For Windows 8, Microsoft Looks To Apple (Leaked data shows Microsoft immitating Apple)

The Var Guy ^ | 07/06/2010 | Dave Courbanou

[SeekAndFind]

Here’s the short story: Leaked NDA Microsoft slides that landed on an Italian blog site have spread like wildfire. The content of the slides shows that Microsoft is pushing some innovative technology for Windows 8, but also very much looking to Apple’s business model for inspiration. Here’s some analysis.

First, a tip of the hat to Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet for condensing the story. She sourced the Microsoft Kitchen blog that covered the leak, and that blog, in turn sourced the Italian blog ‘Windowsette’ that scooped the leak, which in turn was picked up by most of the Apple rumors sites that I read. Bottom line? This stuff is everywhere.

But other than the plethora of new features, technology, and 2012 timeline Microsoft has laid out for the release of Windows 8, there’s one very interesting slide in particular.

No, you’re not seeing things. That’s an — allegedly — internal slide from the Microsoft Windows team, asking themselves how Apple does so damn well, and how they can mimic the results. The best part is? They’ve even focused on Apple’s mantra “It Just Works.” What’s more interesting than that is the focus on value and user experience. Windows Vista was a focus on flashier graphics, but didn’t do so hot in the UX field. Windows 7 finally started to nail that down, and my assumption is that Windows 8 will be much more fluid, futuristic and minimalistic-ly modern a-la Mac OS X.

Worth repeating: value is the focus here. Microsoft wants to create something people want to pay for, other than something people simply buy because it’s cheaper or preloaded on a PC. Apple has shown that a price tag isn’t as big of a deal when the product has a high level of worth and desirability and functionality.

Lastly, the above picture of the computer is — dare I say it — an iMac prototype clone for a “Windows” computer running Windows 8. In case you were curious, other leaked slides detail that there may be a Windows App store, plus faster start-up and shutdown time, a refocus on functionality and snappier user experience, easier recovery, restore and reset and a facial recognition system for logging in for enhanced security.

Officially, Microsoft hasn’t made a comment, but we didn’t think they would.

Here’s to Windows 8.

[RachelFaith]

OK, then perhaps “standards” aren’t the right words, since if we go into the minutia, their entire philosophies are so divergent as to make this less about apples and oranges then about fruits and meats.

But, I think I can sum it up again by returning to the point of view of the end user. Sure you and I can take this on for hours going into which process has which inherent advantages and such, but that is exactly where the users leave us and these threads server no other value. I am not trying to educate other techies, nor really inform or educate the lay people. So I speak to the common end user in generalities and using common terms. Standards.

The definition of Standards is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard

I post that, not so anyone can go word hunting and drag this down into the morass of linguistic debates, but to get it out of the way of the real issue. I post it so we can all see that the meaning isn’t even standard. It has as wide of a scope and meaning as do standards themselves.

So to my point: Microsoft doesn’t even try to set a minimalist standard. I mean it. A standard which by all accounts employs “thousands of other somebodies” and their idea of standards is NOT a standard. Apple as we noted, goes to the far other extreme in that, they don’t even ALLOW these other somebodies to make stuff.

THAT VERY FACT is my point. The extreme difference. How can Microsoft even THINK they can go there? Defacto, they cannot. OK, sure they “could”, but I could walk to England too... but let’s keep it practical and real. Microsoft trying to be like Apple when their very core of Standards is divergent enough that we can say one has nearly every standard to the degree that there is no standard, and the other has NO NEED of standards because they control it all cradle to grave, that is like trying to walk to the moon.

I am not suggesting that Mircosoft TRY to set a standard. They have entered into a process where if they did, it would increase the costs on the suppliers and break their one selling point: COST.

Imagine if Microsoft just leaned a little towards an Apple process and said, ONLY THESE 5 Chipsets will be certified to run OS 8. 5 from perhaps 500...

That would make NEW COKE look like a brilliant marketing move!!

So, again, understand, when I say “NEVER” “CANNOT” “IMPOSSIBLE” “NO STANDARDS” I mean it, only from, for and to the end users who do not WANT to have this star trek level debate. They just want to know why a Dell costs $799 and a Mac costs $999 and is it worth it. So I speak to them for that reason. And you can always, if you are a real geek, find the exception and the technicality to hang a word or two upon.

But like Microsoft... it’s not my point to get overly technical, so why bother?

= )

[PugetSoundSoldier]

But that is NOT a profit. A profit is if you spend 100 total and make 101 or more back.

Spending 100 a quarter and having most quarters return 50 and a few return 101, does NOT make for ANY actual profit.

