Microsoft on iTunes: "We were smoked"

This is an interesting peak behind the curtain at The Great Oz (Microsoft, circa 2003). Founder Bill Gates and product manager Jim Allchin admitted that Apple caught them unawares- again- and wondered how and why the record companies would let something like that happen.

Even more telling, Gates urges his team to "move quick to both match and do stuff better" than Apple in the music space. Seven years later? The Zune. And Zune Marketplace. Actually, the Zune is a good device, and TZM has certain advantages over iTunes, including a subscription model, for those who prefer it, albeit an expensive one. Yet the Zune has a tiny fraction of a market completely dominated by Apple, in a role-reversal of the desktop OS market, where MS is the 800 lb. gorilla.

It is good that Gates and company recognized a problem. Not so good that, after 7 years, they are nowhere near a leadership position in that market.

This is an apocryphal story akin to Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), who, in 1977 declared “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” MS has sleepwalked through much of the last 2o years, relying on it's massive installed user base and gobs of cash instead of innovation and superb execution. In the lightning-paced world of technology, it may be their undoing.


Full text of the disclosed emails follows here, courtesy of Techcrunch:

What MS has been up to

The Courier is Microsoft's entry into tablet computing, albeit with a twist. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. A hinged, double-screened notebook computer with a combination touchscreen and pen stylus user interface. It looks sexy as hell, and this demonstration video illustrates how it will likely work.

I love this! I've been ragging on Microsoft pretty hard for the last couple of years, and with good reason, frankly. But this is great news for consumers, and maybe, along with the advent of the new Windows 7 operating system, and the Bing search engine, could keep Microsoft relevant, even if they are lagging seriously behind in the smartphone arena.

What's more, it could keep Apple, Google, and Amazon on their toes. It does seem like MS is targeting a very different user need with the Courier. I think most people are expecting the new Apple iSlate to compete more with the Amazon Kindle, and it's own iPod Touch, than with HP and Dell's tablet offerings.

I can't wait for Christmas 2010!

Knock, knock- who's there? Not Microsoft

When you weren't looking, Google went and did something very sneaky, and veeeeerrrry cool.

If you've got an iPhone, or an Android-based phone, you can now edit your Google Spreadsheets. Not a lot, but some. And, as we all know, Google is like a locomotive: once they get rolling on a feature set, they just keep coming, and with a helluva lot of mass behind them.

I wonder what Steve Ballmer was doing while Google burned up the mobile phone world? Bill Gates wouldn't know, because he's banned Apple products in his house. (Seriously.)