Posted on 06/23/2012 7:18:05 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
Many have scoffed at the idea that Redmond's tablet will succeed. But there are three crucial reasons to take the effort seriously. By Don Sears
FORTUNE -- Do not underestimate Microsoft's Surface tablet move. Its gambit to design and build its own hardware is a bold play to develop a thriving ecosystem of new products. It is centered on Microsoft's dominant property: the operating system. Monday's flashy Surface launch may have felt like an Apple event with its bright, pastel-colored keyboard, slick introductory videos and breathless hyping from little-known engineers. But, in fact, Microsoft's play is anything but Apple-like. The company is clearly trying to make tablets into hybrid PC-mobile devices, something its California rival has said is a bad idea. We don't yet know all of Surface's details -- battery life, pricing, official release dates are all to-be-determined for instance. But here are three important reasons Microsoft's Surface is likely to be anything but dead on arrival:
Reason #1: Microsoft can build an ecosystem
Microsoft (MSFT) has had success in the consumer market with the Xbox and most recently with the Kinect motion-control devices. The Xbox has become a household name with major brand extensions as an entertainment device. Microsoft disrupted gaming, and it can disrupt hardware.
Microsoft has serious engineering chops. Josh Topolosky, Editor-in-Chief of The Verge and not exactly a fanboy, was blown away by a visit to Microsoft's R&D in 2011. He wrote of that visit: "[MS] showed me a project … which would allow you to create a virtual window from one room to another, utilizing a variety of display, motion sensing, and 3D technologies… dubbed … the 'magic wall.' It was nuts. It was awesome. It was ambitious. The whole time, all I could think was: where has Microsoft been hiding guys like this?"
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.fortune.cnn.com ...
YAWN
Your Ad Hominem attempts are boring.
Try harder.
>>Is that representative of the rest at Tech Ed?
It wasn’t from Tech Ed, Suuper Genius.
Apple has been rocketing to the top for ten years. Exactly when does this stop being a short-term fad?
Innovation is not about producing a big hit every time research is done; that would be unreasonable expectations for any company or even any individual.
Yet Apple tends to do that. This would logically mean everybody else is doing something wrong to be getting such low return on investment.
They are not branching out
2001, computer company branches out into music players, becomes #1. 2003, same company branches out into music sales, now #1 retailer in the US. 2007, that company further branches out into smart phones, #1 smartphone in the US for years. 2010, same company branches out into tablets, has been the #1 since the introduction. Meanwhile, the traditional market, computers, has grown faster than the PC market for years. Obviously Apple has a history of branching out into new products and services that are very popular. You seem to think this will suddenly stop.
In fact, the latest rumors are about an Apple TV, with iOS inside.
Wow, you are behind. The Apple TV started with OS X on Intel (basically a smaller Mac), then moved to iOS almost two years ago. Your rumor sources are extremely slow.
And what's wrong with that anyway? The original XBox ran a version of Windows, and it's a pretty good bet the XBox 720 will be running a version of Windows 8 (Windows was kind of sucking around 2005, so the XBox 360 got its own system software). Microsoft's ARM tablet and all Windows 8 desktops will be versions of the same OS. The original Surface used Windows Vista and then Windows 7.
You think this is a good thing from Microsoft, representing great R&D, but not from Apple. It is a smart thing to consolidate operating systems, because developing and supporting multiple systems is very expensive. What sense does it make to have a whole new OS for a new product if the current one is capable of doing the job?
You never even mentioned the graph, which does show Apple to be, basically, sleeping when it comes to R&D.
The graph looks like that because Apple's profits have been going up so much faster than everyone else's. So in your strange business world, profit is a bad thing.
Apple is using what they have, and improving those SAME THINGS.
XBox, XBox 360, XBox 720. Windows 3 through ME, Windows NT through 8. Office 3 through 11. "using what they have, and improving those SAME THINGS." That represents most of Microsoft's profits over the last 20 years. Actually, as I said before, I'm not even sure the 360 has paid off its loss leader yet. Last I heard, Microsoft's gaming division was still a few billion in the hole. I would count Microsoft's mobile division, but that hasn't been profitable since a certain fruit company that "can't innovate" came out with a phone.
In fact, the R&D department for Apple, is the rest of the industry, whereby, Apple takes some other company's innovation, and tries to "innovate it" into their own products.
Before the iPhone and iPad, nothing on the market looked or worked like them. Now everything does. Early Android prototype phones looked like Blackberrys, post-iPhone prototypes looked like iPhones. Show me where Apple followed instead of led.
Given the ten year historical trend of bringing new, profitable products, you have the burden to show why this will now stop happening.
What you can't seem to differentiate is smarts vs. management. Microsoft has a LOT of smart people working there. However, Microsoft also has a lot of crappy, non-visionary management that has no idea how to do anything original with what those people invent. Meanwhile, Apple has reinvented four markets in the last about ten years (personal music players, music sales, smart phones, tablets) and made serious profit in doing so. There is no logical reason why this trend must stop.
