Archive for February, 2009

How The Microsoft Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

In some serious Microsoft-bashing style, PCWorld had a great list of differences between the new Microsoft stores than the Apple stores. In that same spirit, I’d like to modify one slightly myself. Number two goes something like this:

The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

I would argue that each door would let you in for free, but a blockade would suddenly pop up when a customer tries to access any part of the store that was arbitrarily not available to customers from that door. Then they will require the user to pay a fee, go back out of the store and come back in the appropriate door. Okay, enough of the lighthearted bashing and let’s get serious.

My question is: Why would Microsoft try to offer the same type of store that Apple does? Microsoft isn’t a hardware maker.. Sure, they have keyboards, mice, joysticks, and mp3 players but what does going into a store offer consumers? Microsoft would either have to sign deals with a manufacturer and surely face a ton of backlash from business partners or not offer any hardware at all. At that point, the consumer would have to go to both the Microsoft store and then to a hardware store which already packages the OS with the PC. IMHO they’d be much better off placing a booth in Best Buy’s and other large stores and compete with Apple in that way. At least then consumers don’t have to go to two stores to get advice on buying a PC in a world where consumers rarely travel to one store.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Feb 14th, 2009

Celebrate 1234567890!

Looking for a nerdy good time? It’ll be 1234567890 Unix time this Friday, February 13th at 3:31:30 PM PST and the parties are being added to the 1234567890 day website as I type. What is Unix time, you might ask? It’s the number of seconds that has passed since midnight on January 1, 1970. It’s used by a lot of operating systems (like Unix in case you hadn’t guessed) to tell time. You can find more about Unix time at Wikipedia and find a party to join at the 1234567890 day website.

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Filed under Just for Fun : Comments (0) : Feb 12th, 2009

What My Phone Doesn’t Have That Others Do

There was an article from TG Daily that made it to near the top of Digg today trying to compare Microsoft’s new My Phone service to Apple’s MobileMe service. There’s also Google’s new Google Sync that allows users to synchronize their mobile phone with their Gmail contacts and calendars. I just can’t believe though, that Microsoft’s My Phone is even being compared to either of those services. The My Phone service is still in its infant stage, but it lacks one thing that MobileMe and Google Sync have: syncing to desktop applications.

MobileMe can only use an iPhone or iPod Touch to sync to as far as mobile devices, but it hooks into the built-in Apple apps for contacts, calendars, and mail as well as right into Outlook. The service also allows users to access their documents from off their computer from any other computer – not just backup the data on their phone. Google Sync allows users to sync with a variety of devices including iPhones, Blackberries, and Windows Mobile devices. It differs from MobileMe in that it doesn’t allow remote access to files or natively support syncing of contacts and calendars to desktop applications, but there are plenty of applications to work with Gmail contacts and calendars. From what it appears, My Phone will allow users with Windows Mobile 6 to backup their phones and download pictures from their phones from a web browser. Nothing too earth shattering yet, but a good start.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 11th, 2009

Microsoft: Most Users are ‘Starters’

Microsoft has announced that it will be selling Windows 7 Starter Edition as a lower-cost option for low-end netbooks. The edition limits users to only 3 concurrent applications to be run. Microsoft has cited performance on the low-end netbooks and a survey that showed that on average, a consumer uses just over 2 applications at a time as a reason for the offering. They deny trying to force users to spend more money on the premium version of Windows 7, but the restriction also includes applications that are running in the background which seems extremely limiting. For instance, if I wanted to run an IM client and leave my mail application running in the background to check for new messages while browsing the web I cannot play music via another application since that would push me over the limit.

I’m not quite sure what Microsoft is trying to do here.. I know that just buying the Premium edition is only $50 more, but this is getting out of control. The version really brings no value to the marketplace other than costing consumers more money when their needs change. If their true reasoning behind the restriction was to make sure that the lower-end machines performed the way they should for users, wouldn’t it make more sense to allow the users to just leave extra applications open rather than re-launching? The upgrade path to Home Premium is simply the purchase of a license key. I haven’t found any documentation on how much this license would cost. This is almost worse than Cisco shipping firewalls that have gigabit ethernet ports on them only to restrict them to 10/100 via software..

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 10th, 2009

Mozilla Doesn’t Want Firefox to Be Bundled With Windows

Firefox architect, Mike Connor has come out and said that Mozilla simply doesn’t want Firefox to be bundled with Windows. The European Union has been throwing around ideas on what to do with Microsoft since it found Microsoft guilty of anti-competitive practices by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The problem for Mozilla lies in the fact that, should this happen, Firefox would become everything that they are trying to fight: a monopoly.

The open source software maker gives away its browser for free, but it’s a different type of freedom that Mozilla is chasing. “Free software” is about freedom of choice which is not accomplished by forming a monopoly and forcing everyone to use a free (as in price) product. It doesn’t accomplish what the Mozilla Foundation (and other open source foundations) are about.

Firefox doesn’t really need to be concerned yet with only a 20% market share, but as users are presented with a choice, they often are choosing Firefox. Connor says that he wants Firefox to be used out of choice, not because it was what came with the operating system: “As people become aware there’s an alternative, you don’t end up in that situation. You have to be perceptibly better.”

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 10th, 2009

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