Is MS moving too slowly or just not doing enough news-worthy stuff?
- Thread starter bsayegh
- Start date
My post count is irrelevant. I have a different account but decided to just start posting under a my Microsoft account because I am usually logged in to it. There is a theme to my posting because most of it has been in this thread, which is about whether or not there is enough MS news=)
Yes, there has been some good news about MS in recent weeks and I can appreciate that, but go to Engadget, Cnet, The Verge, or GSMArena. Scroll through a few pages of history. You will see Google come up about 5 or 6 times on every page (maybe not now since its all about CES, but on the average day). All of those posts aren't about Google losing litigation battles. They are about the city of Boston switching from Office to Google apps or the large number of Android devices that are being released soon. Sure they lose a lot of legal battles, but most people view them as a victim of patent trolling.
desitunez
New member
Exactly spot on , don't think Microsoft this doing anything which is exciting in customer space. I posted this on other forum will say the same thing.
Biggest change and shift from last year is
Oem and consumers don't need Microsoft or windows , its other way around . Next 2 years be very interesting .
I remember when I was in school I learned to use PC on windows 95 and I was very excited and felt cool to use windows.
don't think kids at school these days or consumers share same view, they already using parents androids ,apples
This is Microsoft biggest challenge right now.
You can't really blame MS for lack of news since they are innovating and it's just not getting covered that well by the press. Sure, MS marketing/PR is not their strongest area, but in my opinion most of the blame falls on the media. The media's first priority is to get people to read their stuff so they can make money via advertising and stay in business. Their second priority (or third..eh..forth?) is to report the news.
At the moment, mobile is the hot topic in technology and most other tech topics get ignored in consumer news. Android is pretty dominant in mobile worldwide and Apple is huge in the US mobile market. MS, as we are all well aware, is playing catch up in mobile. They have compelling products, but the news is going to focus on whatever is going to get them the most views. Therefore, every time another Android/Apple product is released (even if it's a piece of crap or a rehash of the previous product) the media is going to cover it. They know that it is more likely to get views since those are the mobile brands/products that consumers are most aware of. Those products are simply more interesting to the average (probably uninformed) consumer compared to the 1 millionth laptop review or the new Windows Phone that the average consumer has no clue about and doesn't want to have to research themselves (friends already have an iPhone/Android so those are good enough). Of course it's a viscous cycle, but that doesn't keep it from happening. The only thing that will break that cycle is for MS to continue releasing good mobile products long enough for word of mouth to reach "critical mass."
At the moment, mobile is the hot topic in technology and most other tech topics get ignored in consumer news. Android is pretty dominant in mobile worldwide and Apple is huge in the US mobile market. MS, as we are all well aware, is playing catch up in mobile. They have compelling products, but the news is going to focus on whatever is going to get them the most views. Therefore, every time another Android/Apple product is released (even if it's a piece of crap or a rehash of the previous product) the media is going to cover it. They know that it is more likely to get views since those are the mobile brands/products that consumers are most aware of. Those products are simply more interesting to the average (probably uninformed) consumer compared to the 1 millionth laptop review or the new Windows Phone that the average consumer has no clue about and doesn't want to have to research themselves (friends already have an iPhone/Android so those are good enough). Of course it's a viscous cycle, but that doesn't keep it from happening. The only thing that will break that cycle is for MS to continue releasing good mobile products long enough for word of mouth to reach "critical mass."
theefman
Active member
Android is encroaching more and more on Microsoft's territory, now their partner Intel has announced a platform to run android and Windows on one device. Crap like this wouldn't be happening if Microsoft was bringing innovative products to market instead of fumbling both WP and Windows. The shift away from Windows was gradual but is now gathering pace and as android increasingly becomes the OS people first encounter Windows will eventually become irrelevant in the consumer space. They are definitely not moving fast enough.
desitunez
New member
True , funny thing is editors on this site are not critical of Microsoft ever , I know lot of Microsoft employees read this site , they should post constructive criticism articles and pointing what's wrong from editorial and analytical point view , not just news around "new device leaked and how much is going to cost"
hoping this site doesn't turn into crackberry
....
csd_images
New member
There's several areas working against MS:
1) It's popular to hate MS. You can see it in the Media in that nothing that MS does is good or cool enough, yet they've released a lot of innovative technology and software long before the competition even thought of it. Everyone points to their past mistakes or mis-steps in technology and yet companies like Google and Apple who's had their fair share of mis-steps and blunders get free passes.
