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."
Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I found it interesting how clearly the note reveals (what seems to be) Microsoft's general thought process. Never lead, always follow. I mean, how pathetic is this sort of blatant, shameless me-tooism? While innovators like Apple are trying to build the future, Microsoft employees like this guy are trying desperately to catch up... and they still can't figure out how.
Just my two cents from an Apple fanboy. Flame on...
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The iPod is the most popular digital music player. It's fairly like that if you take any subset of the population that the iPod will also be their most popular player.
RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, Microsoft's software is used by dozens of competing music players from manufacturers like Creative Technology, Rio and Sony. Its Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format is supported by several online music stores, including Napster, Musicmatch and Wal-Mart.
Wow, that certainly is surprising... (Score:1, Insightful)
The Ipod owns 80% of the digital media player market.
Of the MS employees who own a digital media player, 80% of them own Ipods.
So this means that MS employees are just regular people who happen to work at Microsoft?
This story is analogous to a breaking headline such as "Pizza hut driver seen eating Dominos!" "Adidas executive wears Nike for his morning run!" "Pepsi bottler drinks Coca-Cola at hot dog stand!"
and who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
last time i checked MS doesnt make a portable music player either.
Insight into the campus here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes people can be very petty here.
No (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Why iPod anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing that corp security allows them (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't innovate because they don't NEED to innovate. They know that they can be late to the party on a particular feature or product, and they will still be able to capture the majority of the market, because they can offer two things that no one else can possibly provide:
1.) the strength of the Microsoft name, and
2.) Seamless integration with Windows, a family of operating systems that over 90% of the public uses, and which only one company has full access to the internals of: Microsoft.
If the innovation does not fit into a category that can be exploited in this way, Microsoft can either purchase and rebrand the technology, or develop their own clones and bury the competition in predatory pricing and overwhelming marketing.
Why bother to innovate when it's so much easier not to?
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:5, Insightful)
That, my friend, is known as smart business.
Need an example? Here's a quick one. Tivo and the satellite/cable PVRs. The content providers can do it cheaper, because they don't have those large R&D bills. Tivo, on the other hand, has to produce the product, pay the expenses incurred, and still somehow make a profit.
The innovator is usually the one who ends up going out of business. Apple is (currently) the exception.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why iPod anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
That, and a 1GB SD card comes up on Froogle for $54. This is a third the price of the 1GB iPod shuffle, but does not include the cost of the playing device, which is almost certainly at least $100.
So, you've got a comparably priced solution, with a worse interface, and shorter battery life. Of course, a PDA is still a PDA, in the end.. So it really depends on what feature set you are most interested in.
Anyway, I have a 40GB iPod, which would be about $2,200 in SD cards, and it cost me less than $200 (thanks, freeipods.com)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
reasons why this is an issue for MS (Score:2, Insightful)
example. you work for MS. are you going to tell your parents to buy a Rio with WMA technology or an IPOD.
2. the "eat your own dog food approach" we'll how can you tell if your cooking sucks if your not "taste testing"
3. 7 degrees of seperation.
I.E. MS employees X number of people (i donno exactly how many but we will say 20k for exmaple) the average family is 2.3 people. so 46k people. each of those people has say 10 friends 460k people. and 2 extended families ( round to 5) or...2.3 mil people...
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:1, Insightful)
Open source software in a nutshell.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never worked in fast food, but I have worked in the food-preparation industry. And I can say that I am leery about eating anything from my former employer; and, it has nothing to do with hatred toward my employer. While it was only a summer job to get me through my first year of university, I had an excellent employer and the pay was good. Unfortunately, I saw the kind of sanitation practices that took place during the preparation of food (including, for example, people touching food with licked fingers).
[P]eople who work at many factories refuse to buy products from that factory.
