iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus 1017
bblazer writes "Wired is running an article about how despite the displeasure of management, the iPod is the most popular music player on the Microsoft campus. The article states that 80% of those who have digital music players have an iPod. Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it."
headphones (Score:4, Informative)
Could be, or maybe they just don't want to get mugged. White iPod headphone do a great job of saying "I've got an expensive, easy to steal piece of electronics on me."
Also, iPod headphones suck. after half an hour my ears started hurting with the old ones.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft bought a small amount of non-voting stock in Apple some time ago as part of a deal that kept IE and Office on the Mac platform.
Microsoft has long since sold those shares, at a fair profit I might add.
Microsoft doesn't own any part of Apple at present.
Re:Why iPod anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
Most PDAs I've used just don't have the battery life that a dedicated device has. I know mine doesn't (HP iPAQ 1945), although that is the low end of PDAs anymore.
Re:Why iPod anyway? (Score:2, Informative)
MSN Music employee here... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:headphones (Score:1, Informative)
Well, I am inclined to disagree [timesonline.co.uk].
experiencemore must be an internal site... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:as usual, take wired with a grain of salt (Score:1, Informative)
""About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's pretty staggering.""
then Kahney goes on to contradict himself:
"The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player -- that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft's corporate campus."
It doesn't translate to that - it translates to 80% of 16,000 which would be 12,000. Still a significant number.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
However, in their haste to hype a "Microsoft buys Apple" story, the press often ignores three important facts about the purchase:
1. They were non-voting shares.
2. $150 Million is a very tiny percentage of Apple's publicly-traded shares.
3. Microsoft has already sold them off, and made a huge profit doing so.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they are not disproportionately Macintosh users compared to the rest of the software industry (unless they work for MacBU). No, they do not hate their employer. No, they are not more likely to use Firefox compared to other software professionals at other companies.
I base this on having worked there in the past.
Re:experiencemore must be an internal site... (Score:3, Informative)
http://experiencemore is likely just an internal pointer to this site [microsoft.com]
For your information, the same applies for mail servers, so if I send an email from this mail server using the local email service (not a webmail thing like hotmail) I can send an email to a person by sending it to user@engmail for example which, to a person outside the University network would have to user@engmail.uwaterloo.ca
Hope this was helpful, if you already knew, I'm not trying to sound condenscending...
Re:as usual, take wired with a grain of salt (Score:3, Informative)
80% of MS employees have a player.
80% of those employees have an iPod.
Total number of employees on campus is 25,000.
(0.8)(0.8)(25,000)=16,000
The original article is correct.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
There is also the other factor of exposure to Apple products. The more consumers that buy Apple iPods, the more that may just buy a Mac Mini, eMac, iMac, iBook or PowerBook. That means less revenue to MS for their OS cash-cow.
I personally hope Apple kicks their butt with the iPod and become the defacto digital music format. The latest home DVD player I bought can play MP3's and WMA files. Maybe the next-gen of DVD players will drop WMA and pick up AAC w/FairPlay.
MS has a lot to lose if they don't control the major digital music format.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:3, Informative)
Henry Ford invented the assembly-line which made mass-production of automobiles possibles.
That is, if you wanted one in black.
Apple did not invent the MP3 player.
Apple mass-marketed an MP3 player that looekd good, was easy to use, and had the features consumers were craving.
And no, the iPod doesn't *just* work with the iTMS.
I use mine regularly with sites such as eMusic, Magnatunes, and other MP3 sites. iTunes likes those files just fine.
Re:as usual, take wired with a grain of salt (Score:3, Informative)
No, it doesn't. God, how many times do we have to do this? The article may not be perfectly written, but here's what it says.
"The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player."
and
" 'About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod,' said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. 'It's pretty staggering.' "
Got it?
Re:apple doesn't "innovate" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1, Informative)
This is the thing with Quicktime, it is a container file. It is HEAVILY patented on many layers. Steve Jobs didn't own the patent, but he had the inside scoop while he was with NeXT as a former Softie that have moved on to this company had wanted to give him a laugh about his former company that fired him.
As for owning a patent, you can buy and sell patents at will. The inventors name will be on it, but seriously, you don't know what you are talking about.
As for bankruptcy -- Apple was never near bankruptcy. This is an urbal legend. They own quite a bit in Silicon Valley propery -- the physicial dirt. At the worst, this dirt was worth almost as much as the intellectual properties and the products they had -- but they could have lived off the rent at the time. The dirty secret of all this is that when their stock was at its lowest, the hard cold properties were worth far more than all the stock valuation combined. It was said that the family of al Saud had actively tried buying the company because it would have been like buying the land for pennies on the dollar. They could have stripped the assets and turned the company back over and still made a lot of money.
As for extortion, yes and no. If you tell your sister you are going to publish naked photos of her and her boyfriend if she doesn't pay you $100, thats extortion. If you advertise these same photos to the highest bidder -- or merely the first $100 that lands in your lap with your sister having the right of first refusal, its not. Big difference for what ammounts to the same thing. Throw a lawyer into the mix, and most likely it is extortion, but legal extortion. Very few settlements actually ever make it to court. The preferred method to dealing with civil cases is to have it mediated outside the court first, before the courts will ever look at it. If this isn't the case, many judges will order a mediation and order the proceedings closed until such time as both sides meet privately -- and generally with a stern warning that they are not to waste the courts time again.
As for Apple Fan-boy, I might be. I've also been a consultant to both Microsoft and Apple at a number of times over the last 10 years. I was in Cupertino a three weeks ago. I like dealing with Apple far more than I like dealing with Microsoft, but at the same time, I like the checks Microsoft pays out a little more. They pay on time, and generally don't negotiate on the bill. But its all good.
