Everybody is suddenly copying Microsoft

Business Insider ^ | October 4, 2015 | Matt Weinberger

[Swordmaker]

In 2012, when Microsoft first introduced the Surface Pro — a tablet that was also a laptop — it became an industry punch line.

“You can merge a toaster and a refrigerator, but that’s probably not going to be pleasing to anyone," quipped Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Nobody's laughing now. And Microsoft is looking more and more like a trendsetter.

Three years after Cook's jab, the Surface Pro 3 is selling strong — strong enough that Microsoft is expected to launch a much-anticipated Surface Pro 4 at a special event on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Apple and Google have started to pay attention. This past September saw both companies introduce tablet-laptop hybrids: the Apple iPad Pro and the Google Pixel C.

"Apple just admitted Microsoft is right," read a headline here on Business Insider. Another one described the Pixel C as a "Surface killer."

[Cold Heat]

Where you're mistaken is right there: you can't serious think that Apple has become the most valuable company in the world, pushing $700 billion, purely on hyping a "cadre" of fanboys. . .

As I said. the fan boys keep it fueled, and the aspirational nature of their marketing, gives them a customer base willing to pay a exorbitant price and believe they are getting more than they paid for.

Apple makes a large margin on their sales, and their vertical integrated support marketing that collects even more money across the entire sales scheme.

No, I am not the one who is delusional. But like I said, I really don't care.

I just glean some entertainment from your responses. I admitted that I view Apple as a very successful company and I illustrated why, yet you continue to defend it as if I had pee'd on Job's grave.

I find it entertaining to say the least...

[SmokingJoe]

Microsoft copied Apple and the Apple ecosystem in developijng the Microsoft Surface line. All of these predate the Microsoft Surface design and patent applications:

Ummmm.....your slip is showing old chap:

Only thing is, Microsoft launched a touch input tablet a full decade before Jobs launched the iPad in 2010.

And # 2' the iPad was never meant as a laptop replacement, which is what the Surface is. Tech Cook mocked.the Surface for trying to be a tablet and a laptop at the same time and predicted it would fail. Ergo, it's impossible for the Surface to copy an iPad that never did what the Surface did, which is double as a laptop.

[SmokingJoe]

You've built quite a strawman out of something I've actually denied. Bribes. I did not say. In fact here, verbatim, is exactly what I did say, upon which YOU irrationally have built your delusional house of cards for me to prove:

“Why do you think there is a campaign from this “author of this and several recent articles that have been posted here seem to think otherwise” saying the same thing? It's an advertising meme being pushed by Microsoft's astroturfering marketing department getting their new product which is about to be released: The Microsoft Surface 4.”

Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participant(s).

By it's very definition astroturfing involves paying money to certain parties to push a meme and make it appear that it's their own ideas. So once again, please provide the dates, amounts and exactly who Microsoft paid to push the “Apple is copying Micrsoft” meme. If anything both the mainsstream media and meet the tech press have been Apple fanboys for decades.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Again, Apple takes the role Me Too after the Surface Pro 4 announcement.

[Swordmaker]

As I said. the fan boys keep it fueled, and the aspirational nature of their marketing, gives them a customer base willing to pay a exorbitant price and believe they are getting more than they paid for.

Exorbitant price? In whose universe?

• Samsung's introductory discounted price for unlocked Galaxy S6: $849 to $1139 on Amazon (usually selling at discounted pricing). Source

• Apple's introductory full price for unlocked iPhone 6S: $649 to $849

That kind of shoots down your claim of Apple's exorbitant pricing, doesn't it? And of course, you can get phones on contract for zero downpayment. . . including iPhones. That's irrelevant. Those are subsidized by the carriers.

Yes, you can buy cheaper smartphones, but they are usually three to five year old models with lesser capability that do not integrate with other devices as well as Apple's do.

As for computers, pricing Dell or HP laptops or desk top all in ones with similar specs will get you pricing that is competitive and the Apple offering is sometimes up to $100 less expensive. . . but the Apple always comes with a suite of quite functional included software that the PCs do not. I've done many price comparisons and that is what you find. Yes, you can buy a much less expensive PC, but it is not a comparable PC to a Mac.