This time I speak not from my own experience, but from that of a good friend of mine who worked at a pipe-fitting factory. While the factory and its management had strict safety protocols (regarding both its employees and its finished products), most employees blatently disregarded those protocols. Many close calls (including falling pipes barely missing people and chemical spills being sealed just in time) resulted from the lax attitude of most employees toward those protocols. More important for the consumer, though, many employees tried to slack off as much as possible, resulting in many pipes that were cracked or otherwise unusable, but were only discovered during the final phase of product quality checks. Arguably, with such an attitude prevalent, some faulty products must make it out of the factory. Hence, I would understand anyone's unease at buying from such a factory after seeing first hand (or, in my case, hearing second-hand) about the safety violations.
Of course, one could argue that such issues would exist at almost any factory or any fast food restaurant (or, almost anywhere, quite frankly), but I suppose something about our perception of a particular location changes after having experienced the issues up close.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
why its an issue (Score:2, Insightful)
On campus, you gotta eat the dog food. Its the only dog food in town. No one else makes dog food. If they did, its five years old.
In the data visualization group, Java was a currio. One member has Java books on his shelf dating back to 1997. That's the last time it was interesting, because its not the company dog food.
So... why is it an issue? Because the blinders are comming off. All that propaganda that the boys and girls are told about the company being the only company, and the only one that does cool things, is starting to look like its passed through a reality distortion filter.
Is there a reason why the bungie guys play golf facing towards the main parking lot?
I remember when Wang had the ad "Wang: the chink in IBM's armor."
How about "Apple: in the ear on Microsoft's eve."
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Factory workers on the other hand... well, let's break that up, those who work in factories that produce foods, they once again see what goes into it... (that's very scary stuff, I've seen what goes into most cookies and crackers... most of the ingredients are also found in windex...) Now as for the other group, they simply know the flaws in the products their factory produces...
In the case of Microsoft, their employees tried their product, found it inferior, and moved on. Don't forget, MS is a huge company, and you'll note the article specifically mentions that the media group is all using MS based players... that's probably due to fear of losing your job, rather than thinking your product is superior... but anyways...
What I'm trying to get at, is that the don't feel hatred to their employeers as the parent tried to imply, they simply know a little too much about the product produced...
Re:Corporate culture "trickles down" that way (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh barf. Who fucking cares? If the original scenario actually happened you know what I would have done? Walked away. You know why? Because I just don't get involved in the petty little bullshit that goes on with workplace drama.
If Suzy is banging Mark after work who the fuck cares? If Amy is wearing the same clothes as Jenny but only less expensive versions I just don't care.
Stupid, petty, childish, work-place drama exists everywhere. There's no need to whine about it online and there's certainly no need to bring it up on Slashdot just because it has MSFT, Apple, and iPod contained in the story.
Use whatever fucking MP3 player you like. Drive whatever car you want. Fuck whoever you want to fuck. Keep your mouths shut about what other people do unless it has some direct impact on your fucking job.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, yeah.
You know who invented the automobile? Depending on how you define the term, there are as many as half a dozen possible answers, none of them later than 1893.
But do you know who really invented the automobile, for all practical purposes? That's right. Henry Ford, in 1908.
Apple is to the iPod as Henry Ford is to the car.
Motorola CEO gave away free phones (Score:3, Insightful)
He was especially pissed at the salesmen, trying to sign the big carriers to promote Motorola phones, who had Nokia's hanging from their belt! Makes sense for the visible people I guess.
Re:Changing headphones isn't so bad.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Shocking! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Insight into the campus here... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
apple doesn't "innovate" (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think Apple does much innovation of that kind anymore. They seem to have taken another track to the typical "lead, follow, or..." paradigm: taking something that exists, and making it cool. Did they invent the portable music player? No, they made it cool and really usable.
Also, just to nitpick: TiVo supplies DirecTV's PVRs. I think TiVo is here to stay. But I realize you could have picked 1000 other examples that supported your thesis.
bottom up versus top down (Score:3, Insightful)
And the posters above who claim that microsoft is not competing with Apple, you're wrong. In a narrow sense, it's true that Microsoft does not sell a portable music device. In a larger sense, Microsoft IS competing with Apple when it comes to digital consumer entertainment platforms.
