All Articles Tagged Microsoft

Despite frequent, repeated denials from Microsoft that they aren’t making a Zune Phone to pit against Apple’s iPhone juggernaut, our sibling site WMExperts keeps compiling evidence that Microsoft might be doing just that.

The latest is that Pink (as it’s code-named) has an ad agency, will be based on Windows Mobile 7 but have it’s own proprietary UI layer, should be available next year-ish, and provide Zune, My Phone, and Windows Marketplace for Mobiles functionality.

So have Microsoft’s previous denials been based on crossed fingers and the “truthiness” of actually making a Zune HD Phone? Or as TiPb has been predicting, an Xbox Phone?

Let’s face it, Microsoft would be negligent and borderline daft not to integrate the technologies and leverage the brand of Xbox.

Oh, wait…

In a write up nonchalantly titled “Lies, damn lies, statistics, and Apple…“, our good friend Phil Nickinson over at sister-site WMExperts rightly points out that Apple gave Windows Mobile a full on shunning during the WWDC 2009 keynote:

Windows Mobile isn’t even mentioned. Sure, Microsoft hasn’t yet launched its dedicated app store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stores from which to buy apps – ahem, here’s one – and it’s an insult to all of the developers of the 20,000 Windows Mobile applications available.

Windows 7 did get a mention (and a ribbing, as usual, from OS X head Bertrand Serlet), but in the smartphone space…?

Nothing.

That might seem callous from Apple’s part — but here’s the worse problem for Microsoft: Windows Mobile was missing from a lot of post-WWDC analyst and media commentary as well.

Apple still owns significant smartphone mind-share and the Palm Pre has captured the attention of the blogsphere and, since RIM is holding fast, that’s coming at the expense of Microsoft (and maybe Android, which was last year’s next big thing).

Realistically, with so many platforms now, when someone writes “Apple iPhone and…” “BlackBerry and…” and now “Palm Pre and…” there’s only room for so many others in the sentence, and those places are becoming increasingly competitive.

With Windows Mobile 7 pushed out until 2010, and 6.5 not in consumer hands yet either, and with iPhone 3G S about to hit, things might not be changing any time soon either…

So, two and a half years ago Microsoft released what was basically their version of the 2005 video iPod. Now, some two years after Apple released the iPod touch, WMExperts (via Engagdet and CNET) tells us Microsoft has confirmed… the Zune HD, a wide screen, capacitive, solid-state media player.

At 272×480, it’s not quite as wide as the iPhone’s 320×480, much less the high-end Windows Mobile handsets like the Touch HD’s 480×800. But like we said, it is capacitive (which is strangely still unsupported by WinPho) and what pixels it has are OLED, which will hopefully motivate Apple to give the next generation iPhone the same treatment.

Other features include HD radio support and something nobody can believe they didn’t do from the outset: integrate it with the Xbox product line.

We’re still left wondering, however, is this really a business Microsoft needs to be in? Wouldn’t Zune resources have been better used to get Windows Mobile 7 out last year instead of next when it could be, you know, competitive?!

Microsoft produces Windows, the operating system of choice for most iPhone users, and Exchange ActiveSync, the push data system Apple (and Google!) have licensed for business users. They also make Sync, the integration system found in Ford cars, which has just gotten an update.

TWICE (via CNET) lists all sorts of interesting info on the update, but the really interesting part is what’s revealed about future updates, including support for Pandora streaming internet radio, and… the iPhone:

“We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your email by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.

Good news for Ford owners… eventually.

(Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!)

Okay, if you buy an empty iPod Classic, have never owned a CD or bought a piece of music in your life, and are determine to immediately fill that 120GBs to the brim, then $30K iTunes will cost you.

However, if you’ve already got a sizable CD collection, or music collection of any kind — even your own compositions — or want to carry around class lectures or other forms of audio or — hey — video maybe, well, it can cost much, much less. Maybe even less than the $15 a month Microsoft would rather you cough up to them for a ZunePass subscription.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the subscription model. I don’t think it can hold a candle to the iPhone and iPod touches coup de grace — online streaming music for (pretty much) free — but for some users subscription is the way to go. (Especially now in the DRM-free world where Microsoft shutting down PlaysForSure didn’t threaten to destroy large and dearly-paid for music collections, right Microsoft?). What I am against is bland, ultimately not compelling advertising. Ars Technica lays it out:

As of November 2008, the Zune Pass allows its users to keep any 10 songs per month. In other words, if you wanted 30,000 songs for keeps, just like the iTunes Store, you would have to wait 250 years. The cost would be a whopping $45,000, however. In other words, it’s only really worth it if you’re OK with the fact that you have to keep paying the monthly fee to keep access to the songs that you don’t yet own. Otherwise, iTunes (or any other à la carte model) is the way to go.

