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The Partnership That Could Have Changed Everything
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jan 20, 2007 01:57 PM
from the better-than-the-zune dept.
from the better-than-the-zune dept.
DesertBlade writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, at one point, Microsoft had considered an Apple/iPod partnership before it released its own MP3 player. Microsoft was apparently displeased with MP3 players partnerships they had already made, notably the Creative and Dell models. This information came from court documents introduced in an antitrust lawsuit from Iowa. From the article: 'Microsoft had been working with partners on music devices for at least a year before Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and catapulted to a dominant position in the market. Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.' If this Apple/Microsoft partnership was formed how would this have changed the Microsoft and Apple dynamics?"
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If... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If... (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly. It's more like a visitors pass into Hell instead of being a permanent resident - you can always leave when it all becomes too much.
Parent
Read down further in the article... (Score:4, Funny)
"Longhorn is a pig!" -- Jim Allchin
And this was said when Allchin was heading up development on Longhorn. Hilarious if it weren't true, even more hilarious because it is.
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Like this: (Score:5, Funny)
"You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"
In this case, though, read "strychnine" instead of "peanut butter".
Re:Like this: (Score:5, Funny)
1st man: Hi, I'm a Mac!
2nd man: and I'm a PC.
1st man: and we're in a civil partnership!
*Cue immediate censure across US*
Parent
What do you get when you combine MS and Apple? (Score:2, Funny)
And yet, five years on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Admittedly, most of Apple's competition seem to have great difficulty getting their head round what seems to me a very simple proposition (make it nice to use and nice to hold, like an iPod, but make it do stuff an iPod can't), so it's not just Microsoft at fault here, but yet again I find myself wondering what the hell their problem is. Sometimes it seems like they just don't want to get it right.
Although it's probably a good thing that this partnership came about. Because if you think the iPod has a monopoly now, imagine what it would have been like with Microsoft shoving it down everybody's throats. And imagine how little the product wuold have improved over time - I mean, Apple spent the last couple of years sitting on their hands and not implementing relatively trivial features like gapless playback, because they could get away with not bothering. Recently the competition's started to get their act together and they're making noticeable improvements to the iPod line. But we all know what happens when MS is the only show in town, don't we? Not a whole lot, that's what.
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I'm now going to write out "I must preview before posting" 100 times...
Re:And yet, five years on... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is one good thing about the iPhone. Maybe, just maybe someone will realize it's not what features you have and don't have, it's how you use it. cell phones, radios, dvd players, all put features in random locations. How long has voice mail been around? At least Cisco has a visual voice mail option that predates apples but only for landlines. So why haven't any of the other guys thought about it yet? It should be friggin standard, all phones with color screens should be able to do that. yet Every phone available to do requires you to listen to each message separately, wait to it's finished and then delete it. Why can't they list them by phone number called. so you can ignore the call from work while leaving you able to hear the message from your wife telling you to pick something up on the way home. It's not like it takes a genuis to figure this out. yet EVERY electronics company does it.
The real evolution of computers , hardware, and software, will be to make it actually easy to use. It's Apple call to fame. Whether you like the ipod or not, it's not hard to figure out how to use every feature present.
Parent
Re:And yet, five years on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Why are you assuming the reason was hardware deficiency? Partnerships are more than just about meeting technical requirements. Partnerships are also about cost sharing, risk sharing, and revenue sharing agreements (among many other things). And if two prospective partners can not agree on any of those points, then it won't really matter what the specs are going to be -- such a partnership is just not going to happ
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Lessons learned (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple apparently didn't consider it (Score:3, Insightful)
This Bloomberg article says more about Microsoft's sense of desperation than anything.
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Musings... (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt it would've changed much as whatever they would've come up with, most likley being different than the I-pod is today, wouldn't have been as popular. I'd imagine lawyers woulda have the ultimate field day with connecting the dots for anti-trust violations and M$ and/or Apple would've backed away saying "Just joshin, we'll make humourous commercials instead."
Although the whole "what-if" scenario will still get to those who bother. If anything derived from such a past-possible parternship was indeed sucessful, any more collaboration probably would develop over a much longer-term period of time.
