“Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel’s glitch-riddled keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show on Friday was saved by Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGeneres–and by making Microsoft Windows the butt of jokes,” Elinor Mills reports for CNET News. “While trying to demonstrate the new Yahoo Go TV, which allows people to access Yahoo content and services through a Windows XP-based PC connected to a TV, the Internet connection failed. Executives tried to ad lib until Semel called his surprise guest, Cruise, to the stage.”
“When they tried to demo Yahoo Go TV with the music and movie content, the screen showed an error message. ‘And we know whose software this runs on,’ Rosensweig quipped,” Mills reports. “Even Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini, who was brought on stage to discuss how Yahoo has optimized Yahoo Go TV for PCs running Intel’s new Viiv technology, couldn’t resist taking a shot at Microsoft. Otellini showed off a ‘concept’ handheld PC called “Slide,” with a 5-inch screen. He said it would be released in a couple of years, following a slightly larger version that would be in production later this year. As he played with the device, he suggested that he should try to get e-mail over the Internet on it. ‘Oops! We got a not-responding (message),’ he said. ‘I think it’s a Windows problem.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “JadisOne” for the link.]
Windows. They all know it’s unreliable. They make fun of it. And, yet, because the majority made a collective “oops,” they’re all stuck developing for Windows. All the wasted time, the frustration, the retarding of progress; it’s sad.
Macintosh. Because life’s too short.
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They all know it, they all laugh about it..
Its time to do something about it..
Ditch Windows, go Mac.
How long will it take them to realize?
Invest in new technologies to bring the digital life to the masses: $58,000,000.00
Bring 15 of your staff to CES for the presentation: $9800.00
Prove that Bill Gate’s software is CRAP in front of millions: PRICELESS!!!!!
DUH!! Why do these people continue to use Windows products. That’s been my experience EVERY time I’ve tried to do just about anything with Windows. At least, they’re all starting to recognize what shizz Microshaft products are and make fun of them.
G-ZUS LOVES APPLE!!
REMEMBER “]G-ZUS LOVES YOU
For groovy music, check out: Musica Obscura
Spot on DrDude!
I sincerely hope that the media – TV and papers – pick up on that presentation big time. That way it wil be fresh in everyones minds when they also pick-up on a certain presentation taking place next week
..picked up on for slightly different reasons of course.
Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try…
MDN Magic Word “Try”
Sometimes i lie awake at night and wonder what the human society would be like if Windows never was here. How much more advanced would we be? I tend to think we would be alot better off.
Woo hoo! My first article credit.
Seriously though, I do not understand how people can be so apologetic of Windows. I’m sure those same individuals would not be so apologetic if the makers of their car tires were inept and caused their tires to be flat every morning they had to go to work.
In the words of MDN, “Macintosh. Because life’s too short.”
Why is this even funny?? I don’t find it to be so (well, part of me does, part of me doesn’t.)
Yahoo! evidently hadn’t fully tested their product and are now blaming Microsoft for their own errors. Demos seen by heaps of people should be polished, practiced and work (or fall back quickly to backup systems.) I don’t consider it professional to act as they have done.
The thing is, we’re not talking about some small software house here, we’re talking about Yahoo! – a company with a market value of billions of dollars (if I read the NASDAQ quote page correctly, its about $60 billion.)
I’m no Microsoft lover (in fact, I despise most of their products), but in this case, I believe Yahoo! is clearly the one at fault and their first mistake was choosing Windows in the first place!!
It’s just too easy to make Microsoft the scapegoat in all of this. The reality is that it’s probably due to poor management and poor software engineering from the 3rd parties (coupled with the need to release/demo products which are clearly not ready.) The worst part about it all is that it’s being going on since 1981 with the first PC running MS-DOS.
Actually, maybe the software engineering is great, but the lack of testing/readiness of the software screws things up…. coming back to management pushing things out the door before they’re ready.
