Back-from-the-blogging-dead for just 1 post!
For the last few weeks, it's been full-on with the rumour mill on the Apple iTablet/iSlate or whatever. Let's just call it the iTablet here though I doubt (hope) tablet or slate will be in the name.
There have been some really intelligent things written by the usual commenters (oh, if I could write and think like Gruber!), and there's been the usual useless prophesying of doom, me-too, etc.
What the naysayers still haven't realised after years of being proven wrong is that Apple hasn't just been lucky, it's been incredibly smart for years and years. The only area where Apple has arguably not delivered a success in the Jobs-era is the AppleTV - and this is the one thing that Steve Jobs described as a hobby around the time it was released. If you haven't figured out this guy is smart yet, it's really about time you stopped "analysing"? I've interviewed with him before, and believe me he knows what he wants and he knows the people who can make it happen (I DIDN'T get the job!)
Has Apple's success happened overnight with just a few clever ideas? No. Look at the small pieces that have to be put together one component at a time to deliver the whole experience. It is this attention to detail in terms of the overall experience that takes each individual product above its competitors and keeps it out ahead. At the same time, Apple would rather leave out a feature than do it badly or have it create other problems that they KNOW, but the "analysts" don't. Does it now look like a stupid move to have a 2G iPhone as the first model?
So, with this in mind, we enter this week in the expectation that Apple will completely re-invent another area of our lives that we didn't even know needed re-inventing before the rumours started. Just as Apple killed the successful iPod mini with the iPod nano, I expect it this week to announce the product that begins the long-term decline of the laptop. Of course, many people will still need a laptop and/or prefer one (I'm likely to be a long term user for many reasons, but I would probably be considered unusual), and these people will generally be the ones that pour scorn on the new direction. Other people will say it wasn't Apple that did it, but that Apple is just responding to the netbook companies that started it.
But, Apple will do it in Apple's way - using user interface paradigms that initially we'll be unsure about, but will begin to appreciate as we see it demoed, as we see it being used, and as we begin to use it ourselves. Irrespective of the absolute form factor and other features, it will be the way we interact with it that will make THIS product introduction be the defining way such devices will work in the long term. Think Mac GUI and mouse, iPod clickwheel and iPhone multi-touch here - defining moments in the consumer electronics industry.
Could Apple get it wrong? Possibly. Newton 1.0 wasn't ready for primetime. Newton 2.0 was, but never got over the reputation of 1.0. Jobs is smarter than the people around Apple at that time. He has been waiting until it all comes together to do it right (iPod required small disks, firewire and clickwheel to do something revolutionary; iPhone required touch, SSD, high power tiny chips).
Apple have been sweating these details for years. I've read a rumour that the iPhone came out of the tablet development, and it's not an unlikely scenario. Multi-touch was not sufficiently developed or even understood to be used in something revolutionary beyond a small device with limited gestures. As MacWorld contributor Dan Moren wrote, this device will succeed or fail based on whether people BELIEVE they can INPUT stuff into it quickly and accurately - whatever stuff they want, but especially the stuff they are used to putting in their laptops via a keyboard. Any additional inputs (e.g. dictation, recording) will be bonuses. But the basics are a REQUIREMENT.
If Apple CAN get the input side right (early reactions will no doubt include the same people who condemned touch on the iPhone), then it has several advantages over the situation in mobile when it jumped in. Here, they were a late entrant into a theoretically competitive and maturing market - a market that was supposed to swallow up the iPod line as this functionality became just an extra app built into a mobile. Also, there was the gateway managed by restrictive telcos to negotiate - what was the most Apple could put in the device that would still allow them to partner with one or more major telcos? The iPhone remains below it's true potential today for these reasons (e.g. VoIP on 3G), but has blown a big hole in many of the restrictive models that were around before - something rarely appreciated by Apple's critics, but which has benefitted all handset makers and consumers.
In this case, we have an immature market, with no gatekeepers - and that is even giving some credit to the tablets already out there that are really nothing more than windows pc's with a stylus. With the iPhone, there were NO apps when it was released, and the best we could get were a limited number of web apps. Apple will release the tablet with a rich set of applications already there to demonstrate it's usefulness, and the existing iPhone developers will jump on ship quickly making use of possibly the best application delivery platform ever available (I do not see this as just a big iPhone - that would fail, but I do see many of the developments being carried over to the iTablet. I guarantee, there will be no shortage of apps very quickly - perhaps even day 1. Let's just hope that the good ones rise to the surface quickly. I believe the key in widespread success will be how quickly the ecosystem of hardware add-ons and software develops to produce compelling uses that were never before possible with either a laptop or a tiny phone. That will create the barriers to entry allowing Apple to profit from the device over the long term.
That brings us to two other key success factors. The first is how much Apple can open up this device when compared with the iPhone. I've no doubt this will be an openly multi-tasking device (not just limited to certain Apple-designed apps) - but how this is done without compromising performance, reliability and security will be key. I also think Apple will have to allow alternative application delivery methods here - at least in the medium term. Central control has served it (and its customers) well for the iPhone. But this model will be too restrictive in the longer term for a device like this, constrain new business models and entrants into the ecosystem. I don't believe Windows will develop fast enough to offer good alternatives, but Google can take either ChromeOS or Android into this area quite quickly and give a more open proposition if Apple doesn't do it fast on the back of release.
The final issue comes down to cost. Apple is known as the high cost company - something I feel is grossly misrepresented by many in the media and the anti-apple brigade who can't understand basic specification sheets or look at cost of ownership - but let's face it, plenty of companies will come up with something cheaper that purports to do a similar thing. Can Apple deliver this best-of gadget at a compelling price - much as it has with the iPhone - by both quantity production and perhaps viewing the device as a gateway to content consumption and application purchase for which it's getting a cut?
If these things are on Apple's side, then this device becomes the main device we carry around with us as we work, play, travel, etc. THE primary device on which content is consumed, communicated and collaborated (but less so, created). Sure, we'll still need our phones - and for many this may still do - but how often will most people need their laptop? It's not even going to be one device per family - this will be intended to be a one-per-family-member product much as the iPod has become - with you in the kitchen/breakfast table, a companion to watching tv, on the train, in meetings, at conferences or lectures, as we go about most aspects of our jobs and our leisure activities. There will be a steady shift back towards the home computer/desktop computer as the place it all comes together and for heavy lifting (e.g. photo/video management) - as well as (or maybe just) the cloud for the actual storage of our data.
The notebooks have tried to destroy the laptop market by cheapness. Can Apple destroy it (an area it makes much of its profit) by building something BETTER than a laptop for most of what we do? I personally think it can and I think Steve Jobs is on a mission to do this (remember the comment "the PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago"? Is that not a motivator for him to change the game?). The mainstream media have set this as a (perhaps an unfairly) high hurdle, but Wednesday's announcement will probably be judged on whether the new product meets this challenge (while being criticised for attempting to take the challenge on and not delivering in every single possible area!). It is a measure of Apple's achievements that this is even being talked about so enthusiastically BEFORE a product is released - where's the excitement from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc who should equally be capable of this sort of development, let alone the Redmond machine which will once again be left looking foolish and void of ideas. It will be a true measure of greatness if Apple can deliver something that yet again inspires a new round of innovation.
What an exciting week ahead!
Tags: Apple, iTablet, iSlate, iPhone, Microsoft
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
25 January 2010
26 July 2007
Apple Overtakes Hewlett Packard
A quick observation following the market today digesting Apple's Q3 results announced last night.
Apple has now overtaken HP in terms of market capitalisation (as of 26th July at 14:45 GMT). (Market Capitalisation is the figure that represents the total enterprise value attached to that company by the stock market). That is quite an achievement, as it was little more than than a year ago that it overtook Dell Computer. Apple is now close to double Dell's market capitalisation. To match HP, Apple has done very well indeed. It's not as if HP has had a bad time either - taking significant business from Dell in recent quarters.
Apple has also overtaken Oracle in the last year. The next target, ironically, is Intel - currently around $141bn. Then Google at $158bn, closely behind Cisco and IBM each in the $170bn range. Overhauling any of these companies could happen with a good year or two for Apple, though it would also require comparative stagnation for those companies. I certainly wouldn't bet against Google!
Microsoft is still a long way ahead of the rest of the IT industry with a market cap of around $280bn. We'll have to wait a while longer before that is even a possibility.
As always with such numbers, there is a lot of variation from hour to hour and day to day. Apple and HP will no doubt each be trying to push ahead of each other over the coming few months before a clear trend emerges. But for now, we've got a 1-1 draw in the first match of a long season.
Tags: Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Market Capitalisation, IBM
Apple has now overtaken HP in terms of market capitalisation (as of 26th July at 14:45 GMT). (Market Capitalisation is the figure that represents the total enterprise value attached to that company by the stock market). That is quite an achievement, as it was little more than than a year ago that it overtook Dell Computer. Apple is now close to double Dell's market capitalisation. To match HP, Apple has done very well indeed. It's not as if HP has had a bad time either - taking significant business from Dell in recent quarters.
Apple has also overtaken Oracle in the last year. The next target, ironically, is Intel - currently around $141bn. Then Google at $158bn, closely behind Cisco and IBM each in the $170bn range. Overhauling any of these companies could happen with a good year or two for Apple, though it would also require comparative stagnation for those companies. I certainly wouldn't bet against Google!
Microsoft is still a long way ahead of the rest of the IT industry with a market cap of around $280bn. We'll have to wait a while longer before that is even a possibility.
As always with such numbers, there is a lot of variation from hour to hour and day to day. Apple and HP will no doubt each be trying to push ahead of each other over the coming few months before a clear trend emerges. But for now, we've got a 1-1 draw in the first match of a long season.
Tags: Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Market Capitalisation, IBM
25 July 2007
iPhone Sales Numbers - BEFORE Q3 results
I'm writing this BEFORE Apple announces today's earnings, but AFTER the crazy market/media reaction to news that AT&T "only" activated 146,000 iPhones by 30th June.
What IS amazing is that in 30 hours, from 6pm Friday to midnight Saturday, 146,000 iPhones were purchased, taken home, unboxed, plugged into a computer, and then successfully activated. Had anyone suggested such numbers even a day or two before the iPhone was released, they would have been considered an optimist. Now, some are comparing the 146,000 number to some mythical 1million figure some analysts ended up speculating on.
As far as I can recall, I have seen few analyst projections of 1million iPhones and certainly not even in the few day initial period. I have seen numbers as low as 50,000 (originally from Shawn Wu of American Technology Research, and general Apple bull) to perhaps 350,000 from Goldman Sachs. Some of those numbers were then doubled AFTER the weekend (to 700,000 in the case of Goldman Sachs).
But remember here, the weekend includes a Sunday - only the second full shopping day the iPhone was on sale. How many iPhones could not be activated at first (certainly a few by some rumours)? How many iPhones did not get activated by the Saturday evening because the person hadn't had time, was keeping the iPhone as a present, or whatever other excuse? How many iPhones were ordered from the online stores on those days for later delivery?
And, what is success anyway? Is failure just the inability to hit whatever highest number some analyst (perhaps a naysayer anyway) set just to create a headline?
At 146,000 iPhones sold in 30 hours, Apple and AT&T created a revenue stream of $292m to share between them over 24 months.