Unless of course, it were to just own everything on the planet, which in the literal sense of the word, M$ aspires to and Apple likes to own hardware and sell it at fairly expensive prices while both buy/own into the flawed concept of DRM.
The thought of a Win-Pod, or I-win (perhaps Irwin?) is funny though.
Needless to say, I'm bored right now ... XD
*continues the 9 to 5*
Re:Musings... (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no. The biggest reason is iTunes, and that the iPod/iTunes combo was very easy to use. Look at the other solutions that were around at the time - the software/syncing procedures absolutely sucked. The software was total crapware - and it was often difficult to navigate a large collection of music on the devices.
Marketing? The original Mac-only generation of the iPod was barely marketed at all. Yet it was still successful - mainly because of iTunes, which was already widely used by Mac users. Remember "Rip, Mix, Burn"? iTunes came first, as part of the "digital hub" - while with other companies, the software was simply an afterthought.
You have a faulty memory. The only people who didn't take it seriously were Apple bashers and slashdot types. Real reviews gave the iPod high marks - with a complaint or two about the price. Aside from the price, serious reviews gave it high marks. Remember that the iPod was the first to offer Firewire syncing. This changed the whole game. Other players used USB 1.1 syncing - which was incredibly sloooow.
The iPod was also the first with the micro-sized HD - other players were either flash-based with pitiful storage capacity, or used larger HDs, which made the units incredibly bulky. So, if you had bought another HD-based player back then, not only did you get a huge unit - but it would take all day to fill with songs over USB 1.1. This made them pretty pointless, as you couldn't easily change the songs stored on the device without significant syncing time.
What do you mean, "regardless of the technical reviews"? the iPod got very good technical reviews, and was in fact far more technically advanced than every other player at the time. Your comments amount to nothing more than revisionist history. Just because CmdrTaco called the iPod "lame" does not mean it was poorly reviewed or received by the market.
If Microsoft had been involved, they would have insisted on Windows Media Player or some "PlaysForSure" crap and totally screwed up the iPod. Why else would Microsoft partner with Apple, if not to try and dominate the market with their software?
Parent
Thank God it didn't happen (Score:5, Interesting)
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microsoft may have considered apple... (Score:2, Insightful)
stupidest news article (Score:4, Insightful)
Really just one thing.
1. There wouldn't be a Zune.
Considering the way the Zune has been selling, that point doesn't even count.
It would have been GO Corp all over again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Allchin,
Why would Apple have agreed to that? What would have been in it for them? In 2003 (when the article seems to indicate the above took place) the iPod was taking off without any help from Microsoft and had been available for Windows since August of 2002. There is no advantage to having the iPod use WMP on Windows machines instead of iTunes. It would have meant that a team of Microsofties would have had to work closely with Apple and likely have had access to privileged information about the iPod to get it to work with WMP.
That sounds an awful lot like many partnerships Microsoft did in the past: They work with a company, get a good look at the company's closely-guarded crown jewels, and then 'change their mind' about doing what the partnership set out to accomplish. And then a little while later they use the information gleaned during the partnership to come up with a competing product and sink the other company, using high-priced lawyers and weasel clauses buried in contracts to avoid any penalty.
They already pulled that bit on Apple once when they developed Windows by copying the Mac while they had access to a few prototypes to develop Mac apps, and then hid behind a terribly vague licensing agreement. I don't think Jobs would have fallen for it again.
~Philly
Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
Change that to "I don't think Jobs would fall for it," as it was not him who fell for it the first time-- Jobs was gone from Apple in November of 1985 when Sculley signed the agreement with Microsoft.
~Philly
Parent
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Woz wrote a BASIC interpreter for the Apple II because it needed something, but he was much more of a hardware guy than a software guy, and writing the BASIC was harder for him than actually designing the computers had been. He ended up writing a BASIC interpreter that didn't have floating point routines, just to get something out the door ahead of everyone else. This was Integer BASIC, which was the first BASIC in the Apple II ROMs. One of his next projects was t
Musicmatch era? (Score:2)
Even so I agree that Apple had little to gain from an arrangement like that!