That is why Microsfot has spent more than a year denigrating the iPod and promoting its "open" audio format and associated MP3 players. This is why microsoft has been pushing "http://www.digitaljoy.com/ [digitaljoy.com]" at CES.
Just because Microsoft does not manufacture Intel hardware, are you going to say Microsoft doesn't compete with Apple b/c Apple sells computers? Sheesh!
Consider your source (Score:3, Insightful)
He went on to state, "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees use more than 640k of ram. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in..."
Because, after all, if someone at Microsoft doesn't recognise people's usage patterns and habits, it can't be true.
Remember, this is the same guy who stated, "3) Pay whatever big money it'll take to get
I don't know what world he lives in. I don't think I want to. I do know they'd have fabulous, sequined and ruffled, faux 17th century french MP3 players with a disneyfied country theme. Kind of like Euro Disney, when you think about it. That's enough to tell me I don't want to live there.
Just because a source contradicts the original, it doesn't make it a good one.
Shhhhh... don't say it...! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:2, Insightful)
The Wright Brothers are given credit for inventing the first heavier than air aircraft, but how often do you see their names attached to a brand?
Mocking Apple because they didn't invent the mp3 based music player (or the online music store) is like discrediting Burt Rutan's work because he didn't invent the airplane.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:2, Insightful)
And there were many MP3 players (both harddrive and otherwise) out before the iPod. Creative had at least half a dozen different models alone.
But by your logic, Al Gore really invented the Internet.
Re:This makes no sense... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some good reasons for this. First of all, it's the rationale that justifies things like web and e-mail filtering, restricting employees from installing spyware, etc. Basically, it's not your computer. It's the business's computer, and they can do with it as they please.
Now, how severely enforced this policy is is a different matter. I've uninstalled spyware and deleted pirated software/music from computers. I've even deleted large portions of legal mp3 collections when a user complained that their computer was "broken", and it turned out their 40 GB hard drive was filled with 35 GB of music. I've filtered out inappropriate web sites and viewed user e-mail without explicit permission from that user. I would usually warn the user, but if it's not feasible, I don't feel that I've wronged them by doing these things.
Why? Bottom line: it's not your computer. If you don't want your mp3 collection deleted, don't put it on the company's computer. If you don't want me to be able to read your e-mail, don't use the company's e-mail. If you don't want me to know what you look at online, don't use the company's internet connection. I tell everyone this upfront, too.
Re:outside their firewall... (Score:4, Insightful)
Microserfs have stated quite a few times that the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) is one of their most profitable divisions. They do little to no advertising for Microsoft Office on Macintosh and most of the innovations for the Windows version of Office are created by the MacBU, being implemented in the Mac version of Office first. Does the Windows version of Word have Notebook view yet?
I'm not at all suprised that you would find a horde of iTunes shared libraries when they have a pretty healthy team working on a profitable product.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:3, Insightful)
In fashion, it goes like this:
1) Armani/Gucci/whomever releases new jeans that are actually worn to the point of looking stained.
2) Next year, Levi's adds this to their lineup as their most expensive sort of jeans.
3) A year after that, you buy them at Wal-Mart from brands you've never heard of in sizes Gucci wouldn't be caught dead making.
In food it goes like this:
A few months ago I was turned onto a food called the Portugeuse Muffin. No idea how it relates to Portugal, but it's become very popular. Made by a company out of Boston and hard to find. Not a few weeks ago I noticed Trader Joes was carrying their own version. And if it sells, I have not doubt that the Thomas Corperation, long established monopoly of the muffin business, will release their own, squashing the small Boston bakery under their unkind heel.
Innovation only lasts so long. MS wants an iPod killer? Maybe. What about Creative? They want one pretty bad themselves.