Today, Apple will report its own financial figures for the last quarter (its financial close period which began BEFORE the iPhone was released is the fundamental reason it has not been legally able to comment on sales before this time). Apple may also (like AT&T) choose to report just the 30 hour period (or perhaps 33 hour period in its case being based on the West Coast). But, even in this period it will include over the counter sales - not activations. It may also account for sales via the AT&T store differently - as these essentially are sales as a wholesaler of the product.
My wild guess at this point is that Apple will report sales of around 225,000 or more for the 30 hour period. And, if they are to report sales for the first week, or first month (we're just 2 days away from that point), we will genuinely see that they will have between 400,000/700,000 and 500,000/1million iPhones in people's hands today (firstweektarget/firstmonth target). I suspect Apple's control of PR extends to its agreement with AT&T and allows it to publish the first important headline numbers for sales.
Sales of more than 500,000 iPhones will be a 2 year revenue stream of at least $1billion between Apple and AT&T (they are currently the sole retailers - so no other retailers to split with). Not bad for one month!
Contrast this with Zune and XBox360.
Assuming Zune sales so far of 1.2m, and even assuming full retail price of $249, this is $298m in revenue - almost exactly equal to the revenue from the 146,000 AT&T activations. Only this has taken Microsoft not 30 hours, but more than 8 months. It is also a widely held belief that Microsoft has not SOLD 1.2m Zunes, but shipped them. Many remain unsold on shelves. And, there has also been some significant discounting from the $249 price, to say nothing of the retail margin.
XBox360 has been with us for about 20 months. 11.6m units shipped (but not necessarily sold). Assume price of $299 again, and we reach $3.468b. Then take the $1.2bn cost of repairs announced recently out of that - and we have a number approaching $2bn - for 20 months!
I know which company I would be betting on today.
We will see crazy headlines today, and we will see unpredictable market reaction whatever the numbers. But what is already clear is that Apple has a phenomenal hit on its hands. Reviews have been overwhelmingly outstanding. Sales have been very robust indeed - whatever these sky high forecasts make you think the boundary of success is. Apple is only to be praised for seemingly being able to just about keep up with demand (something in the past it has not been good at, with fair criticism from the same quarters who now say any unsold stock is a failure!) Any commentary on today's numbers that doesn't recognised the success for what it is - both in technical and business terms is very delusional (or in the pockets of some of Apple's and AT&T's competitors).
I'll be writing on the financial numbers after they come out. I'll be paying particular attention to what the sales of iPods and Macs have been in the last 12 months. But, if the market reaction is negative today, look at this as your best time to pick up Apple stock for some time.
Disclosure: the author holds 600 shares of Apple, and last time he bought shares was 11th July 2006 - a little over 12 months ago when they were as low as $54. I hope you followed my advice then!.
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Sales, AT&T
What IS amazing is that in 30 hours, from 6pm Friday to midnight Saturday, 146,000 iPhones were purchased, taken home, unboxed, plugged into a computer, and then successfully activated. Had anyone suggested such numbers even a day or two before the iPhone was released, they would have been considered an optimist. Now, some are comparing the 146,000 number to some mythical 1million figure some analysts ended up speculating on.
As far as I can recall, I have seen few analyst projections of 1million iPhones and certainly not even in the few day initial period. I have seen numbers as low as 50,000 (originally from Shawn Wu of American Technology Research, and general Apple bull) to perhaps 350,000 from Goldman Sachs. Some of those numbers were then doubled AFTER the weekend (to 700,000 in the case of Goldman Sachs).
But remember here, the weekend includes a Sunday - only the second full shopping day the iPhone was on sale. How many iPhones could not be activated at first (certainly a few by some rumours)? How many iPhones did not get activated by the Saturday evening because the person hadn't had time, was keeping the iPhone as a present, or whatever other excuse? How many iPhones were ordered from the online stores on those days for later delivery?
And, what is success anyway? Is failure just the inability to hit whatever highest number some analyst (perhaps a naysayer anyway) set just to create a headline?
At 146,000 iPhones sold in 30 hours, Apple and AT&T created a revenue stream of $292m to share between them over 24 months.
Today, Apple will report its own financial figures for the last quarter (its financial close period which began BEFORE the iPhone was released is the fundamental reason it has not been legally able to comment on sales before this time). Apple may also (like AT&T) choose to report just the 30 hour period (or perhaps 33 hour period in its case being based on the West Coast). But, even in this period it will include over the counter sales - not activations. It may also account for sales via the AT&T store differently - as these essentially are sales as a wholesaler of the product.
My wild guess at this point is that Apple will report sales of around 225,000 or more for the 30 hour period. And, if they are to report sales for the first week, or first month (we're just 2 days away from that point), we will genuinely see that they will have between 400,000/700,000 and 500,000/1million iPhones in people's hands today (firstweektarget/firstmonth target). I suspect Apple's control of PR extends to its agreement with AT&T and allows it to publish the first important headline numbers for sales.
Sales of more than 500,000 iPhones will be a 2 year revenue stream of at least $1billion between Apple and AT&T (they are currently the sole retailers - so no other retailers to split with). Not bad for one month!
Contrast this with Zune and XBox360.
Assuming Zune sales so far of 1.2m, and even assuming full retail price of $249, this is $298m in revenue - almost exactly equal to the revenue from the 146,000 AT&T activations. Only this has taken Microsoft not 30 hours, but more than 8 months. It is also a widely held belief that Microsoft has not SOLD 1.2m Zunes, but shipped them. Many remain unsold on shelves. And, there has also been some significant discounting from the $249 price, to say nothing of the retail margin.
XBox360 has been with us for about 20 months. 11.6m units shipped (but not necessarily sold). Assume price of $299 again, and we reach $3.468b. Then take the $1.2bn cost of repairs announced recently out of that - and we have a number approaching $2bn - for 20 months!
I know which company I would be betting on today.
We will see crazy headlines today, and we will see unpredictable market reaction whatever the numbers. But what is already clear is that Apple has a phenomenal hit on its hands. Reviews have been overwhelmingly outstanding. Sales have been very robust indeed - whatever these sky high forecasts make you think the boundary of success is. Apple is only to be praised for seemingly being able to just about keep up with demand (something in the past it has not been good at, with fair criticism from the same quarters who now say any unsold stock is a failure!) Any commentary on today's numbers that doesn't recognised the success for what it is - both in technical and business terms is very delusional (or in the pockets of some of Apple's and AT&T's competitors).
I'll be writing on the financial numbers after they come out. I'll be paying particular attention to what the sales of iPods and Macs have been in the last 12 months. But, if the market reaction is negative today, look at this as your best time to pick up Apple stock for some time.
Disclosure: the author holds 600 shares of Apple, and last time he bought shares was 11th July 2006 - a little over 12 months ago when they were as low as $54. I hope you followed my advice then!.
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Sales, AT&T
20 July 2007
XBox360 Double Whammy
The news on XBox 360 failures is truly quite amazing - easily on a par with the Sony laptop battery recall episode last year. Amazingly Microsoft's stock has hardly budged. There are very few companies in the world that could withstand a write-off of over $1bn so easily. Yet, I don't think Microsoft has yet done the right thing by its users. I think this post makes many reasonable points. Microsoft should do a recall and fix this problem for good. However, I would say that, based on comments attributed to Microsoft VP Peter Moore (see same link),
it's not entirely clear that Microsoft has a complete solution to this problem even now.
However, it was not this particular issue I wanted to post about. It seems that Microsoft used that tried and trusted PR technique of burying bad news on a day of other bad news. In this case, its own bad news. Hardly commented on was the amazing confession that they had failed to hit their target of selling 12million XBox 360's by end of June 2007. Maybe those that read this saw that they had sold 11.6m, so it wasn't after all that far off the target. But let's look a little closer at this. Only in January this year did Microsoft revise its target from 13-15m units to 12m. So, it is now at least 1.4m below the target it had just 6 months ago, and perhaps up to 3.4m below. So, it's not 0.4m of 12m (just over 3%) but between 11 and 22% below.
There's another way to look at this, too. By the end of December, Microsoft had sold 10.3m XBoxes. It has since sold just 1.3m boxes. Instead of the 3-5m for that period (as per Microsoft's own December targets), it has sold between 1/4 and 1/2 of that number. This is the truly amazing statistic and something I'm surprised has not been more widely commented on. During this time, Microsoft introduced the XBox 360 Elite, and it has had ample product to sell globally. Despite this, its sales have been less in the most recent 6 months than the first 3 months of its life when it was limited to the US market and very supply-constrained. These statistics are available here.
Now, in fact, things are not as bad as this, but only if you understand the phenomenon of channel stuffing - whereby a vendor records sales by stuffing products on shelves even though they remain unsold. This is widely reported as how Microsoft account for both XBox and Zune sales and why individual figures need to be taken with a pinch of salt. It is highly likely Microsoft stuffed the retail channel with lots of XBox 360's leading up to Christmas last year, perhaps so it could meet its target then of selling 10m by the end of 2006. So, either you think Microsoft missed both targets, and engages in this practice, or you think it only missed the current one - by a large margin. It's pretty bad either way (in fact a cynical person might suggest that channel stuffing is continuing and that the situation is even worse than the numbers suggest). And, a nasty by-product of that strategy is if you were to buy an XBox 360 today, it is quite likely you may be buying one made sometime last year and subject to the potential failures noted. As Microsoft have not published serial number ranges, this makes it pretty hard to guess what you're getting.
(As an aside, I don't believe Apple can account for sales in the same way due to its own retail presence which accounts for a significant chunk of sales. At the very least, I believe that Apple would not be able to call an iPod sale via its own online or retail stores a sale until it was sold to a real customer).
Really, this XBox 360 sales fiasco is a BIG deal, and it should have been picked up as such. I am somewhat surprised in all honesty, as I had expected the XBox 360 to be a winner. Back in 2005 before any of the new generation consoles was released I posited that Sony would be the loser and that it seemed Nintendo might defy the odds and with the XBox 360 would be the other winner (not a bad forecast for a non-gamer!). At this point in time, both the high-end consoles are struggling badly, despite (or perhaps because of) the huge companies behind these products. There has been just one winner so far - the company that focused not on stuffing untried/unproven/unwanted technology in to a device then subsidising its high price, but on delivering a value product that consumers adored, could afford and all the while making sure that it makes a profit from each unit sold. Both Microsoft and Sony are behaving almost as state-sponsored monopolies delivering what they THINK the public want, using the vast resources of their other monopoly/semi-monopoly businesses to get by. Microsoft's failings have opened the door to Sony who, while being late to the party, at least have the better-specified box. Instead, they should have been dead and buried. A real price cut from Sony (not the reduced price for discontinued models) at this time might allow it yet to beat Microsoft.
Some will say that new games about to be delivered for the XBox 360 and other developments will rescue it from this lull. But unless Microsoft sells at least 10m more units before the end of the year, its shareholders should be calling for it to pull the plug. Even then it will have TOTAL sales for 2 years of around the same as the iPod for just Christmas quarter 2006. Indeed, its own sales for this calendar year will be barely above 2006 calendar year sales. The supposed "future of gaming consoles" selling less in its second full year than its first is a pretty bad sign.