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~Philly
uh? (Score:2)
I'm just wondering why did they have problems connecting to computers? What the voodoo techniques didn't work? They needed more chicken's feet? Surely you connect via USB2 (or other fast connection protocol) and hook into a piece of software that's already cataloged the drive for music files. How is that so hard for a company with so
Obvious (Score:2)
Well of course it would have... (Score:2)
Yes, Microsoft would have found a way to screw Apple over like it has with just about every "partner" they have ever had and the two would be locked in a legal battle over it.
Well, how fast could they have forced DRM out (Score:2, Interesting)
What could have changed? (Score:2, Funny)
Working standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Before USB, I had a handheld computer. It required MS Active Sync. That by itself was not a problem. The problem was the software remained active looking for the device to connect. This was a major problem for everything else I have that uses a RS-232 port. The solution was to abandon Active Sync and let the handheld be it's own island so I could have my serial ports back.
After USB, Flash drives worked quite well and would work on Mac, PC, and Linux. MS desicded to play a do it our way game which crippled some flash players. Some manufactures kept the devices open so they would attach and transfer as a flash drive. Some went so far as to play music transfered in this way and allowed copying to and from the device. This was not in Microsoft's best interest as they wanted full DRM handshake and a one way transfer. You can delete songs off the device, but copying from it is prohibited. This needing someting other than drag and drop, means a special application which may mean Windows only which is a problem in addition to any other USB port driver issues and corrupt handshakes and keys.
Drag and drop worked. Flash player manufactures know that. Making a player that has to change mode to handle connections for Plays for Sure simply added a level of complexity to the device. MS tried arm twisting to drop the complexity of 2 modes of operation. In doing so, it broke compatiblility with everything else. For an example of broken drag and drop, try a Creative Zen. You can set aside space for drag and drop, but it won't play any files there, including non-DRM MP3's.
I bought a Coby flash player. They work fine in drag and drop mode. It will record off the mic or radio and save it as MP3's. I can drag the MP3's off the player. For Coby to have these fine features, they simply dropped support for DRM WMA Plays for Sure content. The player will play MP3's and non-DRM WMA files. The best part is I can save files to it from home on Windows PC's, Linux PC's and at work. It doesn't delete everyting to sync to a new PC unlike Plays for Sure, Zune, or FairPlay crippled things.
It's already been documented what would happen (Score:2)
Don't you wish you worked at MSFT? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's also revealed that the company has been violating the terms of the court order stemming from their conviction for breaking federal law.
The result (according to TFA):"Shares of Microsoft rose 11 cents to $31.11 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They have risen 4.2 percent this month."
This must be what is known as "being able to do no wrong".
it was always about user experience, not functions (Score:3, Interesting)
Creative had an ok product, licensed with M$ to be able to play DRM-protected WMP files...only M$ didn't succeed as well as they wanted to get online downloads to use WMP.
What Apple had was not just one great product, but 3, which when combined won the day.
They had an mp3 player that was aesthetically impressive, had new inventions for user simplicity (like the volume/menu wheel, which though faulty at first, got better), and easily licensed for 3rd party accessories so you didn't feel like the only way to use it was through the normal headphones.
They had iTunes the desktop software, with its slick look (though why they insisted on the mac look on a windows box i'll never know, but it seemed to work), a look so impressive that it made the users want to use that as their playback software even without the iPod. Windows Media Player kept changing its look, and kept bumping into wars of codecs and DRM license issues that users simply didn't want to deal with. When prompted to auto-upgrade WMP to a new version, users panic because history with Microsoft software shows that such upgrades often break backwards compatibility or at the very least completely lose all of their existing settings. If upgrading WMP suddenly means you can't watch movies you already have or listen to music you already have, then you won't do it, and upgrades did that with WMP and Real Player a LOT.
Creative's tool was ok for loading stuff onto the box, but it wasn't "right" for actually playing the tunes as the desktop player, so the integration factor wasn't there the way it was with iTunes/iPod.