Re:as usual, take wired with a grain of salt (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Apple employees playing Halo 2 is not a story, since Apple doesn't make anything to remotely compete with Halo 2, a video game only available on Microsoft's Xbox platform.
If however, Apple employees were buying Windows PCs in order to play Halo (the original) which has been ported to OS X [apple.com] then that _would_ be a story.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, Microsoft 'bought' the nonvoting stock to prevent Steve Jobs from suing their ass over blatent rips of Quicktime that was brought to his attention while Owner / CEO of NeXT.
That's odd that Apple doesn't own the patents to Quicktime. Most companies don't allow employees (even CEOs etc) to own such business critical patents, so that they can't leave the company and start taking their royalties etc. Of course this is the probably the case here as well, considering that only the inventor or the company the inventor works for can own an patent (Steve Jobs didn't write Quicktime).
You also mention that Apple had several billion in the bank. Excuse me while I laugh uncontrollably for several minutes. If they had that kind of money in the bank at the time, then they wouldn't have been pursuing bankruptcy on grounds of lack of funds to pay their debtors (which they were set to file bankruptcy right before they got the cash infusion).
One last thing, if Jobs had cancelled the alleged patent suit against MS because of the stock purchase, that would have been extortion.
Interesting version of history the Apple fan-boys come up with.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, the best way to make a competition killer is to let your employees use that competition's product.
Seriously. Microsoft's executives are idiots for trying to clamp down on use of iPods. They should be embracing it. After all, who could possibly be more knowledgable about how to improve on a product than the very people who use that product.
They're getting free market research here. Wanna find out why the iPod is so popular? Ask your own employees who use it. Wanna know when you've succeeded in making a competing product that's better? Take a look at your own campus and see if your own employees are making the switch. If not, keep trying.
The problem is, the culture among Microsoft executives is not one of trying to create the best product, but one of trying to suppress the best product in favour of the Microsoft version.
Re:Changing headphones isn't so bad.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also a competing product becuase MS has the MSN Music Store -- and guess what. It doesn't work with Apple's iPod.
Re:MSN Music employee here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple had the first widespread success with one, but I seem to remember things like the Creative Nomad predating it by a matter of years, so completely untrue.
nobody. Ford was the first to mass produce 'em. There's a huge difference.
Well, "Apple is to the portable MP3 player what Henry Ford was to the car" might be closer to accurate. You've rather overmixed your metaphors and created a bit of a mish-mash.
Re:PC competition for I-Mini dotMAC? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, Cayenne- actually, can I just call you CAY? Because, CAY, a nickname for something, such as "Mac" for "Macintosh" is just a nickname, not an acronym, and with all capitals, readers think it actually is one; when people see me call you CAY, they'll thing it's something like "Computer-Adept Youth", rather than your name.
Clarity really is important, particularly in text communications.
-T
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:4, Insightful)
I have yet to see another HD-based mp3 player that has the entire package: a good player UI, good PC music management software, and an easy way to get almost any sort of music legally from the internet.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlike, say, Apple's pointless, me-too, proprietary FairPlay crapmat?
Re:Its called Group Policies (Score:1, Insightful)
Brand loyalty by employees, or else... (Score:2, Insightful)
- Jasen.
The difference between a smart co and a dumb co... (Score:3, Insightful)
The dumb co will see this and put out a memo telling folks it's a CLM.
Gosh, I wonder which way this will go?
(And yes, I know M$ doesn't build the player hardware, but they _could_.. I mean, they build good HW (xbox, kynds, mice, joysticks)...)
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:3, Insightful)
All Ford did was turn the car from an experiment into a product that was soon owned by millions and that changed literally every aspect of life in the developed world. That's all. Nothing important there. Right?
Apple really didn't invent the hard drive based MP3 player.
For practical purposes, they did. They invented the music player that people actually bought.
Your blah-blah about the "Hango PJB-100" is just about the funniest thing I've read all day. Because, you know, when you say "portable music player," the first thing to pop into everybody's mind is "Hango PJB-100."
