Microsoft’s Phone Needs to Take a Page from Apple
Things aren’t going well for Microsoft. Its stock is moribund, Bill Gates is bailing, Ballmer can’t seem to rise above the level of a running joke and the Vista ship date has been pushed back more frequently than the defensive line of last years San Francisco 49ers. For those who despise Microsoft with a passion, usually reserved for religion and politics, this is the most delicious moment in time since Microsoft Bob was foisted on the computing world.
This glee must be tempered with the knowledge that Microsoft has long surpassed its original goal. That goal, the Wall Street Journal tells us, was a PC on every desk running Microsoft software. Not only did the Redmond giant hit that goal, they surpassed it. Today every desk has a PC, and seemingly so does every lap, ATM, checkout scanner, car, (feel free to continue this list for as long as you desire) and the vast majority run some form of Microsoft software.
The model Microsoft used to achieve such massive success was fairly straightforward, the company produced software and let hardware manufacturers take care of the rest. It worked great, in the early days of personal computing most PCs came with an operating system designed by the company that made the computer. HP, for example, was sued along with Microsoft for infringing on the Mac’s look and feel because, irony of irony, HP licensed Microsoft’s license to use Mac technology. Thing is, it is a hassle to create your own OS and, even if your OS is spectacular, the other companies making hardware aren’t going to want to license a competitors operating system. Microsoft just sold software so when the hardware was seen as the profit center the hardware manufacturers were more than happy to license the OS from a non-competing company.
In the world of software, a world of natural monopolies, compatibility is king. As Microsoft grew it went from an easy way to get an operating system to the only place to get the OS that 98% of the consumers demanded. The battle for the desktop is long since over and Microsoft is looking for ways to expand past the original mandate and gadgets seem to be the way to grow. This is where the company is beginning to flail like a drunken log roller; there is nothing in Microsoft’s corporate experience that shows them the way to gadget dominance.
Microsoft’s past attempts at gadget dominance generally proceed as follows: Microsoft writes some software for a piece of delicious new technology. Hardware partners come on board and the masses of geeks wait for the new technology to take over. Thing is they wait a long time. Microsoft iPod killer? The thing has been released by several Microsoft partners multiple times and the iPod isn’t taking notice. Tablet computers? You can get one if it would sate your desire for pen based computing but the concept, despite predictions by Bill Gates, hasn’t taken the world by storm. We would be remiss not to note the recent introduction of the Origami, that super small fully powered PC. Despite the viral marketing campaign and the palpable anticipation for the product, the Origami just folded up and went home.
Now it is time for Microsoft’s next big flop: The Microsoft phone. Likely, you’re visualizing some super slick cell phone upon hearing that phrase, think bulkier. If you’re now thinking of an Origami-sized cell, while giggling softly, you need to think more stationary. If you’re imagining a tethered phone with some questionable bells and whistles congratulations, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Microsoft’s phone amounts to a business oriented VoIP system. Routers made by Cisco and other giants, phones made by Logitech, Motorola and the other usual suspects. Basically, an entire office phone makeover. The plan seems reasonable, businesses could use their existing computer equipment to also manage the phone system thus eliminating the largely (with today’s technology) superfluous PBX switches and phone system infrastructure.
The trouble is going to be that today’s systems work fairly well. Users are used to hitting “9” to dial out and pounding “1234” to access their voicemail. The new phones promise more features, video conference calling, screens telling you if the party you’re calling is at their desk and, well a bunch of other stuff no one is really sure they need. The uncertainty about what features any particular business will need coupled with a system that is low maintenance means the Microsoft business phone plan is going to be a tough sell.
If Microsoft is serious about dominating the business phone market, serious about being just as large a part of spoken communication as they are about written communication, they need to tell the phone makers to forget it and design a Microsoft phone. By designing the phone to work with Microsoft software the phone of tomorrow can highlight what the software is best at and the software can focus on the enhancements users want the most. If Microsoft stays the current course Logitech will offer one phone (using a made up example) with the ability to transmogrify voice mail into text. Motorola will let you put your kids pictures on the screen and the morass and yet another maker will offer a phone that doubles as a TiVO. Inevitably, offerings from the phone makers will feature wildly disparate capabilities and turn the entire project into a morass of confusing phones that only seem more complicated than the phones of today instead substantially better.
