybe. But not even close right now.
2) Reading is a LOT better on a Tablet PC. Why? Vertical mode view, dragging and poking is a LOT easier with a stylus than a drag pad and button, and it’s a lot more comfortable to use, particularly when I’m stuck in coach sections of planes (which I will be every other weekend for at least six more years).
3) Media Center. I’ve seen Apple’s offerings and they just don’t come close to Media Center, particularly if you get an Xbox 360.
4) Sync with mobile phones. Sorry, my Cingular 2125 is an awesome phone that Apple’s gonna really have to do something killer to get me to drool. The sync with that with Windows machines is better than with Macs.
5) Corporate apps. I like using one computer for everything in my life. Now, I work at Microsoft so of course there’s a ton of stuff that only works on Windows here (there are corporate Mac users but they are at a disadvantage on the corporate network here). But, even if I worked at NEC I’d have the same problem.
6) I love Windows Vista. Despite its warts it’s already better than XP for my usage and every build gets better. I’m about to switch another computer over to it. I like the UI better, the search better, the media better.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:24 am
I like using one computer for everything too.
So the Intel Mac is clearly the best choice.
I get apps - all the Mac apps.
I get unix - all the open source goodies
I get multiple copies of Windows running subserviant to Mac OS X in http://www.kberg.ch/q/index.php
The last one is key because MS, in their infinite lack of wisdom, only allows a single IE version to be installed on an OS at any one time. So if I’m a web developer and want to test against IE 7 and IE 6 I need TWO MACHINES?? With that kind of steller design ethic, I’ll be adding Firefox download badges to all my web pages.
The Mac is the universal adaptor - it works with everything. Including my Moto E815 phone, firewire drives, usb, bluetooth, whatever-it can connect. No PC I’ve seen does that.
Oh, and Outlook blows. For instance, why does the default search start with the oldest messages first? Why does it take forever? Why does it flag stuff as spam but not make it easy to create rules to handle the spam (and if it does - why is the UI to do it hidden?) It is the poster child for what’s wrong with MS software.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:31 am
Innocent: just get Virtual PC — that's what we use here when we want to test on many different browser/OS configurations. Works great for that. Or, if you're really lucky, get your IT department to setup Virtual Server. Then you can do all that without rebooting right from a browser Window or command line. And, at Mix06 last week the IE team talked about how to make both work side-by-side and explained why doing that is a bad idea. They recommended Virtual PC too.
Spam rules in Outlook? Right click on the email — you'll get a menu. Select "Junk Mail" and off of there you'll have a bunch of options. Oh, wait, Macs don't usually have a right mouse button so you might not know that it does stuff. Just kidding.
I use Desktop Search with Outlook and it doesn't behave that way.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:41 am
Call it a testament to the iPod’s popularity, I guess, but when two major news sites have front page stories about the iPod getting a max volume setting, I just shake my head and think “when did news get such f’ed up priorities?”
March 30th, 2006 at 5:44 am
Mr. Scoble - I think there are several things different about today’s music player market than the computer market back in the 80’s. I’m not smart enough to know them so I’m linking to someone who wrote on it. I think what the writer says is pretty smart. Consider it.
http://daringfireball.net/2006/03/ipod_juggernaut
March 30th, 2006 at 5:59 am
Scoble, please don’t tell me you think no one within MS is tasked with using competitors products. You can’t be that out of touch with your own company, can you?
I agree with you about the elegence of the iPod. The fact that is works out of the box without the user having to even think about it is one of the major reasons it sells, along with it’s branding and elegant design. I’m not sure MS can pull off something better if it’s going to rely on Windows to be the base OS for the device. That alone will make it kludgy to set up and use. Hell, count on it to freeze up at least once a week as well. You are right. If MS wants to build an “iPod” killer they will have to be BETTER.. A LOT BETTER. And it will have to be so COOL Kids will do anything to get it. Apple has also done a great job of keeping their iPods fresh and having he next one be cooler than the the last. My daughter had the first rev iPod. Then Mom got an iPod mini. Daughter was jealous. Then daugter go an iPod Nano. Mom was jealous. Dad had a Windows Media device. While nice, it didn’t have he ooh factor the iPod does. And, it relied on my Windows box and Windows media player. That alone made it frustrating. Then Dad got an iMac and a video iPod. Now daugther is jealous. What will Apple do next to make the next IPod cooler than the last
Finally, you realize there is no Mac Virtual PC that runs on the Intel based Mac, right?
March 30th, 2006 at 6:06 am
Dmad: did I say that? Heck, I’ve personally presented competitive technologies to Bill Gates and Jim Allchin. So I know that lots of us keep the company and its executives aprised of competitive stuff.
I disagree with you. The Xbox isn’t kludgy to setup and use.
The Virtual PC team is working on that, sorry for missing that he was talking about Intel/Macs.
March 30th, 2006 at 6:46 am
just get Virtual PC
Virtual PC isn’t universal binary. Q is, and best of all it’s free!
http://www.kberg.ch/q/index.php
March 30th, 2006 at 6:48 am
I forgot, there’s also darwine.