Update: Is this in fact a triple whammy with reports that Robbie Bach (head of the MS division that includes XBox) sold over $6m of Microsoft stock just a few weeks before these announcements? Or a quadruple whammy to include this week's news that Peter Moore (see above) has left?
Tags: Microsoft, XBox360, Nintendo, Wii, Sony, PS3
In our interview with Microsoft corporate vice president Peter Moore, he pointedly declined to offer specifics about what was causing the problems on the grounds that he is not a technical person, nor would he answer whether the flaws should be attributed to design or manufacturing.
it's not entirely clear that Microsoft has a complete solution to this problem even now.
However, it was not this particular issue I wanted to post about. It seems that Microsoft used that tried and trusted PR technique of burying bad news on a day of other bad news. In this case, its own bad news. Hardly commented on was the amazing confession that they had failed to hit their target of selling 12million XBox 360's by end of June 2007. Maybe those that read this saw that they had sold 11.6m, so it wasn't after all that far off the target. But let's look a little closer at this. Only in January this year did Microsoft revise its target from 13-15m units to 12m. So, it is now at least 1.4m below the target it had just 6 months ago, and perhaps up to 3.4m below. So, it's not 0.4m of 12m (just over 3%) but between 11 and 22% below.
There's another way to look at this, too. By the end of December, Microsoft had sold 10.3m XBoxes. It has since sold just 1.3m boxes. Instead of the 3-5m for that period (as per Microsoft's own December targets), it has sold between 1/4 and 1/2 of that number. This is the truly amazing statistic and something I'm surprised has not been more widely commented on. During this time, Microsoft introduced the XBox 360 Elite, and it has had ample product to sell globally. Despite this, its sales have been less in the most recent 6 months than the first 3 months of its life when it was limited to the US market and very supply-constrained. These statistics are available here.
Now, in fact, things are not as bad as this, but only if you understand the phenomenon of channel stuffing - whereby a vendor records sales by stuffing products on shelves even though they remain unsold. This is widely reported as how Microsoft account for both XBox and Zune sales and why individual figures need to be taken with a pinch of salt. It is highly likely Microsoft stuffed the retail channel with lots of XBox 360's leading up to Christmas last year, perhaps so it could meet its target then of selling 10m by the end of 2006. So, either you think Microsoft missed both targets, and engages in this practice, or you think it only missed the current one - by a large margin. It's pretty bad either way (in fact a cynical person might suggest that channel stuffing is continuing and that the situation is even worse than the numbers suggest). And, a nasty by-product of that strategy is if you were to buy an XBox 360 today, it is quite likely you may be buying one made sometime last year and subject to the potential failures noted. As Microsoft have not published serial number ranges, this makes it pretty hard to guess what you're getting.
(As an aside, I don't believe Apple can account for sales in the same way due to its own retail presence which accounts for a significant chunk of sales. At the very least, I believe that Apple would not be able to call an iPod sale via its own online or retail stores a sale until it was sold to a real customer).
Really, this XBox 360 sales fiasco is a BIG deal, and it should have been picked up as such. I am somewhat surprised in all honesty, as I had expected the XBox 360 to be a winner. Back in 2005 before any of the new generation consoles was released I posited that Sony would be the loser and that it seemed Nintendo might defy the odds and with the XBox 360 would be the other winner (not a bad forecast for a non-gamer!). At this point in time, both the high-end consoles are struggling badly, despite (or perhaps because of) the huge companies behind these products. There has been just one winner so far - the company that focused not on stuffing untried/unproven/unwanted technology in to a device then subsidising its high price, but on delivering a value product that consumers adored, could afford and all the while making sure that it makes a profit from each unit sold. Both Microsoft and Sony are behaving almost as state-sponsored monopolies delivering what they THINK the public want, using the vast resources of their other monopoly/semi-monopoly businesses to get by. Microsoft's failings have opened the door to Sony who, while being late to the party, at least have the better-specified box. Instead, they should have been dead and buried. A real price cut from Sony (not the reduced price for discontinued models) at this time might allow it yet to beat Microsoft.
Some will say that new games about to be delivered for the XBox 360 and other developments will rescue it from this lull. But unless Microsoft sells at least 10m more units before the end of the year, its shareholders should be calling for it to pull the plug. Even then it will have TOTAL sales for 2 years of around the same as the iPod for just Christmas quarter 2006. Indeed, its own sales for this calendar year will be barely above 2006 calendar year sales. The supposed "future of gaming consoles" selling less in its second full year than its first is a pretty bad sign.
Update: Is this in fact a triple whammy with reports that Robbie Bach (head of the MS division that includes XBox) sold over $6m of Microsoft stock just a few weeks before these announcements? Or a quadruple whammy to include this week's news that Peter Moore (see above) has left?
Tags: Microsoft, XBox360, Nintendo, Wii, Sony, PS3
15 June 2007
Vista Marketshare
In my previous recent posts I've mentioned about my purchase of XP Pro for use on my about-to-be-delivered MacBook Pro.
I bought my copy at Amazon.co.uk and I thought I'd look at what was/wasn't selling on Amazon. I was amazed to see that XP Pro was indeed the top selling Microsoft OS on this site in 11th place (on all software titles). The first version of Vista was in 30th place. Only one other copy of Vista was in the top 50.
Wondering if this was a UK phenomenon, I popped over to the US Amazon site. Similar situation. This time, XP Home was in the top 25 at 15th place, and XP Pro somewhere in the 25-50 range. The first version of Vista was at 62.
I checked also at NewEgg a popular site for system builders, and it seems again that more people are buying XP than are buying Vista. Now some might argue the fact that Vista has so many versions dilutes it's position. But really there are also many versions of XP (Home/Pro, 32bit/64bit, OEM, Full,etc), and the gap in the position of XP and Vista is so significant that I do not believe that sum(copies of Vista) > sum(copies of XP).
I have always expected Vista to be a success, and I recognise that there is quite a difference in the PC world than the Mac world for doing upgrades etc. But to think that 6 months after the full introduction of Vista, when given the choice, more people are buying a 6 year old OS seems very strange indeed. That is a sad reflection on Microsoft's strategy and something that should cause them long-term worry. I know for sure that 6 months after Leopard is (eventually) released, the same will not be true on the Mac platform.
As a final aside, I did this check a day after Amazon.com had introduced a Leopard pre-order and was amazed to see Leopard in 1st place across ALL software, and Leopard family pack in 3rd place. Not only that, but even MacOS Tiger (10.4) was ahead of any copy of Vista (in 55th place)!
A visitor from outerspace would make a very different conclusion on the operating system market than is reality if presented with these figures. But, would they infer a more accurate view of the future?
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X
I bought my copy at Amazon.co.uk and I thought I'd look at what was/wasn't selling on Amazon. I was amazed to see that XP Pro was indeed the top selling Microsoft OS on this site in 11th place (on all software titles). The first version of Vista was in 30th place. Only one other copy of Vista was in the top 50.
Wondering if this was a UK phenomenon, I popped over to the US Amazon site. Similar situation. This time, XP Home was in the top 25 at 15th place, and XP Pro somewhere in the 25-50 range. The first version of Vista was at 62.
I checked also at NewEgg a popular site for system builders, and it seems again that more people are buying XP than are buying Vista. Now some might argue the fact that Vista has so many versions dilutes it's position. But really there are also many versions of XP (Home/Pro, 32bit/64bit, OEM, Full,etc), and the gap in the position of XP and Vista is so significant that I do not believe that sum(copies of Vista) > sum(copies of XP).
I have always expected Vista to be a success, and I recognise that there is quite a difference in the PC world than the Mac world for doing upgrades etc. But to think that 6 months after the full introduction of Vista, when given the choice, more people are buying a 6 year old OS seems very strange indeed. That is a sad reflection on Microsoft's strategy and something that should cause them long-term worry. I know for sure that 6 months after Leopard is (eventually) released, the same will not be true on the Mac platform.
As a final aside, I did this check a day after Amazon.com had introduced a Leopard pre-order and was amazed to see Leopard in 1st place across ALL software, and Leopard family pack in 3rd place. Not only that, but even MacOS Tiger (10.4) was ahead of any copy of Vista (in 55th place)!
A visitor from outerspace would make a very different conclusion on the operating system market than is reality if presented with these figures. But, would they infer a more accurate view of the future?
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X
Why XP Pro over Vista?
In my previous post I discussed my purchase of XP Pro. Why not go for Vista, you may ask? Is it your dislike of the Redmond monopoly again getting in the way of rational decisions?
In fact, I came very close to purchasing Vista. I wanted to see what the very best Microsoft can do is like. I also felt that a more recent OS would be more secure (and also require fewer changes - I'm not sure how many security downloads my copy of XP Pro will require immediately after install).
But in the end, Vista would have required me setting aside at least 20GB of my laptop hard disk - something that I don't want to give up. (XP should take as little as 5GB comfortably).
In addition, Vista does not work well today as far as I can tell with Virtualisation applications - especially if you also want to use a bootcamp partition. Part of this comes down to the new activation requirements in Vista which are torturous. While legal under license terms to do Virtualisation + Bootcamp (as far as I can tell) with the higher end versions, it is not practical to do so today. Also, the virtualisation solutions do not support Aero yet, so I wouldn't have been getting the full Vista experience except in Bootcamp (and probably quite hard to change between the two).
Finally, Vista is more expensive than XP Pro, and for the amount of use it will get, is just not worth it for me. I would have probably got the Ultimate version (for business use and virtualisation), but not used most of the features.
Coming up - an observation on Vista take-up.
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X
In fact, I came very close to purchasing Vista. I wanted to see what the very best Microsoft can do is like. I also felt that a more recent OS would be more secure (and also require fewer changes - I'm not sure how many security downloads my copy of XP Pro will require immediately after install).
But in the end, Vista would have required me setting aside at least 20GB of my laptop hard disk - something that I don't want to give up. (XP should take as little as 5GB comfortably).
In addition, Vista does not work well today as far as I can tell with Virtualisation applications - especially if you also want to use a bootcamp partition. Part of this comes down to the new activation requirements in Vista which are torturous. While legal under license terms to do Virtualisation + Bootcamp (as far as I can tell) with the higher end versions, it is not practical to do so today. Also, the virtualisation solutions do not support Aero yet, so I wouldn't have been getting the full Vista experience except in Bootcamp (and probably quite hard to change between the two).
Finally, Vista is more expensive than XP Pro, and for the amount of use it will get, is just not worth it for me. I would have probably got the Ultimate version (for business use and virtualisation), but not used most of the features.
Coming up - an observation on Vista take-up.
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X
I feel dirty...
Not because I haven't blogged for almost a month - though that, I should also be ashamed of - but, because I've just received delivery of my license for Microsoft XP Pro. Yes, you read that right.
But, do not worry, it's all in the best possible taste. I have ordered a 17" MacBook Pro and am expecting delivery next week. I will be running Windows XP on it both via BootCamp and via virtualisation. At this point, it looks like I'll be going down the VMWare Fusion route, rather than Parallels. I think VMWare is being aggressive in pricing, support and adding features as it comes from behind vs Parallels. We'll see.