2) Corporate expectations. Companies design and build on stable platforms, when you change aspects of that base you get pitchforks and burning mobs at your doorstep. However if you're Google you generally get a free pass because it's 'cool' or 'ok' because it's free. MS designs and builds on a set schedule that's made available to businesses. If you break a business app expect a lot of hacked off customers this is why MS originally had a consumer and a business OS before merging them into XP to simplify software development. Also they do a lot of testing of that software to try and prevent issues that can cause loss of services or hardware failures such as the recent Surface Pro 2 f/w update.
3) MS is a multi-market and a behemoth in the software industry, it must ensure that it's software works together. Maybe not perfectly in the old days because of the old infrastructure and management but last year saw one of the biggest shake ups of any tech company. It basically threw out a lot of dead weight, and it's still going through that transition. The repercussions of those changes will be felt for years to come maybe even decades. A lot of the internal fiefdoms that existed have been pulled down and removed. It was one of the many reasons that MS lost so much of the market and why MS Office still isn't truly touch aware.
4) DoJ oversight. Something a lot of people ignore, but MS had to be very careful about how it integrated services. It's no accident that MS is now being very aggressive in what it bundles with Win 8 now compared to what was in Vista/Win 7. The DoJ in many ways forced upon MS stagnation to prevent any more legal repercussions if they stepped over the line, and that line was never a fixed. Pretty hard to develop something and you never sure if it was going to get you in to legal hot water if a competitor decided to call foul because they could.
5) Rapid development comes at a cost. Remember the Quality Triangle: Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick Two. MS has to validate everything. It's no mistake that they are the world leaders when it comes to security now. They had a baptism of fire with XP and learned the hard way. Everything that goes out is vetted in as much as you can with any complex piece of software. You also have to allow OEMs to test and validate code against their hardware and software to ensure minimal or no breakages. This isn't something that can take place overnight, this can take weeks or months before they are happy and you can't force them to hurry up without causing friction or potentially losing customers.
6) This said MS has sped up development, compared to what it was a decade ago we have had 3 updates to Windows Phone in a year, they may be incremental but they did a complete Tabula Rasa with WP 8 and you can't just release a fully featured product in the time frame they did. In software these days you release what's good enough and flesh it out, this is what MS is doing by expanding on core hardware features first. WP 8.1 will be the first major release for WP and from all the rumours will address many of the complaints about WP.
7) WP isn't just about WP, it's about Windows as a whole. Remember MS is trying to bring everything in it's eco-system into harmony with it's multiple products. Again something that can't be done overnight. It takes time and effort to change a major project even more so when you are re-aligning with other teams. If it's not done properly then you could end up losing more time than you can gain or worse still end up with no product at all. This is something that can't be rushed no matter how much you want it to.
8) MS has one of the largest R&D budgets of all the tech companies. It spent over 10 billiion on R&D. Most of which isn't new products but refining and improving existing tech. Stuff you're not aware per se such as under the hood optimisations of Windows in day to day usage and security research. This R&D has produced technologies such as SmartScreen, Translator and Voice Analysis tech, PhotoSynth, Digital Ink technology, numerous Video Conferencing technologies, Surface and more. How much of this gets coverage? Very little, and it's not as if MS doesn't make it available to the press as they have blogs for pretty much all their divisions.
