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Beyond Windows 7, Microsoft is dancing into relevancy. Meanwhile, Apple's merry revolution continues.
Brad Slavin has posted a few videos to YouTube (as any good Social Media marketer would do ;D) and appears to be promoting the customer experience at the new Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, CA. Both Engadget and Gizmodo have added their take on it -- and all wonderfully snarky comments aside -- it's a good effort at promoting the experience. The fact is, from all the pictures I've seen of the new Microsoft store and videos like the in-store dancing you see above --- Microsoft's making an effort to compete on what people perceive as Apple's turf. When the Gateway stores failed here in DC, and while Dell kiosks in local malls abound, the fact is that Microsoft really does need to show that the experience of owning a PC can be fun, and perhaps no longer as painful as it's been since the beginnings of the company. The problem with Apple (from what should be Microsoft's perspective)A Complete Consumer Experience Strategy.When Apple goes to war their strategy is for the most part complete. And they adapt, at least in a manner quicker than Microsoft. Apple's all about being able to actually do things with your computer and the software inside. It all starts with the OS. From the OS, Apple achieves a uniform simplicity. What you see is what you get. It's not hard to do some incredibly powerful things with the system and it's difficult to break. Apple's software is easy to learn because all the basics for getting around and doing what you need to do remain the same - it doesn't matter. Development of software for the Mac demands a similar user experience. Menus have to be the same. Work processes have to be similar, and always familiar. You Can't Complain About the Hardware Anymore.
Apple needed to establish an even playing ground. For years the processors Apple was using were actually superior to the Intel and AMD chips but they couldn't shake the stigma of being too slow when people talked about Gigahertz. Apple needed to stop the argument and level the playing field. So Apple adopted Intel hardware. The processors Windows and Apple's OS run on are now the same. What separated these two operating systems was now little more than the code. How it's written, designed and behaves. And people have been finding a Mac's behavior to be far superior to the Windows experience.Apple Does Windows, and Runs all things Windows.
For years, tools like Parallels, VirtualPC, RealPC and other emulation products have helped people use Windows applications on their Macs, but without the Intel hardware, using a Windows program meant a big processing-hog translation process if you wanted to run the software at the same time as the Mac OS. Add the Intel hardware, problems with processing are solved. In-comes "Boot Camp", a bootloader that allows an Intel-class operating system like Windows 7, Vista, XP, or Linux to be run unimpeded. Some improvements allow the separate partitions to operate in cooperation. Over time, Parallels (and competitor VMWare Fusion) has been improved to run on the new hardware and the speed gain is significant -- and now that Mac does Windows, it's great. No more barrier. If can run any Mac and any PC app at the same time there's no little reason to actually own a PC, not if your life's going to be easier as a result. Ubiquity through Content, Delivery and Function.
Apple has learned that despite good software, and fairly good, well designed and consistent hardware, there's still the question of content, and in the end you need more than just content. You need a way to consume it. What's the one thing you can't do without? Your mobile phone. What was the most frustrating thing about your mobile phone? It was difficult to use, and every new feature is just that much more difficult to use and no new device released is quite good enough. Apple offers you an option. A superphone, a smartphone. Something so easy to use, has great applications, and runs on the same philosophy and operating system the Mac operates on. Fantastic. Applications are easy to get (Delivery), inexpensive and can be consumed just like music has been, through iTunes 99 cents at a time. Apple made it painless and somewhat inexpensive to buy the supporting content, be it music, movies or applications. Before you know it you've removed pain from your life by adopting an iPhone. Well that makes me as a potential convert pretty receptive to the overall Apple experience. Windows users have started to add it all up.
For years the argument has been that up front, a Mac costs too much. The Mac argument has been quite the opposite. We don't get virus. We don't get botnets. A Mac is easy, it's simple. It does what you ask it to do. I can pair it with my phone, I can use my phone like my iPod, heck it is an iPod! Look at the commercials. The "Mac" argument shows through because the song "PC" in sings in the advertisements is pretty common. He gets virii. He freezes all the time. He really doesn't care about you. He spent a ton of money on advertising when he should have spent it on fixing the XP or Vista operating systems. In the end, if you want a new computer, or you want to end up spending less money over the long term you need to consider if buying a PC is the right thing to be doing. So you pay a little more up front -- in the end it's all easier and far less pain if not painless. The Apple Store: Mystique, Style, Open Support and Proof at your fingertips.