Again, I am a Coward, so take this as you might.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)
I was curious, so I looked up the 10-Q [edgar-online.com] for Apple in summer of 1997..
Even though they were struggling (year over year), they still had over $1 billion in cash assets, $212 in short term investments, $1.2 billion in A/R .. this compared to around $1.9 billion total current liabilities.
Granted, compared to the latest 10-Q [edgar-online.com] you can see they are definitely more financial secure right now.. but at the time, I don't think they necessarily needed the cash infusion to stay afloat -- they still had quite a bit of flex room.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Changing headphones isn't so bad.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)
Sigh... we've been through this before [slashdot.org]
Apple demanded $1.2 billion from Microsoft for alleged patent infringements...
The negotiations that resulted led to a strategic agreement between the two companies in August 1997, one part of which called for Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple and for Apple to install Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the default Web browser for its customers... As part of his videotaped deposition, however, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates testified repeatedly that his primary goal was to resolve the patent issues with Apple and obtain a patent cross license.
Straight from the horse's mouth [archive.org].
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:2, Informative)
To use the ipod as USB storage you don't need any drivers (it's just a normal usb disk). To copy songs from/to the ipod, you do need an application that handles the ipod's music database (a few simple files on the ipod's usb-mounted disk), but there are several which you can put on the ipod itself [yamipod.com] and therefore have available to you where ever you go. Even if you really can't get any sort of program to run (e.g., a solaris box mounting it as a usb volume), you can still copy the music files normally, though you'll have a slightly harder time finding them, because the ipod renames/moves them to speed up the UI.
Honestly, if your player doesn't have a centralized database, it will have a slow UI. The only way to quickly display meta-information (song title, and so on) is to have it in a central database. Otherwise you spend several seconds waiting for a menu to show up each time you make a selection.
Ofcourse, if you're looking at the DMC offerings, likely you just want something to tinker with, and the ipod is definitely not good for tinkerers.
Re:This makes no sense... (Score:3, Informative)
I've disabled and even removed CD drives from machines. Usually, it's because I was making a kiosk that would sit in a public place. However, I can remember one instance where the employee kept loading games onto his machine (ones that could be run after copying, without an install, so locking down permissions didn't help).
The guy complained his computer was slow and getting errors, and it turned out to be a bunch of games running in the background. When we told him to close his games, he complained to his supervisor that we wouldn't "fix" his computer, and we explained to the supervisor that he was playing games. Rather than fire the guy outright, the supervisor asked us if we could keep him from playing games. I disabled his CD drive.
So all I'm saying is, having worked in IT but not knowing the specifics of this situation, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there's a reasonable (non-draconian) explanation as to why they wouldn't allow employees to use their computers for playing music.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:2, Informative)
gtkpod [sourceforge.net] is a GPL'd program that does just that. Works quite well with my 4th generation ipod and linux.
M$ paid for my iPod (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think this is a big deal on campus, and I suspect most people replace their headphones because the ones that come with the iPod aren't all that great.
Paul "I Love Microsoft FOR LIFE" Thurrott's reply (Score:4, Informative)
"Hide The Truth, Here Comes Leander Kahney
Leander Kahney is a reporter for Wired News. I've been doing a little research into him lately, after being hugely disappointed with his book "Cult of Mac," which is a collection of his Mac-oriented Wired articles. The problem? Kahney's not into facts. Instead, he likes to sprinkle his articles with anecdotal evidence and quotes from a single source, which he then sells as facts. No big deal, right? I mean, that's what most bloggers, tech new aggregator sites, and Mac news sites do too. Sure. But the problem is that Kahney writes for Wired. And thus, he is representing a respected source. That is, people believe this crap."
Read more @: http://www.internet-nexus.com/ [internet-nexus.com]
Honestly, who in the right mind would want to believe Paul Thurrott?
Has Paul Thurrott even realized that he is the Rush Limbaugh of Microsoft?
Re:Hold it right there, pre-iPod HD players? (Score:3, Informative)
Or, possibly, reading the fucking manual.
The scroll wheel is shaped like a doughnut, right, with an inner edge and an outer edge. If you run your finger around the inside edge of the wheel, the cursor moves quickly. If you run your finger around the outside edge it moves more slowly. If you run it in the middle, it moves at a speed between the two extremes.
Back when the Mac was first introduced, it came with a fairly lengthy tutorial on how to use the mouse. It taught people things like "if you reach the edge of your desk, pick the mouse up and move it back to the center." If you didn't have this instruction, you'd be just as frustrated with a mouse as you are with a scroll wheel.
(As for the rest of your blather
Headphones for stealth? (Score:3, Informative)
They hurt and if you have to take them out - which, being a portable device you probably will frequently - they have to be held onto or something so they don't flop to the ground. Get a set of headphones that have some sort of connection between the two earpieces so they can be quickly hung around your neck and then replaced just easily.
Newsflash Apple, people's ear canals aren't round.
I prefer Sony MDR-A44L's over anything but currently it costs half as much to have another pair shipped (mine finally broke after 5 years of abuse) as it does for the headphones themselves. Like $15 headphones with $7 shipping. grrrrr
My second favorite pair is are these Yamaha studio-like ones that are remarkably light and comfortable enough to wear for 8+ hours (as are the MDRs), but with a 6' cord. However they are basically like a pair of ear muffs they can make your head too hot in a hot room (my office is).
I miss my MDRs.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it does, although I believe that with Windows you can still see the 'hidden' folders. To get around this with OS X, you can:
Launch Terminal
Type 'ln -s
You now have shortcuts to all the music on your iPod via the 'My_Temp_Files' folder, which is located on your desktop, for convenience.
To copy, again from the Terminal:
cp -R
(tig)