I don't expect to use XP much, but I have some home automation components that haven't been updated since I stopped using an old Toshiba Libretto. My Virtual PC copies have never really worked on these items due to poor performance when doing serial operations.
I also wanted to have XP around to experiment a bit as well as to demonstrate to the great unwashed the flexibility of the Mac platform these days.
Looking back, I have bought a lot of Microsoft software over the years ranging from Multiplan, Excel/Word, followed of course by many copies of Office and Office X. I've also had Windows 95 and 98 via copies of Softwindows and Virtual PC. But these became poor when Mac OS X came along (I had to reboot into OS9 to get reasonable VPC performance).
Later this year I will undoubtedly purchase Office 2008 for Mac. I fully expect XP Pro and then Office 2008 to be the last Microsoft OS and Applications that I ever buy again.
Next up... Why XP Pro over Vista?
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X, MacBook Pro
But, do not worry, it's all in the best possible taste. I have ordered a 17" MacBook Pro and am expecting delivery next week. I will be running Windows XP on it both via BootCamp and via virtualisation. At this point, it looks like I'll be going down the VMWare Fusion route, rather than Parallels. I think VMWare is being aggressive in pricing, support and adding features as it comes from behind vs Parallels. We'll see.
I don't expect to use XP much, but I have some home automation components that haven't been updated since I stopped using an old Toshiba Libretto. My Virtual PC copies have never really worked on these items due to poor performance when doing serial operations.
I also wanted to have XP around to experiment a bit as well as to demonstrate to the great unwashed the flexibility of the Mac platform these days.
Looking back, I have bought a lot of Microsoft software over the years ranging from Multiplan, Excel/Word, followed of course by many copies of Office and Office X. I've also had Windows 95 and 98 via copies of Softwindows and Virtual PC. But these became poor when Mac OS X came along (I had to reboot into OS9 to get reasonable VPC performance).
Later this year I will undoubtedly purchase Office 2008 for Mac. I fully expect XP Pro and then Office 2008 to be the last Microsoft OS and Applications that I ever buy again.
Next up... Why XP Pro over Vista?
Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X, MacBook Pro
20 April 2007
WMA RIP Follow-up - H.264 to kill VC-1?
Following on from my recent post in which I claimed Windows Media Audio (WMA) was effectively dead and that I hoped the battleground would now move on to ensuring the same happened to WMV (by a hopefully victorious by MPEG-4 Part10/AVC/H.264), I was encouraged by two pieces of news last week.
The first was a report over at The Register about how Microsoft had got "mugged" over VC-1 codec patent terms by the other companies who had claims to some patents that were part of this standard (VC-1 is a fundamental part of WMV). In essence, Microsoft gets less than many of its competitors for every VC-1 license. As Microsoft gives this away in many of its products, it actually costs it money. The article also argued how H.264 had become the preferred codec for many people. I am seeing this mentioned increasingly in blog postings etc.
I can't comment on the accuracy of this article, though the author's knowledge seems pretty deep on the subject.
However in the same week, Microsoft itself released a long-expected XBox 360 update. One of its features includes H.264 playback capability. (A side note for AppleTV bashers - XBox360 also only does 2-channel audio playback!)
I think this move is equivalent to Microsoft's inclusion of AAC playback on its Zune player and is indeed a smart move. With Sony using MPEG video standards also, and of course AppleTV, iPod and other Apple products leveraging this standard, it seems to me that Microsoft is also acknowledging that at the very least, it must let the market decide, and that it cannot impose VC-1 on the world.
Those who produce content in H.264 can easily supply such content to iPod owners, Mac owners, AppleTV owners, Sony PS3 and PSP owners, many Nokia phones, as well as to XBox360 owners. Unfortunately, due to resolution and other differences in device capabilities, there may still have to be multiple versions of the content, but use of a single standard will certainly simplify things for many content providers (and users). It would thus seem a suicidal move for a content company to produce just VC-1 material and limit its market. Likewise, a company producing a playback device would be foolish not to provide for H.264, and may consider cutting WMV/VC-1 support.
It is still too early to decide this matter, but I think it is certainly a move in the right direction. If both WMA and WMV's influences are curtailed I think it's a great win for the consumer. These were Microsoft's opportunity to impose the next lock-ins on users (after Office formats were opened up), and competition authorities had failed to do anything about it. I personally believe it is lock-ins such as these that have prolonged Microsoft's massive hold on the computer user (how could any business user NOT use MS Office?). In this post-PC world of many and varied devices, Microsoft will have to compete on capability alone - though with the backing of it's huge reserves and user inertia to help it along the way, it is still very much able to flex its muscles. That's good news for Microsoft's competitors, and it's even better news for us consumers. In the end, perhaps the market has done the job that the competition authorities were unwilling and incapable of doing*. It has taken too long and there are legacy issues (eg BBC tying itself to Microsoft's "standards" for some of its initial services to consumers thus locking out Mac and Linux users, while adopting H.264 for others). But, it is at least happening.
What do you think? Is H.264 going to become the de facto codec for video for the next generation of devices? Can/will Microsoft impose its own standard after all? Is something else going to do it (Flash, DivX, etc)?
* Footnote: Of course, there is a counter argument, that it is not so much the market that made it happen, but Microsoft's own internal failings. After all with WMA, WMV, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, XBox, Vista in every flavour imaginable etc. it certainly ATTEMPTED to cover every base. If Microsoft had executed well, it would surely have nailed this and the competition authorities would be spending the next 5-10 years trying to unravel it.
Tags: Apple, WMV, H.264, VC-1, Microsoft
The first was a report over at The Register about how Microsoft had got "mugged" over VC-1 codec patent terms by the other companies who had claims to some patents that were part of this standard (VC-1 is a fundamental part of WMV). In essence, Microsoft gets less than many of its competitors for every VC-1 license. As Microsoft gives this away in many of its products, it actually costs it money. The article also argued how H.264 had become the preferred codec for many people. I am seeing this mentioned increasingly in blog postings etc.
I can't comment on the accuracy of this article, though the author's knowledge seems pretty deep on the subject.
However in the same week, Microsoft itself released a long-expected XBox 360 update. One of its features includes H.264 playback capability. (A side note for AppleTV bashers - XBox360 also only does 2-channel audio playback!)
I think this move is equivalent to Microsoft's inclusion of AAC playback on its Zune player and is indeed a smart move. With Sony using MPEG video standards also, and of course AppleTV, iPod and other Apple products leveraging this standard, it seems to me that Microsoft is also acknowledging that at the very least, it must let the market decide, and that it cannot impose VC-1 on the world.
Those who produce content in H.264 can easily supply such content to iPod owners, Mac owners, AppleTV owners, Sony PS3 and PSP owners, many Nokia phones, as well as to XBox360 owners. Unfortunately, due to resolution and other differences in device capabilities, there may still have to be multiple versions of the content, but use of a single standard will certainly simplify things for many content providers (and users). It would thus seem a suicidal move for a content company to produce just VC-1 material and limit its market. Likewise, a company producing a playback device would be foolish not to provide for H.264, and may consider cutting WMV/VC-1 support.
It is still too early to decide this matter, but I think it is certainly a move in the right direction. If both WMA and WMV's influences are curtailed I think it's a great win for the consumer. These were Microsoft's opportunity to impose the next lock-ins on users (after Office formats were opened up), and competition authorities had failed to do anything about it. I personally believe it is lock-ins such as these that have prolonged Microsoft's massive hold on the computer user (how could any business user NOT use MS Office?). In this post-PC world of many and varied devices, Microsoft will have to compete on capability alone - though with the backing of it's huge reserves and user inertia to help it along the way, it is still very much able to flex its muscles. That's good news for Microsoft's competitors, and it's even better news for us consumers. In the end, perhaps the market has done the job that the competition authorities were unwilling and incapable of doing*. It has taken too long and there are legacy issues (eg BBC tying itself to Microsoft's "standards" for some of its initial services to consumers thus locking out Mac and Linux users, while adopting H.264 for others). But, it is at least happening.
What do you think? Is H.264 going to become the de facto codec for video for the next generation of devices? Can/will Microsoft impose its own standard after all? Is something else going to do it (Flash, DivX, etc)?
* Footnote: Of course, there is a counter argument, that it is not so much the market that made it happen, but Microsoft's own internal failings. After all with WMA, WMV, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, XBox, Vista in every flavour imaginable etc. it certainly ATTEMPTED to cover every base. If Microsoft had executed well, it would surely have nailed this and the competition authorities would be spending the next 5-10 years trying to unravel it.
Tags: Apple, WMV, H.264, VC-1, Microsoft
03 April 2007
British press reaction to EMI/Apple
I've stuck by my pledge to steer clear of British newspapers' technology sections. And a slight decrease in blood pressure has ensued.
However, I couldn't help come across the Guardian Editorial's curmudgeonly and ignorant commentary on the EMI/Apple announcement I covered yesterday.
The public is the LARGEST beneficiary of this deal, although perhaps that is only strictly true if it is repeated by most/all of the other labels. The significance of this deal to the public is HUGE. The whole DRM edifice has had a key structural pillar removed and it will surely crumble. The key beneficiary from this has to be the law-abiding, music-lover. The secondary beneficiaries are those who innovate to make the most of this development. Apple and EMI may be two of those companies, and the bricks and mortar retailers may be the losers. But those outcomes are far from certain.
You owned it then as much as you owned it now. You could in theory (and legally) do the same with it then as you can now. Just now, it will be easier and potentially with a higher quality.
You have a choice. And if you buy an album, you pay no premium. If you buy a single you have both flexibility AND better quality. And you can move from lower quality to higher quality/noDRM by paying the difference (no additional penalty), just as you can move from buying one or two tracks to buying the whole album at no penalty (due to recent "Complete my album" feature). I am over the moon that both the restrictions are removed AND the quality is improved (the latter I did not expect).
Of course, Jobs' actions for Apple should be in Apple's interests as a business entity. But please name me someone/anyone in the entrenched music industry who has made this issue clearer? Do you ignore his claims that this is the way Apple wanted to do it from the start? The apparent DRM lock-in to iPod came only because of the runaway success of the iTunes/iPod phenomenon. Plenty of other companies could have made this happen then. And of course, it is not a lock-in. Jobs pointed out the futility of operating 2 business models - physical and download - in which the physical is unencumbered and the download has been loaded with restrictions.
Jobs IS a consumer champion in that he has done more for the music-loving public than any other CEO involved in the business. He has been rewarded for that by the public who have overwhelmingly chosen his products. He has been pilloried by a select group of press (concentrated somewhat in UK and Europe) who somehow resent this success. Please score Jobs next to Gates, Bronfman (Warner), Vivendi/Universal, Sony (home of Rootkit), etc. Please suggest an industry figure who should be added to that list ahead of Jobs?
I guarantee that Apple will increase its sales from iTunes as a result of this arrangement. This announcement is about levelling the playing field between physical and download. Apple's marketshare of downloads MAY decrease, but it's share of the overall music market will undoubtedly rise as barriers to buying download vs digital (or pirated of course) have been significantly changed. This one statement proves how little the Guardian understands the business it's writing about.