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
Should run outlook perfectly, and a copy of Windows isn’t even necessary.
March 30th, 2006 at 7:40 am
> “The Virtual PC team is working on that”
Do you have genuine knowledge here, or is this just cheerleading? I’d really like to know when/if a Universal Binary will ship.
I’m actually wondering if it will. To my knowledge, Microsoft has not made any public commitment to getting Virtual PC running on Intel-based Macs, unlike Office which has indeed had that commitment.
Though I’ve installed Windows XP on my MacBook Pro via the brilliant XP-on-Mac dual-boot method, I’d really like to be able to stay inside Mac OS X and use some Windows apps.
There is also talk that Apple themselves are working on some sort of virtualization solution for 10.5 Leopard. I wonder if it is like IE for Mac: it was dropped because Apple gave them news it was working on Safari.
Does the Virtual PC team have a blog?
March 30th, 2006 at 7:42 am
anon> Darwine is a great concept, but at the moment it doesn’t run anything much more ambitious than Notepad and Minesweeper (although it does run a mapping program I use quite well, just doesn’t let it talk to the GPS unit).
March 30th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Reg: I met with them about a week ago and they are working on it.
Ben Armstrong, PM on the Virtual PC team, has a blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/
March 30th, 2006 at 8:47 am
Before the XBOX 360 launch I remember reading an interview with Peter Moore in which he said that when they were showing initial designs of the 360 to focus groups without mentioning as to what it was or who was behind it, almost everybody said that it had to be a device from Apple and Sony.
If we can do it once, I am sure we can do it again. I am not sure why we think the device market is Apple’s to own or is already saturated - they might be holding 90% of only 10% of the market who can afford these.
Apple will always be perceived cooler but I would rather be a commodity relevant to a market size of over 200 million people than belong to a clique of esoteric users who are “with it” and “hip and happening” because they happen to wear white headphones :-).
I do own an IPOD but that doesnt change anything about what I have written above.
March 30th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Who wants to eat dog food?
There’s a difference between “eat your own dog food” and “be blindly stupid”. I never liked that term anyway. I’d rather “eat my own cooking”. Why does it have to be “dog food”?
Anyway.
The Scobleizer has an entry on his blg about how …
March 30th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
handful of weekends since the launch
Well, you will also have to get someone to pull some strings, BECAUSE, Sherlock, the 360s are NOT in STORES. Some random software company that pulled the worst supply-chain rollout of a consumer product in HISTORY, is responsible for that. This being something real manufacturing companies have nailed since the post-WWII era, with preferred supplier contracts, accurate demand forecasting by regions, logistical control, component and facility backups and etc. etc. And increasingly, they can’t even ship software.
March 30th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
My son is the same way.. “because it’s cool Dad!” He has purchased (or been given) 3 different iPods and broke all of them. They are certainly part of the school fashion.
March 30th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Caution Low Blow ahead:
Damn, your kids fat too. How about evangelizing some healthy eating habits for the tyke. He’ll thank you when he’s not dead at forty from a heart attack.
March 31st, 2006 at 12:21 am
@22. I agree that XBOX360 (or XBOX) is not kludgy to set up. Why? Well, maybe because it’s not running Windows? Dunno. maybe deep down it is, but it sure doesn’t act like it :-). I would also submit that MS has done a good job of disassociting, either accidentially or purpose, the MS brand and making the XBOX brand stand on its own in a lot of ways. Thus I submit many kids don’t think Microsoft when they think XBOX, they just think XBOX. So, if MS were to get into the iPod game, they would do well to come up with a unique branding for it and dissaccociate it with Windows at best and Microsoft at least. The Microsoft brand doesn’t the cache with “hipsters” it once did (if it ever did). If they could pull off another XBOX like brand in this space, there is the potential for success.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:16 am
“Not only is the Windows operating system itself better than Mac, for the $2000 or so it takes to get a decent MacBook Pro, I could get an extremely good Windows laptop.”
Windows XP is still running people in admin accounts in 2006 and forcing people to deal with registries, antispyware/antivirus software, firewalls, disk defragmentation, etc. I get the call from my mom to help her with her PC once a week. I’m hoping Vista really makes things easier for people, because setting up a Mac is literally a matter of turning it on and giving it your username. Installing things is just dragging them and removing them is dragging them to the Trash. I’m leery of what I’m seeing in today’s CTP builds, with all the web-like windows with lists of hyperlinks running along the sides. I’ve never seen a user actually click any of those links in XP. They seem to ignore any auxiliary stuff that’s not directly involved with the central content in the window. I was hoping the new Quartz-like graphics infrastructure was going to mean an interface revamp, but it doesn’t look like that’s the plan for Vista.
I don’t know about the $2,000 comparison. Many price comparisons have been done since the Intel Macs came out, and Apple has come out very competitive with all the hardware and software features they include. Certainly, iLife is a massive selling point, and there’s currently no Windows equivalent even in Vista.
Either way, it’s great to see the pressure put on both companies, even if one is sitting on a monopoly.