MS's business future, particuarly in mobile space *spawn

[joker454]

Book girls?

Female models I book for video shoots for a business I own. They are a good pulse on what young people are into as they live on their phones and do all the current social stuff like Vine, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, blah blah type stuff. They used to be all iPhone now they have mostly switched to Android phones which I found very indicative of the current trend. I've never seen one have a Windows Phone although given that it's missing some of the important apps they use means it's not surprising. Amusingly though I usually end up being the one taking post shoot pictures because once they see the photos my Nokia 920 takes compared to their Android phones, they typically want me to retake pictures with it so they can tweet the better quality versions.

Yeah, I remember my Motorola Windows mobile 6.5 phone...I spoke into it, saying find Pho restraurants...and it actually understood Pho correctly and found me all the Pho restraurants nearby me. I was totally amazed with that back then...how time flies...Damn, now I'm feeling old.

It's amazing how many opportunities Microsoft missed due to being asleep at the wheel and/or being bogged down in politics.

 

[blakjedi]

Female models I book for video shoots for a business I own. They are a good pulse on what young people are into as they live on their phones and do all the current social stuff like Vine, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, blah blah type stuff. They used to be all iPhone now they have mostly switched to Android phones which I found very indicative of the current trend. I've never seen one have a Windows Phone although given that it's missing some of the important apps they use means it's not surprising. Amusingly though I usually end up being the one taking post shoot pictures because once they see the photos my Nokia 920 takes compared to their Android phones, they typically want me to retake pictures with it so they can tweet the better quality versions.




It's amazing how many opportunities Microsoft missed due to being asleep at the wheel and/or being bogged down in politics.

I'm very happy about the recent changes at ms. That rank and yank shit tanked the company. Guys like Sinofsky basically destroyed Ms from the inside out by not being a team player and leveraging that 10 billion in annual R&D across the enterprise.

The MS were beginning to see emerge is the MS it should have been a decade ago...

 

[TrungGap]

It's amazing how many opportunities Microsoft missed due to being asleep at the wheel and/or being bogged down in politics.

Do you think this will change once Balmer is out of the picture. He's been good for MS bottomline, but I feel he doesn't take chances with really innovated stuff that MS research demoed.

Remember the wand, where you would turn on or off things by pointing to it? It's a ms research project...do you it's possible to do that with the kinect 2? Is it accurate enough? Smart home automation might be small right now, but the potential is so great...a central computer to controll you home and appliances is the gateway MS needs to route millions/billions of searches to its bing/services.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That's the best part. They don't _tell_ anyone they invented it. They just _imply_ it.

How did Apple imply this? Which part of their presentation or marketing implies/suggests/hints they invented this stuff?

At an interview at AllThingsD with Walt Mossberg, Steve Jobs flat out said that bought Siri, which makes it clear in no uncertain terms they didn't invent it.

 

[bkilian]

How did Apple imply this? Which part of their presentation or marketing implies/suggests/hints they invented this stuff?

At an interview at AllThingsD with Walt Mossberg, Steve Jobs flat out said that bought Siri, which makes it clear in no uncertain terms they didn't invent it.

I posted quotes from the IPhone 4S launch where they were implying Siri had never been done before. Did you bother to read all the way down?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I posted quotes from the IPhone 4S launch where they were implying Siri had never been done before. Did you bother to read all the way down?

Yup. I tried, but couldn't, read any of the quotes you posted as Apple trying to..

convince everyone they invented it in the first place

 

[tuna]

Last I saw MS has Nokia, and Samsung, HTC, and they just recently acquired support by Huawei which is huge in the huge market of China.

It seems Huawei is currently making WP8 phones (or one phone).

 

[BoardBonobo]

It seems Huawei is currently making WP8 phones (or one phone).

But Nokia account for 80% of all WP phones. Makes it pretty obvious why MS was billing to enter a $1 billion ' sales' agreement before spending nearly $8 billion buying them. If Nokia had turned to android or had simply folded, WP would, for all intents and purposes, have simply ceased to exist.

Not that anyone would have noticed

 

[bkilian]

Yup. I tried, but couldn't, read any of the quotes you posted as Apple trying to..

You misunderstand. I don't think Apple are "trying" to do anything. It's just what naturally happens due to the way they phrase things. They use phrases like "This has never been done before", "everyone else failed", "Something only Apple could do", "Apple innovations", and many other similar phrases. They're not setting out to deceive people, that's the way they actually _think_. Recall Steve Jobs complaining that Android was "stolen" from IOS, implying Apple had invented the idea of a smartphone with icons and an appstore.