Enough of all that. Where does MS stand today? Simply put they have to engage with their audiences, and yes I mean audiences as unlike Apple or Google they have to cater to disparate markets which are Entertainment, Consumer and Enterprise (there are others but these are the main ones). How can you do this without alienating the other? That's the trick of the century if MS can pull it off. Almost everyone I speak to are surprised that the tablet I use is made by MS, let alone what it can do. It's led to several sales directly from that hands on. It's not me selling the device it's the device selling itself. Word of Mouth will help for the consumer side, especially as you can throw millions at advertising (and MS has done this) and get nowhere if the media doesn't support you which is 90% of the press and blogs out out there such as The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget being biased against them and this again creates the impression of the old idea that MS is rubbish or not 'cool'.
The other problem is that people get given ***** computers at work that either under-specced or poorly maintained and it's MS that gets blamed for the problems when most of the time it's the software that runs on top of Windows or drivers. Doesn't matter to the consumer they see it's MS and therefore MS is rubbish. This is one of the areas that Google is frantically trying to fix with Android as both MS and Apple both have rock solid and secure operating systems, which businesses prefer. You can see this by the amount of wins that MS is garnering from business and this will be the main area you will see WP growth in the coming years more so I feel than the consumer market.
To close I'll also mention something else that people ignore. Most sites are myopic in their viewpoint in that they focus on the US and ignore the rest of the world which tends to move in different circles and needs. You can see this dramatically with the acceptance of WP elsewhere in the world at a greater pace than the US. In addition the US mobile market is rigged against new players with their outdated contract system compared to the major telco's in Europe where you can change contracts and providers pretty much at a drop of a hat these days. The other fact that most companies in Europe have moved to a 'Sim Only' plan where you provide your own phone or buy one from the telco, this is another reason that WP is popular especially since the release of the 520.
1) It's popular to hate MS. You can see it in the Media in that nothing that MS does is good or cool enough, yet they've released a lot of innovative technology and software long before the competition even thought of it. Everyone points to their past mistakes or mis-steps in technology and yet companies like Google and Apple who's had their fair share of mis-steps and blunders get free passes.
2) Corporate expectations. Companies design and build on stable platforms, when you change aspects of that base you get pitchforks and burning mobs at your doorstep. However if you're Google you generally get a free pass because it's 'cool' or 'ok' because it's free. MS designs and builds on a set schedule that's made available to businesses. If you break a business app expect a lot of hacked off customers this is why MS originally had a consumer and a business OS before merging them into XP to simplify software development. Also they do a lot of testing of that software to try and prevent issues that can cause loss of services or hardware failures such as the recent Surface Pro 2 f/w update.
3) MS is a multi-market and a behemoth in the software industry, it must ensure that it's software works together. Maybe not perfectly in the old days because of the old infrastructure and management but last year saw one of the biggest shake ups of any tech company. It basically threw out a lot of dead weight, and it's still going through that transition. The repercussions of those changes will be felt for years to come maybe even decades. A lot of the internal fiefdoms that existed have been pulled down and removed. It was one of the many reasons that MS lost so much of the market and why MS Office still isn't truly touch aware.
4) DoJ oversight. Something a lot of people ignore, but MS had to be very careful about how it integrated services. It's no accident that MS is now being very aggressive in what it bundles with Win 8 now compared to what was in Vista/Win 7. The DoJ in many ways forced upon MS stagnation to prevent any more legal repercussions if they stepped over the line, and that line was never a fixed. Pretty hard to develop something and you never sure if it was going to get you in to legal hot water if a competitor decided to call foul because they could.
5) Rapid development comes at a cost. Remember the Quality Triangle: Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick Two. MS has to validate everything. It's no mistake that they are the world leaders when it comes to security now. They had a baptism of fire with XP and learned the hard way. Everything that goes out is vetted in as much as you can with any complex piece of software. You also have to allow OEMs to test and validate code against their hardware and software to ensure minimal or no breakages. This isn't something that can take place overnight, this can take weeks or months before they are happy and you can't force them to hurry up without causing friction or potentially losing customers.