The best way to get a new gadget over is to make it work almost exactly like the gadget it is meant to replace. A TiVO is powered by a chip and a hard drive but it works a lot like a VCR. People can relate to it. Surely, the little box is capable of much more than it is being asked to do, the thing could probably check your e-mail, but it is important not to put too many features on new technology lest the users become overwhelmed. It is left as an exercise for the reader to compare the functionality of the original iPod to the original Walkman. This is something Microsoft needs to realize, don’t make a phone with more freaking gadgets that starts to suck at being a phone, make a better phone that happens to other, related, things.
Taking that tactic would be taking a page out of the Apple playbook. Apple controls the experience from sweatshop to consumer and people are very happy with the end result. Someone is bound to object that there is no way Microsoft can match Apple’s deft touch when it comes to industrial design, and they’ll be right. However, in the business world clever design takes a back seat to durability and price, mostly price. Microsoft doesn’t need to produce a great looking phone, just one that works very, very well and saves businesses a little money and a lot of headaches. Microsoft should know this from their experience with the Xbox or Apple’s experience with the iPod. The question is why, for a company full of very bright people, they aren’t catching on?
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WARNING: LONG POST BELOW
(good though, pwomise!)
Considering this is meant to be about whether Apple’s iPod/iTunes system constitutes a monopoly, there’s an awful lot of discussion about Microsoft going on round here.
And yes, there are differences in the way the Windows/Office and iPod/iTunes monopolies have arisen, in that:
Windows has come to be a monopoly by clever and devious business practices that have been focused on putting competitors out of business - that is, they are ANTI-COMPETITIVE.
iPod has come to be a monopoly by a mixture of appealing design, good UI, the ITMS, good fortune, and opportunism.
What is the problem with Microsoft’s aggressive business practices, then? The problem is that they have continued to behave in an anti-competive manner while in their position of near-ubiquity. The charges levied against them by the EU are for illegally maintaining their monopoly in a way that harms the market by reducing customer choice.
This seems to me an important point. Monopolies are in some senses allowed to come into being. But once they do so, they cannot behave in a way that uses their dominance to lock out all the competition.
Some details. Consider the issues over which Microsoft has been fined for by the EU. Bundling Media Player. Bundling Internet Explorer.
Yet, all the minor OSs have such features. OS X does. Linspire (bless its litte heart) does. I’m sure you can name others.
Why then are they not fined for being similarly feature-rich? Because they are not monopolies.
Certain behaviours are anticompetitive in a monopoly that are not anticompetitive in a minor player.
So the question is not, is the iPod a monopoly, because it is, having all the marketshare to speak of.
The question is rather: is the iPod-iTunes lock-in anticompetitive?
Here’s my answer: I’m not sure. I’m not sure because I don’t actually believe that iTunes causes people to buy iPods. I think people buy iPods (either because they’re good or because they’re ubiquitous), and then the iTMS is there and hey, why not use it to buy stuff as it’s more convenient than the HMV 5 minutes away. So in that sense I don’t really care, as I intend to rid all my iTMS-bought music of its DRM some time when I can be bothered.
But on the other hand, I find the following analogy very compelling.
Practically since the Stone-Age, music formats have come and gone in generations. We had the LP, the cassette, the CD, the minidisc. And now we have Digital Audio Players, or DAPs.
In the past, the format itself was distinct from the equipment you played it on. Any CD would play on any CD player, no matter whence either of them came. And I like this system. I think this is how things should be.
Now the iPod is not magicke. It is simply a player music distributed in a certain format. And other players do precisely the same thing.
And, just as I think it would be very, very wrong for some CDs only to play on X brand CD Players, and some only on Y, I think it should be considered EQUALLY as wrong for some music sold via a certain internet store ONLY to play on ONE brand of DAP.
Opinion 1, then:
Under the view that digitally distributed music should not be any different from physically distributed music, I think using DRM that locks music into a particular brand of music player is wrong. Manufacturers of DAPs should compete on the qualities of their players. Just like everyone else.
And, since it would be hypocritical to do so, I cannot exclude Apple from this view.
HOWEVERRRRRRRRRRR…............
i DO think that this is currently the case: I do think that Apple is maintaining its lead because its players are more desirable, not because of the iTMS.