(Also the comment about the first mistake Yahoo! made in choosing Windows… I meant that from the point of view that choosing Windows is the “easy” answer – it means you can pretty much get away with flogging off crappy, bug-ridden, hard to use software because it’s easier to develop that way and the audience is more or less accepting of it. One thing I’ve realized with the Mac is that the standard level of software is so much higher.)
Ditch Windows and go Mac? I agree, but as much as I love my Macs, Apple needs to sell OS X on commodity boxes – for PCs, that’s right. I said it. It’s time for OS X on PCs! They don’t have to support ALL the hardware crap out there. They could have a specific list of hardware that they support. It would only be limited to the PC itself, because OS X already supports a bunch of peripherals.
Notatotal–
I agree with your points, yet I feel a sense of satisfaction that M$ has become easily equated with schlock, even at tech events such as this. Yahoo made kind of a low blow against M$, but if M$ hadn’t earned this reputation through its own form of hard work, Yahoo couldn’t get away with it as easily as they have.
Cruise was amazed at the ability to play movie clips on your computer.
…… sweet jesus…
Ellen Degeneres is HILARIOUS.
how do you “Yahoo?”
own3d…
They all admit windows is crap yet there support for mac is usually minimal or greatly delayed. You would think that all these companies, with all their massive resources would be bang up to date with their mac offerings so that every customer they can get will use that, hell maybe they will inadvertently help people to switch so they can gradually get the atrocity that is windows out of our lives and theirs.
Maybe Cruise can call up some of his space alien contacts to fix Windows…
I LOVE Ellen
Cruise is no different than the typical clueless Hollywood moron. Ever wonder why so many backwards attitudes toward digital media come from Hollywood bigwigs? They don’t know what the fsck is sitting in on that desk in front of them.
MW: Mastectomy. I don’t consume aspartame so hopefully I won’t ever have to get a mastectomy.
Its all about the DRM. If Apple had a way that other companies could build a service on the mac that uses Digital Right Management (FairPlay) then I am sure they would consider it. But Apple is not interested since they have their own solution…. iTunes and whatever will be announced on the 10th.
funny Windows video
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/iMovieTheater3.html
M.X.N.T.4.1
True enough. I’d also think they’d want to get their Mac version out first so they have a revenue steam whose profitability is not being eroded by bloated support costs.
Someone clarify this please. Apple has their own DRM technology but the only way to acces it is through iTunes. So could Yahoo provide secure content for Macs? I think many companies have begged Apple for the chance to license the DRM. But no chance.
The Apple wave could have been alot higher by now if they opened them selves to this type of growth.
Yahoo couldn’t have done this demo with a mac if they wanted too… no DRM
Snapper:
As has been discussed many times, Apple provides music and videos for sale only to entice sales of the high margin hardware (iPods and Macs). If they let their DRM be put on any POS MP3 player or PC, they would be stuck making 2 cents off of every song that went on someone else’s hardware. Now that wouldn’t be very smart, would it?
Comment off post…
just picked up my 60-gig Ipod yesterday… brought it home, pulled it out of the case and put it immediately into the leather/velvet case they provide… hooked it up and registered it online, updated it to my IMac…. took it out of the leather case and the SCREEN WAS SCRATCHED.
this was baffling. I checked the inside of the carrying case, nothing there, checked the screen and the unit as soon as I opened it. It was fine before I put it into the leather case (and yes.. for you yahoos out there, I put it in the case with the soft side in and the leather out – lol)
Took it back to the store, (mission viejo) they weren’t real excited about replacement, (which kinda surprised me) but since I hadn’t even used the unit yet they replaced it. Bought a hard plastic case for the new one… now everything is fine. (the new one is updating as I write this)
Either there is still a problem with the screens scratching, or I got one that was in stock before the screens got upgraded? Did they get upgraded?
Seriously folks…. I carefully took it out of the packaging, slipped it into it’s case, and it was scratched when it came out. Weird…
MDN word is “ill”, as in I felt ill when I looked at this thing and saw it’s scratched screen.
Addendum…
Sold my 3gen 15 gig Ipod with accesories for $100, had it in a leather case for 3 years and the screen never scratched.