They do it for everything they do. And it works. Many people nowadays actually think Apple invented the MP3 player, and GUIs, and Smartphones and Tablets. When they launched the iPad, they actually flat out said "iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices" and that it was "revolutionary". Sorry Apple, I was using a windows CE tablet for all my ebook reading in _2004_. It also had a web browser, office apps, and over 8 hours of battery life.

 

[Jwm]

In some markets WP is the top seller, or starting to actually outsell other platforms. (Italy and Mexico come to mind)

On the bright side in the US your Nokia 920 can be stolen off your desk and later returned because it was not an iPhone! (true story, happened to my wife, well they stole her phone not the other way)

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That's the best part. They don't _tell_ anyone they invented it. They just _imply_ it.

Apple are doing something (implying).

You misunderstand. I don't think Apple are "trying" to do anything. It's just what naturally happens due to the way they phrase things.

Apple aren't doing thing.

Hence my confusion But let's move on

 

[zed]

. Sorry Apple, I was using a windows CE tablet for all my ebook reading in _2004_. It also had a web browser, office apps, and over 8 hours of battery life.

Google apple newton. I'm sure apple has a stronger case of being first with tablets more than MS. But you're correct apple so have a tendency to'invent' existing things

 

[Jwm]

As a kid I had always wanted a Gridpad with windows 3.11 (at least I think it was 3.11). Touchscreen with a stylus, but my allowance was not near enough. I do remember Microsoft was helping them to some degree, but price was never consumer friendly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Google apple newton.

That was a PDA, and Windows on tablet still predates the Newton anyway.

 

[wco81]

I don't think there's much dispute that Apple defined or redefined the current multitouch smart phones and tablet markets of today.

Android was headed towards Blackberry clones until the iPhone came out.

Tablets under the old Tablet PC model and these little tablets from Nokia and the MID platform that MS tried to push out were going nowhere.

 

[blakjedi]

I don't think there's much dispute that Apple defined or redefined the current multitouch smart phones and tablet markets of today.

Android was headed towards Blackberry clones until the iPhone came out.

Tablets under the old Tablet PC model and these little tablets from Nokia and the MID platform that MS tried to push out were going nowhere.

MS and blackberry were oriented toward the business market not believing in the consumer space. Large government and multinationals defined their target markets so they focused on providing for those boring and safe markets... What they finally learned was that tha consumer market can provide multiples of that income if you give consumers what they want rather than selling them what you have. Annually Apple makes more from phones than MS reaps from all of its products combined. Now that's great but its also subject to fickle consumer tastes... Once the iPhone loses its hot cachet what else will it have...

MS should effectively split into enterprise and consumer products with different design goals and orientation but share technological underpinnings only.

 

[zed]

That was a PDA, and Windows on tablet still predates the Newton anyway.

So whats the difference between a PDA and a tablet?

screensize? No, as tablets today have ~ the same
programability? no, you could also write software for the newton

 

[Shifty Geezer]

At the time, the difference was between a simplified OS or full-blown PC OS. Full-blown windows/DOS was running on a tablet before the Apple Newton. But I don't really care to make that distinction. If people decide a PDA is the same thing as tablet computing, it still doesn't make Apple the inventor of tablet computing nor iPad the first!

Windows on a tablet in 1991

Before that, the GridPad PC-XT tablet from 1989

Apple popularised tablets with iPad. They refined them. Technology got to a point where the iPad experience was a possible and Apple made it happen, importantly with the right OS. Absolutely. But they didn't invent the tablet computer or PDA. There are plenty examples in history of where the leading brand of a product isn't is the originator, and in the field of technology everyone is borrowing ideas left, right and centre. If they didn't, we wouldn't have the progress we have now!

 

[wco81]

Lot of these concepts have been around for decades.

Next things to get productized are wearable devices.

It's about the execution, implementation.

 

[SlimJim]

Lot of these concepts have been around for decades.

Next things to get productized are wearable devices.

It's about the execution, implementation.

Correct: people will, and can claim that there were touchscreen phones or even smartphones before the iphone or tablets before the ipad, but it always takes apple to show the world how it's done.

There is smartwatch by samsung and sony now, but you can expect the 2014 or 2015 model to be based on the iWatch. For example: they use oled/lcd now, but if the iwatch were to use a single color transparent oled display which has a 1 week usage time instead of the current 1 day max, then the competitors will do that as well. they just don't know how to make a smartwatch just as they didn't know how to make a smartphone or a tablet.

This leads to good things though: MS learned that the iPhone excelled in usability and smoothness, so they built WP7 (and onwards) based on that. The result is, in my opinion, a superior OS that exceeds iOS in a lot of places.

So MS can still deliver a punch in the mobile space