Furthermore, the move does NOTHING directly to help iPod sales. In fact, if anything it gives people a freedom to move away from iPod if they have (in rare cases) a substantial investment in music downloaded via iTunes. It will help iPod sales ONLY if the public perceive that the extra freedoms justify more iPod purchases either absolutely or at the expense of other players. Jobs is brave enough to see that anything that benefits the consumer CAN benefit his company if they can react well. Compare that to our Redmond-friends who take the view that the more they benefit the established oligopolies, the more they will benefit.
Again this is just bollocks. Here is what the premier Jupiter analyst Michael Garten berg had to say. My interpretation of Michael's views are far closer to what I've written here, than the Guardian have interpreted (and I see no mention of what they quote in Michael's post).Perhaps the Guardian were the "media outlet" referred to in Michael's later post - When reporters set agendas which is truly hilarious (if not frightening)? Michael of course was a (brief) Microsoft employee, and is considered the leading Jupiter analyst in this area.
The Guardian has also written in such a way that it implies Apple is the one that grants that license or (at the very least) that there are restrictive issues involved in getting that license. It confuses the issues of the format of the tracks, the restrictions involved and the technology of the players. From a player perspective, there are many players that support the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Codec standard (note lack of word Apple there), that Apple has CHOSEN to support and LICENSED to offer. I do not know what the licensing terms are for AAC and how they compare for instance to either MP3 or WMA. But AFAIK, anyone can license AAC should they wish to. My last 2 Nokia phones do that, so does much Sony and Sony Ericsson equipment. Even the Microsoft Zune will play AAC! Companies that have chosen not to, have made that decision deliberately and they are the fools.
If Apple had chosen to use MP3, it would have been dropping the quality of material or increasing file size even further by using 16 year old technology. AAC is the logical and approved heir to MP3. It would be like Apple bringing back the 5 1/4" floppy drive to support the laggards.
If Apple had chosen to use WMA, it would have been choosing a proprietary (though licensable) format locking people into the business practices of that well-known and convicted monopolist that is Microsoft. WMA has also been shown in numerous tests to be inferior to MPEG-4 AAC (indeed only WMA Pro which is not used by most players comes close to AAC in quality). You can find links to this on Wikipedia as easily as I did and make your own mind up. Apple has successfully taken on the proprietary WMA standard and defeated it to our long term benefit. Not by imposing it's own proprietary standard but by choosing an open standard. Try to imagine the parallel universe that is WMA-dominated (Microsoft rights, viruses, incompatibilities, etc) and you will surely see this significance. Apple was ALONE in this fight. The competition authorities should be turning on the companies that insist on licensing a proprietary standard. Any music sold in WMA format for instance should be pounced on as anti-consumer whether DRM'd or not.
In 5 years time, people will all be using the open MPEG-4 AAC with just legacy use of MP3 and maybe WMA. We will all have benefitted from that. It will be because of Apple's choices that this is the result. No other company has done more to push that better, open standard than they have (watch the same happening for MPEG-4/AVC/H.264 video).
With this move (and assuming others follow), Apple has broken the tight linkage between the selling of music online and the iPod. They had earned that linkage through doing a great job, and they have not abused that position (yet). The opportunity is out there now for other companies to innovate and offer great download services. Or, for others to innovate and offer great players that allow people to use everything they'd already bought on iTunes or used on their iPod. Or for others to provide an even better service than iTunes/iPod. There are now far less restrictions at least as far as iPod/iTunes goes. I will be able to buy my music from anyone who supports MP3 or MPEG-4 AAC and use it on my iPod or other device that supports either MPEG-4 or MP3 (you should be easily able to downconvert from AAC to MP3 with imperceptible quality loss from a 256kbps AAC file, compared with from CD). I will also be able to enjoy my purchased music from anyone who provides a player which supports these (open) standards. Sorry about the WMA-retards. You got what you deserved.
Apple has offered others the opportunity to get into the iPod world. Sure you could do that through eMusic and a few others. But they were limited by the major labels insisting on DRM. Without DRM, anyone is free to offer iTunes OR iPod users material if the licensee agrees. And this is what it has always been about - the licensee. Apple has opened the download market to anyone and there are no restrictions for those people entering the market - at least any that are governed by Apple (contrast this with Microsoft/WMA). It has done that because it has its sights set on the music market as a whole. As I said in the previous post, this is about having 30% of the music market rather than 70% of the music download market which itself is only 10% of the overall music market.
It is up to the consumer to vote with their wallets. They can support EMI's choice - either with Apple or without, and send a message to the other major labels. If enough consumers withhold support from the other labels by refusing to purchase that material (remember to boycott the CD's too if you really want change!), then perhaps the others will get that message. I, for one, will support EMI's move by choosing some of their material to buy online (it's a pity that it's so difficult with this label's rather poor roster of artists!).
I applaud Jobs and Nicoli for their actions. Sure they are self-serving. But they are self-serving because they embrace change and innovation, not because they preserve the status quo. One (Apple) is done from strength, the other (EMI) from weakness, perhaps. But they are still bold moves. WE are the main beneficiaries. Let's seize that. And, to the Guardian, perhaps if you can't comment gracefully or accurately on news you seem to have no grasp of you should perhaps just keep quiet?
Tags: Apple, EMI, DRM, WMA, AAC, iPod, Guardian
However, I couldn't help come across the Guardian Editorial's curmudgeonly and ignorant commentary on the EMI/Apple announcement I covered yesterday.
Who gains from this deal? Well, the public does — a bit (my emphasis).
The public is the LARGEST beneficiary of this deal, although perhaps that is only strictly true if it is repeated by most/all of the other labels. The significance of this deal to the public is HUGE. The whole DRM edifice has had a key structural pillar removed and it will surely crumble. The key beneficiary from this has to be the law-abiding, music-lover. The secondary beneficiaries are those who innovate to make the most of this development. Apple and EMI may be two of those companies, and the bricks and mortar retailers may be the losers. But those outcomes are far from certain.
Until now, what are called digital-rights management (DRM) restrictions meant that you could buy an EMI track from Apple's music store — but you didn't really own it.
You owned it then as much as you owned it now. You could in theory (and legally) do the same with it then as you can now. Just now, it will be easier and potentially with a higher quality.
Some will not be happy at paying a premium for the privilege, especially as many smaller labels and online shops already sell music free of copy protection — and cheaper, too.
You have a choice. And if you buy an album, you pay no premium. If you buy a single you have both flexibility AND better quality. And you can move from lower quality to higher quality/noDRM by paying the difference (no additional penalty), just as you can move from buying one or two tracks to buying the whole album at no penalty (due to recent "Complete my album" feature). I am over the moon that both the restrictions are removed AND the quality is improved (the latter I did not expect).
Mr Jobs has only recently joined the chorus calling for DRM-free tracks, but this deal makes him look like a consumer champion.
Of course, Jobs' actions for Apple should be in Apple's interests as a business entity. But please name me someone/anyone in the entrenched music industry who has made this issue clearer? Do you ignore his claims that this is the way Apple wanted to do it from the start? The apparent DRM lock-in to iPod came only because of the runaway success of the iTunes/iPod phenomenon. Plenty of other companies could have made this happen then. And of course, it is not a lock-in. Jobs pointed out the futility of operating 2 business models - physical and download - in which the physical is unencumbered and the download has been loaded with restrictions.
Jobs IS a consumer champion in that he has done more for the music-loving public than any other CEO involved in the business. He has been rewarded for that by the public who have overwhelmingly chosen his products. He has been pilloried by a select group of press (concentrated somewhat in UK and Europe) who somehow resent this success. Please score Jobs next to Gates, Bronfman (Warner), Vivendi/Universal, Sony (home of Rootkit), etc. Please suggest an industry figure who should be added to that list ahead of Jobs?
Apple probably will lose some sales from iTunes, but its iPods are the real money-spinner.
I guarantee that Apple will increase its sales from iTunes as a result of this arrangement. This announcement is about levelling the playing field between physical and download. Apple's marketshare of downloads MAY decrease, but it's share of the overall music market will undoubtedly rise as barriers to buying download vs digital (or pirated of course) have been significantly changed. This one statement proves how little the Guardian understands the business it's writing about.
Furthermore, the move does NOTHING directly to help iPod sales. In fact, if anything it gives people a freedom to move away from iPod if they have (in rare cases) a substantial investment in music downloaded via iTunes. It will help iPod sales ONLY if the public perceive that the extra freedoms justify more iPod purchases either absolutely or at the expense of other players. Jobs is brave enough to see that anything that benefits the consumer CAN benefit his company if they can react well. Compare that to our Redmond-friends who take the view that the more they benefit the established oligopolies, the more they will benefit.
And, as Jupiter Research has pointed out, the format the unprotected tracks will be sold in is not supported by many digital-music players. Mr Jobs was very keen yesterday to point out that DRM-free music can be played on non-Apple machines. But that requires other manufacturers to license the technology first. So the iPod, which has already sold 90m worldwide, keeps its chokehold on the music industry for now.
Again this is just bollocks. Here is what the premier Jupiter analyst Michael Garten berg had to say. My interpretation of Michael's views are far closer to what I've written here, than the Guardian have interpreted (and I see no mention of what they quote in Michael's post).Perhaps the Guardian were the "media outlet" referred to in Michael's later post - When reporters set agendas which is truly hilarious (if not frightening)? Michael of course was a (brief) Microsoft employee, and is considered the leading Jupiter analyst in this area.
The Guardian has also written in such a way that it implies Apple is the one that grants that license or (at the very least) that there are restrictive issues involved in getting that license. It confuses the issues of the format of the tracks, the restrictions involved and the technology of the players. From a player perspective, there are many players that support the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Codec standard (note lack of word Apple there), that Apple has CHOSEN to support and LICENSED to offer. I do not know what the licensing terms are for AAC and how they compare for instance to either MP3 or WMA. But AFAIK, anyone can license AAC should they wish to. My last 2 Nokia phones do that, so does much Sony and Sony Ericsson equipment. Even the Microsoft Zune will play AAC! Companies that have chosen not to, have made that decision deliberately and they are the fools.
If Apple had chosen to use MP3, it would have been dropping the quality of material or increasing file size even further by using 16 year old technology. AAC is the logical and approved heir to MP3. It would be like Apple bringing back the 5 1/4" floppy drive to support the laggards.
If Apple had chosen to use WMA, it would have been choosing a proprietary (though licensable) format locking people into the business practices of that well-known and convicted monopolist that is Microsoft. WMA has also been shown in numerous tests to be inferior to MPEG-4 AAC (indeed only WMA Pro which is not used by most players comes close to AAC in quality). You can find links to this on Wikipedia as easily as I did and make your own mind up. Apple has successfully taken on the proprietary WMA standard and defeated it to our long term benefit. Not by imposing it's own proprietary standard but by choosing an open standard. Try to imagine the parallel universe that is WMA-dominated (Microsoft rights, viruses, incompatibilities, etc) and you will surely see this significance. Apple was ALONE in this fight. The competition authorities should be turning on the companies that insist on licensing a proprietary standard. Any music sold in WMA format for instance should be pounced on as anti-consumer whether DRM'd or not.
In 5 years time, people will all be using the open MPEG-4 AAC with just legacy use of MP3 and maybe WMA. We will all have benefitted from that. It will be because of Apple's choices that this is the result. No other company has done more to push that better, open standard than they have (watch the same happening for MPEG-4/AVC/H.264 video).
