“Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, as early as 2003 considered a partnership with Apple Inc. or creating its own digital music player to rival Apple’s dominant iPod,” Dina Bass and Bob Van Voris report for Bloomberg.
Bass and Van Voris report, “Microsoft, displeased with hardware partners Creative Technology Ltd. and Dell Inc. that made players using Microsoft’s Windows Media software, talked about building its own device, according to an e-mail exchange between Windows chief Jim Allchin and media software executive Amir Majidimehr. The correspondence, introduced into evidence in a civil antitrust trial against Microsoft in Des Moines, Iowa, was made public today.”
“Allchin, who started the exchange in an e-mail entitled ‘sucking on media players,’ also suggested he talk to Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs to get the iPod to work with Microsoft’s media software for fear the iPod would ‘drive people away from Windows Media Player.’ Microsoft introduced its Zune music player in November,” Bass and Van Voris report.
“‘My goodness it’s terrible,’ Allchin wrote about one of Creative’s devices. ‘What I don’t understand though is I was told the new Creative Labs device would be comparable to Apple. That is so not the case,'” Bass and Van Voris report. “Majidimehr replied ‘Now you feel our pain.” He said Microsoft was providing cash incentives to get the partners to improve devices. If that doesn’t work ‘it is time for us to roll up our sleeves and do our own hardware,’ he wrote.”
Bass and Van Voris report, “Microsoft sold ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Zune devices during Christmas, according to Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach. Apple sold 21.1 million iPods last quarter.”
Full article here.
At least Allchin doesn’t need to change the subject of his future emails, as the re-badged Toshiba GigaBeat, which they call “Zune,” fits the billing of Microsoft “sucking on media players” perfectly.
Microsoft just doesn’t get it. They do not have the attention-to-detail, the taste, the hunger to strive for perfection, or the proper personnel in the correct creative environment necessary to produce user experiences anywhere near what Apple offers. Microsoft Windows is woefully behind the Mac, still, after some 22 years of trying to be “just like a Mac.” The Zune software next to iTunes is a laugher. The Zune next to an iPod is a joke. The Zune next to an iPhone’s iPod is just plain sad. At their best, Microsoft is a cesspool of mediocrity.
Why is Microsoft’s mission to make cheesy copies of Apple products and market them to the ignorant? How can Microsoft’s management and employees be proud of “their work” or are they just proud of how much they reap from suckers who don’t know any better?
In the future, when Microsoft execs trumpet their partnerships (remember URGE, Napster, etc.?), keep in mind that they’ll probably be emailing each other about how much their partners suck when they really ought to be looking in the mirror.
Related articles:
Windows chief Allchin 2004 email: I’d buy a Mac if I didn’t work for Microsoft – December 11, 2006
The Motley Fool: Apple makes Microsoft’s Zune a paperweight – January 10, 2007
PC World writer’s advice for Microsoft: ‘Stop making crap’ – July 27, 2006
Apple again leads Consumer Reports’ survey for notebook, desktop computer tech support, value, more – October 16, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – August 22, 2006
Apple far outscores all other PC makers in Consumer Reports Computer Tech Support Survey – May 05, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, portables top PC Magazine’s 2005 Reader Satisfaction survey – August 24, 2005
Apple Computer products top PC Magazine’s annual ‘Best of the Year’ survey – December 16, 2004
Apple Macs top PC Magazine’s ’17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey’ – August 10, 2004
Apple leads PC Magazine’s 16th annual Service and Reliability Survey – July 10, 2003
If they want people to go back to Windows Media Player then why didn’t they make the Zune work with WMP and the Urge store? duh..
Running software that sucks on hardware that sucks seems like a marriage made in heaven. Creative and Microsoft were made for each other.
MDN Said… “Microsoft just doesn’t get it. They do not have the attention-to-detail, the taste, the hunger to strive for perfection, or the proper personnel in the correct creative environment necessary to produce users experiences anywhere near what Apple offers.”
This is the reason for Apple success. Here’s the big question: does this corporate culture still exist in Cupertino? If you believe it is, is it as good as it once was? Has it declined in recent years as Apple pushed so hard to move up in its single digit market share category? Has the tiny gains it has made been worth the loss of quality we once could count on as automatic?
My point is, while we enjoy reading your trashing of MSoft, is Apple headed in the same direction of ordinary that Microsoft represents?