Microsoft is now making about $180 million per quarter net profit on Xbox; if you think short term, yeah, they've lost. However, think long term (like Microsoft tends to do): they'll make their investment back around 2013, and then start adding $800 million a year in additional profit.

Short term, it might look like a bad deal, but Microsoft doesn't look at the next 4 quarters or 4 years. When they go after a market (like the gaming console market), they are in it for the long run and will not quit until they win. And when they win, they make profit - lots and lots of profit. And they ultimately make it all back, and a lot more.

Don't overlook Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices group (which includes the mice, keyboards, webcams, headsets, Xboxes, and a host of other PC accessories). It accounts for about 15% of their corporate NET profit, it is a very profitable group inside Microsoft.

Say what you will about them, but they make a LOT more revenue and a LOT more profit - and a higher return on revenue (profit margin) - than Apple. They KNOW how to make money.

[RachelFaith]

Well, hell froze over. You posted something sane to me and I agree with it.

The open standards of the Intel chips have been exceptional for all concerned. The fact that all 3 major OS’s now use the same general architecture lowers costs, increases competition and creates much greater economies of scale. All good things.

My only point is, the subject of this thread. Microsoft trying to out Apple, Apple. And giving the reasons why I think that is a fools errand, and they should just do what they do already well, better and get over it before they NEW COKE themselves.

I use that analogy because it fits PERFECTLY.

COKE had 85% market share and now has 45%. Pepsi had 5% and now has 45%.

Because COKE freaked out when Pepsi went from 5% to 15% and BLEW IT trying to be something they were not ever going to be and did not need to be.

Microsoft MAY loose another 15% to Mac. Whooopie. Better 15% than 30% yes? Cede the ground that you cannot hold and hold the ground you can.

Don’t NEW COKE it Microsoft.

[RachelFaith]

Again the short term has been what? 8 years now and with your projection, 12 years? That’s IS my whole point. What if, in 2012, Apple does a Console, after skipping the last 8 years of losses? And what if it is some damnable new thing no one else every thought of yet again and suddenly it’s Apple with 45% of the gaming market and Sony and Nitendo and Xbox dead last and STILL LOSING MONEY?

What IF?

That is the whole point of my post on this one.

THAT IS what Sony and Microsoft FEAR.

And, as I suggested, for damn good reason!

[dayglored]

> All the Mac hardware is from the PC world, and it's why you can run a PC-based Linux directly on Macs. They are now in the world of the PC, in terms of hardware.

Well, yes, but I would argue that there were very good business reasons for Apple switching to PC hardware that had nothing to do with any inherent goodness of the PC platform design:

1. Virtualization, specifically of Windows.
2. Intel's CPUs were whipping the PPC.
3. Virtualization, specifically of Windows.
4. Rock-bottom prices for PC components.
5. Virtualization, specifically of Windows.

Oh, and did I mention that Apple saw the value of being able to run Windows natively on their own hardware via BootCamp, while PC's could not run OS-X without Apple's approval, which they withheld (witness Psystar)?

The PC platform design is no more than a well-polished turd, but that didn't matter to Apple, because it was the way to leverage virtualization, and for years some of the best platforms for running Windows have been Macs.

BTW, I concur with your comments about open hardware -- I generally prefer open standards to proprietary designs despite the anarchy they sometimes generate.

With that I must say goodnight, but I'll look for more comments tomorrow. Cheers!

[PugetSoundSoldier]

You’re ignoring the fact that de-facto standards rule the PC world. Technical standards often lag de-facto standards by 2-5 (or more) years. What works in the market becomes the standard.

That is what you get with an OS and vendor that encourages long-term support and promises decades or more of support. It is what gives Apple the ability to actually survive.

How many Macs do you think they’d sell right now if they had to set up their own foundry to make PowerPC chips (which IBM dropped because there just wasn’t a large enough customer base for them)? There’s a reason Apple shifted to using standard PC hardware - it was either switch to the de-facto standards of the PC/Windows hardware world or die.

And IMHO as long as Apple continues to eschew long-term support and backwards compatibility (measured in decades, not 4-5 years) they’ll never gain more than the 3-4% market share they have now. The truth is that companies spend a few hundred dollars on their hardware, and tens of thousands of dollars on their software. Supporting that software long-term is where the value is.

Microsoft will continue to totally dominate the PC world as long as they do not lose sight of that. Being able to run a 20 year old program on the latest OS - including hardware access - is a huge benefit and massive advantage.

[highimpact]

I know you’re right. “Steal” was a poor choice of words on my part. They took the idea from the GUI creators at Xerox. Not much of a difference when it comes to being the creator of something, or being the beneficiary of something that was already created, which (by the way) is the topic of this post.

