Almost anyone that trades stocks online or does something related to the stock market to make a living full time is into the latest gadgetry and mobile electronic devices. Everyone I know that works for themselves full time has the usual old style desktop, a laptop, a current iPad, a couple of Android pads that didn’t quite workout, and either an iPhone or a high end Android. On top of what they own individually, their spouse has the same line-up of devices as well. Their kids all have laptops, iPads, iPhones, ands various game consoles – usually more than one.
Does owning this assortment of devices and gadgets make me or anyone an expert? No. But what it does do is make us all understand what we like and what we don’t like.
DOES ANYONE REMEMBER ZUNE? ANYONE?
I personally am over Microsoft (MSFT). I thought the ill-timed Zune was more than ill-timed. It was a stupid attempt to compete with a newly dominant iPod. The iPod did not create the digital portable music player. It perfected the concept into a perfect combination of art and technology. I say digital, yet the first iPods actually had a tiny, yet real ATA-6 hard drive. That was 2001. It takes Microsoft more than half a decade to see that there is a huge product coming out of Apple and they need to get on board. The only problem is that Apple not only created the device; they created a huge marketplace for the downloadable music. And – of course – iTunes downloads only play on iPods. Microsoft was shut out.
Then comes iPhone. Yes, Microsoft had a phone operating system. They actually were smart about this at first. They created there Windows CE about 1996. Then it became “PocketPC 2000.” Finally in 2003 they just started calling it Windows Phone. Personally, I have never had a Windows phone of any kind. I sure looked over these at the time, but my first “email phone” was the first really popular Blackberry, the 7200. I still have that in a drawer nearby.
When iPhone came about, there was this huge built-in audience of iPod users that knew they could stop carrying two devices and go down to just one, the iPhone. They already bought all of the songs they loved from iTunes, so it was only natural. Microsoft seemed to give up on the idea of a really good phone, although they attempted over and over to update their operating system. The shut-out was further continued when Steve Jobs finally went forward with the App store. While Apple originally thought that outside content should come from what they called “web apps” that were simply mobile friendly web sites made to be viewed on the iPhone, somehow that brilliant Jobs mind found this key phrase and everything behind it: “There’s an app for that.”
Android started almost as a silly idea out of Google. No – there were not at all silly about it. It just seemed a bit strange. Like all brilliant ideas, it starts with a brilliant idea and expands into a few years of intense development, then – in total Google fashion – Google just “gives it away” to mobile phone manufacturers. “Here – use this to compete with iPhone” they might well have said. Companies like HTC, Motorola and Samsung began making them. Now they dominate the world’s smartphone market. iPhone dominates the niche of really great smartphones with its very loyal customer base. Google built their app store, called now the “Google Play Store.” They started slow, but now almost every smartphone app maker creates a version for both of the key app stores.
Where is Microsoft? Do they even really have an app store?
HARD CHOICES: IPAD VERSUS SURFACE
Then comes iPad. No, it is not really a hard choice because there was no Surface to compete with at first. It would be many years before Surface surfaces.
I am not going to go into the history of iPad and Android pads. Let’s instead get right into the Microsoft Surface.
This would have been a killer device in about 2008 or so. There was that brief run of really inexpensive and crappy laptops know as “netbooks.” I bought one or two of those before I realized that they were such junk that just starting Windows on any of them put the netbook into slow motion mode. Try opening a program like Word, and you are totally out of luck – unless you have a lot of time.
They did not come out with that then. They waited until 2012. I say “waited” but that is not true. They did not build it in 2008 or 2009. They were working on that killer great operating system, Windows 8. Windows 8 was under development as far back at 2009, and some say that it was actually well under development before windows 7 was released that year.