Yes, you are delusional if you think that Apple grows on "fanboys keeping it fueled" to the point of worldwide growth to the world's largest and most profitable company. . . and more delusions in thinking that people who have bought their products somehow are deluded into believing they are better than anything they've ever used, to the point of continuing to buy more, when you think they are not without ever using them.

Listen to the irrational position you propose that you are asking people to believe:

Either you are saying those customers should deny their own experiences, based on knowing what they had before with PCs and other cell phones, and what they have now with Apple, and listen to your "superior knowledge," instead of their own experience. Or you're saying that they are somehow being inveigled into buying more Apple products by a small, "cadre" of Apple fans who somehow FORCE them into Apple stores to keep buying expensive products, which, according to you, are no better than what they could get for a lot less money.

Cold Heat, people do not act against their own self-interest in such irrational behavior unless there is a distinct reward beyond some illusionary status you deluded anti-Apple people claim exists. If they were buying Apple products for status, why would they buy cases to cover them up and protect them? That would be irrational. They'd want them exposed for everyone to see.

[Swordmaker]

Only thing is, Microsoft launched a touch input tablet a full decade before Jobs launched the iPad in 2010.

DIdn't you bother to read what I wrote to Cold Heat in reference to the Windows 98 tablets? In case you didn't here's what I wrote:

"As for slate computers in Windows 98, and later, they were not successful, being big, bulky, and heavy, requiring a stylus to use. They were essentially a kludge. However I won't let you put words in my mouth. I did not say that and don't, unlike some of you guys say that Apple ripped off the iPad concept from that. . . a when they bear no resemblance and Apple's worked."

Microsoft launched no tablets a full decade before the iPad. They were not a hardware manufacturer; they were then a software publisher. They provided a kludgy tablet OS version of Windows which a stylus driver could be added by a hardware maker.

Bill Gates with the Windows 98 tablet LCD screen faux Tablet — 2000

(Note: this is apparently NOT a tablet computer, but merely an
LCD screen, under shadow removal, there is a coil cable connecting
the device to a box under the table! LOL! — Swordmaker)

Several hardware makers tried to make the Windows 98/Vista/NT tablet designs successful and essentially failed, not finding a large enough market to make it profitable.

Microsoft's Bill Gates showed a reference design at CES 2002 made for Microsoft by Fujitsu, one of the OEMs, for other OEMs to make.

With Windows XP, there was another attempt at a Windows tablet with a bit more success, but not much as fewer than three million were sold by various manufacturers, mostly to Enterprise businesses and truckers for warehouse and trucking management purposes. The user interface was a failure because of the technology available ten years before Apple invented the multi-touch systems that made it work with finger inputs on capacitance screens. From your own non-working link (fixed it for you), which is entitled "Microsoft Invented A Tablet A Decade Before Apple And Totally Blew It":

Bill Gates with the super cool but kludgy Windows XP Microsoft Fujitsu tablet

"Last July, during an interview with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates explained that Jobs "did some things better than I did. His timing in terms of when it came out, the engineering work, just the package that was put together. The tablets we had done before, weren't as thin, they weren't as attractive."

Note that the article claims that Microsoft merely invented "a tablet" not "the tablet" because it was not the first. The first touch screen tablet computer with a stylus input goes to Apple's Newton MessagePad, the first PDA—Apple's CEO John Sculley even coined the term Personal Digital Assistant—which defined the market for all later PDAs which then became the smartphones.

Apple Newton MessagePad 100— developed 1987-1991 release

Yes there were personal organizers prior to the Newton, but they were generally keyboard driven calculators with limited address book capabilities such as the original Psion Organisers.

Psion Organizer 1 -1981 (right) and Psion Organizer series 3 - 1991 (left)

[Cold Heat]

The galaxy 6 edge is 600 bucks.....just bought one...matter of fact..

[Cold Heat]

Note that the article claims that Microsoft merely invented "a tablet" not "the tablet" because it was not the first.

To be honest, the originator of the tablet in my view is the Hollywood TV show, Star trek.(particularly the "Next generation" spin off.

If you want to go back far enough, the 1st MS development was the tablet OS...Of course that was done when they were primarily a software company.