I’m a Mac user. And no, I didn’t steal it :)

[PugetSoundSoldier]

No way Apple will jump in and be profitable from day one; that just doesn’t happen. It costs money - LOTS of money - to design and build hardware, especially something as focused as a gaming console.

Apple doesn’t have anywhere near 45% of any market, save the music player market in the US. Overseas, and in all other markets (cell phones and computers) they are a small player overall. Down in the single digits, or at best low-mid teens.

It took Nintendo a decade to dethrone Atari. It took Microsoft the better part of a decade to beat Sony and nearly take the top spot from Nintendo. Apple will have that long road to take, and not just Microsoft to fight - they’ll have Sony and Nintendo to contend with, both of whom are extremely focused competitors.

Microsoft will make back their investment on Xbox in another 2 years, and they will continue to make big bucks on it long-term.

[RachelFaith]

I think your last post was a bit premature.

See the post above it. Dayglored made the case already for why it is not JUST the open standards for which Apple can benefit. He listed many other very good reasons.

[RachelFaith]

No way huh?

I bet ya said that about iPhone too...

This is just my version of the “wait n see”. OK

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Those reasons all came about because of the explosion the PC world, which would not have happened without a broadly accepted OS.

Virtualization? That comes from massively powerful hardware and plentiful RAM and HDD space. Which came about because so many could get into it.

Intel CPUs? Why did they trounce the PowerPC that Apple used? Because of huge volume of sales, because of the open platform. Cheap hardware? See volume again.

If it was just technical perfection, we’d have seen MCA and PowerPCs ruling the roost. No, the market said “nope” and went the other way. To Microsoft’s - and now Apple’s - benefit.

The proof: what hardware is out there that supports Macs only? There is a LOT of hardware that supports Windows only. Hardware is released with Linux and Mac drivers offered IF the company gets around to it. But it’s NEVER released without Windows drivers - that is the standard, and that is what drives the market.

[Swordmaker]

Very true. Most people don’t know, or choose to forget, that Jobs and Woz (the Apple founders) originally stole the GUI idea from Xerox Park.

Sigh. The reason most people don't know that is that it simply is not true!

Apple did NOT steal the STAR interface for the UI from Xerox. Apple paid XEROX 1,000,000 shares of pre IPO APPLE Common stock (then worth $7 per share) for a mere 16 hours of visits to PARC and the rights to use what they learned there (they took no code, only ideas). Secondly, Apple's and Xerox's implementations of the User interfaces were very dissimilar... and Apple invented quite a bit of it independently including such things as the drop down menus, movable windows, the trashcan metaphor, drag-and-drop, and sub menus. These things are documented.

XEROX's suit was initiated by a new XEROX CEO who was not familiar with the 1978 visit to PARC and the terms of the agreement. The suit was tossed out of Court when Apple produced the written agreements that revealed that Apple had indeed paid for the rights and had not "lifted" anything from Xerox's PARC and were entitled to what they used. Xerox had sold the stock it received for the visit for about $16,000,000 shortly after Apple went public in 1980. The made about $1 million an hour for a show and tell dog and pony show.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

I bet ya said that about iPhone too...

Still waiting for the iPhone to break out of 3rd place in the Smartphone market...;) It's well behind Nokia and Blackberry, and is now being eclipsed by Android.

And in the bigger scheme of things - the entire cell phone market - Apple is WAY down the list, being surpassed by Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, HTC, and many others.

Media infatuation and market share do not necessarily go hand in hand. Witness the iPhone, for example...;)

[Swordmaker]

This has been posted at least a hundred times on FR and shot down at least a hundred times. Apple paid $100K $7,000,000 in pre IPO common stock for a four two eight hour demonstrations of the Xerox GUI. Xerox knew what they were doing when they gave the demo, and knew that Apple was making a computer with a GUI, and that this was the reason they wanted the Xerox demo. There was other compensation involved. Swordmaker has all the details, but Apple did not "steal" the GUI from Xerox.

There. Fixed it for you, Richard. Mostly right. Just had a few details wrong. ;^)>

[RachelFaith]

We've had this debate. And now you are right back to LYING again!!

For the love of Jesus will you knock it off ???

You cannot just pick and choose what demographics suit you. Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Chart one is the 2010 SMART PHONE market share via Nielson NATIONALLY. 28% for iPhone. More than 3 TIMES Android and 2nd place and rising.

Why leave THIS out? Because it doesn't fit with your FUD?

This isn't something you do not know. This isn't something new. This graphic has been posted 20 times or more.

So STOP TWISTING everything!!!

The second chart is where you get your 14% and 3rd place. But then you make it sound like poor Apple stuck in 3rd and you are waiting for them but they are going no where.

