"Why the Verizon iPhone is already too late "

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:31:30 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, "Todd Allcock"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Windows Mobile licenses, athough neither MS or OEMs will discuss them in
>exact terms, are estimated to be around $10. (MS will confirm vague numbers
>like "around $10" or "under $12," etc. Presumably each OEM negotiates their
>own figures so MS wouldn't want to disclose what HTC is paying, if Samsumg
>is paying more.) Compare the cost of developing your own smartphone OS, and
>suddenly $8/unit doesn't seem so bad. $0 (Android) is better still, but if
>the OS brings advantages to the table, the cost is justified (else we'd be
>seeing a lot more Linux PCs from HP and Dell!)

The issue there was abuse of market power, not cost justification.
Need I cite the cases?

>Yes and no- given that until the announcement of Windows Phone 7, (and the
>coming apparent abandonment of "old" Windows Mobile by MS) scared off both
>buyers and OEMs in droves from the WM6.x platform, MS was still steadily
>selling 4-5 million or so WinMo licenses each quarter in a post-iPhone
>world, despite the moldy UI and wildly uneven user experience on the various
>phones sporting the WinMo software.

I've heard Microsoft folk say privately they now know in retrospect that
Win7Mo should have been a new product fork instead of a replacement.

>I think many users and businesses knew of the integration with MS products
>and services, and chose to put up with some major usabilty disadvantages in
>return. (And I'm certainly one of them- you know you're a longtime WinMo
>user when your nightime routine includes a phone reboot "just in case!"
>particularly if you're relying the device's alarm to wake you in the
>morning!

The integration they actually really cared about was what RIM provided
with BlackBerry, a major missed opportunity for Microsoft as it clung to
the Exchange dinosaur. The other aspects of desktop integration weren't
as important because everyone was carrying laptops.

I do largely agree with your other points.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

---

› See More: "Why the Verizon iPhone is already too late "

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:52:34 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/28/2010 11:31 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> However, WP7 does have one important thing going for it that old WinMo never
>> had- MS willingness to throw money at it. For $8 a copy, MS never gave WM
>> any type of ad budget- they left marketing and promotion to the OEMs, who
>> had very little incentive to promote the underlying OS, since Samsung or HTC
>> were far more interested in consumers buying their hardware brand in spite
>> of the underlying OS, rather than buying for the OS, despite the brand of
>> hardware. Expecting Samsung or HTC to bullishly promote WinMo, is about as
>> crazy as a tire manufacturer like Goodyear to expect Ford to prominently
>> promote their tires as a reason to buy the car.
>
>Which is why any successful attempt by Microsoft to compete against the
>iPhone with WP7 will be by following the iPhone model of selling the
>hardware too, something Microsoft may not be able to do. They did it
>with XBOX, but not with Zune. It doesn't require that they manufacture
>it, Apple doesn't manufacture their hardware either, but they have to be
>able to design and market it.

Another nice scramble, albeit a day late and a dollar short.

>The integration of Office could be a big selling point--if they hurry.

Wrong again(tm): Too late for that now. The market is showing little
interest in integration apps available. While employees are happy to
_communicate_ on mobile devices, they want larger screens and keyboards
for _productivity_ tasks. Witness the iPad.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:19:36 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

>At 28 Aug 2010 11:52:34 -0700 SMS wrote:

>> The integration of Office could be a big selling point--if they hurry.
>
>Office integration has been part of WinMo since 2000 gave us "Pocket PC."
> If that was all it took for success in the mobile space, WinMo wouldn't
>be in the crapper today. WP7 adds support for Office Live's cloud
>storage (a la Google Docs,) but I feel that's probably more of a nod to
>the Enterprise saying "see, we haven't abandoned you entirely!"