IIRC if I recall, and they never actually put it on the market, their initial tablet with touch was built into a piece of furniture. (similar to a barroom video gaming table.

[adorno]

Apple has been doing the ‘me too’ routine, but has been coming up short against the Surface devices. Looks like Apple will have to go back to the drawing board, and do a better job of copying other companies’ work.

[Cold Heat]

Yeah....I have been trying to explain how Apple does that to the sword guy for some years now.

Touch screen tech did not originate with consumer electronics. I was installing touch scree interfaces to PLC controllers in power plants in the early 1990s..

Apple, like many other former great marketers, assimilates technology, usually through patent acquisition via buyouts or mergers..

They take this stuff and repurpose it, creating or helping to create a device that some consumer did not know that they needed and they create the need.

That is what Apple does very very well...but not at first...

It took them a while and one has to give great credit to Microsoft for infusing cash into apple and essentially saving the company via stock purchases in 1997..

I firmly believe that if it were not for Bill gates, Apple would not exist today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-12-09/worst-deal-ever-microsofts-apple-investment

[Cold Heat]

“We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose,” a diminished Jobs said at the Orwellian-staged MacWorld trade show in Boston where he announced Microsoft’s stake to a chorus of boos. “The era of us thinking that we compete with Microsoft is over.’” (Of course he believed that.) At the time, Apple was hat-in-hand. It had sustained losses of more than $1.5 billion in the prior year-and-a-half. It especially needed a public guarantee from Microsoft that it would keep providing and supporting software for Macs; Apple’s share of the then-booming PC market had dwindled to about 5 percent from about 15 percent in 1992.

It is what it is.....

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

The book pro is on my Christmas list

[Swordmaker]

Here's the original Star Trek Tricorder. . .

Star Trek Original Series Tricorder

I don't think it qualifies as a tablet. . .

There were some scenes in Star Trek where an ensign would hand Kirk what appears to be a tablet and a stylus which he'd look at and sign or check off, but no one has really looked clearly at one, as far as I can recall. That may have only been a note book.

Perhaps the first "invention" of a fictional tablet TV is seen in Stanley Kubrik's 2001, a Space Oddysey:

They spent several tens of thousands of dollars to display what appeared to be two fictional tablet TVs playing on the ship going to Jupiter. . . and they actually did indeed have a real video images on them, because they did not have the post production means in 1968 to do that in post-production, but the FX people said they WERE indeed part of the desk they were sitting on and took a huge amount of electronics underneath the desk to drive the CRT screens to make them look like they were portable tablets, just idly laid down on the desk. Samsung tried to claim this was "prior art" and invalidated Apple's patents on the iPad. The court disagreed, as it did not show a computer tablet, but it only a TV images.

[Swordmaker]

Again, Apple takes the role Me Too after the Surface Pro 4 announcement.

Uh, where has Apple made any comment after today's Microsoft announcement? Looks to me as if Microsoft commentators are all making the comparison's to Apple's products, not the other way around. You've made a non sequitur.

[Swordmaker]

The galaxy 6 edge is 600 bucks.....just bought one...matter of fact..

Now, it is, after Samsung found they couldn't sell them at their introductory price and wound up with a lot of unsold inventory. I provided you with the unbiased source on that data. That was the INTRODUCTORY PRICING.

To sell them now, Samsung is discounting them to move inventory. . . otherwise they would not sell at their original pricing structure.

[Swordmaker]

The galaxy 6 edge is 600 bucks.....just bought one...matter of fact..

Uh, not on Amazon. . .

Amazon Price, Unlocked phone, image captured 9:20 PM PT 10/6/2015

[Cold Heat]

Not the tri-corder....they had a tablet in nearly every episode of next generation with Pikard as captain. They used them for ships logs and reports...you never saw a screen, because there was not one...but it was touch operated with verbal commands as well..kinda like my Surface...which is weird..

[Cold Heat]

To be fair it’s a international unit...GSM...I am planning to travel a bit next year.

The 4GLTE hardware adds about 80-125 bucks to the phone..

What they are dumping....big sale are the 5s and 6s, but only a few bucks off the plus..the one with the stylus is the high dollar unit...over 800 bucks.