How different is this new-for-2005 device in concept than the original portable MP3 players of 1998?
It's incredibly easy to use, and it's $99.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hold it right there, pre-iPod HD players? (Score:4, Insightful)
Haha. Very funny. Sorry, not a fair comparison.
What Apple came up with was a high-capacity affordable music player with an interface that no one has betterted, to date, along with a weight/form/design factor that sits in an optimal tradeoff zone. They also championed a tight integration into a general music suite (as opposed to a separate tool that works on files).
Oh yeah, and then Apple built the music store into the same client that plays the music, organizes the music, and syncs your iPod. So far only iTMS and MusicMatch even try to do this as more than a token gesture, and it's hard to argue for MusicMatch over iTMS.
If that's not enough to make it an "innovation" then I don't know what is. Did carriage builders complain that the automobiel was really their invention, just without the engine and obedient steering?
Re:Shenanigans (Score:4, Insightful)
It rather proves the point of which technology is best, and which is doomed to fail.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, what is Windows XP but one big proprietary driver?
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously doubt MS is even remotely worried about this, since Apple would have to have five or ten times its present sales to even make a small dent. More importantly, I doubt any corporate clients are going to go Apple just because of the iPod and mini. Besides, they probably make as much if not more money from Apple users than they do from Windows users because of the price of MSO:Mac and VPC -- both of which I bought.
Most importantly, however, MS can pull the plug on Apple anytime they want by eliminating MSO:Mac. Fact is, a whole lot of people, myself included, exist in a world dominated by MSO and need to interact with it; if Office:Mac didn't exist, I wouldn't own a PowerBook. Hell, if VPC didn't exist I probably wouldn't, because I also need Access.
Any time MS wants to, they can effectively kill, or at least really marginalize, Apple with their MSO weapon.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not disputing you, because it sounds like something that could happen
But how legal is this?? Surely to god eating at a Pizza Hut can't be considered valid grounds for termination.
Can a company actually try to have sway on the stuff that you do outside of work to this extent? I know they try all the time, but this one just sounds obscene.
Re:Representative of Microsoft's "vision" (Score:3, Insightful)
Your statement is utter nonsense. What you say might be true if he claimed that Ford invented the automobile. What he said, however is that Ford practically invented the automobile after he explicitly stated that Ford did not actually technically invent the automobile. Read literally, his statement could be interpreted as, "Ford invented the practical form of the automobile," which is precisely true, though a little less wieldy. In the same way you could say correctly that Bill Gates practically invented the personal computer (i.e. he invented the form in which most people experience personal computers). Saying that Al Gore practically invented the internet, however, is not a proper comparison, and is simply untrue. Saying Tim Burners-Lee practically invented the internet, however, would make a reasonable comparison even though Burners-Lee didn't actually invent it. To deny this is to imply that the phrase "practically invented" has no meaning in the same way as the phrase "practically got pregnant" has no meaning. If that is what you are arguing, then we'll just have to disagree, but otherwise, you're being overly pedantic about a statement which clearly and consisely expressed what he was trying to express, which is after all the purpose of language. Are you honestly telling me that you couldn't figure out what the great-grandparent post was trying to say. If so, you really must have flunked that reading comprehension test.
Re:Bill buys Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lose the game.
Lose the money invested in R&D.
Lose the money invested in Marketing.
Lose the money investing in MSN music store.
Lose market share in the desktop PC market because of the iPod halo effect.
Lose still more of that reputation that they used to have that they never lose.
Microsoft can certainly lose.
Re:apple doesn't "innovate" (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they invent the portable music player?
See what I mean? No, they weren't the first to make one, they just made a player that had a capacity hundereds of times greater than the flash players of the time, at a fraction of the size of the desktop-hardrive based players such as the Arcos. That's innovation.
Re:Its called Group Policies (Score:2, Insightful)
As opposed to, say, perfect technological security?