Microsoft longs to own that market. It has ambitious plans to dominate the software and standards in consumer audio and video: it did it for business and it feels it has a right to win here too. Yet Microsoft, as Ballmer admits, has been chasing this particular train for nearly a decade but to no real effect. Worse, after all Microsoft's efforts it's Apple which has the market at its feet, with the killer iPod and iTunes combo winning hearts, minds and wallets worldwide.
The convergence market plays directly to Apple's strengths in industrial design and ease of use. The new G5 Macintosh already looks like a TV from the future and with a tuner card it will be. It's a long way from the drab standard PCs running Microsoft's Media Center, most of which seem to have been designed by people in love with 1970s era hi-fi.
At a Financial Analyst's meeting earlier this year, Ballmer said that he tells Microsoft people: "The goal is to be first…You want to be the first guy to be cool, too." He's exactly right to highlight the element of fashionable excitement that signifies consumer passion for a new product, and this is exactly what Apple has achieved in this space. Microsoft, despite all its efforts, its partnerships, its lobbying and its marketing, has not.
It has all the pieces, same as Apple: music hardware, media management, online music stores. What it does not have is the cool itself. Like the geeky kid sitting out the school disco, it knows everything about being cool except how to do it. And it really, really hates those who can carry it off. "Apple can't do it," says Ballmer of the complete converged environment: what he means is if Microsoft can't do it with all that money and marketing muscle, he's damned if he see how anyone else can.
You don't tell people you're cool. You show it. You offer it. You have to know what people want, and then give them more than they expect. Microsoft doesn't have that gene: it tells, not hears. And that won't play in the cool converged consumer space.
Talkback
Apple is King of Cool. With the arrival of OSX they have created a paradigm shift in the platform that has leapfrogged Microsoft's poor efforts to date.
Microsoft was, as usual, trying to follow Apple's lead with a OS platform change with Longhorn, but as they have emasculated that effort by not delivering the "three pillars" of Longhorn. Instead they have promised to offer watered down Longhorn features to XP. (XP re-loaded? or will it be ME redux?).
Worst of all Microsoft has opted to make lock-in the major feature of Longhorn. Palladium re-named to the NGSCB (Next Generation Secure Computing Base) does not change it's real reason for existence, the protection of Microsoft's monopoly, as well as it's partners in monopoly plays, the RIAA and MPIA.
OSX on the other hand, has provided the "Holy Grail" of an easy to use and manage UNIX system. With it's BSD roots and Aqua GUI it provides secure stable computing for mere mortals.
Best of all, Apple has committed itself to open standards and interoperability with all systems, even Windows.
How cool is that?
No duh!!!
Monkey boy got no ideas of his own.
Yes, Steve is just so frustrated when it comes to home consumers!
1. Its hardware partners are unable to design anything with elegance or "cool"-ness - both in music players, portable media center, PCs, and tablet PCs; unlike Apple's iPod (for PC and Mac), iBook, Powerbook, PowerMac G5, and iMac G5.
2. Its software is bland - both WMP10 and the MSN Music Store - or malware-ridden (Windows!); unlike Apple's iTunes (for PC and Mac) and OS X.
3. It abandons selling Wi-Fi hardware just as Apple comes out with Airport Express with iTunes (for both PC and Mac).
4. Consumer technology stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA do a poor job of showcasing the MS Media Center PC and Tablet PC; while the retail Apple Stores are now profitable, rapidly growing, and considered cool!
All that money, and yet stuck at the mercy of its hardware partners and retail store partners! So more FUD, not cool products, are the answer for the day!!!
To me the "tipping point" is when you sneak up on the longhorn when it's asleep and push it over.
Oh wait.....we're still waiting for a steer to ship!
muhahahahahahahahaaaaa, ballmer steering the M$ ship ... now that's more fun that tipping cows ever was.
Hey, I love Macs. I have 4 of them, and I even convinced my Windows-centric employer to let me have a G5 at work.
But this analysis seems overly simplistic. No mention was made of what MS has been able to accomplish with Xbox. And with XBox 2, they will probably erase the 1-year lead Sony had with the original XBox. This means the race for 1st place will be much closer on the 2nd gen machines.
If they can market a video game system, that is quite frankly pretty cool, then they have the capability to market other convergence devices. What MS platform finally succeeds though probably won't be anywhere near as open as Windows.
MS is done. They can win an IT market by corraling/buying/intimidating/colluding with manufacturers and distributors - that works fine when you have a defined marketplace like the IT market - especially when they want standards. And where they are risk averse in changing.
In the consumer marketplace, you cannot control anything - consumers switched from Sony to Samsung in a heartbeat.
MS is applying the only tactics they understand - the itunes music store is doing well, we'll pay people to launch a hundred WMA stores - except on the internet, people's choices are only a click away - how many stores are selling PC Mp3 players and how many ipod players? Being outnumbered a million to several hundred is nothing on the internet. WAlmart.com is EXACTLY the same distance away as joesmusic.com.
Remember when the internet first started getting traction - MS poopoo it - once we launch MSN, no one will want that 'internet' crap (since they couldn't control it). After the success of Win1995, the world changed and they have not been able to figurre it out because like old generals', they're still fighting the last war - every consumer attempt on their part has either failed or is only alive because they have $60 billion in cash - rollcall - BOB OS, MSN, Tablet PC, PocketPC, MS settop boxes, webtv, Xbox ($3 billion in cash thrown at it so far), home network hardware division, xbox sports games, car OSes, phone OSes, and the pinnacle of MS's last TEN years of research and efforts - the MS WATCH OS?
For business students, MS in the 1990's is what GM was in the 1950's (here in he US) - will they wake up and figure out the world is different or is it too late already?
You couldn't be more correct!
Microsoft has always come late to any new trend in technology but been able to buy, steal or extinguish any market leaders product. It's much harder to do when they can't use their Windows platform as the blunt instrument to force conformity and mediocrity on the masses.
Consumers are getting MUCH smarter these days and who knows, perhaps even businesses will wake up some time in the future. Ballmer is correct about being at a tipping point in the consumer space, and they are terrified, because if they have to COMPETE on MERIT Microsoft has NEVER won a market.
Expect some dramatic operating system level attacks on the Windows customer base to foreclose any competitors products abilities on the Windows platform because thats their ONLY point of power and control. With Longhorn now being exposed as the vaporware it always was and still years away, Microsoft is in DEEP trouble, so expect some drastic alternate measure and expect to be screwed as a Windows user.
Innovation has always been Apples game while Microsoft has simply brain washed the masses into believing crappie imitation of innovations years later is what 'real innovation' is. They have never understood a customer base, nor have they ever gave a dam about their customers so changing this culture is like making Windows secure, impossible even with drastic measures.
Microsoft's stock has stagnated for a very long time now and it has nowhere to go, but down. The only question now is how precipitous the fall and when do the masses wake up to this fact. It could be while if the Windows base and their reaction to the plague of viruses is any indication. Some of the smarter ones are waking to the fact that for years there hasn't been a single successful virus attack on the Mac OS. When the shift from Windows to the Mac is recognized and reported by the media, we will have passed the tipping point, a pray you have no Microsoft shares.
Freakin' crazin' screamin' out right!
Cool article! BRAVO!
My oh my, Microsloth is really feeling the bite of Apples emerging dominance in the MP3 player/store marketplace.
Bill and his buddies want to do what they've always done, take control and force us all to adopt their particular brand of crap while squeezing the competition out of the market.
well, not this time! Apple know what the consumer wants and are more that happy to give us just that with no bullsh!t attached.
More power to Ya apple!
Too right, not to mention that David will always have it over Goliath in the world of cool.
JL