Nowhere except they NEARLY DOUBLED in 1 year from 8% to over 14%

You make this ludicrous smug post when the facts are entirely against everything you purport them to be saying.

Apple is only 2 years into this cycle and is 14% at 2009 year end. RIM is 10 years old and falling fast. Nokia is 12 years old in the smart phone business.

So how can you even live with yourself being so smug and condescending, when Apple has gone from 0% to 2nd or 3rd nationally and world wide in 2 years in a platform totally alien to what everyone thought they could learn? How can you even think if you even think, to suggest that there is NO RISK to Xbox, Sony, et all if and when Apple enters the gaming system market?

Any reasonable person would say that if Apple did in that market what they have done in these other markets, 15% or 30% over night in 2 years time, that it would be the BIGGEST THREAT of which they could conceive.

But not you, oh no. You have the audacity to claim that Apple hasn't done jack and is no threat even in the smartphone market.

This is why I refuse to even try to be nice with you.

You just flat out LIE and Manipulate everything with no moral compass or shame.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Rachel, enough with the "lying" crap. Cut it out.

Read what I wrote. If you cannot figure out why your response is WAY off base, then you're more partisan than I thought.

Take a few deep breaths and chill out, for crying out loud.

Now, read and learn:

Apple is in 6th place. Yes, 6th place. Like I said. Your charge of "lie" is, in fact, a proven lie and FUD.

And in terms of smartphones:

Again, my statement was correct, and your charge of "LIE" is itself a lie.

You're just itching for a fight, Rachel, and you'll lose yet again... Knock it off yourself, Rachel - you're making asinine statements again, and your charges of "LIE" and "FUD" have grown tiresome.

And about your graphs? It's a mix of worldwide and domestic, meaning they're not even measuring the same thing. You're trying to mix apples and cats and claiming that blue is the best color. Get it together...

The facts are indisputable: in Smartphones, Apple is a distant 3rd place. In the overall phone market, they are 6th. Those are the facts, as much as you hate to see them.

Now grow up and quit whining, and cut it with the name-calling and charges.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

You used Gartner graphs, how about their latest findings of the cell phone market?

We find that overall cell phone sales, Apple is actually SEVENTH place. And we see in the Smartphone OS market, Apple is a distant 3rd place.

THOSE are the facts. Deal with it.

[Swordmaker]

The fact that Xerox has not tried to sue Apple is the clearest indication that the GUI concept wasn't technically stolen. But that doesn't change the fact that idea wasn't Apple's (could not be copyrighted by Apple) and therefore couldn't be stolen from Apple by Microsoft, as alleged in Apple's lawsuit.

In actual fact, Vic, in 1990, after the Mac came out and Apple was suing Microsoft over the "look and feel" issues of Windows, a new CEO at Xerox initiated a similar lawsuit against Apple based on the myth that Apple had "stolen" the GUI from Xerox's PARC during those visits. The judge tossed Xerox's suit out for two reasons 1) Apple produced the signed documents outlining the Apple common stock in exchange for PARC visits and rights for ideas learned during said visits agreement; and, 2) the technicality that Xerox's suit was filed far too late and any statute of limitations for damages clock had started ticking in January 1983 with the release of the Apple Lisa. However, the judge ordered sanctions on Xerox's legal counsel for bringing the case in light of the signed agreements for not doing due diligence and wasting the court's time.

Attempts have been made to bury these facts. An article written by Yvonne Lee—quoted clumsily in the Wikipedia article on the Apple v Microsoft suit that initiated the Xerox suit—goes as far as manufacturing a statement from a "Xerox spokesman" saying that Xerox did indeed own some Apple stock they had purchased in August of 1979 "as an investment" which they later sold, to explain away the stock that Xerox got in the agreement. Lee's article also quotes others to denigrate the accounts of top Macintosh people such as Jef Raskin about the PARC visits. There are some RED FLAGS with the Lee article that reveal it to be fraudulent. Xerox could NOT have purchased common stock in Apple as an investment in August of 1979. Apple's IPO did not take place until December 12, 1980. The Lee article prompted two Mac developers to document the events, in detail, and they produced documents and photographic evidence proving her article to be FUD.

[Swordmaker]

Xerox tried to sue Apple but it went nowhere. Apple did improve quite a bit on the basic Xerox concept, and managed to shoehorn it into a relatively inexpensive computer. Only large corporations could afford what Xerox eventually made from the technology.

Yeah, the entry level Xerox Star was $16,000, not exactly your average desk top computer.

[The_Victor]

Thanks Sword. I don’t remember the Xerox lawsuit at all, but it has been 20 years, and with the Microsoft suit going at ~ the same time, I’m sure the dismissed Xerox suit was buried.