I think it's more a matter of, "See? Now we're doing cloud computing!"
But the problems, again, are reaction and timing -- Microsoft is locked
in a pattern of reacting to the _last_ cycle, trying to defend its
dinosaurs, instead of leading on the Next Big Thing, which is the real
reason I think WinMo7 is doomed to fail -- being 1-2 years late is all
but the kiss of death is high-tech mobile devices. Microsoft needs to
_lead_ the target, not shoot _at_ the target, which is long gone by the
time the slow Microsoft bullet arrives. It should start with a blank
sheet of paper, and no relationship to Windows and Office whatsoever,
most logically by acquisition, RIM for market share plus some cool
technology startups to put lipstick on it.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I think many users and businesses knew of the integration with MS products
> and services, and chose to put up with some major usabilty disadvantages in
> return. (And I'm certainly one of them- you know you're a longtime WinMo
> user when your nightime routine includes a phone reboot "just in case!"
> particularly if you're relying the device's alarm to wake you in the
> morning!

you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
actually had to do that?

On 28/08/10 2:19 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

<snip>

> They're trying to straddle a new line w/WP7- allow OEMs to design and
> manufacture, but only within a narrow set of specs- screen res, hardware
> buttons and placement, CPU types and speed, RAM and storage minimums,
> etc.

Sounds just like Microsoft!

I worked on the Microsoft tablet reference design and the first
commercial product based on it. Microsoft had also set strict hardware
requirements for OEMS, including weight and battery life but performance
also. They were very difficult requirements to meet. If you met the
battery life requirement it was too heavy or the performance was too
low. If you used a more powerful processor the performance was fine but
you needed a larger battery so it exceeded the weight limit. And there
was no mass market for tablets, though they sold fairly well into
vertical markets.

Apple realized that a tablet couldn't be a general purpose computer and
remain light enough with good enough battery life to appeal to the
masses. The iPad is very impressive.

In article <[email protected]>, John Navas
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >>>> There's no debate that Android was a direct response to the popularity
> >>>> of the iPhone. If the iPhone had been available on other carriers
> >>>> Android would never have had such enormous success.
> >>>
> >>> Your usual Appeal to Authority Fallacy ("no debate", "all experts
> >>> agree", etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum).
> >>>
> >>> Android was a startup to do mobile devices based on Linux, not a
> >>> response to Apple, that was later acquired by Google. Learn the real
> >>> facts (history).
> >>
> >> yes android was a startup to do mobile devices based on linux, and if
> >> you look at what it was early on and what it is now, it's very clear
> >> that it was greatly influenced by apple. i think andy rubin even said
> >> as much.
>
> Only after it was well along, mostly after Google acquired and
> redirected it, and even then mostly in just the UI area.

in other words, they *are* copying a lot of what makes the iphone
popular.

On 8/28/2010 3:25 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> Oh please- if there was a vast untapped market for Linux, we'd see more
> Linux machines. Even netbooks, which were perfect for Linux, due to
> their low specs, spec'd up to use Windows due to consumer demand.

Oh g-d, don't get me started on Linux and trying to support six
different versions each with multiple versions of the kernel.

Sure, we'd be happy to hire six more Linux gurus at a burdened cost of
$250,000 per year to write drivers for you--after all you're buying 1000
devices. Would you like some custom silicon to go with that? How about
of bowl of chili?

Those that claim it was some sort of market power conspiracy against
Linux are extremely clueless. Linux is free if time has no value.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:50:54 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

>At 28 Aug 2010 14:40:06 -0700 John Navas wrote:

>> I think it's more a matter of, "See? Now we're doing cloud computing!"
>> But the problems, again, are reaction and timing -- Microsoft is locked
>> in a pattern of reacting to the _last_ cycle, trying to defend its
>> dinosaurs, instead of leading on the Next Big Thing, which is the real
>> reason I think WinMo7 is doomed to fail -- being 1-2 years late is all
>> but the kiss of death is high-tech mobile devices.
>
>Perhaps, but I think it's more of trying to keep their "old-guard"
>products relevant longer.

Sure. But that's defending the past at the expense of the future.

>Have you used Office Live? Very slick,
>integrates well with "on site" Office,

I agree. I think it would have been killer say 5 years ago, but now is
a symptom of Microsoft reacting to increasingly less relevant old
battles instead of leading on new battles, like the French reinforcing
the Maginot line instead of developing mobile armor and artillery and
air defenses.

