Microsoft laughs off Apple legal request to kill TV ads
Apple is a company known for good design -- meaning also that appearances matter beyond just the products. Apple's legal department may have done something that appears simply laughable. Even if untrue, it's a helluva good story -- and a Microsoft executive tells it. Well.
Apple has a reputation for issuing legal take-down notices. The practice is a byproduct of the company's penchant for secrecy. Many Websites posting leaked Apple product pics have felt the burning ire of Apple lawyers. Today, at Microsoft's annual partner conference, COO Kevin Turner described receiving what could be characterized as the ultimate take-down notice.
Steve Ballmer's denial can't stop change from coming
"On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées." -- Victor Hugo
Literal translation: "One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas."
Often paraphrased: "Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come."
Web-based operating system/platform is an idea whose time has come, whether or not Google succeeds with Chrome OS. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can deny it. He can march his Office 2010 and Windows 7 armies into the enterprise. But, elsewhere, the Web platform is turning from idea to practical reality -- in large part because of mobile handsets.
Windows 7 E: Microsoft's sensible response to Europe
Yesterday, in a Windows 7 for Developers blog post, Microsoft revealed more details about the special version of Windows 7 for the European Union. The company isn't ripping out Internet Explorer 8 so much as using the "Turn Windows on or off" tool to disable the browser. For all practical purposes, IE8 won't be available to end users or third-party applications. However, Internet Web Applications components will remain.
About 30 days ago, in a brilliant solution to a troubling problem, Microsoft announced plans to release an "E" version of Windows 7 sans the browser. Windows 7 E will be exclusively distributed in the EU, where the European Competition Commission is nearly ready to officially rule that Microsoft's bundling Internet Explorer with Windows is an anticompetitive act. The European Commission is currently entertaining remedies, which are rumored to include a proposal for presenting Windows users with a choice of browsers to set as default during installation.
Who says Microsoft has turned the corner?
It's unusual for me to disagree with Microsoft's most infamous, anonymous employee blogger. Mini-Microsoft says that "Microsoft has turned the corner." In his dreams, or perhaps some Xbox 360 role-playing game, Microsoft has turned the corner and found a hallway and door to the outside sun. But in this universe, if Microsoft has turned the corner, it's into a wall.
Microsoft has got big problems for which there are no easy solutions; I'll get to those later in the post. Mini rightly identifies some things that Microsoft is doing right, and they are certainly commendable. They're just not enough. I'll give his shortlist with my perspective:
Is Office 2010 Oh-So 2005?
Last night, I watched the 11 Microsoft videos introducing various Office 2010, Office Mobile and Office Web Applications features. I kept thinking: Microsoft is living in the past. The reaction was about the same for each video. Office 2010 will come five years late.
The past ultimately derives from Microsoft's application stack -- Office-Windows-Windows Server -- that the company desperately is trying to preserve. The new stack goes from mobile device to the cloud, which Microsoft cautiously embraces for fear of upsetting lucrative revenue streams tied to its established applications stack.
Chrome OS is futureware, not vaporware
Many of the pundits claiming that Chrome OS will threaten Windows give the wrong reasons. They're not seeing the big picture. Likewise, those people asserting that Chrome OS is no threat to Windows are wrong altogether -- same can be said of those people calling the operating system vaporware. Google has got the right approach at the right time.
Microsoft certainly isn't doomed because of the Google operating system. But Microsoft is in a big heap of trouble, because:
Sinofsky promotion to Windows president much deserved, but Ballmer should have done it sooner
The only problem with Microsoft naming Steven Sinofsky president of the Windows division is the timing. He deserved this promotion long ago, and Microsoft has long needed someone in charge of the division.
Microsoft was wrong to wait until Sinofsky's team nearly finished Windows 7 to give out this badly needed promotion. The Client division is hemorrhaging profits, as Vista enthusiasm collapses and PC sales plummet.
The Google Revolution begins; Will you join the fight?
July now has a third major independence day. Canada on the first. The United States on the fourth. Google on the seventh.
July 7 is the day Google declared independence from Microsoft dependence. It is the day one Google blog post fired the first shot heard at Lexington and Concord. The post might as well be the first paragraph of the US Declaration of Independence:
Spotlight: Search is the New User Interface
PERSPECTIVE In 1984, Apple's Macintosh introduced the world to the graphical user interface, eventually changing how people interact with computers. The GUI may not have been Apple's idea -- great credit there goes to the folks at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center -- but the company did deliver the first meaningful, commercial product.
