Update: Microsoft is still done

Steve Job and Apple announced iCloud this week and this was revolutionary and exciting for the media because Apple has taken the name “cloud” and put an “i” in front of it! Wow! Thanks again Apple! We worship you!

Why does every Apple announcement remind me of the scene in toy story where the little green aliens say “Ooooohhh…the Claw” ?

Media and fans at a Recent Apple event

“Apple’s cloud is timid: it’s about storage and synching as opposed to a streaming, real-time, extension to your actual machine.” – Article from Wired

But I digress… The point of this post is really that Microsoft continues to spiral down. Granted, they’ve traditionally been flying so high that the downward spiral will take years before it hits the ground and give plenty of time to pull the nose up, but for now that hasn’t happened.

Microsoft recently announced a new version of their OS. Supposedly a “radical” departure from past versions. And to demonstrate just how radical of a departure it really is, they gave it a new and exciting name … Windows 8! (yawn). I’ll just repeat what I’ve said a dozen times already, unless Microsoft can resist the urge to call everything “Windows Something”, it will never turn this ship around. Windows is un-cool! Nobody wants anything Windows related.

And get this, it’s going to have aspects of the interface from iPhone7 layered on top of the traditional Windows OS. So a user-interface layered on top of a user-interface. Sounds desperate. Microsoft grasping at anything as an excuse to launch Windows 8 without actually doing anything new. I predict that sales will show that they should have called it “Vista 2″.

Google’s vision is much more far reaching and long term. Google envisions a day when your device is nothing more than a window into your virtual computer on the cloud. All the power, all the storage, all the applications running “on the net”. That’s what true cloud computing is and I commend them for that. The problem is that to truly realize this dream requires  a very high speed (and more importantly, low delay) network. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon.

Microsoft not a player in tablets

Gartner is declaring that Microsoft will not even have a 1% share of the tablet space until at least 2015. Their reasoning is that since nothing Microsoft has today is suitable for tablets, Microsoft will have to wait until Windows 8 to re-launch their tablet strategy and that isn’t due until at least 2012.

But as I’ve said before, if Microsoft is going to put “Windows” on it, they might as well not bother.

Linux vs. Microsoft: It’s over…

Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin said in a recent interview that Microsoft is increasingly irrelevant. “I think we just don’t care that much [about Microsoft] anymore … They used to be our big rival, but now it’s kind of like kicking a puppy.”

Zemlin points out that Linux is dominant in every sector except the Desktop. And while the desktop is certainly not an insignificant portion of the market, this is also likely to change dramatically over the next 5  years as mobile devices start to replace laptops and desktops.

Think of it this way, is your next purchase likely to be another $1000 home computer with windows, or with some other device like a $300 tablet? There is no longer any compelling reason to buy a home computer with Windows so the trend is inevitably away from desktop PCs.

It won’t happen overnight but I’ll bet that sometime over the next couple years you’ll cast your gaze over to your home PC and realize it has a layer of dust on it. At that point you’ll realize that your beloved PC, the one that you thought you could never live without hasn’t even been turned on for weeks.

Windows on Nokia cost Microsoft $1B

A few weeks ago, nobody could figure out why Nokia announced it was switching to Windows Phone 7. As it turns out, the answer is that Microsoft payed Nokia 1 Billion. Now it makes sense (no, not really). Nokia’s sinking ship is willing to tie itself exclusively to Microsoft’s sinking ship because Microsoft’s boat is bigger and sinking slower.

But the decision still doesn’t make much sense given that Microsoft reportedly outbid Google. What that means is Nokia could have accepted a large amount of money from Google to latch on to it’s rising space ship (Android), but instead accepted slightly more money for a deck chair on the Titanic.

Perhaps Nokia decided to favor Windows Phone 7 because there are relatively fewer handset makers doing so. Android is now on so many devices that it’s hard to separate yourself from the pack. On the other hand, Nokia has traditionally been a commodity handset maker which would seem to align better with Android, to say nothing of the fact that Android is based on Linux which was invented in Finland, Nokia’s head office. I guess they have other ideas…

Windows not Suited to Touchscreens

I’ve mentioned it on a few previous posts, now Wired is saying the same thing, “These tablets show just how wrong-headed Microsoft’s plan to use Windows for everything is.”

LG rep: Windows Phone 7 launch underwhelmed

“the platform failed to live up to the company’s expectations of grabbing consumer attention.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20028565-75.html#ixzz1BKu6NcYa

Steve Balmer didn't get my memo

Back in November when Microsoft announced it’s phone and called it “Windows 7″, I commented that if Microsoft wants to get anywhere in the mobile world it has to stop calling everything “Windows”! The name “Windows” instantly associates everything with the legacy desktop and that’s just flat out boring. Nobody wants yet another Windows anything.

Sadly, Steve didn’t get memo. At his CES 2011 keynote he is quoted as saying “Windows will be everywhere, on every kind of device, without compromise.” Predictably, this excited nobody. The Windows interface and all the applications that Windows is known for are not suited to touch screens and mobile devices so cramming yet anther attempt at Windows compatible OS on a portable device is doomed to failure.