And again, the iPhone and iPod touch (for which Microsoft has no competitive offering since they keep denying the ZunePhone and Zune HD is still vaporware) can do better, cheaper with free internet radio apps.

Unless you want an extra $15+ bill tacked onto your monthly services overhead?

(Thanks Matt for the tip!)

We love many things about the iPhone. Most things even. One of the few things we’re not so chuffed about is the weird, wacky restrictions Apple places on App Store apps, and the sometimes haphazard way in which those restrictions are applied.

So, one edge we thought the other platforms might have would be the relative openness of their competing app stores. Turns out maybe not so much. How so? Our buddy Phil Nickinson over on WMExperts spent his weekend scouring through Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace for Mobile restrictions, and at first blush they appear at least as crazy as Apple’s:

• No VOIP apps using a carrier’s data. (Will WiFi be OK?)
• No apps that replace or modify the default dialer, SMS or MMS apps.
• No apps with an OTA download of over 10MB. (Not sure if that’s the app itself, or downloading within the app for, say, a podcatcher or the dreaded torrent downloader.)
• No apps that change the default browser, search client, or media player on the device. (Does that mean no Opera or Skyfire, which let you choose to set them as the default browser? No Kinoma Play, Core Player or the like for multimedia?)

So pr0n’s no problem, but don’t go trying to replace the rendering farce which is IE6? Of course, Microsoft mitigates this by allowing apps from multiple sources, not just their on store, but then again, they’re apparently going to allow the carriers to get their grubby hooks in branded stores to. Sigh.

With great freedom comes great responsibility, people. Never forget your Spider-Man…

MVC (via MacRumors) is claiming that Microsoft’s head of Xbox Business Insights and Strategy, Richard Teversham, is leaving to join Apple.

With the unbelievable success of iPhone and iPod touch gaming, could Apple finally be taking the space seriously? Or could this be part of some bigger move, one involving those chipset buyouts, licenses, and hires we recapped earlier? Could Apple be working on…

… A Pippin Take 2?

Yeah, more likely iPhone, maybe iTablet, maybe even Mac gaming, but that next gen hardware power might just give the consoles a run for their money anyway…

Personally, I still think Microsoft’s only hope at this point is an XboxPhone, but what do I know, I don’t run the largest, richest, most talent-laden software company in the world… that runs itself, and everything it produces, into the ground due to paralyzing politics and committee. So, excuse me if I’m nonplussed by the rumors of a new Zune HD, which while not an iPhone clone, or even an iPod classic or nano clone, looks to be positioned exactly opposite the iPod touch. A strategy which has proven so successful for Microsoft thus far…

Dear Steve Ballmer: Please, scorch the earth, start from scratch. Stop worrying so much about Apple and Google and start investing in Microsoft. Start making wonderful experiences for customers all your own. Build an integrated ecosystem from the ground up where Server, Windows, Xbox Windows Phone, and Zune all share a single unified brand and delightful cross-compatibility. Take a lesson from Palm. Spend your years in the desert if you have to, but at least walk in a single, considered direction.

Kthxbai

[Via Engadget]

We seen both mobile players, QuickOffice and Docs2Go announce upcoming Word and Excel editing suites for the iPhone, but rumors of the king of the desktop doc jungle, Microsoft itself, entering the space remain just that: rumors. For now. TechCrunch has the latest:

I’m here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim O’Reilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating “not yet, keep watching”. But it’s clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.

So, do we need Big Redmond to give us Office for iPhone, or are the already-announced mobile players enough? Could they provide something no one else outside of Microsoft ever could? Like… Clippy for iPhone?!

UPDATED: Daring Fireball nails it. Closed or open, the smartphone industry was stagnating before the iPhone…

ORIGINAL: Steve Ballmer is the gift that just keeps on grief’ing! Proven wrong about the iPhone already, both the Microsoft CEO and his counterpart at Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvu both decided to take fairly transparent jabs at Apple, who once again didn’t even bother to attend the show. CNet (via MacRumors) has the gory details.

Said Kallasvu (taking a break from iCloning the iPhone App Store):

Apple’s vertically integrated model, where its hardware and software are tightly controlled by the company, further fragmented the market. And he added that what is truly needed is more openness in developing applications.

Said Ballmer, (who’s been getting his own fair share of grief this week over WinPho 6.5):

“I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software. Openness is central because it’s the foundation of choice.”

One disgruntled European expressed displeasure at all the iPhone talk, asking why it deserved attention when it had only a tiny sub-percentage of the market.

Responded AT&T Mobility chief Ralph de la Vega:

“Because the other 99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone.”

It wasn’t all hugs and kisses from AT&T, though, even with the iPhone providing life support to their bottom line. Jabbed de la Vega:

“The iPhone is a great success, but it would be even better if the applications were interoperable,”

Um, yeah, because then people might actually want to buy those other, less innovative, non-iPhone you have stockpiled in your warehouse?