“Apple and Microsoft are throwing down this week, wooing the all-important developer community at competing conferences on opposite ends of the continent,” Michael Hickins writes for The Wall Street Journal. “Starkly different outcomes for CIOs lie in the balance. If Apple maintains its current winning streak, CIOs will have to expend precious resources managing a more heterogeneous and complex IT environment, while an unlikely comeback by Microsoft may allow them to focus on more strategic activities.”
“Apple’s challenge is to retain the fanatical devotion of app developers at its San Francisco conference this week, despite the lack of Steve Jobs’ charismatic leadership, as well as the allure of a much larger Android market,” Hickins writes. “If it succeeds, its rich app ecology plus an improved line of laptops will ensure its presence in the lives of CIOs for the foreseeable future.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, let’s just say that Apple will be able to handle that retention with aplomb.
Hickins writes, “Microsoft, meanwhile, has to convince developers at its Orlando, Florida conference to bet on its new Windows 8 operating system, practically sight unseen. The thinking in Redmond is that consumers will fall in love with Windows 8-powered tablets, giving CIOs the excuse they need to migrate to an all-Windows infrastructure…”
MacDailyNews Take: (Shakes Magic 8-Ball) Outlook not so good:
• ZDNet’s Kingsley-Hughes: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is an awful, horrible, painful design disaster – June 8, 2012
• Analyst meets with big computer maker, finds ‘general lack of enthusiasm’ for Windows 8 – June 8, 2012
• Dvorak: Windows 8 an unmitigated disaster; unusable and annoying; it makes your teeth itch – June 3, 2012
• The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
• More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
Hickins writes, “But without developers to enliven its tablet experience, Microsoft is whistling Dixie, and CIOs should continue planning for life after Windows.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you never went Windows (Mac since ’84 or for as long as you could use a mouse), you’ve been living all along, but, for the unfortunate sufferers, self-inflicted or forced by IT doofuses: Life begins after Windows.
“Apple’s challenge is to retain the fanatical devotion of app developers…”
I develop for MacOS X because it is a better environment, not because it keeps me in a job. I resent being labelled a ‘fanatic’.
touche!
If you display “fanatical devotion”, that does not in itself make you a fanatic. Just as being insanely additicted to Starbucks doesn’t mean you are insane.
Yes, it does. But only in this unfortunate example. 🙂
Jumped out of the window into the aqua long ago. Not going back.
🙂
With a likely lame release in windows 8 coming MS has plenty to worry about.
My last job interview specifically listed OS X experience and that was a government gig. The times are a changin’
Last years’ MS dev conference was in April & Oct before that. Pretty cheesy move to schedule their DVC to the same month/week as Apple–which has been in June for years. Desperation..
MS has done TechED Orlando in June many times since the early 1990s.
Last years conference was May 16th to 19th but the Orlando conference was in June from 2005 to 2010.
TechEd isn’t the MS DEV conference–it’s for technical-education.
MS meeting in Orlando – does that confirm that they are a Mickey Mouse outfit?
“Microsoft, meanwhile, has to convince developers at its Orlando, Florida conference to bet on its new Windows 8 operating system, practically sight unseen.”
Apple always produces products and software “sight unseen”, but the difference is TRUST.
Read the article, Sounds like the typical Apple hater… and market share means everything anal…yst.
“as well as the allure of a much larger Android market.”
If people who buy Android are also buying product, great, if they are so cheap that they BOGO and then pirate the apps instead of buy, well then market share means squat.
Just a thought,
en
Exactly this.
Android unit sales might be larger than iOS but no way the market is larger if you are talking about a development platform.
Many current “Android” devices do not run the latest version …and never will. To count all devices sold as the same is not really telling developers the truth about market share. That is one of the many reasons I call “Android” The Big Lie and until that changes, will not develop for it.
I don’t think Apple really wants to “finish off” Microsoft, they clearly are no longer a threat. Look for Apple to ally with Microsoft in the war against Google and Facebook.