With this move (and assuming others follow), Apple has broken the tight linkage between the selling of music online and the iPod. They had earned that linkage through doing a great job, and they have not abused that position (yet). The opportunity is out there now for other companies to innovate and offer great download services. Or, for others to innovate and offer great players that allow people to use everything they'd already bought on iTunes or used on their iPod. Or for others to provide an even better service than iTunes/iPod. There are now far less restrictions at least as far as iPod/iTunes goes. I will be able to buy my music from anyone who supports MP3 or MPEG-4 AAC and use it on my iPod or other device that supports either MPEG-4 or MP3 (you should be easily able to downconvert from AAC to MP3 with imperceptible quality loss from a 256kbps AAC file, compared with from CD). I will also be able to enjoy my purchased music from anyone who provides a player which supports these (open) standards. Sorry about the WMA-retards. You got what you deserved.
Apple has offered others the opportunity to get into the iPod world. Sure you could do that through eMusic and a few others. But they were limited by the major labels insisting on DRM. Without DRM, anyone is free to offer iTunes OR iPod users material if the licensee agrees. And this is what it has always been about - the licensee. Apple has opened the download market to anyone and there are no restrictions for those people entering the market - at least any that are governed by Apple (contrast this with Microsoft/WMA). It has done that because it has its sights set on the music market as a whole. As I said in the previous post, this is about having 30% of the music market rather than 70% of the music download market which itself is only 10% of the overall music market.
It is up to the consumer to vote with their wallets. They can support EMI's choice - either with Apple or without, and send a message to the other major labels. If enough consumers withhold support from the other labels by refusing to purchase that material (remember to boycott the CD's too if you really want change!), then perhaps the others will get that message. I, for one, will support EMI's move by choosing some of their material to buy online (it's a pity that it's so difficult with this label's rather poor roster of artists!).
I applaud Jobs and Nicoli for their actions. Sure they are self-serving. But they are self-serving because they embrace change and innovation, not because they preserve the status quo. One (Apple) is done from strength, the other (EMI) from weakness, perhaps. But they are still bold moves. WE are the main beneficiaries. Let's seize that. And, to the Guardian, perhaps if you can't comment gracefully or accurately on news you seem to have no grasp of you should perhaps just keep quiet?
Tags: Apple, EMI, DRM, WMA, AAC, iPod, Guardian
02 April 2007
WMA RIP
Well, not exactly RIP - Rest In Hell maybe more appropriate.
Today's announcement is a great demonstration that Steve Jobs' Apple has learned from its past mistakes about failing to open up key technologies at critical times.
For consumers, the great advantage of this announcement, beyond of course the obvious DRM and quality issue is that it will move the world towards an MPEG-4 world. That is an open world - not governed by any single company. Perhaps people (and journalists) will finally twig that neither of the A's in the synonym AAC stand for a computer company! For Apple, the victory is that the world did not end up with WMA and a comfy lock-in between the content providers and Microsoft dictating just about everything about how, when, where and for how long we could use the material we'd bought. Essentially global adoption of WMA would have squeezed Apple and indeed any other non-Microsoft device out of the equation. The significance of this cannot be underestimated, but I suspect it will never be seen that way as we have no insight into the parallel universe in which WMA took over. And, note to Norway, along the way, not a single consumer has been harmed in the making of this story!
Just as importantly, it should cement MPEG-4 as the standard rather than leaving the lowest common denominator (MP3 - a 16 year old format) as the "future" of sound. Most listening tests give AAC-coded material the best possible ratings of any lossy format with well-coded 128kbps AAC close to lossless. (If you don't believe me, check the Dolby site, some audiophile sites, and Wikipedia, who can point to these tests). Only the very highest levels of MP3 encoding and WMA Pro (which is not in common use in players) even come close to AAC at the same bitrates.
I've no doubt that Apple will continue to sell content ONLY in AAC format, and so any stragglers in the portable player market would be foolish not to support it. And furthermore, many music stores would be best advised to adopt it in order to maximise the music quality for the same bitrate (when compared with MP3). Those using WMA will be faced with the choice of using MP3 or AAC if they wish their music to be compatible with the dominant music player on the market today. Apple's choice of (and pushing of) the latest open MPEG standards has paid off this time and we are all beneficiaries.
There is of course the slightly inconvenient issue for such stores of having still to support DRM'd music until the other companies relent. That is an advantage that Apple has squeezed by this move. But this is great news for independent stores and labels who will make the most of this.
For Apple, apart from the defeat of WMA, they open up the digital download market for iPod users to many more companies, so on the one hand they would seem to be loosening their hold on the digital download market. But, as Steve pointed out in his "Thoughts on Music", it's more important for the digital market to be on a level playing field with CD. Apple have music retailers such as Walmart in its sights. It is not looking backwards at the download competition (it regularly compares itself to Amazon, Borders etc, rather than to Yahoo Music, and other download peers). It would rather have 30% of the music market (100%), than increasing its already massive share of the download-only market that would be permanently limited in scope to perhaps just 10-20% of the total market in a DRM world. Conveniently perhaps, it should also help to reduce concerns of the (misguided) competition authorities which had threatened to cause consumer confusion and waste a lot of Apple resources fighting.
Is it self-serving for Apple? Yes, of course - that's what they're about (as any company should be in commerce). But once again, Apple have shown that by moving in the direction that favours the consumer, they position themselves to benefit too. That is in stark contrast to its arch competitor.
With greater adoption of MPEG-4 this should also help Apple in the next battleground of video where WMV (and Microsoft IPTV) need to be neutralised. I'm sure that's where Apple has it's sights on. MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) is the open way forward, is again better than any other existing technology out there, and needs to win out.
From a selfish perspective I have never found Apple's DRM to be limiting in any way, and I had no concerns that if they did abuse their position, there would be plenty of solutions from legal to not-so-legal that would come to the consumer's aid. In that regards, the bigger thing for me is the move forward in music quality. I still like to be able to listen to the best possible version of a song in certain situations while having the convenience of small size for others. With 256kbps AAC, I see really little downside compared with CD, (though I generally found it very hard to distinguish 128kbps AAC from real CD in a few listening tests).
Now, with the quality issue sorted (which I didn't necessarily expect), the convenience of online purchase/instant gratification has levelled the playing field if not tilted towards the future. With easier competition between music stores, we can look forward to greater innovations including such ideas as "Complete my album" introduced just last week by Apple which is a unique download-only differentiator (can't be done easily with physical media). Expect to see more variation in offerings including bundles of music, video, concert offers, and digital books that only the internet can provide. These are the sorts of initiatives that can breathe life into the music industry and hopefully signal an intent to grasp the future rather than defend the dead-end single/album status quo.
This is a great announcement for music loving consumers, for the music industry, for Apple and for any number of innovative small companies out there (eMusic, Bleep, etc). Well done to EMI for showing some nerve here. Hope the other 3 from the industry cartel will grasp the nettle!
Update: Added link to EMI press release for those not on Planet Earth.
Tags: Apple, EMI, DRM, WMA, AAC, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft
Today's announcement is a great demonstration that Steve Jobs' Apple has learned from its past mistakes about failing to open up key technologies at critical times.
For consumers, the great advantage of this announcement, beyond of course the obvious DRM and quality issue is that it will move the world towards an MPEG-4 world. That is an open world - not governed by any single company. Perhaps people (and journalists) will finally twig that neither of the A's in the synonym AAC stand for a computer company! For Apple, the victory is that the world did not end up with WMA and a comfy lock-in between the content providers and Microsoft dictating just about everything about how, when, where and for how long we could use the material we'd bought. Essentially global adoption of WMA would have squeezed Apple and indeed any other non-Microsoft device out of the equation. The significance of this cannot be underestimated, but I suspect it will never be seen that way as we have no insight into the parallel universe in which WMA took over. And, note to Norway, along the way, not a single consumer has been harmed in the making of this story!
Just as importantly, it should cement MPEG-4 as the standard rather than leaving the lowest common denominator (MP3 - a 16 year old format) as the "future" of sound. Most listening tests give AAC-coded material the best possible ratings of any lossy format with well-coded 128kbps AAC close to lossless. (If you don't believe me, check the Dolby site, some audiophile sites, and Wikipedia, who can point to these tests). Only the very highest levels of MP3 encoding and WMA Pro (which is not in common use in players) even come close to AAC at the same bitrates.
I've no doubt that Apple will continue to sell content ONLY in AAC format, and so any stragglers in the portable player market would be foolish not to support it. And furthermore, many music stores would be best advised to adopt it in order to maximise the music quality for the same bitrate (when compared with MP3). Those using WMA will be faced with the choice of using MP3 or AAC if they wish their music to be compatible with the dominant music player on the market today. Apple's choice of (and pushing of) the latest open MPEG standards has paid off this time and we are all beneficiaries.
There is of course the slightly inconvenient issue for such stores of having still to support DRM'd music until the other companies relent. That is an advantage that Apple has squeezed by this move. But this is great news for independent stores and labels who will make the most of this.
For Apple, apart from the defeat of WMA, they open up the digital download market for iPod users to many more companies, so on the one hand they would seem to be loosening their hold on the digital download market. But, as Steve pointed out in his "Thoughts on Music", it's more important for the digital market to be on a level playing field with CD. Apple have music retailers such as Walmart in its sights. It is not looking backwards at the download competition (it regularly compares itself to Amazon, Borders etc, rather than to Yahoo Music, and other download peers). It would rather have 30% of the music market (100%), than increasing its already massive share of the download-only market that would be permanently limited in scope to perhaps just 10-20% of the total market in a DRM world. Conveniently perhaps, it should also help to reduce concerns of the (misguided) competition authorities which had threatened to cause consumer confusion and waste a lot of Apple resources fighting.
Is it self-serving for Apple? Yes, of course - that's what they're about (as any company should be in commerce). But once again, Apple have shown that by moving in the direction that favours the consumer, they position themselves to benefit too. That is in stark contrast to its arch competitor.
With greater adoption of MPEG-4 this should also help Apple in the next battleground of video where WMV (and Microsoft IPTV) need to be neutralised. I'm sure that's where Apple has it's sights on. MPEG-4 AVC (or H.264) is the open way forward, is again better than any other existing technology out there, and needs to win out.
From a selfish perspective I have never found Apple's DRM to be limiting in any way, and I had no concerns that if they did abuse their position, there would be plenty of solutions from legal to not-so-legal that would come to the consumer's aid. In that regards, the bigger thing for me is the move forward in music quality. I still like to be able to listen to the best possible version of a song in certain situations while having the convenience of small size for others. With 256kbps AAC, I see really little downside compared with CD, (though I generally found it very hard to distinguish 128kbps AAC from real CD in a few listening tests).
Now, with the quality issue sorted (which I didn't necessarily expect), the convenience of online purchase/instant gratification has levelled the playing field if not tilted towards the future. With easier competition between music stores, we can look forward to greater innovations including such ideas as "Complete my album" introduced just last week by Apple which is a unique download-only differentiator (can't be done easily with physical media). Expect to see more variation in offerings including bundles of music, video, concert offers, and digital books that only the internet can provide. These are the sorts of initiatives that can breathe life into the music industry and hopefully signal an intent to grasp the future rather than defend the dead-end single/album status quo.