If Microsoft wants to succeed in the mobile space it needs a totally new interface which, by definition, wouldn’t be Windows. So don’t call it Windows!

By contrast, if Microsoft announced a completely new operating system for mobile devices, this would create a massive amount of excitement and interest. Instead, everyone just yawns and goes off to see what the other Steve is up to.

Windows Phone 7 Launches… cue the crickets

кухненско обзавежданеI’m not into “fads”. When everyone-and-their-dog is raving about some new product, I’m more likely to opt out. My logic is pretty simple, when something is over-hyped, chances are it won’t live up to expectations and you end up disappointed. It’s always more rewarding finding a that hidden gem than buying off the rack.

Sadly, hype also has a cruel cousin called “complete lack of interest”. It’s the opposite of hype because no matter what the merits of the product, the buying public just doesn’t care and many a good product has failed without even getting a fair chance.

That is apparently the category Microsoft is in. Even if Windows Phone 7 was the greatest phone in the history of phones, it won’t matter. Nobody cares. The launch of Windows Phone 7 was a complete non-event. I didn’t even hear about  it in the business news.

Contrast that with Apple. If Steve Jobs even thinks about a new product, or even if people think he might be thinking about a new product, there is non-stop media coverage. Microsoft has completely lost its mojo and there is little chance of turning it around.

Microsoft just can’t seem to envision a way to transform itself from a legacy desktop PC software maker into a company that understands and competes in the mobile space. The problem is, when Microsoft “thinks mobile”, all it thinks about is how do we make a mobile device that is “Windows Compatible”…Can you think of a more boring phrase than “Windows Compatible”.

What Microsoft just can’t comprehend is that the truly great mobile devices of the future will be the ones that let you completely leave your desktop behind and never look back.

If Microsoft was going to hit a home run with their new phone OS, there was one thing they should NOT have called it; “Windows”. That one word more than any other associates with the legacy desktop PC business, and just in case Microsoft hasn’t been paying attention, desktop PCs are completely un-cool.

Microsoft death drum keeps beating louder

Microsoft won’t be going away any time soon. Never the less, it’s days as the dominant force in computing are certainly coming to a close. So just as IBM lost its top spot but still remains a large profitable company, so to will Microsoft.

As I’ve said many times in the past, as soon as you can dock a keyboard and monitor to a smartphone, the PC era will be officially over. And since Microsoft shows no signs of establishing itself in the post-PC world, it’s all down hill from here.

Here is the article in Information Week that inspired this post.

Another installment of "I wish I was a journalist"

CNN continues to circle the drain. What happened to this former “most trusted” news authority? I’m consistantly stunned by what a joke it’s become. I guess they are trying to emulate Fox?

Anyhow, the premise of this story is that Google, for all it’s cash and prestige, actually never releases a “killer” anything. It’s fair comment that Google has had many unsuccessful “product” releases, but, it seems this particular “business insider” hasn’t been paying attention.

First, the dismissive claim that the only thing Google has ever done well is its original search engine. Uh what?

First of all, even if that were true, search is still the most important application on the web and Google’s turned it into gold not only by making the best search engine, but by creating adwords. The dominance of search can not be dismissed. It still makes Google is still the most important company on the web and if Google never did anything else, they would still make a zillion dollars.

But setting aside search for the moment, somehow, Dan Frommer has never looked up an address on Google maps, or watched his own channel (CNN) zoom in on a map using Google Earth. What about street view? If ever their was a “killer-app” on the web, that has to be it. He says, “Google is no product-killer” ? Perhaps he should go ask the map makers at Rand McNally or map-quest their opinion on that?

And what about that gmail thing? Granted that Google hasn’t destroyed anyone, but GMail slammed hotmail and does anyone still have a yahoo mail account? I guess they do if they love spam.

How about phones? The article makes a big deal about how Google launched, the canceled it’s Nexus One phone making it sound like Google’s attempt at getting into phones was over, case closed… This must be intentional ignorance. The Nexis One was introduced to demonstrate the power of Google’s Android phone operating system which is now gaining market share at stunning rate. While the “iPhone” gets all the press, Android is steadily gaining market share.

As I’ve pointed out before, unlike Apple which is the only company that can release iX-ish products (iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc) Android can be taken and used by anyone. Thus it’s starting to appear on phones, tablets, set-top boxes, netbooks, and the list continues to grow.

I think maybe CNN is a bit sore over that other “non-killer-app”, Google news. Ya, the one that is so not important that every news outlet in America has been whining about the “death of real journalism”. Or maybe it’s the threat that youtube will replace news channels where you have to sit through hours of garbage just to see a few solid news stories?

Let us not forget the punch line to all this; Apple and Microsoft buy adds on CNN, Google does not. But of course this would never have any influence on a company with true journalistic integrity would it?