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ZDNet: Microsoft Losing its Way on Desktop, Apple Good to Go

by , 4:50 PM EDT, April 1st, 2008

Based on comments from Redmond executives, Microsoft's vision for the next generation desktop seems to be losing focus compared to Apple, according to David Morgenstern at ZDNet on Tuesday.

Recent presentations from Microsoft strategists have focused on the Surface input technology and software as a service (SaS). The problem is that neither of these pie-in-the-sky approaches remotely address the needs of users.

Microsoft's new approach vaguely reminiscent of the days when Mark Andreessen said that Netscape is the OS, no need for Windows. Microsoft may now believe that after all.

Apple's strategy, in contrast, recognizes that users not only view content but create it. The faster the desktop client experience is in doing that, the better the overall experience for the user. In fact, Apple's vision of the desktop as an elegant digital hub has never wavered.

Microsoft seems to have been both distracted by Google, as Google's Eric Schmidt has painted rosy pictures of data clouds as well as its inability to manage the Vista rollout. An extreme focus on SaS is a prescription for mediocrity at best, according to Mr. Morgenstern. "The steady stream of business and enterprise switchers to the Mac platform shows that for some tech customers mediocrity isn’t a value. Nor a vision," Mr. Morgenstern concluded.

TMO notes that the days when new features punctuated compelling new OS releases from Microsoft are long over. Nowadays, vision, clarity and focus are required to ship a next generation OS. The way in which Microsoft handled the Vista rollout suggests that not only does the Redmond giant not have that focus, but it may be helpless to reverse its course.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: they are as focussed as ever...

they're copying MacOS X as fast as they can. It just slowed down recently, because they had to take a bunch of developers off the next version of Windows to copy features from the iPhone to WindowsME.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Bad sentence structure

"Microsoft seems to have been both distracted by Google, as Google's Eric Schmidt has painted rosy pictures of data clouds as well as its inability to manage the Vista rollout."

What is the other side of the "both"? The tense of "to have been" does not seem to have a match.

Close Name:praus Posts: 28 Joined: 01 May 2003
Subject: Re: Bad Sentence Structure

It makes sense. M$ was distracted by both google and its own inability to get vista out the door with out tripping all over its self. The description of how google was distracting them may have been what was confusing you.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: You will never see another...

...significant Microsoft product, ever again. Those days are long gone, and they are sliding into the position of babysitting a legacy for quite awhile. They will continue to make obscene sums of money with long term contracts, but by and large will have to become "back office" only - like IBM.

It is amazing that large groups of smart people are reduced to such consistent mediocrity, but it is not news.

This article confirms what I see every day in my work - M$ is adrift, proposing solutions looking for problems that they haven't yet defined.

Close Name:computerbandgeek Posts: 52 Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Subject: Surface Computing

I think it is a good thing that Microsoft is spending so much time and effort researching Surface Computing. It's a great idea that can go a long way, and maybe it can be a fresh break away from the abysmal Windows experience. I will follow this very closely, and I hope it works out well.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: You call Leopard a "user focussed" rollout?!

Leopard has been at least as troublesome as Vista - and Apple does not have the same variety of hardware to support! Quite simply - Apple seems to have placed "features" ahead of "quality".

The terrible thing is, that (unlike new PC's which can roll back to XP), new Apple customers can't roll back to Tiger, because Apple refuses to update Tiger for the new hardware.....

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: You call Leopard a "user focussed" rollout?!

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Leopard has been at least as troublesome as Vista


Got anything to back that up? It has not been perfect (nothing is), but to say that it has been "at least as troublesome" is BS.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: PeeCee Troll useless comment

Leopard has been at least as troublesome as Vista

---------------

Not a thing you've posted makes a jot of sense. OSX Leopard is far more trouble free than Vista-by a country mile. PC Magazine said so and a lot of their ad revenue comes from MS. Better yet the Supervising programmers of Vista itself have massive complaints about Vista. Those e-mails from that last MS lawsuit did wonders in exposing how half-baked Vista is.

Your final comment about Tiger is just plain stupid. Would you even know an OSX machine if you saw one? Tiger runs on machines minted as far back as 9 years ago, leopard will install on any intel mac. including those 4 years old. As a new lawsuit points out, even "Vista capable" labeled hardware can barely run the OS. Being a troll, at least present a challenge. The Mac crowd are obviously a little more informed thatn that. Now if we were Windoze users, that would be another matter.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Focus

Microsoft are too busy hating (and trying to get one over on) Open Source and Linux. They messed up big time with Vista and now the ISO Standard debacle has shown them for the lawbreaking muppets they are. They just HAD to have a semi transparent UI only to have Compiz do the same on a tenth the hardware. They just HAD to have OOXML made into an ISO Std because ODF got made into an ISO Std. They are stuck in a trap whereby they have to show they can outdo Linux at every turn.

When you start singing from your enemies songsheet you have lost the war. (Mixed metaphor?)

Apple appears to simply not care about such trivialities. Apple just gets on with being Apple. Whether or not you agree with the direction they are going in, as a strategy it's working.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Browser nightmare.

Apologies for all the posts. Using Opera, I typed the words and hit Submit - nothing happened. So I waited a bit, still nothing so I pressed Submit again. Got fed up and pressed it about 3 times. Eventually I gave up and went off to register so I could post that way and then came back to find it had submitted on each damned click.

Close Name:Willmark Posts: 73 Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Subject:

You're using Opera, you needn't say anything more.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Browser

You should have said Vista was giving you issues...

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Reality

The osx latest drop has been horrible to say the least. It's still hasn't had all the security fixed. Hell in the latest security contest put a osx , vista, and ubuntu. OSX was done on the 2nd day when they allowed programs that where part of the OS package. Vista on the other hand wasn't exploited till the last day of the contest when you were allowed to install 3rd party aps. Then it was finally broke into. Nice try !!

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Apple is serious fake..

As far as security and features, Apple's softwares hit the rock bottom. Go to Google News and search Safari, you will know the proff. Then about Apple's focus... its $$$$$$ , the most closed and locked together with irrelevant softwares must be Apple's.

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: Apple is serious fake..

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
As far as security and features, Apple's softwares hit the rock bottom. Go to Google News and search Safari, you will know the proff. Then about Apple's focus... its $$$$$$ , the most closed and locked together with irrelevant softwares must be Apple's.


Troll.

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