6) This said MS has sped up development, compared to what it was a decade ago we have had 3 updates to Windows Phone in a year, they may be incremental but they did a complete Tabula Rasa with WP 8 and you can't just release a fully featured product in the time frame they did. In software these days you release what's good enough and flesh it out, this is what MS is doing by expanding on core hardware features first. WP 8.1 will be the first major release for WP and from all the rumours will address many of the complaints about WP.
7) WP isn't just about WP, it's about Windows as a whole. Remember MS is trying to bring everything in it's eco-system into harmony with it's multiple products. Again something that can't be done overnight. It takes time and effort to change a major project even more so when you are re-aligning with other teams. If it's not done properly then you could end up losing more time than you can gain or worse still end up with no product at all. This is something that can't be rushed no matter how much you want it to.
8) MS has one of the largest R&D budgets of all the tech companies. It spent over 10 billiion on R&D. Most of which isn't new products but refining and improving existing tech. Stuff you're not aware per se such as under the hood optimisations of Windows in day to day usage and security research. This R&D has produced technologies such as SmartScreen, Translator and Voice Analysis tech, PhotoSynth, Digital Ink technology, numerous Video Conferencing technologies, Surface and more. How much of this gets coverage? Very little, and it's not as if MS doesn't make it available to the press as they have blogs for pretty much all their divisions.
Enough of all that. Where does MS stand today? Simply put they have to engage with their audiences, and yes I mean audiences as unlike Apple or Google they have to cater to disparate markets which are Entertainment, Consumer and Enterprise (there are others but these are the main ones). How can you do this without alienating the other? That's the trick of the century if MS can pull it off. Almost everyone I speak to are surprised that the tablet I use is made by MS, let alone what it can do. It's led to several sales directly from that hands on. It's not me selling the device it's the device selling itself. Word of Mouth will help for the consumer side, especially as you can throw millions at advertising (and MS has done this) and get nowhere if the media doesn't support you which is 90% of the press and blogs out out there such as The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget being biased against them and this again creates the impression of the old idea that MS is rubbish or not 'cool'.
The other problem is that people get given ***** computers at work that either under-specced or poorly maintained and it's MS that gets blamed for the problems when most of the time it's the software that runs on top of Windows or drivers. Doesn't matter to the consumer they see it's MS and therefore MS is rubbish. This is one of the areas that Google is frantically trying to fix with Android as both MS and Apple both have rock solid and secure operating systems, which businesses prefer. You can see this by the amount of wins that MS is garnering from business and this will be the main area you will see WP growth in the coming years more so I feel than the consumer market.
To close I'll also mention something else that people ignore. Most sites are myopic in their viewpoint in that they focus on the US and ignore the rest of the world which tends to move in different circles and needs. You can see this dramatically with the acceptance of WP elsewhere in the world at a greater pace than the US. In addition the US mobile market is rigged against new players with their outdated contract system compared to the major telco's in Europe where you can change contracts and providers pretty much at a drop of a hat these days. The other fact that most companies in Europe have moved to a 'Sim Only' plan where you provide your own phone or buy one from the telco, this is another reason that WP is popular especially since the release of the 520.
jmshub
Moderator
Google is actively working on a desktopish OS (Chrome) and mobile, Android. Apple does desktop and mobile. I'm not sure how Microsoft working on a desktop OS and mobile OS at the same time is the issue. I agree that desktop computing is becoming an increasingly niche need, but I think that's why Windows on tablet and phone is more important than ever for Microsoft. And they certainly have the resources to do both.
Windows is by far the most popular desktop OS in the world. I would hardly call that "fumbling." Maybe you mean the bad reaction that a lot of people had to the changes in Windows 8. That is somewhat ironic because those changes in Windows 8 ARE INNOVATIVE and have allowed whole new classes of computing devices that were previously not possible (laptop/tablet hybrids for example). If anything, MS was too innovative with Windows 8. Lots of people had bad initial reactions because lots of people are very resistant to change. It's not the first time and it won't be the last.