Imagine hundreds of Mac faithful on hand daily to tell you how great it is to own one. Imagine a place where you can go into a store and actually touch a Mac in a pleasant, open setting where the isles aren't arranged like a "Superstore" and knowledgeable people are on hand to openly support you with style, love of the experience and a little knowledge. When you can go in and touch all things Apple in an isolated but open experience lab, you can make the decision yourself if you should join the party, or in this case the larger Apple community. As a result, more people are buying Macs every day, even in this horrible economy. People are finally understanding Apple's KISS User Experience. The Apple Store makes inroads. PC users are being converted.Conclusion: Microsoft has been running scared as a result. What's on the way?
Apple's producing a tablet -- pretty much everyone agrees with that. This means even more media being produced for it, and even more opportunities for catching someone's attention and time will be driven to yet another device. One that's likely to succeed. Apple's next steps are likely in the content, connectivity/delivery and application vein. Microsoft needs to follow up with an equal stroke of genius or beat them to the punch. It's time to innovate or get out of the kitchen. According to the way things have been expected to play out, Apple isn't about to purchase Adobe (but they should), they aren't about to purchase TiVo (but they should), and they aren't about to purchase AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile (but they should). Acquiring these companies would put some new corners on the revolutionary hat that Apple's been wearing, and solidify the overall value proposition of owning Apple products. Adobe's product quality and a solid position providing the tools people use to generate all the media people are consuming on the Net (and TV), TiVo's killer-timeshifting content app for collecting the results still has incredible reach and is still relevant. Also, adopting a Telecom network, bringing down the costs for delivery and establishing a stronger network would normalize and potentially fix the things that hurt Adobe, TiVo and AT&T the most, customer service and consistency, delivery and solutions.
But wait! There's more! Microsoft sensibly fights back.Windows 7.
Windows 7 is proof that Apple's way has won the day, but is it enough? We'll see. The Windows 7 OS design has been seen as so much like Apple's that pundits are commenting that Microsoft's "ripped off the OS X dock", and other features of the OS have become very similar. The jury is still out as to how robust the experience is. "It's my idea and I'm a PC" Advertising Campaign.
The last few commercials from Microsoft were a mess. Nothing even close to the brilliance found in the latest round -- where commercial actors talk about this great idea they had and how Microsoft heard their ideas and turned them into Windows 7. They're interesting, and even if they're contrived at all, they still try convey that Microsoft is listening, and they are responding with something that makes sense, and it's a no-nonsense approach. The Microsoft Store.
Replicate the Apple style. Set up some "open" support and set up a place where PC users will feel welcome. A place where people can stay in there all day just like people do at the Apple store. Where a PC user doesn't feel like a pariah when it gets sick, and everyone feels your pain when it does. So Microsoft is embracing community building models. Imagine that. Well as you can see from the video this blog post leads in with, someone's trying to have some fun with the effort. However contrived. What comes next?
- The "M-Phone"? The "Zune Phone?" Probably, if they can ever get over their "Sidekick" problem.
- Normalization of application behaviors? Likely. They will have to encourage developers to normalize their approach for UX and conform more closely to key operating system expectations.
- Would Microsoft buy Verizon? That would be spectacular for them. The nation's largest most complete telecom and Mobile solutions?
Conclusion: Microsoft is attempting to become relevant. They can no longer rest on their laurels of being the most-used OS on the planet. Most used is not equal to popular, and its' nice to see they finally understand what that means. Microsoft has been the tin can for too long, will it have a heart? Will it innovate?
We shall see. Apple for their end is not sitting still.
