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"And that’s what Mediaroom is really about - creating a platform. It’s what Microsoft does best, after all."
Yes, the Windows monopoly has been a great success. What other successful platforms have they created, um, that were profitable.
Oh, look a long string of failed Mircosoft platforms...
•the 1991 Windows for Pen Computing platform
•the 1992-1994 WinPad vaporware computing platform
•the 1996 Handheld PC / ‘PC companion’ computing platform
•the 1998 Palm PC computing platform
•the 2002 Mira Windows Terminal display computing platform
•the 2003 Pocket PC computing platform
•the 2003 Tablet PC computing platform
•the 2004 Media2Go/Windows Portable Media Center computing platform
•the 2006 Origami / Ultra Mobile PC computing platform
- Microsoft on your telly: a history of the company’s FAILED Internet TV strategy. -
A long string of horrible failures.
Lets not forget the unprofitable Xbox360 and Zune.
I would say that Windows Mobile and Windows XP Embedded have been very successful for the company, and both have built upon the lessons learned from some of the items you've mentioned.
The point is, it's very hard to look at any one of the items you mentioned in isolation and declare that it has failed. So many of Microsoft's products are evolutionary, building upon previous trial and error.
Conent was actually created for this system. There were a few interactive episodes of "Gilligan's Island," a Brian Williams MSNBC newscast, and a syndicated Canadian police procedural, shot in Toronto, whose name escapes me. In addition, interactive TV ads were created, and tests were run with television stations in the Seattle area and elsewhere.
At the time, Microsoft had a channel on the DirecTV satellite. The purpose was to see what would happen if you had a lot of bandwidth to play with. Not sure where that all wound up.
Anyway, Paul Mitchell is still a big part of Microsoft TV, as he was back then, and probably could furnish all the details. It's exciting to see where this concept has gone in the past decade, and MS should be commended for sticking to it.
So far all the players in this space are companies with deep pockets. None have shown to have made a profit or even broken even with any of their offerings.
Until the issues around True High speed Internet connections of sustained 10 plus Mbits/sec is made available, Walmart, Netflix and your favorite local Cable company shall continue to deliver the bulk of the revenue for delivery of Digital Video products.
As is the case with the desire and the holy grail to Hydrogen Powered cars in probably 15-20 years and in the meantime we have a few Hybrid vehicles right now, yet Toyota is not getting no more than 5% of it's revenues and they continue to develop newer Gasoline engines and vehicles to go with it..
Thus to believe that in the case of Television and Video distribution will all take a significant share of the revenues in the next 3 years even is not realistic but more related to the HYPE.
Will we get to the holy grail sure, but not in the time line laid out by the so called experts who pulled the numbers to begin with from thin air.
Most companies would realize after a couple billion dollars and 10 attempts that people have looked at their offerings and said, NAH but not MS. After all, stockholders and corporations are willing to keep buying their overpriced stuff (yes, when your margins are 90%, you are over-priced) so what do they care. $2-$4 billion down a hole, better sell a few more maintenance contracts.
That is why EVERY consumer venture has failed including all these and watches, Talking Barney's, etc ... they are excited about launching but like the XBox proves, they have ZERO follow through. Once it's out, they just expect consumers to buy it but consumers are not as dumb as corporations who will buy anything that fits the specs - doesn't matter how hard it is to use or the cost of upkeep (another budget) - cosnumers, well, it's our money and we learned a long time ago, choosing MS is a loser's bet.
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Let me quote the article again...
“And that’s what Mediaroom is really about - creating a platform. It’s what Microsoft does best, after all.”
Lather and repeat...
Yes, the Windows monopoly has been a great success. What other successful platforms have they created, um, that were profitable?
Outside of Windows and Office, where they can effectively leverage their monopoly created over a decade ago, they're a flop.
If iPhone sales are any indication, Windows Mobile is about to be trumped in marketshare by a complete newcomer to the smartphone space. The iPhone runs OS X.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is a one trick pony and it depends on its monopoly to keep it that way, because if its not tied to Windows its fails. Unfortunately for Microsoft, this monopoly has failed to be effective in the consumer space, where it doesn't have an army of IT managers and developers to protect it, since their jobs depend on Microsoft's dominance.
At previous CES shows, Microsoft has dutifully rolled out iterations of product visions that nearly all either ended up as huge failures or never even made it to market:
•2000 Web TV (dead), Microsoft TV (what's that?), WinCE smartphones previewed two years early
•2001 Xbox (billions of dollars in losses), Ultimate TV (gone), "Windows Powered" (more WinCE rebranding)
•2002 Mira (stillborn), Freestyle (the code name for Media Center)
•2003 Media Center PC, Tablet PCs, SPOT watches, Media2Go (the iPod Killer; four losers in total)
•2004 Media Center again, Media2Go re-announced as Portable Media Center (dead)
•2005 Digital Entertainment Anywhere ramblings
•2006 Xbox 360 (stuffed into the channel), more Portable Media Center (later sacrificed for the Zune)
•2007 Vista (cooly received, rejected by Dell), Windows Home Server (still in progress)
I would say the Xbox has actually been a very successful platform for Microsoft, one of the few that doesn't have a lot of developers behind it besides big companies (though that will be changing with Game Studio and XNA). Sure it's lost a lot of money, but look at the impact it is having on the gaming and entertainment markets. Profits will come, eventually. (Heck, Amazon.com has lost boatloads of money over the years, yet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who calls it a huge failure.)
Also - maybe it's as simple as viewing your lists (which are very good btw) not as lists of failures, but lists of lessons. You certainly can't fault Microsoft for trying things.
