Studying the competitors…via my son

March 30, 2006 By

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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  • Reg

    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).

  • Reg

    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).

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    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/

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com Robert Scoble

    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/

  • http://vivekravindran.blogspot.com/ Vivek

    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.

  • http://vivekravindran.blogspot.com Vivek

    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.

  • Pingback: mj

  • Christopher Coulter

    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.

  • Christopher Coulter

    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.

  • Hank

    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.

  • Hank

    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.

  • http://backside180.blogspot.com/ J

    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.

  • http://backside180.blogspot.com J

    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.

  • dmad

    @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.

  • dmad

    @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.

  • bonch

    “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.

  • bonch

    “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.

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