Like I said, keep this discussion in mind, because, in a year or two, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about, when Apple starts its downhill slide.
While you are looking at how Microsoft's tablet is going to kill the iPad, Apple already has the next big thing in the works. Apple will produce that, and then Microsoft will rush to copy the new thing. And then you'll be sitting here talking about the new Microsoft product that is so good it'll kill Apple's products. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Simply, you're not as smart as the people running Apple, so your predictions of their actions will probably be wrong.
Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 2:54:57 PM by adorno
"However, if what I have in mind becomes successful..."Help! ????? - not a valid win32 application
myself | myself
Posted on Friday, March 07, 2008 3:25:03 PM by adorno
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1982166/posts
"My bank accounts are empty."
You really do need to get a life.
Try going to a psychiatrist, or, drop the bible for a second or two, and you too can be redeemed. ;)
Try some common sense in your posting.
If you would bother to be analytical, you’d notice that, Apple is not “innovating”.
For the last 10 years, they’ve been riding the success of their iPod to big riches. Their iPod was the springboard for their other products, like the iPhone and iPad. The iPod is what set Apple in motion towards the rest of their success. But, the iPod is already outdated, and the offshoots from it, namely the iPhone and iPad, are also yesterday’s technology, and, Apple is being left behind by the other tech companies, which are doing research and development and “innovation”, while Apple just tries to keep the iPod success from ending, by creating newer iPods with slightly different features. Apple is really, the RIM and Palm of a year or two into the future, because, they’re not diversifying and not doing any research for new services or new products. They’re depending on the Intels and the Samsungs and the LGs and others, to give them the technology which they can then “innovate” into their current and new “iGadgets”. It’s, basically, standing still, and the stock-holders will soon start realizing it, and pulling their money out before it’s too late.
That $100 billion dollars in the bank that Apple has, will start going back to the investors once those investors decide that, Apple is just another Palm and RIM, but, with a lot bigger bank account.
What’a matter, can’t keep the Mal-ware off your ‘puter with BS and Buzzwords?
You’re all hat, no cattle.
FAIL.
>>It doesn’t matter what it is or where it’s from.
It’s not from Tech Ed as you ASSerted. Just another example of your lack of attention to detail and poor reading comprehension skills.
Try harder.
And DOS was the springboard for Microsoft's other products. So what? Microsoft's desktop monopoly was their springboard for selling servers. So what? Oh yeah, that was ruled an illegal anti-competitive leverage of monopoly power, that's what.
But, the iPod is already outdated, and the offshoots from it, namely the iPhone and iPad, are also yesterday’s technology
In case you haven't been reading, the iPhone was developed independently of the iPod line. The first iPhone had ZERO relation to the iPods of the time. Zero, zilch, nada, completely different hardware and operating system (well, if you've been reading, the iPod didn't really have an OS, just media player firmware). The modern iPod touch is descended from the iPhone. The iPad was envisioned even before the iPod was released.
Try to display some reading comprehension and knowledge of history in your postings.
As far as yesterday's technology, name a tablet with more graphics power than the iPad. Name a phone with more graphics power than the iPhone 4S, and remember the iPhone is pushing more pixels than even the stupid-size screen phones (there may be one now, but there wasn't when it came out eight months ago, so you're comparing almost an entire generation lifecycle). Name a phone or tablet that has such a clear, high-resolution screen. Did you know the brand-new Samsung Galaxy S III just came out with about the same camera the iPhone got eight months ago?
while Apple just tries to keep the iPod success from ending, by creating newer iPods with slightly different features
Apple will continue making them as long as people continue buying them in sufficient numbers for them to be profitable, and then Apple will kill them. Anything else would be stupid. For example, Microsoft continuing to try to force the unprofitable, innovation-free Zune down the throats of consumers long after that failed project should have been killed. Hey, guess what, Microsoft is now doing another "me-too" attempt to copy an Apple product, this time the iPad. Hopefully for stockholders and Microsoft PR people like you, this attempt will actually survive in the free market.
They’re depending on the Intels and the Samsungs and the LGs and others, to give them the technology
I guess you totally missed the part where Apple designs their own chips for their mobile devices, and helps suppliers ramp up production for their devices, especially since they tend to require Apple-invented manufacturing techniques. IIRC, Samsung is the only other one putting their own SoC designs into their phones. Everybody else buys off-the-shelf.
Microsoft is certainly using off-the-shelf technology for the tablets -- NVidia Tegra 3 for the ARM, Intel for the x86. And they're supposedly the ones innovating? Hell, the original XBox was an innovation-free zone, just a low-end PC (mobile 733 MHz PIII Celeron, 64 MB RAM) with higher-end graphics (GeForce 3 variant) packaged as a game console.