>and overall has a better "real
>app" feel than Google Docs. (To be fair, GooDocs hasn't seen a major
>update in a while- I suspect Google has some leapfrogging up their sleeves
>which makes things better for we consumers.)

I think Google Docs was in large part a diversionary tactic that drew
Microsoft away from the things it really needed to do.

>> Microsoft needs to
>> _lead_ the target, not shoot _at_ the target, which is long gone by the
>> time the slow Microsoft bullet arrives. It should start with a blank
>> sheet of paper, and no relationship to Windows and Office whatsoever,
>> most logically by acquisition, RIM for market share plus some cool
>> technology startups to put lipstick on it.
>
>I disagree- RIM is dangerously close to becoming a niche player without a
>major overhaul (and the increased fragmention that brings.) MS already
>had one of those with WinMo- two if you include Sidekick.

RIM still has a dominant market share lead, and a pretty loyal base,
which I think you may be underestimating.

>MS is giving WP7 some very exciting XBox integration if that's your thing
>(it isn't mine!) integrated social networking features (yawn) and a Kin-
>like cloud mirroring of device data (laugh at Kin all you want, but the
>seamless cloud backup was pretty slick- almost Android-on-steroids.)

I'm not sure there's still room for another player (which WinMo7 is by
virtue of abandoning WinMo6), and I think Microsoft is going about this
in a way that's doomed to fail. I think the only real hope of saving
WinMo7 would be to immediately announce app compatibility with WinMo6,
and then figure out how to do it quick quick. If Windows 7 had been the
same kind of complete break with Windows Vista, then I think it would
still be struggling now.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:16:47 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 28/08/10 2:19 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> They're trying to straddle a new line w/WP7- allow OEMs to design and
>> manufacture, but only within a narrow set of specs- screen res, hardware
>> buttons and placement, CPU types and speed, RAM and storage minimums,
>> etc.
>
>Sounds just like Microsoft!
>
>I worked on the Microsoft tablet reference design and the first
>commercial product based on it. Microsoft had also set strict hardware
>requirements for OEMS, including weight and battery life but performance
>also. They were very difficult requirements to meet. If you met the
>battery life requirement it was too heavy or the performance was too
>low. If you used a more powerful processor the performance was fine but
>you needed a larger battery so it exceeded the weight limit. And there
>was no mass market for tablets, though they sold fairly well into
>vertical markets.
>
>Apple realized that a tablet couldn't be a general purpose computer and
>remain light enough with good enough battery life to appeal to the
>masses. The iPad is very impressive.

To the masses.

--
John

If the iPhone and iPad are really so impressive,
then why do iFans keep making excuses for them?

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

>At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:

>> The issue there was abuse of market power, not cost justification.
>> Need I cite the cases?
>
>Oh please- if there was a vast untapped market for Linux, we'd see more
>Linux machines. Even netbooks, which were perfect for Linux, due to
>their low specs, spec'd up to use Windows due to consumer demand.

Too late to make that case -- Microsoft already lost big time, and Linux
is doing very well pretty much everywhere except on the desktop.

>> The integration they actually really cared about was what RIM provided
>> with BlackBerry, a major missed opportunity for Microsoft as it clung to
>> the Exchange dinosaur.
>
>You mean the same "Exchange dinosaur" feeding RIM's BES middleware at
>most firms?

Yep. RIM put lipstick on that pig.

>Exchange is actually an excellent technology, and allows for Blackberry
>functionality without handing over all your data to a third-party.

I disagree, have got way too many Exchange scars. Exchange evolved
willy nilly over time into a kludge that's workable only with great
effort. If it was so good, WinMo would have trounced RIM.

>> The other aspects of desktop integration weren't
>> as important because everyone was carrying laptops.
>
>That's where the in-fighting at MS sabatoges MS products. WinMo,
>although probably capable of beng an effective laptop replacement, was
>relegated to PC peripheral status, since its MS overlords wouldn't want
>$8 WinMo licenses to cannibalize $30 98/XP/Vista laptop licenses. It was
>probably no coincidence that old-school WinMo improvements petered out
>just as netbooks became a killer category for MS. Why encourage the
>future of mobile computing to become WinCE smartphone-based when it could
>be XP netbook-based?