ICT training sessions
Not too long ago IÂ led two ICT training sessions which have been very similar in outcome even though the schools were very different. One school was using Mac notebooks, whereas the other was using Windows machines. The Mac school had been unable to make best use of the software they were attempting to use because the software was essentially Html and flash based and they were trying to run the software on an old version of Internet Explorer. The second school had been unable to make best use of their software because it had not been installed properly on their network, so would not run properly (if at all) and they had not had effective training on it. At the Mac school, I was able to demonstrate the software using Safari instead of Internet Explorer. Mac fans will say that this was a simple and obvious move to make and may be wondering why it had not already been done. What we have to keep in mind is that in a small school such as this, staff simply do not have the time to explore all ICT possibilities, especially when trying to solve technical issues. The software had previously run OK in IE but new developments and innovations in the software had left IE behind. The staff simply felt that the software was somehow incompatible with their system or required technical troubleshooting which they were unable to provide. The staff wanted to focus upon delivering teaching to their pupils rather than incur costs and time repairing the software. Consequently, they either ignored the software or only made use of those parts that did still seem to work. This school is very far from being unique in seeing staff become frustrated or jaded by ICT technical issues. It would be true to say that there should be a technician on hand to prevent or sort out such technical issues so that teachers can continue to deliver education to the pupils. However, it it very much the case that primary schools have very inadequate technical support. Having a technician visit half a day each fortnight is quite a common pattern and it is certainly far from adequate in maintaining modern educational systems. Often, problems have to be reported in incident books, which will be read by the technician upon arival, he then has to decide a priority for the problems and try to implement a fix in the short time available. Sometimes telephone support is also available but this may sometimes mean a staff member taking the time to make the call and implement a fix (where possible)by sacrificing time which may better be spent elsewhere. By showing this school how the software worked effectively on Safari, the school felt the software had been given a 'new lease of life' and that they were able to make much more use of it in their teaching. I was also able to show them many aspects of the software which they were unaware existed, simply because they had not been able to use the software. In the second school, there was an element of frustration because the software had not initially been installed correctly on their network. This sort of problem should be entirely unnecessary but does still occur more often than it should. The problem had been rectified (almost) but the school staff had missed out on being able to use the software to support a number of teaching opportunities. They had also missed out on an effective training session because the system was not working properly. I say the installation had been 'almost' rectified because we discovered that one staff member login did not allow proper access to the software. This was due to incorrect addressing of the program. Once I had spotted this, a quick and easy fix allowed the whole software to work effectively for this member of staff. With the fix in place, I was able to train the staff on the software and was able to cover much of the ground that should have been covered in the original training session. Again, in this school, the staff felt that the software had been given a new 'lease of life' and that they were now better able to make use of it in their teaching. I guess, in a small way, I may be blowing my own trumpet here in saying that I was able to renew these schools interest and usage of the software on their system. Yet, I feel that this is one of the most rewarding aspects of my training role; seeing staff enthused (or re-enthused) about using ICT or a particular piece of software or hardware.