ASIDE: WINDOWS 8:
I am not going to deviate too much from the discussion on devices here, but I will say that I think Windows 8 will be the biggest mistake in the history of Microsoft when all is said and done. I remember my first look at it in a prerelease version I was able to download as a temporary trial off of the Microsoft website several years ago. I used VMWARE on my Mac and loaded it. I could not believe how silly it looked. Sorry to use that word again, but it was totally absurd. Maybe it might be okay for a touch pad, but certainly not for a desktop or laptop. I kept it on my computer as just something to look at when writing about Microsoft at the time. I hated it. I had grown accustomed to the my Mac Pro, and would never be going back. I had a couple of programs that needed Windows, so I did have Windows 7 on VMWARE – and still do. I don’t know of any program I need any more that requirs Windows. I mostly keep to check compatibility of websites with Microsoft Explorer.
Back to devices – and why Windows 8 is relevant to the discussion:
Like with Zune, they are slowly appearing to back away from Surface. I don’t totally hate the idea of Surface. I just cannot stand Windows 8. I have considered buying a Surface, but I just could not get over how incredibly bad Windows 8 is. My youngest son – now 8 – was using an old Windows PC I converted into an Ubuntu desktop a couple of years back. He was fine with it, but my older son got a hand-me-down MacBook Pro from my wife, so I needed to get a laptop for my younger son. I went ahead and bought him what I though was a decent laptop, although it has Windows 8 (8.1? – like it matters). He has complained and complained. Finally I said to him the other day “you know I can put that Linux Ubuntu on that laptop instead it you want.” He was thrilled. We have not done it yet, but he has spent about two years on Ubuntu and about six months on Windows 8. He is so done with Windows 8, and he wants that change now.
I see what is happening with Microsoft. It was a great company for the first decade or so. They stunned the market with Windows 95. They were so much better at creating an operating system – in the beginning – than Apple that it was just crazy to think in terms of getting a Mac of any kind prior to about 2000. Then something began to happen. The fist issue for me was when in 2002 and 2003. There were computer viruses rampant running around that would kill your operating system dead. That is kill your Windows operating system dead. True that Mac OS was not nearly as popular so the likelihood of such virus spread on a Mac was a bad comparison. Now the market share of Mac OS is moving up and Microsoft – still dominating – is ever so slightly moving down. (The numbers in a Time.com slideshow made it 6.7% Mac OS and 91.5% Microsoft. That’s “desktop.” I am not sure if they calculate in laptops with that. I am certain they do not include mobile devices.) Those viruses made me think I need to move to Mac. I didn’t do it right away, but I eventually would.
WHO THINKS DESIGN WHEN THEY THINK MICROSOFT? ONLY RALF GROENE
A few days ago AP.org published a story about Microsoft and design. It is “MICROSOFT MAKES DESIGN CENTRAL TO ITS FUTURE.”
When I look at and read that article, I see Microsoft putting forward their version of Jonathan Ive. You’ve seen him during many of the huge announcements on stage during the same announcement events where Steve Jobs would throw in “one more thing.” He was and is the principle force in design at Apple.
You’ve seen Ive. Maybe you don’t remember too much about him. If you watch those past presentations, he was integral in support of the product announcement and Steve Jobs.
Microsoft puts forward Ralf Groene. He is the chief designer for the Surface. I am going to share with you the opening paragraph of the Time.com article about him.
“Before Ralf Groene helped devise the look and feel of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, he designed food — or ‘food concepts,’ he says, for people on the go. Among them: dried noodles that come wrapped around a pair of chopsticks; a tubular meal that can be pulled with two fingers from a car cup holder base; and a fork that squeezes out sauce.”
Maybe this is a cheap shot, but I will take it any way. While Jonathan Ive’s designs are in the hands, pockets and on the desktops of people all over the world, where are Groene’s designs?
Where can one find dried noodles wrapped around a pair of chop sticks? Where can I find a tubular meal that can be pulled with two fingers from a car’s cup holder? How would one clean a fork that squeezes out sauce? In all seriousness, I am sure he has a great portfolio of work. I mean that sincerely. But the Surface is nothing special to look at. I have never heard any of my sons or any of their friends say “I’ve got to get the Surface!” They brag about their iPads, their iPhones and their Apple laptops. Never have I seen one with a Surface.