Yes, I did read that they missed on some numbers.....a bit low on sales I think...I don’t own it so I don’t follow it much. Heck of a phone though...

[Swordmaker]

It took them a while and one has to give great credit to Microsoft for infusing cash into apple and essentially saving the company via stock purchases in 1997..

Sorry, but that is another false meme. Microsoft did not save anyone but Microsoft with that $150 million purchase of five year restricted, preferred stock in Apple for which Apple merely had to print a few pieces of paper. Apple had over $2 Billion in cash and other liquid asset at the time, and in fact had just expended $450 Million buying NeXT from Steve Jobs, and had three quarters in the black, and was well on its way to recovery when Steve Jobs negotiated a settlement of Apple's Patent and Copyright lawsuit against Microsoft on the theft of Apple's QuickTime IP found in Microsoft's Windows Video Player. The judge involved in the case had already told Microsoft they were looking at a multibillion dollar judgement if it proceeded to trial.

At the same time the Clinton justice department was looking to breaking Microsoft up into three companies over just such anti-competitive practices as theft of IP from smaller companies. Bill Gates wanted no such lawsuit occurring while they fought this DOJ investigation.

I have READ the three interlocking agreements exercised as part of this lawsuit settlement. In settlement of the lawsuit, Apple would:

• Apple would grant to Microsoft a five year limited license to the disputed in-suit intellectual properties for additional, un-named licensing fees.
• For the five years of the agreement, Apple would include Microsoft Internet Explorer with Netscape Navigator as optional browsers with all Macs and distributions of Apple's Operating systems.
• Apple would dismiss with prejudice ALL claims against Microsoft for this and past infringements of its intellectual properties.
• Apple would sell to Microsoft $150 million dollars of five-year restricted, non-voting Preferred stock, as compensation for past infringement.

In settlement of the lawsuit, Microsoft would:

• License to Apple ALL of its intellectual properties in perpetuity for the life of the patents and copyrights at no cost.
• Agree to license from Apple the in-suit patents and copyrights for a period of five years for an undisclosed licensing fee.
• Agree to re-start development of Microsoft Office for Mac and continue such development and distribution for a period of not less than five years.
• Provide Microsoft Internet Explorer for inclusion and distribution with all Macintosh Computers and all Apple OS distributions for five years.
• Agree to accept these terms in settlement of all disputes and disagreements between Apple and Microsoft.
• Agree to purchase NON-VOTING five-year restricted preferred stock in Apple Computer Company, Inc. for $150 million.
• Agree that until such purchase is complete, the lawsuit is not settled.

Apple came out smelling like a rose with the huge benefits. . . that cost them essentially nothing. . . while Microsoft got the short end of the stick.

Any company that is "bailing out" another company requires VOTING stock and a presence on the bailee's board of directors, to have a say in how the company being bailed out is run. That did not happen. Apple was not in trouble and the money was used for advertising and donations to schools in Michigan. They certainly do not buy five-year restricted stock without voting rights that they cannot SELL for five years!

That money was in settlement of the lawsuit which Microsoft was guaranteed to lose. There was literally "smoking gun" evidence, such as the social security number and the maiden name of one of Apple's software engineer STILL in Microsoft's Window's Video Viewer code. Microsoft NEEDED this to go away, and knew they were over the barrel. Funny thing was, this time, they were not even really the thieves, but they were the beneficiaries of the thieves.

Over the next five years, Microsoft paid even more money to Apple. . . the licensing fees that were un-named. Forensic Accountants have gone back over the books of both companies years later and estimate those payments most likely totaled over $2 BILLION, and funded Apple's development of the iPod and later the iPhone.

[Cold Heat]

I think you are reading into it what you want to see...

According to analysts and reported in the financial press, like Bloomberg..etc..Apple was worth less than 3Billion and weeks away from a bankruptcy.

Yes, the deal pretty much sucked for MS...but I recall at the time the Gates and Jobs both believed the each of them would benefit from the others success,and if Apple failed it would hurt MS in the longer run.

I believe that to be true.

But it really ticked me off that later on Apple beat up MS daily in it’s ads and used MS as a foil to build sales..

But then Jobs was never known for his kindness...lol