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- Infographics and my future. (dougbelshaw.com)
- Vokis, Voicethreads and Blogs (andrewrhodes.edublogs.org)
- Whiteboard Debate Online (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
- 2Assess from 2Simple first look update (redbridgeprimaryit.blogspot.com)
ICT training sessions
Not too long ago IÂ led two ICT training sessions which have been very similar in outcome even though the schools were very different. One school was using Mac notebooks, whereas the other was using Windows machines. The Mac school had been unable to make best use of the software they were attempting to use because the software was essentially Html and flash based and they were trying to run the software on an old version of Internet Explorer. The second school had been unable to make best use of their software because it had not been installed properly on their network, so would not run properly (if at all) and they had not had effective training on it. At the Mac school, I was able to demonstrate the software using Safari instead of Internet Explorer. Mac fans will say that this was a simple and obvious move to make and may be wondering why it had not already been done. What we have to keep in mind is that in a small school such as this, staff simply do not have the time to explore all ICT possibilities, especially when trying to solve technical issues. The software had previously run OK in IE but new developments and innovations in the software had left IE behind. The staff simply felt that the software was somehow incompatible with their system or required technical troubleshooting which they were unable to provide. The staff wanted to focus upon delivering teaching to their pupils rather than incur costs and time repairing the software. Consequently, they either ignored the software or only made use of those parts that did still seem to work. This school is very far from being unique in seeing staff become frustrated or jaded by ICT technical issues. It would be true to say that there should be a technician on hand to prevent or sort out such technical issues so that teachers can continue to deliver education to the pupils. However, it it very much the case that primary schools have very inadequate technical support. Having a technician visit half a day each fortnight is quite a common pattern and it is certainly far from adequate in maintaining modern educational systems. Often, problems have to be reported in incident books, which will be read by the technician upon arival, he then has to decide a priority for the problems and try to implement a fix in the short time available. Sometimes telephone support is also available but this may sometimes mean a staff member taking the time to make the call and implement a fix (where possible)by sacrificing time which may better be spent elsewhere. By showing this school how the software worked effectively on Safari, the school felt the software had been given a 'new lease of life' and that they were able to make much more use of it in their teaching. I was also able to show them many aspects of the software which they were unaware existed, simply because they had not been able to use the software. In the second school, there was an element of frustration because the software had not initially been installed correctly on their network. This sort of problem should be entirely unnecessary but does still occur more often than it should. The problem had been rectified (almost) but the school staff had missed out on being able to use the software to support a number of teaching opportunities. They had also missed out on an effective training session because the system was not working properly. I say the installation had been 'almost' rectified because we discovered that one staff member login did not allow proper access to the software. This was due to incorrect addressing of the program. Once I had spotted this, a quick and easy fix allowed the whole software to work effectively for this member of staff. With the fix in place, I was able to train the staff on the software and was able to cover much of the ground that should have been covered in the original training session. Again, in this school, the staff felt that the software had been given a new 'lease of life' and that they were now better able to make use of it in their teaching. I guess, in a small way, I may be blowing my own trumpet here in saying that I was able to renew these schools interest and usage of the software on their system. Yet, I feel that this is one of the most rewarding aspects of my training role; seeing staff enthused (or re-enthused) about using ICT or a particular piece of software or hardware.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Infographics and my future. (dougbelshaw.com)
- Vokis, Voicethreads and Blogs (andrewrhodes.edublogs.org)
- Whiteboard Debate Online (whiteboardblog.co.uk)
- 2Assess from 2Simple first look update (redbridgeprimaryit.blogspot.com)
An iPhone photo: The Apple Store (Upper West Side)
via Pixelpipe
Some Amazing Quotes from Steve Jobs
I just found these quotes in an article at MacStories . These supposed to be said by Steve Jobs and they are really food for the mind. Enjoy and don't forget to share your thoughts in the comment section.
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
“We’ve gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time.”
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
“I want to put a ding in the universe.”
“I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.”
“The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They’re just like dead fish washing up on the shores.”
“Unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don’t know any better.”
“Bill Gates‘d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”
“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”
“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”
“We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”
“Click. Boom. Amazing!”
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
“Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview.
So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.”
“We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place – the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.”
“I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple.
My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.”
“It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.
We just want to make great products. (I think he means “insanely great products!“)”
“So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.”
“When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.
They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else. (this actually reiterates my oft-repeated mantra of “ubiquitous evangelism” in companies)”
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
“Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that inpidual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.”
“That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of one of these crises, you’re not sure you’re going to make it to the other end. But we’ve always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder.
I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.”
“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.
Life is brief, and then you die, you know?
And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”
“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.”
“The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It’s very character-building.”
“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.”
“It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”
“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”
“Insanely Great!”
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
“It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing.”
“I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I’m only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I’ve got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.”
“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
“The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!”
“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.”
“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
“You know, I’ve got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can’t say any more than that it’s the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But nobody there will listen to me.”
“Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could — I’m searching for the right word — could, could die.”
Source: http://www.macstories.net/stories/inspirational-steve-jobs-quotes/
Apple contra apple
My work desk is just the place of lot of inventions. Apple contra apple is just one of them
Song for Apple (PODCAST)
This podcast is wrong; the one-year anniversary of my iPhone was last month!