Mobile is still a new and developing market. Lots of companies are trying new things and throwing things out there to see what sticks. Most of those ideas won't be successful. Most consumers at this point are buying their first tablets and many are still on their first smart phone. Androids and iPhone/Pads are what was available when most of these consumers were making that first purchase, but it doesn't mean that they are all entirely satisfied with those products. I know tons of people with Android phones that HATE them. I know plenty of people that are bored with their iPhone. More than half the people I know with tablets say stuff like this all the time...
"It's cool I guess, but I can't do much with it so I don't use it that much."
"I wish it would do Flash. I need flash for [insert website/game here]."
"I bought it for the office, but it's hard to do work on it. I mostly stick to my [Windows] laptop."
Intel's Windows/Android concept sounds like an interesting experiment, but I have serious doubts that it will ever catch on. The vast majority of consumers are not interested in dual booting their laptops between Windows and Linux. For the same reason, I don't think most people will care to maintain two OSs on a tablet. Intel is doing that to compete with ARM anyway. They are trying to get OEMs to build Intel x86 based hardware instead of ARM based so they can consolidate their currently separate Android products and Windows products into a single design. The OEMs win because they can design/support less products and Intel wins because they sell the hardware instead of ARM. It doesn't really change the dynamic between Android and Windows at all. Both are already available in various products and compete with each other right now. However, nearly all of those Android devices are running on ARM hardware. That is the part that Intel wants to change, not the Windows part.
Anyway, my point is that MS is playing a long game by trying to provide a full ecosystem. Google has been playing the short game by filling the needs of people buying their first tablets and smart phones. However, Google's ability to compete against a full ecosystem (which will be important to people as it becomes normal to have 3 or more devices per person) is really weak. I personally think that MSs strategy is going to win in the long run. They are behind in mobile, but they are way ahead in pretty much every other category.
Microsoft has, for as long as I can remember, been a very serious, business oriented company. It is the prototypical "big corporation" people tend to refer to when it comes to monolithic, stale protocol and policy. I think that with windows 8 and windows phone 8 they are trying to appeal more to regular consumers, but I think the main issue is that the platform has a lot of hurdles to climb still. Just now my friend told me of the new laptop she got for Christmas, and immediately after she mentions how she hates windows 8.1. The start screen is a wonderful thing, but there must be a better way to make it accommodate the user based on the user's habits. For example, favorite webpages could be automatically made into tiles on the start screen, organized in its own column. Installed apps, either via metro or via typical desktop windows, could also show up as tiles. Just my 2 cents.
Honestly, I do not believe Windows Phone has a future.
There are only 72 Windows Phone devices as compared with 1529 powered by Android
I did the research using the site:
Phone Finder - search for a phone by feature - GSMArena.com
and filtering the mobile devices by the OS they use.
There are only 72 Windows Phone devices as compared with 1529 powered by Android
I did the research using the site:
Phone Finder - search for a phone by feature - GSMArena.com
and filtering the mobile devices by the OS they use.
Chris_Kez
Member
Citizen X
New member
If you go to university or work at any kind of job that doesn't involve pushing a broom or flipping burgers you use or at a minimum encounter MSFT programs and documents. Where I went to school the business program was the most popular and it was required for you to learn MSFT office on a PC in order to graduate. And when I got to my first job guess what they had? Full multi week course on MSFT Office. You install Word, Excel, and Powerpoint on a solid Windows laptop or desktop and you are ready to go. You can have whatever andriod or iphone you want. But when it comes to getting real work done there is no replacement for a Windows machine.
Nobody makes money on desktop software like MSFT. Apple is just a phone and tablet company. Google is a search engine. Samsung is a phone and TV company (maybe so other stuff too). And that's about it. If money is no object and given a choice there is no way I would go through a university or graduate program without a solid Windows machine. I'm not going to research and write crucial term papers on also-run software and hardware. And lord knows I wouldn't going into a multi million dollar business proposal with anything less than MSFT.
