Another Roughly-Drafted Smiler
Linonut
smile to my face. Not just with his words, but the funny pictures.
Anyway:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/08/09/will-nokia-rescue-microsofts-zune-haha-no/
Will Nokia Rescue Microsoft's Zune? Haha No.
. . .
Apple sues to stop advanced leaks because they destroy its ability to
launch surprise attacks. When details leak, critics can feign being
wholly unimpressed by what they knew to be in the pipeline, and
simply reset their expectations to something well beyond
unreasonable.
In stark contrast, Microsoft typically floats vaporware concepts for
new products months or years in advance of their actual launch. These
often suggest capabilities that will not actually be delivered. It
then allows and encourages its sprawling 'burbs of pundits to
make giddy predictions about the low, low price and amazing features
this new promised concept will bring to the market.
Once the obscuring power of the vapor is completely exhausted,
Microsoft typically rolls out an imitative, expensive, unfinished
product that the pundits then have to make excuses for until it
either suffocates the competition (as its new products often did in
the 90s) or falls out of sight and into oblivion (as about half
of its products did in the 90s, and as most do today).
For a list of examples of Microsoft's vapor-billowing train to
oblivion, look no further than the last several years of CES
announcements:
2000: Microsoft TV, WinCE smartphone
2001: Xbox, Ultimate TV, and Windows Powered, an umbrella term for
various WinCE devices
2002: Mira Windows Powered Smart Displays and Freestyle (aka Windows XP
Media Center PCs)
2003: Media Center PC, Tablet PC, SPOT watches; the 'Video iPod'
Media2Go is delayed until mid 2004
2004: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, and Portable Media Center
devices announced the previous year
2005: Digital Entertainment Anywhere vapor
2006: Xbox 360, Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center devices
2007: Windows Vista, Windows Home Server
2008: HD-DVD (scrubbed last minute), Surface, Zune, more Windows Home
Server.
The only successful product that can be salvaged from Microsoft's
consumer shipwreck of the last decade has been the Xbox line, which
has cost Microsoft many billions every year, and is now approaching
obsolescence and a sharp downturn in sales before it can even turn
any profit.
Read the rest for yourself! It PlaysFerSure!
--
Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value.
Hooray for context...
-- Larry Wall in <1997080403...@wall.org>