The smart company realizes it's better to eat your own children than to
have them eaten by others, does the best new product it can, and lets
the chips fall where they may. The dumb company fights to keep its
children from getting eaten, a losing and counterproductive battle in
the long run. This sadly is more Ballmer than Gates, not to mention
Paul Allen. Had Allen stayed healthy and involved, I think Microsoft
might well be a much better company today.

>At the risk of raising the ire of the iOS fans, many of the iOS
>restrictions seemingly have a similar goal- to be useful enough people
>want one as an additional device, but not so useful it could replace a
>laptop for most users.

Yep, and it may well prove to be Apple's undoing in time.

>In the end, there's plenty of room for a Microsoft smartphone in an
>iPhone and Android world-

and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.

>users can pick their ideal smartphone to
>"match" their choice of preferred services- those in the
>Apple/iPod/iTunes/MobileMe ecosystem would choose iOS, Gmail/GooCal users
>could adopt Android, and MS Live/Office/XBox/Exchange users, (as well as
>all seventeen Zune owners!) would gravitate to WP7.

That sounds good in theory, but in practice users tend to cluster to
1 or 2 big winners, just as in the desktop OS and server OS battles.
Remember Novell? Is that what you mean by "plenty of room"?

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:49:18 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/28/2010 3:25 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> Oh please- if there was a vast untapped market for Linux, we'd see more
>> Linux machines. Even netbooks, which were perfect for Linux, due to
>> their low specs, spec'd up to use Windows due to consumer demand.
>
>Oh g-d, don't get me started on Linux and trying to support six
>different versions each with multiple versions of the kernel.
>
>Sure, we'd be happy to hire six more Linux gurus at a burdened cost of
>$250,000 per year to write drivers for you--after all you're buying 1000
>devices. Would you like some custom silicon to go with that? How about
>of bowl of chili?
>
>Those that claim it was some sort of market power conspiracy against
>Linux are extremely clueless. Linux is free if time has no value.

Linux is hard to support only if expertise is absent. You must not know
how to do it, but that doesn't mean everyone else is so handicapped.

--
John

"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

>At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:

>> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
>> actually had to do that?
>
>No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
>My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>case."

Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
(That's a joke!)
If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.


If Microsoft made cars...

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.

12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

In article <[email protected]>, John Navas
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >Apple realized that a tablet couldn't be a general purpose computer and
> >remain light enough with good enough battery life to appeal to the
> >masses. The iPad is very impressive.
>
> To the masses.

yes, and? there's a lot more masses buying products than there are
techno-geeks. marketing to them is smart.

nospam wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:18:11 -0400]:
> In article <[email protected]>, John Navas
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >>>> There's no debate that Android was a direct response to the popularity
>> >>>> of the iPhone. If the iPhone had been available on other carriers
>> >>>> Android would never have had such enormous success.
>> >>>
>> >>> Your usual Appeal to Authority Fallacy ("no debate", "all experts
>> >>> agree", etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum).
>> >>>
>> >>> Android was a startup to do mobile devices based on Linux, not a
>> >>> response to Apple, that was later acquired by Google. Learn the real
>> >>> facts (history).
>> >>
>> >> yes android was a startup to do mobile devices based on linux, and if
>> >> you look at what it was early on and what it is now, it's very clear
>> >> that it was greatly influenced by apple. i think andy rubin even said
>> >> as much.
>>
>> Only after it was well along, mostly after Google acquired and
>> redirected it, and even then mostly in just the UI area.
>
> in other words, they *are* copying a lot of what makes the iphone
> popular.

You mean the marketing?

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:40:50 -0600, in
<[email protected]>, "Todd Allcock"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...

>> Sure. But that's defending the past at the expense of the future.
>
>Aren't you the guy advocating they buy RIM?

No, that was an article. I don't think it's a great idea -- I just
think it might make more sense than what Microsoft is trying to do now.