Evidence: ALL of the Intel products are of lower quality as it pertains to poor fit and finish, poor out-of-the-box readiness to work, and poor initial comsumer impression. Proof: percentage of sales that are returned within the first 30 days for some kind of service – usually something cosmetic, but often involving the internals as well. That’s percentage of sales, so you can’t explain the skyrocketing dissatisfaction index on increased numbers being sold.
The reason for this is Steve’s infatuation with (1) himself and (2) his joy at having countless lemmings in the audience, in the stores and in the media fawning all around him.
What’s the fix for this? Because if it continues, by this time next year, you won’t be able to write an article like this one.
Peterson, is that you?
Ask Yourself,
Before I simply discount your bullshit as Microsoft astroturfing, do you have any actual independent proof of Apple’s service percentages? I’ll require hard numbers.
Thanks in advance.
“Ask Yourself”, I’m sad to say, may have a point here. I’ve been hearing a lot of disconcerting things about people having really bad experiences with new Macs in the last year. One friend hand bought a Mac desktop and two lap tops all of which had to be returned on more than one occasion for either cosmetic or internal hardware issues. These people were long time Mac geeks but I can only imagine what all those switchers who must have endured something similar would be thinking… Let’s hope quality control gets much better in the coming year.
Ask Yourself, could you post a few links where one could find the return numbers you mention? I’d be interested to do the numbers myself.
To understand M$’s understanding of consumer electronics products — or computers, for that matter — just google “cargo cult” to grok their psychology. They simply do not get it.
Scarbro, your friends and acquaintances – while they may be near and dear – do not constitute anything resembling a trend!
MDN’s take is superb.
Peterson / Sputnik / Ask Yourself, yes, I avoid version 1.0 of any Apple product, but as Carl Sagan used to say about alien abductions, “That’s an extraordinary clam. Show us the extraordinary evidence to support it.” Source, please.
IMO: The problem with Microsoft is that they need to whack the entire narrow minded, executive “fat cats”. They have made a significant amount of money and appear to have lost focus and gotten lazy. Severance everyone of them. Go out and recruit a group of people that have some passion and innovation.
Ask Yourself
You must lead the most boring life in the world when all you have to do is troll Mac related sites. I go to Mac related sites because I’ve owned Mac computers since 1988. They’re great products. All those years and old one hard drive failure on a 7 years old G4!
I bet you haven’t been on one since junior high school; jeez, maybe yesterday!
S-P,
Microsoft never had any focus. They got lucky, screwed other companies, cheated, and lied, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
I will relish the fall of Microsoft almost as much as I’ll enjoy the rise of Apple.
I service computers.
“Evidence: ALL of the Intel products are of lower quality as it pertains to poor fit and finish, poor out-of-the-box readiness to work, and poor initial comsumer impression” is pure BS. If you want to see trouble, go look at the PPC iBooks. Nothing Apple has released in the past 25 years have caused as much headache as has the white G3/G4 iBooks, and I’m GLAD that they’ve been redesigned out of existence.
And as to comparing the failure rate between G5 processors (made by IBM) to the failure rate of Intel chips?
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH.
I think Apple is doing a fantastic job with attention to detail. The market is encouraging Steve’s idealism and I think it’s coming through as constant improvements.
My Rev A MBP has no more problems than my Rev A PB 12″. The MBP has a noisy MB. The 12″ PB has a noisy fan and feet that fall off, the mouse button works better on the left than right. My Rev A PowerMac G4 had a bad motherboard.
From where I’m sitting, the quality is better. The difference is that Apple is selling more product, so we’re hearing more issues. Also, the Internet is making issues more transparent and improving our knowledge of these issues.
Ask Yourself:
Those of you complaining about quality and everyone for that matter needs to understand a couple of things. First, Apple no longer does it’s own manufacturing. It is ALL outsourced. The companies they deal with have been doing Wintel products for their entire existence. What that means is that these companies have to be trained to manufacture up to Apple’s quality. Everytime a new contractor or subcontractor is used that process has to repeat itself. And as you know, traiing and monitoring is and should be a continuing process. It takes time.
The other problem is YOU!. That’s right, you. Everyone of you who has ever complained that Apple’s prices are too high is part of the problem. The only way to get prices down is to crank up the speed of the asesembly line just a little. People won’t buy the latest Apple product becasue the price is too high, well find away to cut costs. We can’t lower wages so we need to build more with the same number of people which means either cheaper components which Apple prefers not to do or make more per hour with the same number of assemblers.