Hey, we can take actual innovation thing all the way back. We go back in time to the late 1980s, when Apple teamed with Acorn and VLSI to create a new chip architecture. Come forward a few years later when Apple teamed with Motorola and IBM to create another architecture. You've probably guessed the latter from my earlier postings, it is the PowerPC, which fuels Microsoft's XBox 360. Yes, the XBox 360 is using Apple technology, and technology ripped off from Sony. That's gotta hurt.
The one that will fry your brain is the former. That collaboration produced the ARM architecture, which is running just about every smart phone and iPad-copy tablet on the market, plus hundreds of millions of other embedded devices. Nah, no innovation there. Expect continued innovation from Apple in this arena, since a few years ago they bought companies that specialized in making high-efficiency, low-power semiconductor designs. That work has shown in Apple's custom A4 and A5 chips. Since there is no logical reason why Apple would tell that $400 million dollar investment to suddenly stop their work in improving Apple's mobile chips, you can expect further innovation.
One thing you may not realize for phones and tablets that flash memory is taking up more and more area as users want more and more storage. One problem with flash is that it fades, and more storage than is usable must be created in order to correct for this fading. As the process gets smaller, the fading gets worse. Another problem is that it's slow, creating a bottleneck for today's fast mobile processors. Last year Apple started buying a company that specializes in new ways to handle this fading, thus requiring less actual flash, shrinking the space needed. This will also increase performance, as it will allow for smaller circuits with the same lifetime.
This is what Apple's doing, spending money to keep their products ahead of the competition, and making sure they aren't dependent on others. Apple also now owns the 60+ patents for the highest-speed NAND controllers on the planet. Samsung, Microsoft and others will be coming to Apple for their advanced flash storage -- if Apple decides to sell and not keep it for a performance advantage over the competition.
Now I understand why adorno doesn’t seem to be keeping up with my discussions about technology, he’s not a very technical person. All that talk about SoC, ARM, FSB and NAND must be getting him confused.
Watch the stock market in the next couple of years, because, the market will have reached saturation point for Apple’s iGadgets, and then, it’s all downhill from there. No matter how much you talk them up, they’re still a 3 product company, with no real research being conducted to take them into the future, other than the tweaks and small upgrades they do whenever they feel the need for another sales cycle to keep the iFanatics happy and spending.
Obviously not. Let's see, thought the iPhone was developed from the iPod, wrong. Thought the iPad was envisioned after the iPhone, wrong. Thought the iPhone had hardware in common with the iPod, wrong. Though the Apple TV is rumored to be using iOS recently -- WAY behind the times.
I've also developed a web site, for news/information/analysis/opinion.
Oh yay, wow, I'm impressed. Not. Been there, done that, got bored.
Apparently, because somebody disagrees with your opinion, he or she is not technical or doesn't follow the tech news?
No, it's because you are showing a complete inability to comprehend. For example, Apple's purchase of the flash company is a really big thing that will ensure Apple stays on top in a world moving to flash storage, but that means nothing to you. Apple secured an exclusive license to Liquid Metal technology (metal that can be molded as easily as platic), and has been doing heavy R&D on it for a couple of years to make it work in consumer products. Apple hired metallurgists just for this. This probably just blew right by you too. No, not real R&D.
Another thing that you can't grasp is one of the main reasons Apple is on top. It's supply chain control. Nobody in the world does it that well, and until they do they won't be able to deliver superior products quickly and in volume like Apple does. While they were scrounging for flash memory a while back so they can make shipping products, Apple had paid billions to secure long-term supplies years in advance. Apple got everything, they got the leftovers.
BTW, a good example of diversity for the sake of diversity, buying something when you don't know how to make a profit off of it: Microsoft bought an online ad company five years ago, and just had to take a $6.2 billion write off on it. Yeah, diversification is always good.
That's what we've been hearing from dennis for the last few years -- time to short! Anybody listening to his advice would have lost loads of money by now. Very likely this is true for your prediction too.
No matter how much you talk them up, they’re still a 3 product company
So is Microsoft. Actually, right now Microsoft is pretty much a one-trick pony with the XBox if that's how you count things, and the XBox has just been upgraded from generation to generation. Remember, Microsoft still doesn't have a selling tablet -- all we've seen is broad specs and dog and pony shows. Nobody's been able to do a hands-on review to see if it's actually any good. Their current phone product is a total flop.
tweaks and small upgrades they do whenever they feel the need for another sales cycle to keep the iFanatics happy and spending
Apple tends to update on a fairly regular schedule for the iOS devices. Updates can be from minor speed and capacity bumps to complete replacement of the hardware for a line. The iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 for example, totally new hardware. The Apple TV got a complete product replacement, pretty much no relation (OS or hardware) to the original product.
And yet you can’t keep your system free of malware.
And your bank accounts are empty.
FAIL.
>>As far as I know, no other web site is as comprehensive as what I’ve designed
What’s the URL — www.FlatulentVaporware.com —?
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