I have a 4G iPod Photo at the moment. And I like it. But I’ve started looking around for something else, more out of interest than anything, as I’m broke. And what did I find?
-that I couldn’t find anything that I actually wanted that wasn’t an iPod.
And I don’t give a rat’s arse about the iTMS reaaaalllllly. It had nothing to do with it. I find all the others either ugly or UI impaired.
So in answer to the debate, Opinion 2:
I think the iPod is not anticompetitive in any real sense because its lead is due to its own superiority, and not DRM lock-in. Furthermore the DRM on iTMS downloads is trivially easy to remove (though this is probably illegal - it should not be, and I believe it was Martin Luther King who said we have a moral responsibility to disobey a bad law).
And that’s how I saved Christmas.
Tundraboy, I shall grant thee all mythical powers of a great Mac crusader for thou reporting instincts are legendary. Your final tactical report of iPod/iTunes/Apple “coercive” and “monopolistic” accusations are just proven false for all Mac faithfuls everywhere to see.
Thank you for that powerful scouting report.
Beeb & Ben, read and understand every line and including “vernacular” subliminals in TB’s powerful poetry.
Tundraboy deserves a worthwhile R&R at our Mac-styled resort on the Macolania coast.
Obnoxiousness… overpowering…. regret… what i wrote…. cannot… breathe…
I agree with TundraBoy. With the proviso that I find the whole idea of selling player-brand-specific music unethical.
Robotech… Please stop pontificating about mac crusaders and all this bollocks. It’s unconstructive, divisive and it distracts from the topic. I think I basically agree with you but I would find it much easier to do so if you could be a little less domineering.
I do think that Apple is maintaining its lead because its players are more desirable, not because of the iTMS.
Now, Mr. Nobleman, you are finally coming to your “undistorted” senses that every Mac faithful have. Although, it hurts my prestige to compliment an XPinian, I have to award for that long thought process.
But beware, do not confuse yourself with the “physical” CD/DVD with the “virtual” distribution of net content. There is a distinct difference in both value proposition and convenience. I will not debate you on this one. The Supreme Commander of Macolania is just too preoccupied with other battles…
Now, Mr. Nobleman, you are finally coming to your “undistorted” senses that every Mac faithful have. Although, it hurts my prestige to compliment an XPinian, I have to award for that long thought process.
I apologise in advance for this.
BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE CAN WE GET IT STRAIGHT THAT I AM A COMMITED MAC USER AND EVANGELIST WHO ADORES OS X AND CONSIDERS XP INFERIOR ALTHOUGH ADEQUATE FOR ACTUAL PURPOSES OF GETTING THINGS DONE. THESE ARE THE OPINIONS THAT I HAVE HELD ALL ALONG, THEY’VE JUST BEEN PUSHED BACK BY THE BICKERING THAT’S ALL OF A SUDDEN BECOME ONGOING HERE.
Please stop pontificating about mac crusaders and all this bollocks. It’s unconstructive, divisive and it distracts from the topic. I think I basically agree with you but I would find it much easier to do so if you could be a little less domineering.-BH
Ben, I can grant you that request for as long as your lord Beebx will swear an oath of honesty and sincerety and not cynicism and hypocritism.
Otherwise, I am having too much fun with this mythical concept of mine. Since the Mac*vs*Windows in the real physical world is nonsense, they are merely tools to accomplish the job, what we discuss here are hypotheticals most of the time. Therefore, I spiced-up the cocktail and ratcheted up the interest and controversy, and therefore you have my great character, the great Robotech Infidel of Macolania. Even his greatness can compromise with his enemies.
You don’t think that cynicism can go hand in hand with, and inform, honesty and sincerity?
For as long as that “cynicism” is backed by integrity and a spice of generosity, then that would be acceptable, surely.
I think this set of statements exemplifies the dishonesty of your “Apple’s anti-competitive monopoly is okay while Microsoft’s is immoral and indefensible” argument:
Although some people might say Fairplay restrictions amount to COERCING THE CONSUMER, no such thing is happening. It limits the consumer choices but whether it limits it enough as to amount to illegal behaviour, well that’s highly doubtful. Why? Let’s look at things a little closer.