Bottom line: you get what you pay for. You won’t find a Porsche at Saturn prices unless it was stolen.
Finally, lets’ see the numbers that support your assertion that quality has gone down as a percentage of producrts manufactered. My guess is that it is about the same as it has always been. But since there are more units there are more failures, but the percentage is the same.
“We are all guilty of mistaking our own ignorance and prejudice for the truth”
Digital Mercenary – 2006
In the past two years, we have purchased a 30 GB iPod, a G5, a Mac Pro,
and a 30″ Apple monitor (which, by the way is astounding), and the fit and
finish has been perfect on each one. Additionally, we have purchased an
SE, a bondi blue iMac, an iBook, and a DP G4 over the years, and each one
has been pristine.
I don’t doubt that some Apple products have flaws–there’s no such thing
as perfection. But we couldn’t be more pleased with our Apple products.
Allchin at the time was leading development of Longhorn, the code name for Windows Vista, which reaches stores Jan. 30. Allchin, who is retiring after Vista is released, referred to Longhorn as “a pig” and said “we have lost our way.”
A cow, a pig…with lipstick.
Ask Yourself: My point is, while we enjoy reading your trashing of MSoft, is Apple headed in the same direction of ordinary that Microsoft represents?
The short answer is no. Apple’s sucking quotient – a fraction of MSoft’s, by the way – doesn’t seem to me to have varied much over the years. Fast-paced, cutting edge design and innovation is risky – early prone-to-scratch nanos, laptops you can iron with, or iMacs that launch discs like frisbees, for example. But if you don’t try to push the envelope, then you’re not trying hard enough. Allchin’s statement above shows how difficult it is.
Video on the Zune does not look good.
I’ve been using a 60GB iPod with video for a year now and it is a great way to spend time in an airport.
But Zune looks grainy and cheap by comparison. The display is bigger but I hate the crappy looking video.
I’ll bash MS too for their OS and zune but admit it: they’ve some decent hardware products: mice and keyboards, xbox. Software: i’ve not used the new office but i’ve heard good things. Be careful, MS is willing to make a pretty big change with a stodgy product like office they’ve ideas for their OS as well. MS, just keep your OS crappy to help bring OS X’s marketshare up. 10% marketshare for OS X is good enough for me.
Ask Yourself gets it. Apple is going down hard and fast. Their crap wasn’t that good to begin with, but whatever. He/she still gets it.
You see, Bill Gates said something really smart. He said:
What we have to make sure is that we are working with the partners so we get that creativity of the close coupling while the variety of partners is such that we get something they [Apple] really don’t have.
This is what makes Microsoft so awesome, and the benefits all fall on us, the consumer. I love my Dell Ditty almost as much as I like my Zune. The powerhouse combination of Microsoft & Dell clearly paid off as partnership to deliver a first class portable MP3 player and wonderful software (Windows Media Player) combination. Pure bliss for this user, and the Ditty was easy on the pocketbook, where the rubber meets the road. Now it’s only getting better with Zune + Zune Marketplace. I don’t know what you iPod lemmings see in that iTunes + iPod garbage.
Hey Redmond, keep the partnerships coming! Great job!
Your potential. Our passion.
I love ZT. Once I read the article, I had to scroll down to see what he had said. Knew he’d respond to it. Always a smile reading his stuff.
“His.” Somehow, I can’t imagine ZT being a “her.”
Keep it coming, ZT!
Zune Tang your hilarious.
Best,
Director of MS A-terfin.
A wise person once said:
no one has gone broke underestimating the masses
Ask yourself is on the money, this industry is price driven and that includes most if not all of us. I drive a Porsche not a Saturn and just last week I discovered that they had been knownly been using a deffective engine seal since 2001. A $1380 part replacement on the part of the customer. As competiton gets harder, quality suffers. Yes Apple still makes the best looking products but they too are cutting corners. is either that or dissapear . face guys, Ask yourself is not critizing Apple, he/she is making an astute observation
re: Zune Tang
Get over it buddy! Your Zune-piece-of-crap music player is D-E-A-D!
Microsoft could not innovate themselves out of a toilet bowl! Bloody losers!