Views from the Ivory
Tower - August 2009
Microsoft Stores?
Are You Kidding?
By Ted Bade
Rarely a week goes
by that I do not see something that makes me chuckle about Microsoft and its
doings. Two recent events have come up this month that I would like to share
with you.
First of all, there
are the new stores. Apparently, Microsoft has decided that if Apple can have
stores, then so should they. To make this even funnier, apparently they have
decided to place their stores near Apple stores. Talk about riding the
coattails!
It doesn’t surprise
me that Microsoft, the company that buys or “borrows” other companies
innovations, will once again follow this tactic. Not to mention the fact that
most of the people who pass through an Apple store are interested in
technology. I am sure that Microsoft will be putting on quite the circus to
attract the already “technology interested” people who pass near by. I liken it
to the tactic some donut shops are known to use, blast the exhaust of the
baking delights into the street, tickling the noses of nearby potential
customers with the delightful aroma of baking doughnuts. It really does attract
customers. Then again, perhaps the distant roar of crashing PCs will scare
people into the Apple stores!
So what will the
Microsoft store sell? Well, they surely have enough versions of Vista to give
the excited buyer quite the selection. ☺ Seriously, I am sure their stores will follow
the ads, and offer a variety of low cost Window’s running machines. Each one
showing how well some Microsoft product does on it. I also expect that, to
gloss over unexpected troubles, each display will be connected to at least two
PCs, allowing floor staff to quickly shift the display/keyboard/mouse, from the
troublesome machine to a perfectly working one. Which then lets the geek behind
the scenes to reboot and set up the machine for when it’s partner crashes.
(They are welcome to borrow my idea if they haven’t figured this out already, I
can even point them toward keyboard, mouse, monitor sharing products!)
I also expect that
the Microsoft stores will have tech support experts, called “smart asses”
running around providing glib answers to your most troublesome Windows
questions. (Okay, I was being a bit naughty on that one, sorry ;-) ) But I am
sure they will offer some form of “Windows expert”, more then likely
“borrowing” Best Buy’s Geek motif. This way they can mimic Apple’s Genius bar
concept.
Of course the
Microsoft store will sell all forms of Microsoft products and there are a lot.
They might even sell windows versions of some of the more popular non-Microsoft
titles. I am sure we will all want to visit such a store
.
Another interesting
tidbit, related to Microsoft, is something I saw on a recent TV show. I
happened to catch (actually my wife saved a Tivo copy to show me) of a
political show called Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which plays on the MS NBS network. (MS
is for Microsoft, by the way).
In any case, in this
segment called “Worst person in the world” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got the
hit for his comments about the future of computers. His comments were that in
ten years computers will be as flexible as a sheet of paper and have technology
that will figure out what you meant to do!
Keith Olbermann’s
comments were essentially he just wants a computer that works. I had to really
laugh when I heard him say, (I paraphrase here): “I don’t want a computer to do
what I meant to do, how about a computer that doesn’t crash, isn’t afraid of
every web site, and just does what I want it to do?” For a hoot, watch the
segment yourself:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#31857278.
You will have to watch a commercial first, but hey, that’s how they pay for it.
I am not sure if Mr.
Olbermann is a Macintosh Fan. I expect if he is, he was an MS user that
switched. Ultimately, I think he is voicing what a lot of people feel.
My comment on this
is the same comment I have been making about Microsoft’s interface philosophy
for a long time. Their interface is like an over-zealous scout that just must
do this deed to get his/her merit badge. You must cross the street, I will carry your bag of groceries, I am not going to
let you take a walk outside,
it is too hot, etc., etc.
Microsoft software
has a way of doing things that I think a lot of people don’t identify with. I
am sure some do and a lot more have learned to comply with their methods (“You
will be assimilated...”).
Apple’s Third
financial quarter results - At the end of July Apple reported the financial
results of it’s third quarter which ended on June 27th. According to their
headlines, this is the best non-holiday quarter Apple has ever seen. (I so love
“spin doctors”!) So let us look at some of the main numbers;
- Apple posted a
revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion. (Compare
this to the year ago same quarter results of $7.46 billion and net quarterly
profit of $1.07 billion). 44 percent of the sales were international.
- Apple sold 2.6
million Macs (+4%), 10.2 million iPods (-7%), and 5.2 million iPhones (+626%).
The percent change is shown in parenthesis. It would seem to me that everybody
who wants and iPod has one and now people are buying their second, third, and
fourth ones! Ipods are well made and if taken care of can last a long while. I
still own my generation 1 iPod! (Although I also own a shuffle and a generation
4 one as well).
The iPhone appears
to be a hit. Not only did Apple sell a lot of them, but they have also moved a
large number of Applications from the App Store. According their their press
release, they have moved 1.5 billion applications in the first year. This
doesn’t have a lot to do with their income, but reflects an interest and
potential market for others.
Over all, I guess
this means that Apple is alive and well. It continues to grow and innovate,
even with Steve Jobs only playing a background role. I expect we will continue
to hear healthy results from Apple as time goes on.
Let me predict
here: If anyone makes a computer as thin as a sheet of paper, I expect it will
be Apple! (Too bad Mr. Ballmer. ) But, oh yeah, it will be able to run Windows
as well!)
Until next time,
keep on using your Mac.