This is a great announcement for music loving consumers, for the music industry, for Apple and for any number of innovative small companies out there (eMusic, Bleep, etc). Well done to EMI for showing some nerve here. Hope the other 3 from the industry cartel will grasp the nettle!
Update: Added link to EMI press release for those not on Planet Earth.
Tags: Apple, EMI, DRM, WMA, AAC, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft
23 February 2007
Vista's mere 800 applications
I find this information from Computerworld somewhat surprising on a number of levels.
First is that just 108 applications have been certified to work with Vista, and another 683 have been awarded "works with distinction" whatever that means. Excluded from the list are applications such as all of Adobe's multimedia applications, most Symantec applications, and applications such as the latest version of Skype. Given Vista's huge gestation period, I can't help feeling that this is ridiculously low. I know this doesn't mean that all the other apps WON'T work, but I'm genuinely surprised.
The next thing that struck me as surprising - though perhaps it's a (major?) contributory factor to the above is that it costs $10,000 per app to get that certification. This is clearly a barrier to small software companies, and even larger ones if they are close to a new release of software. While I understand why this was probably a costly exercise for a 3rd party to undertake, I wonder whether Microsoft has been rather silly in making this barrier so high given the end result.
It's difficult to comment too much on whether it's the application vendors being slow, or cheap, or whether Microsoft has been very remiss in not putting enough backing behind making applications compatible with Vista out of the gate (let's face it, it's now almost 4 months since the release of Vista to business). But whatever the case, I think it's a poor state of affairs.
I think there would be a lot of fuss in the Apple camp if such a situation happened with Leopard, though a fair point against this is that there is no comparable certification step that I know of. But when I think back to the relative ease of transition from PowerPC to Intel with Rosetta and Universal apps seeming to deliver a very high level of compatibility from day 1, it seems Apple's approach to working with its developers* seems to have paid dividends.
But really, what was going on while Vista trundled along in prolonged development?
* I guess given that Adobe has also been one of the slowest to respond to Apple's Intel transition may indicate that it needs to look a bit closer at its development responsiveness
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Certification, Adobe, Apple, Leopard
First is that just 108 applications have been certified to work with Vista, and another 683 have been awarded "works with distinction" whatever that means. Excluded from the list are applications such as all of Adobe's multimedia applications, most Symantec applications, and applications such as the latest version of Skype. Given Vista's huge gestation period, I can't help feeling that this is ridiculously low. I know this doesn't mean that all the other apps WON'T work, but I'm genuinely surprised.
The next thing that struck me as surprising - though perhaps it's a (major?) contributory factor to the above is that it costs $10,000 per app to get that certification. This is clearly a barrier to small software companies, and even larger ones if they are close to a new release of software. While I understand why this was probably a costly exercise for a 3rd party to undertake, I wonder whether Microsoft has been rather silly in making this barrier so high given the end result.
It's difficult to comment too much on whether it's the application vendors being slow, or cheap, or whether Microsoft has been very remiss in not putting enough backing behind making applications compatible with Vista out of the gate (let's face it, it's now almost 4 months since the release of Vista to business). But whatever the case, I think it's a poor state of affairs.
I think there would be a lot of fuss in the Apple camp if such a situation happened with Leopard, though a fair point against this is that there is no comparable certification step that I know of. But when I think back to the relative ease of transition from PowerPC to Intel with Rosetta and Universal apps seeming to deliver a very high level of compatibility from day 1, it seems Apple's approach to working with its developers* seems to have paid dividends.
But really, what was going on while Vista trundled along in prolonged development?
* I guess given that Adobe has also been one of the slowest to respond to Apple's Intel transition may indicate that it needs to look a bit closer at its development responsiveness
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Certification, Adobe, Apple, Leopard
06 December 2006
Microsoft UK rip-off
“The UK’s future competitiveness depends on IT,” said Gordon Frazer, Microsoft’s UK managing director at last week's launch of Vista claiming that Vista and Office 2007 would have a real impact (though I find this hard to see unless other countries don't upgrade as fast - assuming indeed that upgrading DOES help productivity).
The UK has been a huge market for Microsoft, and we have a particularly soft public sector that accepts anything Microsoft throws at it for extortionate amounts of money.
So how come if the UK is so important to Microsoft, and that the company is so concerned with our productivity does it ensure that its software should cost twice what it does in the States?
I was wondering what it would cost for instance to put XP Pro or Vista on a Mac using Parallels. So I checked out Amazon:
Amazon.co.uk - Windows XP Pro SP2 Cost £232.99 (reduced from £289.99)
Amazon.com - Windows XP Pro SP2 Cost $239.99 (reduced from $299.99)
Even allowing for VAT on the UK version that is an exchange rate of £1=$1.21 at a time when the dollar is almost at the 1:2 ratio. Microsoft already makes gross margins of over 85% on Windows. It means in the UK, it makes double the profit.
This is not an isolated case. For Microsoft Office 2003 Professional, the price is £399 UK vs $414 US. It is possible to get both applications cheaper in the US (for instance NewEgg has Office 2003 at $359). Many US stores are also carrying Vista upgrade offers (though I've read some horror stories there too).
To me this is outrageous and unjustified, yet I see no fuss about it. Where is our good media when they're needed? This is a scandal that our competition and consumer bodies should be looking at now!
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Office, UK, Price
The UK has been a huge market for Microsoft, and we have a particularly soft public sector that accepts anything Microsoft throws at it for extortionate amounts of money.
So how come if the UK is so important to Microsoft, and that the company is so concerned with our productivity does it ensure that its software should cost twice what it does in the States?
I was wondering what it would cost for instance to put XP Pro or Vista on a Mac using Parallels. So I checked out Amazon:
Amazon.co.uk - Windows XP Pro SP2 Cost £232.99 (reduced from £289.99)
Amazon.com - Windows XP Pro SP2 Cost $239.99 (reduced from $299.99)
Even allowing for VAT on the UK version that is an exchange rate of £1=$1.21 at a time when the dollar is almost at the 1:2 ratio. Microsoft already makes gross margins of over 85% on Windows. It means in the UK, it makes double the profit.
This is not an isolated case. For Microsoft Office 2003 Professional, the price is £399 UK vs $414 US. It is possible to get both applications cheaper in the US (for instance NewEgg has Office 2003 at $359). Many US stores are also carrying Vista upgrade offers (though I've read some horror stories there too).
To me this is outrageous and unjustified, yet I see no fuss about it. Where is our good media when they're needed? This is a scandal that our competition and consumer bodies should be looking at now!
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Office, UK, Price
30 November 2006
Microsoft's Vista will be a humongous success
You may not have expected the title to come from me, but really I wanted to state the obvious.
According to the FT, there are 8 times the number of PC's in use compared to when Windows95 was released (800 million vs 100 million). Furthermore, it has been a full 5 years since the release of Windows XP. That has to provide a pent-up demand itself. Previously, Microsoft had updates every few years, so many Windows 2000 users didn't upgrade to XP for instance, even if Windows 98 users did.
So, there is little doubt that Vista will break all records that Microsoft chooses to use to publicise its success, and we will see plenty of such mentions over the next year. And anyone fighting such statistics is basically delusional. (The only question will be whether it is "phenomenally, fantastically successful", or just "successful"; and that will depend on personal interpretation).
But Vista's release is important in many, many ways beyond just number of installations, including:
- It lets Microsoft plant a stake in the ground saying we DO understand security and we've SOLVED it - calm down. You can trust us, after all.
- In the past, you had to have strong reasons NOT to go Microsoft - you were shutting yourself from all sorts of compatibility and functionality. Nowadays, the proliferation of devices including mobiles, laptops, media extenders, and general consumer electronics, blurs the boundaries of the past. The internet and the general "connectedness" of everything means that the average user no longer HAS to go Microsoft. They increasingly have a choice again. Whether Vista is on 80%, 90% or 98% of PC's may not matter when there are many more devices than just PC's.
- It is the basis for Microsoft's one shot at dominating the living room. More than any other company, Microsoft's home strategy needs people to welcome Vista AND to actually use it the way it was intended.
Vista is MS's best shot (and a compromised, late one at that) at keeping and extending it's virtual monopoly on devices that are primarily computers. But Vista enters the market at a different time than XP. A time when a new set of competitors and new technologies have emerged. A time when we use many devices that each have a processor inside running an OS of sorts and providing various bits of functionality. A time when the OS itself no longer provides the true differentiation or, particularly of concern for Microsoft, the lock-in.
In time, Vista will be considered as the last great hurrah of the proprietary OS. There will never be a software release as significant to so many people and businesses. Even Microsoft, by all accounts, never wants something so big again. Reading some recent blog posts about how it took a team of 24 people plus managers (for a total of 43) to decide and code the Shutdown/Sleep functionality, is evidence enough that such an approach is unsustainable.
From here onwards, Microsoft's financial success will be based around how it milks it's huge (and still-growing) installed base, how it maintains the massive intertia and slows the switch away from it's dominant software, and whether it can truly make profitable it's newer initiatives. (My own views are that on 1 and 2 it will do well, and on the 3rd will continue to disappoint).
The next key battleground is in the Office software space. With Office 2007 released simultaneously with Vista, this is symbolic. Until now, anyone who wanted to co-exist in the business space would have been forced to use Microsoft Office. I know that without Office for Mac, I would not have been able to hold out on the Mac platform. The key to this was not unparalleled functionality but closed file formats. If you could not receive a Word document, edit it and send it back to be read without issue by the sender, you would be considered IT-defective. While OpenOffice has made some inroads here, and allowed Linux users some ability to co-exist, it has not been a good enough substitute for many business users for many reasons. With the Office file formats now becoming open, this barrier will now be significantly reduced - a key reason why Microsoft resisted it for so long. Between Google, OpenOffice and other similar initiatives, if the monopoly that is MS Office is broken, then that is the last key blockage towards true interoperability and collaboration across hardware and software platforms (Microsoft came close to establishing both IE and also Media Player as similar monopolies, but has probably failed to do so).
Microsoft has proven itself ruthless and astute at building monopolies and virtual monopolies, and maintaining those in the face of new competition. It has done this on the back of two dominant franchises - DOS/Windows and Office. Both were more than just compelling products - they caused problems to users who did not assimilate. That is not a way to win long-term friends and supporters. But there has been no major new technology from Microsoft that is truly outstanding and field-leading since at least XP, and possibly before that. The parallels are greatest perhaps with IBM - that indisputable champion of the late 70's and early 80's, but that remains a strong, profitable and influential company today. That is Microsoft's fate. It's timing will depend as much on it's competitors failings (e.g Sony's failure with PS3 giving XBox360 a window), as it's own management of that decline. It will no doubt have many successes in the future, but hopefully nothing that is so dominant and that results in such mediocrity from itself and the rest of the IT world hangers-on or leads to grudging acceptance from the worldwide PC userbase at large because they have no alternative.
For me personally, I expect I will buy a copy of Vista eventually to run on a Mac under Bootcamp or Parallels for the same reasons that I had an on-off relationship with VirtualPC at times. I also expect to buy Office 2008 for the Mac. But I truly expect and hope that these will be the last pieces of Microsoft software that I ever HAVE to buy.