It’s like finishing off a 93 year old terminally ill dowager, easy to do but why waste the effort.
“Windows 8, grandmas choice”
” Windows metro, the UI for the ICU”
Grandmas the world over are disgusted with you.
Sorry Gram.
Yeah, like they could use Windows 8? Sheesh.
Just another hit whore, spewing the same old crap m
Mac user since 1984, baby! Of course that means I’m way older than I ever intended to be, but I’ve never spent a penny of my own money on any MS product. So there.
The one and only time I ever spent money on a MS product was this wireless gadget that was supposed to communicate with the plush TeleTubbies when you played the TeleTubby VHS so they could “interact” with the screen – it never worked.
“The thinking in Redmond is that consumers will fall in love with Windows 8-powered tablets, giving CIOs the excuse they need to migrate to an all-Windows infrastructure…”
Just like they fell in love with Plays-For-Shizzle devices, then again with Zune, then yet again with Vista! MS knows is can count on rolling something out and consumers just, ya’ know, falling in love! If there is one thing consumers think when they hear Microsoft, it’s LOVE. Freaking joyous LOVE. 2 though 4 are smiles, puppies, and unicorns with rainbows shooting out their asses.
The biggest question, no doubt, in every developer’s mind, of those who are attending the Microsoft conference anyway: Will the fat boy dance the monkey boy dance?
Second biggest:
” Orlando ?”
Easy, it gives MS developers a second reason to want to go: Cool rides! And since it’s for ‘business’, they have an excuse to leave their parents at home.
We really could use a new, fresh, Monkey Boy Dance. That dance one was the only thing Microsoft or Ballmer has not copied from Apple. Guess it was a one time miracle.
…and it’s about time. Microsoft has been in total power for far too long. Let’s have some parity for Macs in the enterprise and in consumers’ hands. I’m getting mighty tired of hearing about Microsoft’s 90% desktop market supremacy. People are always talking about the imminent demise of Apple, but believe that Microsoft will go on forever. Where do they get these crazy notions?
That’s quite a headline. As much as I want to see Apple succeed in the Enterprise, I still think it will be gradual and not a “death blow” as the headline might suggest.
Just another two bit analyst whose mindset is mired in the 90s, hung up on ideas of zero sum games and “Apple Fanatics”. Anytime anyone relies on the Apple fanatics trope, it can be assumed they are utterly baffled by Apple’s success.
True, they are a Mickey Mouse outfit.
Oops, meant to reply to disposableidentity.
Try this on for size. Apple with less than 20% of the world market Is not as nearly exposed as MS when it comes to issues. This said, I use both platforms and like them both ( OS Lion and Win 7) and my open source friends tell me that I should even run Ubuntu.
Apple as a long way to go in making MS irelevant and frankly I am OT sure that that would be good for us as consumers. Having Apple run hard to displace MS is a god thing for us as it promotes expedited RnD and new product launches.
This said, maybe Aplle can focus on something as simple as iCloud and try to get it up to snuff to at least match Skydrive. Yikes…….
The tune being whistled past the graveyard is “Windows 8.”. Never in Mcrosoft history has such potential calamity been building. Never have they faced a more formidable sugar-water-free CEO’d Apple.
Time will tell, but I reiterate that is not healthy for any company to run the tables on Consumer’s choices hence let both Apple and MS keep on carrying on as it is healthy for all of us and taht is simply a fact.
I’ve been a mac user since 84. Don’t understand what life was/is like in the Windows world. I’m assuming I am not missing anything.
In about 5 years, I expect that Apple will purchase the remains of Microsoft. It will break it into two parts: the applications software part will be merged with FileMaker, Inc., and the operating system part will be sold off to HP.
Thus removing two PITA companies in one fell swoop.
Bought my first Mac in 1986, and never quit using Apple products. Have two 1984 Macs in my office right now, along with a Color Classic, Bondi blue iMac, retina iPad and a 13-in SSD MBP with a 30 inch monitor.
Left Windows behind circa 1999!