The announcement that MS is retrenching the phone business got me thinking about history:
1. Sony Walkman owned the portable music business until Jobs & Co put together the hardware, software, and music distribution system in a form that consumers loved: the iPod, introduced in 2001. MS was late to market, but countered with Zune in 2006, which limped along for a number of years before morphing into Xbox in 2012, before being rebranded again as Groove, um, like, this week. The first Zunes were terrible; later models were much better, but the brand never caught on. The latest re-branding is because folks at MS eventually realized that Xbox on a music app was confusing to consumers. As with Windows Phone, the music business is an also-ran in the market.
2. Jobs & Co struck again with the iPhone, putting together a package of hardware, software and design that consumers loved. MS didn?t have to play catch-up in this case because they were in the smartphone market well before Apple. CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed the iPhone because it was too expensive and lacked the physical keyboard that business users wanted. The market disagreed -- Apple quickly went from zero to the dominant player in the smartphone business, and has stayed there ever since ? not by selling the most units, but by making almost all the profits in the business.
3. Steve Jobs was talking about the basic idea for a tablet back in the 1980s, and Apple made several stabs at producing one in the 80s and 90s, but the technology wasn?t ready. MS made its own attempts in the early 2000s, and Bill Gates really liked the one he used, but the devices were expensive and clunky. None of them took off. The tech world knew that Apple was bringing out a tablet in 2010, but many skeptics doubted consumers would buy it, and no one else figured out how to get it right before Jobs introduced the iPad. MS countered two years later, but the first-generation Surface had problems -- not least that it debuted with Windows 8. Later generations of Surface have been getting better, and some forecasters expect it to grow its market share from its current 5% slice.
4. Speaking of Windows 8 -- personally, I like Windows 8 a lot. I upgraded early from 7 to 8, and I?ve been a very happy user. When I have to use a Win7 machine (as with the machine at my office), I feel as if I?m working with a slightly more primitive OS. But MS failed to give its installed base a friendly transition path, and, to put it mildly, Win8 has not been a hit with consumers. The problem wasn?t really solved with 8.1, and there will never be a Windows 9, but MS is hoping to get it right with W10.
What all the examples have in common is that, despite all the technical talent, smart people and money at Microsoft, the company isn?t very good at putting all the pieces together to make consumers a compelling offer.
With Win10, MS hopes to have a cross-device OS that beats anything in the market. I don?t doubt it will be a very capable operating system. The question is whether MS is going to get it right with consumers. We?ll begin to see over the next several months.
1. Sony Walkman owned the portable music business until Jobs & Co put together the hardware, software, and music distribution system in a form that consumers loved: the iPod, introduced in 2001. MS was late to market, but countered with Zune in 2006, which limped along for a number of years before morphing into Xbox in 2012, before being rebranded again as Groove, um, like, this week. The first Zunes were terrible; later models were much better, but the brand never caught on. The latest re-branding is because folks at MS eventually realized that Xbox on a music app was confusing to consumers. As with Windows Phone, the music business is an also-ran in the market.
2. Jobs & Co struck again with the iPhone, putting together a package of hardware, software and design that consumers loved. MS didn?t have to play catch-up in this case because they were in the smartphone market well before Apple. CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed the iPhone because it was too expensive and lacked the physical keyboard that business users wanted. The market disagreed -- Apple quickly went from zero to the dominant player in the smartphone business, and has stayed there ever since ? not by selling the most units, but by making almost all the profits in the business.
3. Steve Jobs was talking about the basic idea for a tablet back in the 1980s, and Apple made several stabs at producing one in the 80s and 90s, but the technology wasn?t ready. MS made its own attempts in the early 2000s, and Bill Gates really liked the one he used, but the devices were expensive and clunky. None of them took off. The tech world knew that Apple was bringing out a tablet in 2010, but many skeptics doubted consumers would buy it, and no one else figured out how to get it right before Jobs introduced the iPad. MS countered two years later, but the first-generation Surface had problems -- not least that it debuted with Windows 8. Later generations of Surface have been getting better, and some forecasters expect it to grow its market share from its current 5% slice.
4. Speaking of Windows 8 -- personally, I like Windows 8 a lot. I upgraded early from 7 to 8, and I?ve been a very happy user. When I have to use a Win7 machine (as with the machine at my office), I feel as if I?m working with a slightly more primitive OS. But MS failed to give its installed base a friendly transition path, and, to put it mildly, Win8 has not been a hit with consumers. The problem wasn?t really solved with 8.1, and there will never be a Windows 9, but MS is hoping to get it right with W10.
What all the examples have in common is that, despite all the technical talent, smart people and money at Microsoft, the company isn?t very good at putting all the pieces together to make consumers a compelling offer.
With Win10, MS hopes to have a cross-device OS that beats anything in the market. I don?t doubt it will be a very capable operating system. The question is whether MS is going to get it right with consumers. We?ll begin to see over the next several months.