Microsoft and Nokia have up until now been very disappointing to me. I thought considering how long they've been around, they would've understood the importance of shedding their dinosaur images in the mobile industry. Instead they seem to continually make bad, unorganized, and deceptive moves. When starting late in the mobile smartphone game, with no market share, you would expect these two former giants to have there stuff together. But I find them stumbling cautiously down the road.
snowmutt
New member
"Stumbling cautiously"?? First off- I love that phrase. I am going to steal that and get it into as many conversations as I can. :grin:
Secondly, I find that strange. what was WP's marketshare prior to Nokia? Bada was outselling it. With Nokia? Now outselling BlackBerry, and giving Apple a run for it's money in some markets. What was phone camera tech like prior to Lumia 920, 928, 1520, and of course the 1020? No IOS, very little built in tech, simple software tech, and the iPhone was given the nod every year as the best shooter. Since? Well, let's just say no one else is close, but I expect this summer's offerings to show just how hard everyone else is trying to keep up.
Phones with fun colors? There would be no Moto X customization if there wasn't Nokia Lumia 900, 810, and 710 in red, white, grey, cyan, so on.
Kids corner? Rooms? Natural, seamless intergration for social feeds all baked into the software? MS innovations.
WP is not streaking ahead of Android. I realize that. But my standard answer on the speed of WP is this:
WP is behind, and can't afford a mistake. It would kill them. What they do, has to be done well and has to work. I would rather them move a little slower and get things right then speed up and kill my current favorite OS by releasing crap that doesn't work right.
snowmutt
New member
And... How many WP's were there 2 years ago?
Why does WP need 1500 phones to turn a nice profit?
How does WP work into Windows 8 PC's, tablets, and the XBOX intergrations, and how many of those work into pushing WP?
When evauluating WP, the problem isn't comparing it to Android. There is no comparison. Google owns this market, and I expect Android to be king for a decade so long as they do not mess it up. The question is how does it work across MS entire multi-billion dollar empire of products from XBOX games and Music, to Bing and MSN services, to corporate entities such as Windows Azure and untapped products such as Skydrive?
MS is raising a different animal then Android. Device counts and sales may not be as important in their grand scheme.
Guytronic
Ambassador Team Leader
Mmmm...
I don't see pushing out hundreds\thousands of devices as any kind of advantage.
For me a slower technology pace is in line with my habits as an older technogeek.
Why must tossing out a new device hourly be crucial to the game?
Would it not be much more prudent to qualitize devices that are already good enough for the common user such as myself?
I believe most humans want their devices to be cool for longer than a 9 month period.
The rush to produce unready technology I liken to a high risk racecar driver.
Go too fast crash and explode.
I don't see pushing out hundreds\thousands of devices as any kind of advantage.
For me a slower technology pace is in line with my habits as an older technogeek.
Why must tossing out a new device hourly be crucial to the game?
Would it not be much more prudent to qualitize devices that are already good enough for the common user such as myself?
I believe most humans want their devices to be cool for longer than a 9 month period.
The rush to produce unready technology I liken to a high risk racecar driver.
Go too fast crash and explode.
jomarr
New member
Windows is still the leader on Desktop OS by a LONG SHOT and now that they are incorporating full Windows 8 on tablets got me excited. Not only do they incorporate them on tablets but the devices are reasonably priced as well. I can see a bright future ahead for Microsoft they just need to push these tablets farther since these tablets with W8/8.1 are really outstanding. Of course they wouldn't be desktop replacements but it really is nice if you can work on light tasks like MS Excel and Work and not needing to bring out a full sized laptop or a crappy old netbook, just a W8 tablet that is a better performer than netbooks.
Although from the looks of CES 2014, RT will make an exit sooner than later. Full W8 tablets basically have defeated the purpose of RT Tablets. Who would pick up an RT device when you can get an 8 device for the same price or less?
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