Finally, they successfully got iTunes the store to work (sounds like Spaceballs: the t-Shirt). One stop shopping, fully integrated into the player. Buy the song, put it into a desktop playlist, sync to the iPod, BAM, new music for 99 cents and i never had to change software anywhere.
Such integration is difficult, but Apple did it where Microsoft never could with their partner relationships as they licensed them at the time.
Hence the Zume. They now know the only way to play on Apple's field is to do that same integration - player, desktop software as load tool and preferred player, and music store all in one.
But they'll never get it...or at least not until the "version 3" that it takes Microsoft to have a success for any product launch.
Actually Allchin did make the call. (Score:3, Funny)
-S
The analysts were wrong... and so were we (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I've come to the conclusion that we were wrong. I have to take a step back though, to the time when analysts kept arguing that licensing Mac OS to run on other machines was the way to go. The analysts never understood, as Steve Jobs did, that Apple is not a software company. That where Microsoft believes that the profits are in the software, that only works if your goal is to be the Wal-Mart of the computer industry... brand dominance by quantity, not quality.
We saw what happened when Apple licensed out its OS... it was a total disaster. Apple's strength was not the OS alone. They have always been a hardware company that made an operating system only because it allowed them to manage every level of the user experience in one integrated package. No other PC manufacturers have this advantage, and must instead rely on only the hope that a third party OS manages to work just well enough with zillions of third party apps and drivers so that consumers aren't driven away. Well, they're being driven away now... and they're going to Apple. Maybe not in a flood, but one by one they're popping up at Apple's doorstep because the iPod has shown them what a tightly integrated hardware and OS can do -- when it's done right, anyway.
But could it have been done right if Apple won the suit? I don't think so. By the time it would have happened, Steve Jobs was out of the picture, and Jonathan Ive hadn't yet carved a place as Apple's product design genius. At the time of the 9th Circuit's decision, Spindler was CEO. There's every likelihood that then-bloated and corporatized Apple would have gained some market dominance but would have played it just as complacently as Microsoft has.
The fact is, the underdog position Apple has held has been very good for pushing them to require better design than Microsoft and Apple's PC manufacturing competitors like Dell, Toshiba, HP, etc. It's possible the company's premature financial success, at a time when Spindler and Amelio were more concerned with turning out "beige boxes" just like the next guy, would have pre-empted any return by Steve Jobs and Apple would not have emerged as the brand zeitgeist to which all other companies designs aspire. Today, while they do not dominate the market in terms of sheer volume, they dominate the market in brand perception, regarded as the most desirable brand by consumers across all products of all types. They have a reputation for quality that PC manufacturers do not. They have a following that PC manufacturers do not. So strong is this following that Apple was forced to announce its iPhone before FCC filings because there's a voracious appetite for Apple rumors. Can anyone imagine throngs of consumers digging through FCC filings to be the first to announce what Motorola's next new whiz-bang product is going to be?
So, would a partnership with Microsoft be good for Apple or Microsoft? No. Not only would it risk Apple's name being dragged in the mud by inferior multimedia standards managed by a company that doesn't have half the design aesthetic or QC concerns that Apple NEEDS to have. Microsoft can make a shitty product and sit back and watch people have no choice but to buy it... Apple has to work to impress people
It wouldn't work for Microsoft either. They've had this fanciful notion that they can make people love their feeble attempts at multimedia domination simply by latching on to Apple's superior product. Where's the benefit for Apple? We already tackled that one. Ok, what happens to both Apple AND Microsoft when customers see
Re:I know... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad the mods were wise enough to mod you down - any OS can suffer that - in Unix and Linux it's called a Kernel Panic. And yes, I've seen enough Kernel pancis in Linux to know that it can happen in any OS...
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Re:I know... (Score:5, Funny)
*No, I didn't actually mean that.
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Come to think of it, all of the kernel panics I've seen over the past five years have also been
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Or with MS, on the Zune, for that mattter?
Why aren't they open to begin with? My guess is, because the OS isn't up to the task.
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