History may well look back and see IBM as THE hardware monopoly and Microsoft as THE software monopoly. Let's hope that history doesn't write about a services monopoly, as there's only one name in the frame for that at this time.
Welcome, Vista, may the best man win (but not win big enough to be another monopoly).
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Google, Apple
According to the FT, there are 8 times the number of PC's in use compared to when Windows95 was released (800 million vs 100 million). Furthermore, it has been a full 5 years since the release of Windows XP. That has to provide a pent-up demand itself. Previously, Microsoft had updates every few years, so many Windows 2000 users didn't upgrade to XP for instance, even if Windows 98 users did.
So, there is little doubt that Vista will break all records that Microsoft chooses to use to publicise its success, and we will see plenty of such mentions over the next year. And anyone fighting such statistics is basically delusional. (The only question will be whether it is "phenomenally, fantastically successful", or just "successful"; and that will depend on personal interpretation).
But Vista's release is important in many, many ways beyond just number of installations, including:
- It lets Microsoft plant a stake in the ground saying we DO understand security and we've SOLVED it - calm down. You can trust us, after all.
- In the past, you had to have strong reasons NOT to go Microsoft - you were shutting yourself from all sorts of compatibility and functionality. Nowadays, the proliferation of devices including mobiles, laptops, media extenders, and general consumer electronics, blurs the boundaries of the past. The internet and the general "connectedness" of everything means that the average user no longer HAS to go Microsoft. They increasingly have a choice again. Whether Vista is on 80%, 90% or 98% of PC's may not matter when there are many more devices than just PC's.
- It is the basis for Microsoft's one shot at dominating the living room. More than any other company, Microsoft's home strategy needs people to welcome Vista AND to actually use it the way it was intended.
Vista is MS's best shot (and a compromised, late one at that) at keeping and extending it's virtual monopoly on devices that are primarily computers. But Vista enters the market at a different time than XP. A time when a new set of competitors and new technologies have emerged. A time when we use many devices that each have a processor inside running an OS of sorts and providing various bits of functionality. A time when the OS itself no longer provides the true differentiation or, particularly of concern for Microsoft, the lock-in.
In time, Vista will be considered as the last great hurrah of the proprietary OS. There will never be a software release as significant to so many people and businesses. Even Microsoft, by all accounts, never wants something so big again. Reading some recent blog posts about how it took a team of 24 people plus managers (for a total of 43) to decide and code the Shutdown/Sleep functionality, is evidence enough that such an approach is unsustainable.
From here onwards, Microsoft's financial success will be based around how it milks it's huge (and still-growing) installed base, how it maintains the massive intertia and slows the switch away from it's dominant software, and whether it can truly make profitable it's newer initiatives. (My own views are that on 1 and 2 it will do well, and on the 3rd will continue to disappoint).
The next key battleground is in the Office software space. With Office 2007 released simultaneously with Vista, this is symbolic. Until now, anyone who wanted to co-exist in the business space would have been forced to use Microsoft Office. I know that without Office for Mac, I would not have been able to hold out on the Mac platform. The key to this was not unparalleled functionality but closed file formats. If you could not receive a Word document, edit it and send it back to be read without issue by the sender, you would be considered IT-defective. While OpenOffice has made some inroads here, and allowed Linux users some ability to co-exist, it has not been a good enough substitute for many business users for many reasons. With the Office file formats now becoming open, this barrier will now be significantly reduced - a key reason why Microsoft resisted it for so long. Between Google, OpenOffice and other similar initiatives, if the monopoly that is MS Office is broken, then that is the last key blockage towards true interoperability and collaboration across hardware and software platforms (Microsoft came close to establishing both IE and also Media Player as similar monopolies, but has probably failed to do so).
Microsoft has proven itself ruthless and astute at building monopolies and virtual monopolies, and maintaining those in the face of new competition. It has done this on the back of two dominant franchises - DOS/Windows and Office. Both were more than just compelling products - they caused problems to users who did not assimilate. That is not a way to win long-term friends and supporters. But there has been no major new technology from Microsoft that is truly outstanding and field-leading since at least XP, and possibly before that. The parallels are greatest perhaps with IBM - that indisputable champion of the late 70's and early 80's, but that remains a strong, profitable and influential company today. That is Microsoft's fate. It's timing will depend as much on it's competitors failings (e.g Sony's failure with PS3 giving XBox360 a window), as it's own management of that decline. It will no doubt have many successes in the future, but hopefully nothing that is so dominant and that results in such mediocrity from itself and the rest of the IT world hangers-on or leads to grudging acceptance from the worldwide PC userbase at large because they have no alternative.
For me personally, I expect I will buy a copy of Vista eventually to run on a Mac under Bootcamp or Parallels for the same reasons that I had an on-off relationship with VirtualPC at times. I also expect to buy Office 2008 for the Mac. But I truly expect and hope that these will be the last pieces of Microsoft software that I ever HAVE to buy.
History may well look back and see IBM as THE hardware monopoly and Microsoft as THE software monopoly. Let's hope that history doesn't write about a services monopoly, as there's only one name in the frame for that at this time.
Welcome, Vista, may the best man win (but not win big enough to be another monopoly).
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Google, Apple
14 November 2006
Just one more...
Okay, you've twisted my arm, so I shall twist the knife one more time...
An hilarious CNN TV review of the Zune hijacked by the with-it anchorwoman.
It's so sad we'll be waiting until 2008 to get Zune in the UK and Europe. It appears to be so bad that even Jack Schofield of Guardian fame would have had to write a negative article on it.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune
An hilarious CNN TV review of the Zune hijacked by the with-it anchorwoman.
It's so sad we'll be waiting until 2008 to get Zune in the UK and Europe. It appears to be so bad that even Jack Schofield of Guardian fame would have had to write a negative article on it.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune
Microsoft, what were you thinking (3)?
Hilarious (though long) account of the Zune installation process over at Engadget.
Did they really think it would be so easy (to topple the iPod)? What's with these awful images on the install process? After all the fuss about WMP11, they don't even use it - preferring yet another flavour of jukebox software. I can see transitive versions of the verb Zune becoming quite a derogatory term, as in "My PC got zuned". Not a very good start.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune
Did they really think it would be so easy (to topple the iPod)? What's with these awful images on the install process? After all the fuss about WMP11, they don't even use it - preferring yet another flavour of jukebox software. I can see transitive versions of the verb Zune becoming quite a derogatory term, as in "My PC got zuned". Not a very good start.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune
10 November 2006
Microsoft, what were you thinking (2)?
Ars Technica covers this one well. As usual, the comments give a good idea of the views of the geek community. If it's 90% in one direction, that's usually a good pointer.
This is a ridiculous move. If I buy my music legally (as I do) why should I support this? And what happens to the small independents, or the average independents? Why should I pay twice?
I think this shows how things really would go if Microsoft owned this market.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune, Universal
This is a ridiculous move. If I buy my music legally (as I do) why should I support this? And what happens to the small independents, or the average independents? Why should I pay twice?
I think this shows how things really would go if Microsoft owned this market.
Tags: Microsoft, Zune, Universal
Microsoft, what were you thinking (1)?
Jack Schofield at the Guardian just reported the facts a few weeks ago (see my critique then). And since, we understand, Zune won't come to Europe for another year plus (!), he won't (shouldn't) be reviewing it anytime soon. But here's a few mainstream US reporters on the Zune:
Walt Mossberg at Wall Street Journal.
David Pogue NY Times (hope this link works, but I'm sure you can find it)
David Ewalt, Forbes
Of course, if you read Daring Fireball, you'd have known most of this back in July with the wonderful Magic-8-ball interview! Amazingly, it seems that it is even worse than predicted!
Tags: Microsoft, Zune, Daring Fireball, iPod
Walt Mossberg at Wall Street Journal.
David Pogue NY Times (hope this link works, but I'm sure you can find it)
David Ewalt, Forbes
Of course, if you read Daring Fireball, you'd have known most of this back in July with the wonderful Magic-8-ball interview! Amazingly, it seems that it is even worse than predicted!
Tags: Microsoft, Zune, Daring Fireball, iPod
18 October 2006
Once a monopoly....
There is a big brouhaha going on around the blogosphere about Microsoft's new EULA (license agreement) for Windows Vista. The basic issue is that a user license (not an OEM license which is even more highly restricted) will no longer allow you to transfer the license as you see fit. You will have just one opportunity to move the license to another machine after de-activating it on the original machine it is installed on. Thereafter you have to buy another.
Credit to Paul Thurrott (who originally said it wasn't a big deal) for giving space to Koroush Ghazi who has written an excellent rebuttal of why the new EULA is actually very unreasonable and will hurt the very people that are some of Microsoft's biggest customers (and fans).
Ars Technica has posted an article on the subject too with it's usual impartiality, though I think it's being a little trusting when assuming that just because Microsoft didn't enforce some of the restrictions with XP, that it won't enforce some of them with Vista. As usual, the comments to the Ars story give a good idea about what the majority think. When the comments are 90% plus against something, perhaps it's time to take notice!
My impression is that it will hurt a lot of enthusiasts who build their own machines, as well as those who use one or more Windows environments in a virtual setup. That will include some Mac users too who wish to use either BootCamp or solutions such as Parallels to run one or more Windows environments.
Could they have done it differently? Well, yes, of course they could. It seems to me a much fairer choice would be to allow people to deauthorise a computer and then re-authorise another as many times as you wanted (within reason). That's the way the iTunes Store works.
For someone to pay good money for a software license and have it limited to only running on the next 2 computers they own (and reduce that to just one if you have a catastrophic hardware failure) seems like the Microsoft of old - taking its customers for granted. I know of no other software company that would impose such a limit on retail software. Shame on you Microsoft.
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, EULA, Paul Thurrott, Ars Technica
Credit to Paul Thurrott (who originally said it wasn't a big deal) for giving space to Koroush Ghazi who has written an excellent rebuttal of why the new EULA is actually very unreasonable and will hurt the very people that are some of Microsoft's biggest customers (and fans).
Ars Technica has posted an article on the subject too with it's usual impartiality, though I think it's being a little trusting when assuming that just because Microsoft didn't enforce some of the restrictions with XP, that it won't enforce some of them with Vista. As usual, the comments to the Ars story give a good idea about what the majority think. When the comments are 90% plus against something, perhaps it's time to take notice!
My impression is that it will hurt a lot of enthusiasts who build their own machines, as well as those who use one or more Windows environments in a virtual setup. That will include some Mac users too who wish to use either BootCamp or solutions such as Parallels to run one or more Windows environments.
Could they have done it differently? Well, yes, of course they could. It seems to me a much fairer choice would be to allow people to deauthorise a computer and then re-authorise another as many times as you wanted (within reason). That's the way the iTunes Store works.
For someone to pay good money for a software license and have it limited to only running on the next 2 computers they own (and reduce that to just one if you have a catastrophic hardware failure) seems like the Microsoft of old - taking its customers for granted. I know of no other software company that would impose such a limit on retail software. Shame on you Microsoft.
Tags: Microsoft, Vista, EULA, Paul Thurrott, Ars Technica
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