What’s that, Microsoft? Kids are not the target for the Surface? I don’t see companies adopting anything other than iPads for office work. I don’t see parents with anything other tan iPads when they have a pad in public. Get real.
CAN YOU FIX A ZUNE? NO. THE SURFACE? YES – MAYBE
How could the Surface be fixed?
That’s easy. If anyone from Microsoft reads this, here is how you could get closer to selling me or people like me. I liked Windows 7. I did not like having to use a virus protection with every version of Windows, and that ultimately pulled me out of the Windows operating system for good. Do this… Do a new version of Windows that is an update to Windows 7 – and not a build on top of the abortion called Windows 8. Since it is a Surface, you need to integrate in touch screen. The desktop (and it better have a desktop mode and a Start button) should have icons (see iPad or even Android pads for how to use icons on a desktop) . Here’s the dirty little secret when it comes to Android pads. They are not that great. The reason Surface is not taking the market share that Andoid is getting is that Windows 8 is so incredibly bad. You would never beat iPad in the foreseeable future, however, you might sell materially more Surfaces.
I will likely never be a candidate for Surface as I use a Macbook Pro with Windows 8 as my main computer. I tossed out my 2009 Mac Pro (sold it) about six months ago as I could not stand to constantly be switching between using the laptop out of the office and the desktop in the office. I use one device now, totally backed up at all times. I do plan to get a Macbook Air in the next few months as a second computer as I got rid of my 2010 Macbook Air about a year or so back. I loved the size and weight. It was the ultimate anywhere you go kind of laptop. This is what I would buy instead of the Surface. If a great quality Surface was about $350 or so and had a better version of Windows I could stand, I would absolutely buy it as a second machine. Especially if it could be used as an iPad or a laptop. (Excuse me making iPad into a category name, but that is what it has become. Kind of like Band-Aid, Kleenex and Velcro.)
HEY, WE’RE BETTER THAN BLACKBERRY!
Where do I see Microsoft now?
It is not nearly as bad off as Blackberry. MSFT has lots of money in the bank. It has some hugely strong and dominate products. Where it missed the mark is in developing cool products. I have never thought of Microsoft as a hardware manufacturer. That’s why the Surface, the Zune and a few other items never made sense to me. Yes, they have the Xbox systems. Outside of that, there are few really popular hardware items they develop. Am I wrong on this? I don’t think so. The company is MicroSOFT, not MicroHARDWARE. (Yes – another cheap shot that is identical to what others have said in the past.)
MARKETING WINDOWS 8: PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG
Microsoft tries to come in and sell what are often thought of as inferior products though marketing campaigns. It’s the very definition of putting lipstick on a pig. All of the millions they spent on advertising and other marketing efforts for Windows 8 were simply that, putting lipstick on a pig known as Windows 8. No marketing campaign is better than the people demanding a company’s products. Microsoft does not have that with their consumer electronics. Nobody lined up for Zune, did they? Or Surface? Or Windows 8?
I am not optimistic about MSFT as a stock. Of course it will trade for decades and decades. I mean it just does not give me a signal that the company is going to get back into the business of making killer operating systems. Yes, they cut massive number of jobs as they tighten the belt.
MSFT HAS A PRETTY CHART:
It’s not totally okay to say they are doing something wrong when the chart looks this stunning:
That’s the five year chart and it is a beautiful thing to see. I honestly did not see this coming. That said, I don’t this as a trend that will continue.
Even comparing it to Apple, Microsoft has come along well in the last couple of years:
STAGNATION:
I don’t think that trend is likely to continue. Instead I think there are enough issues to start to pull the stock down. If you feel we are in a “bubble” then you might see a more precipitous decline in Microsoft as compared with other issues. Come a market crash, I would much rather be holding Apple than Microsoft. Both have strong cash positions, but Apple is bringing new cash in much more rapidly.
Answering where I see Microsoft as I asked above: Stagnant.
Let me know what you think!