You can find my post at:
http://www.mathoda.com/archives/168
If your a shareholder, which I am not, you certainly could fault them for blowing all those billions. Again, other than Windows, Office, and support services for those products, all of there other initiatives are operating in the red. Why? Because they've learned nothing from all of that trying and their behavior remains the same, despite market trends.
Business may have its hands tied, by the bed they've made with Microsoft, but consumers don't carry that liability of dependence. Consumers want style, simplicity, and easy of use, three traits Microsoft products simply don't have. There are few if any products that Microsoft sells that were design in house, rather they copy and buy successful ideas or products from others. Unfortunately, like a photocopy it not as good as the original, because the internal culture of the company doesn't support originality and innovation; those are just marketing buzz words. Just look at their products.
In many way we should be thankful to Microsoft for creating a near universal computer platform, after the fractured platform market of the 80's. Commodization of computers established standards, brought prices down to what the average joe could afford, and made computers as common as a phone. But the 90's are over. Ok, so now everyone has a computer but now we want something better and its not just about numbers anymore, price vs. features, its about style, simplicity, and easy of use, and consumers are ready to pay for it; see iPhone and iPod. Microsoft just has no skill in these areas.
Then the CBox was merged into Redmond MSTV project.
This is my final post before the big bang, because soon, everyone is going to get blipd!
True, but on another note its funny how I could apply this as a metaphor for US strategy, or lack of, in Iraq (now read it again). The bottom-line is that in both situations its the same kind of self-serving thinking that results in these failures, since the agenda of the company or the current presidential administration, creates a solution in search of a problem.
Before anyone rolls their eyes let me elaborate...
Many industries and companies, like the RIAA, MPAA, cell phone providers, and Microsoft, create products based primarily on their needs, rather than the needs of consumers. They create a products and use their marketing and monopolistic positions to induce a purchase by limiting free-market competition, instead of looking to fill the needs and wants of consumers.
Perfect examples can be seen in efforts to sell DRM infected music and movies, subscription services, feature crippled phones, and in Microsoft's case anything that will strengthen their Windows monopoly, while creating a continuous revenue stream from some kind of subscription service or assurance plan.
In the case of MediaRoom (or the multiple variations of the same thing that came before it) its a product in search of a market. What is MediaRoom? Its a the re-re-re-re-branding of WebTV and like the Xbox or so many of Microsoft's new "platforms", its just a re-branded PC running some flavor of Windows. Goal, strengthen the Windows monopoly and create some kind of subscription stream from its bowels. But no matter how many times it fails, they'll re-brand and sell it as the next big thing, because it serves their interests; a Windows everywhere strategy. In fact, just about every "platform" Microsoft creates is just PC running Windows, which they now go to great lengths to disguise, as is the case with Microsoft's "Surface" computing platform.
"More than just a simple re-branding, Mediaroom has the potential to be the television platform Microsoft has always wanted... Microsoft intends to change this with Mediaroom, hoping the brand will come to be recognized and in fact requested by consumers." (article)
Its right there in the article, re-brand and hope someone will want it; a solution in search of a problem or need. "Mediaroom has the potential to be the television platform Microsoft has always wanted." Much like Iraq, an invasion plan in search of a reason to invade, re-branded at every turn, because its what they've always wanted. No weapons of mass destruction, not responsible for 9/11, oh, ok, re-brand, now its about freeing the Iraq people.
Six years of non-conservative policies have allowed industry and government to run amok. Free market principles, unregulated, have allowed companies to become to self-serving at the expense of consumers, while a lack of accountability has allowed our leaders to do the same.
'Six years of "neo-conservative" policies...'
Mostly for my own use, I maintain a little web page that lists all the HD video offerings on Xbox Live Marketplace:
http://kplusb.org/xbox-360-hd-title.htm
The truth about Microsoft.
Microsoft Meeting: Will Another Demo End Up On YouTube?
July, 26, 2007
http://www.cnbc.com/id/19980908
'You'd think after a year, and so many YouTube views, that any new product demo this time around would be bullet-proof, particularly one involving Bill Gates himself. But this morning we got a kind of digital deja vu dispatch from senior executive at an investment firm who says this year's tech demo was equally disastrous. Says our source who was on hand for this: "Gates' first demo on that 'table' Surface display (the one Microsoft made a big deal about) didn't work." (Remember this product, unveiled earlier this year? The coffee-table sized computer that, um, acts as a coffee table?) "Supposed to be a 'touch screen' control but Gates touched it and tried to move things on the screen; nothing moved, it was frozen." Gates' quote, according to our tipster: "It's a lot more fun when they work." He added: "Gates looked kinda embarrassed, but he's still talking and things going fine now."
"He later got it fixed," our tipster writes, "but it took two tech guys 7 to 8 minutes to fix it."
It gets worse. The same analyst says the crowd can't connect into Microsoft's own network to view slides on their laptops during the executive presentations: "IT guys running around like crazy here trying to get things fixed..."
'
Windows Vista unreadiness revealed
July, 26, 2007
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/26/windows...
'Turner joined other senior executives at Microsoft's annual financial analyst summit to paint a future of Windows running on multiple devices and even inside table tops, with the recently unveiled surface computing - which runs on Windows Vista...
Getting a first-hand taste of what's coming down the road from Microsoft, chairman Bill Gates was forced to ad lib during his conference demo, as the surface computing setup failed to work on the first attempt. "It's turned on... maybe we'll come back to that. It's more exciting when it does something - which right now it's not," Gates said to a ripple of analyst laugher.'