Replies

I think that’s an interesting theory, but it doesn’t sound right to me. The MS stores sell products from those same PC vendors, and I’m sure that will continue. I think that Surface is more about making sure that the initial launch of Windows RT was running on some innovative hardware that will get good press. Also, it will set a quality bar so the 3rd-party vendors will have a reasonable baseline and won’t be tempted to ship low-end junk.

One of the problems that Microsoft has historically struggled with, is that people form their opinions on the whole platform, not just the OS. If someone goes to BestBuy and picks up some junky PC that is unstable or underpowered, it’s going to be Windows that gets the blame, not the PC. Intel has tried to fix this problem by providing integrated chipsets, recommended configurations, and even reference platforms - but it hasn’t worked. Apple doesn’t have that issue, as they control the hardware and the OS.

If that’s the strategy, it definitely has some risk. Microsoft has always emphasized its strong partner/vendor ties, and that it doesn’t (as a general rule) compete with them. There’s definitely a chance of alienating them with this approach. I guess less so now that all the other OS vendors are also hardware competitors (Google/Android with their purchase of the Motorola Droid, and of course Apple).

You know, love or hate Apple, they did a lot of things right.

Personally, I think that Microsoft has taken a lot of bad press for “crashes” where 95% of them, especially the last 10 years have been caused by:

-Overly-ambitious software that was very bleeding edge, put in the hands of inexperienced programmers (including those at Microsoft itself) and users. If you ever wrote software on anything less than a 386 and Windows 3.1, you know what I mean. It’s amazing that it actually worked at all, much less reasonably well.
-OE Manufacturers trying to stuff too much software on too little hardware.
-Buggy device drivers (at least with NT+ Windows, Microsoft could at least point a finger).
-Dicey hardware screwed together by high school students.

Apple makes or tightly controls it’s hardware; they have never tried to sell too little of a machine (at least in the last 10-15 years). And if Microsoft has reputation problems stemming from iffy hardware, especially in the past, check out an $80 Android tablet.

There are those who say “Apple has made a walled garden”. I actually like that metaphor. My wife lives in that garden, and I must say that it is a very nice, safe, and low maintenance garden although the real estate and shrubbery are a little expensive. Compare those with Android’s, whose garden is very cheap, but it’s sparse and what few nice plants grow there are interspersed with dangerous plant diseases and weeds that make you itch.

Microsoft’s garden consists of a very nice tulip in a pot, surrounded by razor wire.

A manager of mine put it best (perhaps he stole this? I don’t know, but it’s good):
“The pioneers take the arrows, and then the settlers just come waltzing in.”