totally agree, msft is a worthy competitor but I am a bit battle weary over this "msft is coming" argument.
With google, msn was always out there and touted as this huge looming threat. What I discovered was that unlike the PC era of the 90s, msft has no brand appeal with consumers. nothing they did, even the good stuff gained traction. THere are lots of things about ms Live that I like. They had a serious competitor to google earth for a while and their offering might still be superior- didn't matter. In the end the only people using ms live were google shorts, and people jealous of goog insiders.
I think there is a good chance that happens to Zune, because apple is like google- but actually COOLER!
The xbox overtaking PS2 is a different animal. Sony has no corporate culture in the USA. The sony stores aren't places where people go to be seen, and Sony has done some horrible things like that rootkit fiasco that did them in, image wise.
I now know from watching msft in this decade how other companies that were trying to COMPETE with msft used to feel in the 90s. The most important thing for msft I think is for them to choose their battles and they are very poor at that, so far. Choosing to battle the icons of cool, goog and aapl, in the consumer space is a bad strategy. I also think that their innovations like wireless seem gimmicky. But, we shall see.
edit- also I think msft's entry into the mp3 player space is just an ego-driven decision and not made on solid business fundamentals. The reason msft needs to go after goog is because the browser is taking all the apps like spreadsheet that msft used to own. With mp3, what about it is appealing to msft. They have no knowledge base. They are just trying their same old embrace and extend. Except there is nothing to extend it to. |