>> I agree. I think it would have been killer say 5 years ago, but now is
>> a symptom of Microsoft reacting to increasingly less relevant old
>> battles instead of leading on new battles, like the French reinforcing
>> the Maginot line instead of developing mobile armor and artillery and
>> air defenses.
>
>If Office Live extends the market for Office, it'll be worth it. Part of
>embracing the "future" is knowing when the past is no longer relevant.
>Office, Exchange, Windows, etc. are still giant cash cows, and will continue
>to be for quite some time, so MS should be milking them as long as possible.

The essence of a "cash cow" is that you keep milking it but _stop_
feeding it, investing the feed and milk in more productive long term
opportunities instead. All those legacy products should be getting is
lipstick.

>> I think Google Docs was in large part a diversionary tactic that drew
>> Microsoft away from the things it really needed to do.
>
>I think it was another in a long line of Google Experiments. My son's
>school uses Google Docs exclusively for the students documents. No software
>required, and free storage in the cloud. It doesn't matter which laptop the
>kids log into- their documents are on it (via the cloud) and so it the app
>they need. The educational benefits are excellent, and it's good for low
>spec machines, like the ancient PCs and laptops schools contend with.
>Between GDocs and Office Live, I don't even bother with an Office suite on
>my oldest netbook any longer (the poor ancient ASUS EEE PC with 4GB SSD.
>The 200MB Open Office or Office 2000 chewed up were significant real estate
>on that device!)

Sure, but I think it was more a long term effort to support mobile
devices, like a Google/Android tablet, but largely irrelevant in the
short term except being taken as a diversionary attack on Microsoft
(which is why there's been so little follow-through recently).
(Sun tried the same tactic, but bungled it badly.)

>> RIM still has a dominant market share lead, and a pretty loyal base,
>> which I think you may be underestimating.
>
>People are as loyal as their options.

I still think you are (seriously) underestimating brand loyalty.

>Enterprise still loves RIM, for the
>security, and ease of use (essentially a single UI and form factor among
>most devices- if you've spent any time with a Blackberry, you can manage to
>find your way around any of them.)
>
>Consumer users are becoming less enamored of them, IMO.

That's only because RIM has fallen so far behind in coolness, lost all
the mojo, lost the buzz, problems that could be fixed, although it would
take a major effort. But like Microsoft, RIM is too busy fighting the
old battles to do the job it needs to do in new battles, witness the
BlackBerry Torch, OK but no more than that.

>And if MS bought
>them, they'd certainly screw them up "reimagining" them, like they did to
>Sidekick.

That's a bad analogy -- Microsoft was after Danger, not Sidekick.

>> I'm not sure there's still room for another player (which WinMo7 is by
>> virtue of abandoning WinMo6), and I think Microsoft is going about this
>> in a way that's doomed to fail. I think the only real hope of saving
>> WinMo7 would be to immediately announce app compatibility with WinMo6,
>> and then figure out how to do it quick quick. If Windows 7 had been the
>> same kind of complete break with Windows Vista, then I think it would
>> still be struggling now.
>
>That assumed WinMo6 had the same type of ubiquitous market reach that
>XP/Vista had. Look around your friends, relatives and clients- how many WM6
>handsets do you see, vs. Blackberries, iPhones and even Androids. MS needs
>backwards compatibility probably as much as WebOS did. It'd be nice, but it
>won't make or break it. (In fact, as much as I'd like to see it personally
>for selfish reasons, backwards compatibility would likely "break" WP7- it
>typically needs cursor hardware, and a much finer controlled touchscreen,
>which doesn't lend itself to finger-friendliness.)

I disagree -- when you blow off and piss off your existing customer
base, you create a big additional hurdle that greatly adds to your
marketing challenges.

>What WinMo really needed was a ground up rewrite to eliminate bloat and
>redundant legacy code floating around since the Pocket PC days, and a new UI
>that was finger friendly all the way to the core- not just until you drilled
>down to an app or user settings that presented the same old interface my
>Casio E-100 had in 1999! That coupled with a more realistic minimum spec
>would've been enough, IMO, if Microsoft put the resources and marketing
>behind it. But they don't pay me to make those decisions.

It's not a matter of technology -- it's a matter of understanding users
and the user experience, and making it cool, something Microsoft has
never been terribly good at, with Windows Vista a painful case in point.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]