YOU CAN LOAD YOUR ITUNES PURCHASES INTO ANY MP3 PLAYER. It’s just not as easy but it’s certainly not an egregiously burdensome procedure.
So because the consumer can use troublesome workarounds to load the otherwise restricted iTMS purchased song on a competing music player, this is NOT coercion and the consumer isn’t being FORCED to do anything.
But the same stupid reasoning could be applied to Microsoft and, say, browsers. Microsoft is simply telling vendors that they can’t load alternative browsers in Windows or they can’t deal with Microsoft. The vendors can simply choose to use another OS on their systems. See? That’s a choice. No coercion!
My main problem is not simply that you are defending a big greedy monopolist’s anti-competitive practices, but that you are dishonestly creating straw-man differences in order to DEFEND Apple’s practices but not Microsoft’s.
Now THAT is classic Rovian tactics. If you and your opponent are guilty of the same offenses, look for the tiny insignificant difference that allows you to pretend you’re not a lying hypocrite.
I think the iPod is not anticompetitive in any real sense because its lead is due to its own superiority, and not DRM lock-in.
That doesn’t excuse the DRM lock-in. Lance Armstrong is the best bicycle rider in the world, but that fact alone doesn’t make it okay for him to use steroids to give him an unfair advantage. Cheating when you would win anyway is still cheating.
I am arguing based on what I believe are the limits posed by economic forces and legislation on Apple’s behaviour as a dominant firm.
So I ask you again. Because Microsoft was acquitted of stealing the Windows interface from Apple, do you believe that the judgement closes the door on the question of whether or not Microsoft copies interface look and feel from the Mac?
And when someone (as in virtually every Mac fanatic) states matter-of-factly that Microsoft rips off Apple look-and-feel, do you as quickly and forcefully denounce those statements because of the case law as you are quick to defend Apple’s anti-competitive practices here based on their lack of prosecution?
How far is your position REALLY based on legislation and legal renderings? Or is this simply a convenient but ultimately dishonest justification you’re using just to defend Apple?
I think the iPod is not anticompetitive in any real sense because its lead is due to its own superiority, and not DRM lock-in. -me
That doesn’t excuse the DRM lock-in. -beeb.
I agree. I was trying to make that apparent when I said “I think using DRM that locks music into a particular brand of music player is wrong.” However I’m not convinced that for the moment it actually makes a material impact.
But the question has now really become one about DRM per se. And it’s not really a question because we all know the answer.
I was trying to make that apparent when I said “I think using DRM that locks music into a particular brand of music player is wrong.” However I’m not convinced that for the moment it actually makes a material impact. -Ben Hall
It doesn’t make a material impact to the desired outcome - pure heaven in my ears - and thus, you are correct, but…
That doesn’t excuse the DRM lock-in. -beeb.
I agree. -Ben
There is no perfect DRM, Beeb & Ben, and when that is miracolously invented, it will all be on all multimedia players - just as you wish all along. But be careful what you wish for, my sworn enemies of truth and reason, you will find out in a few short while those enhanced DRMs that you’ve been clamoring for in the Blu-Rays and HD-DVD players, and that including the evil HDMI protocol. No more freebies that you both are preaching. How about double the trouble for you Beeb? Have fun with all your DRM analogies but you will go nowhere with those, unless you are Da Man in techdom.
There is no perfect DRM, Beeb & Ben, and when that is miracolously invented, it will all be on all multimedia players - just as you wish all along.
If you mean that one day there will be a universal DRM common to all MP3 players, i suggest you read <a href=“http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/drm_interoperability”>this article by John Gruber.
Notable points:
“Record industry executives refuse to believe what is patently obvious to anyone with a clue — they are never ever going to regain complete control over the distribution of recorded music. They so desperately want this that they believe it must be possible, but the very nature of DRM is that it is diametrically opposed to interoperability.”
“Calling for “interoperability” without any practical suggestion as to how it could be achieved is just an empty platitude. It’s like demanding “a cheap source of energy” or “a cure for cancer”. But unlike the energy problem or cancer, digital media interoperability is not an intractable problem. There’s an obvious solution staring everyone in the face.”
Oh and, buy a t-shirt
(I add I’m not affiliated with daringfireball… it’s just great…)