Strange now that 21 years and a few months later Apple has unleashed yet another new user interface. Strange because the new UI is in so many ways reminiscent of the one replaced by Mac OS: The command line - typed text telling the computer what to do. With Spotlight, the new search component of Mac OS X Tiger, Apple has reduced computer interaction to a box where people type in text. Search is the new user interface.
iPod Shuffle: Apple Understated
On Thursday, as I headed back to Washington from Washington (to D.C. from state), I spotted an iPod Shuffle; the guy seated directly in front of me had one, which noticeably hung around his neck.
I got to thinking about the brilliance of Apple's simple approach to music, which is so much about cool. Already, those white headphones, which contrast against just about every head or outfit, are now a pseudo status symbol. Next, looks like music cool just might be the white rope around the neck with iPod Shuffle attached.
Commentary: Microsoft's 'Better Enough' Problem
Microsoft has publicly indicated that there will be new Windows XP marketing to support the release of Service Pack 2 and new versions of Media Center and Tablet PC. The company simply can't do enough to promote its flagship operating system.
Based on Jupiter Research surveys, more large businesses run Windows 2000 than Windows XP, with a staggering 39 percent with NT 4 on the desktop and 42 percent with the software on the server. Among consumers, just over half of households run Windows XP on their primary PC. But, the typical scenario is to pass on the older Windows 98 PC to another family member - without upgrading to XP.
Commentary: One Bad Apple
Apple's April 28, 2003, launch of the iTunes Music Store has raised more buzz than a ruptured hornet's nest. The company that Steve Jobs built arguably has created the easiest way to get digital music - and it's legal, too, if you don't mind paying a buck a song (Please, let's call the 99-cent price tag what it is. A buck). Apple also has raised the stakes in the fierce competition over which company controls the digital media market. If Apple's strategy is successful, none will.
No other company on the planet has executed a better digital media strategy than Apple. Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC. Apple's iLife digital media suite is the best thing going for working with digital photos, music, movies or DVD burning. Too bad you need a Mac to get it. Oh, let's repeat that for the iTunes Music Store: Too bad you need a Mac to get it.
Apple and Universal: Sweet Music
ANALYSIS I'm a bit surprised investors have hammered Apple's stock over rumors the Mac maker might be in talks to buy Universal Music. Wall Street analysts aren't exactly brimming over with enthusiasm either.
In a research note earlier on Friday, Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Hillmeyer concluded, "The purchase of a major music company such as Universal would not make strategic sense for Apple."
Review: Apple's 17-Inch iMac
Apple has a knack for churning out computers many people wish they could buy. The flat-panel iMac is no exception. The all-in-one computer is an eye-popping spectacle of tasteful but trendy computer design.
But sticker shock sometimes singes the interests of would-be Mac buyers. The entry-level iMac, for example, appears overly priced at $1,199 compared to, say, a Gateway 300S Plus PC for $699 after $100 mail-in rebate.
Review: Gateway Profile 4 vs. Apple iMac
Gateway launched the battle of the all-in-ones in late August, with the debut of a new TV commercial making fun of Apple Computer's iMac. Gateway executives should definitely give their ad agency a bonus. Someone carefully reviewed all the footage created by Apple's ad agency or Pixar Studios in developing a crafty lampoon of the flat-panel iMac. But I have to complain of false advertising on the part of both companies. Despite TV ads showing the Profile 4 doing back flips over the iMac or the iMac dancing about in imitation of an onlooker, my models are motionless. I prodded and poked, but they certainly don't move around. Anyone have the e-mail address for filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission? Just kidding, of course.
Still, Gateway's ads raise an interesting question about which computer is better for consumers. Both computers incorporate 15-inch or 17-inch LCD monitors into stylish designs that are compact and fit easily into places where space is a premium. Both look good, too, making them great pieces of eye candy for offices or that prominent place in the home, apartment or dorm room. I'll cut right to the chase and pick the winner: neither. More on that later.
Joe's Bio
Joe Wilcox is BetaNews executive editor. His motto: Change the rules. Joe is a former CNET News staff writer, JupiterResearch senior analyst, and Ziff Davis Enterprise Microsoft Watch editor.
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