My Digital Life

Does Microsoft’s Turnaround with the EU Portend Apple being forced to open up iTunes

After announcing that it was removing the browser from Windows 7; last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft has now offered to include an application which would allow users to choose which browser they would like installed. This paragraph caught my eye:

"EU jurisprudence on tying had long revolved around situations like a maker of nail guns requiring that customers use only its nails, or a milk-packaging-machine manufacturer forcing dairies to buy its cartons. The 2004 Media Player case extended that line of thinking to software. And from there, it was a relatively short step to argue that Internet Explorer, like Media Player, was illegally tied to Windows."

With the news of iTunes 8.1.2 breaking connectivity with the Palm Pre and Palm releasing webOS 1.1 to fix the break (precentral.com) the battle could go on endlessly. Given the Wall Street Journal's jurisprudence statement and iTunes having a 70+ percent market share, could the EU force Apple to open up iTunes to all hardware vendors. On the surface it seems they could, all they need is for someone to bring the case to them. Palm seems the likely candidate, company spokesperson Lynn Fox said:

"Palm believes that openness and interoperability offer better experiences for users by allowing them the freedom to use the content they own without interference across devices and services, so on behalf of consumers, we have notified the USB Implementers Forum [USB-IF] of what we believe is improper use of the Vendor ID number by another member."

It seems that Palm may be on its way to file a complaint with the EU, although by impersonating Apple's vendor id they are currently in violation of their agreement with the USB Implementaters Forum.

If a case is ever brought forward it could take years to resolve, but if I were Apple I would tread gingerly.

”Microsoft hatred is a disease” So Says Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds made this statement during a Linux News interview published this week. I agree and the same is true about Apple hatred or for that matter hatred in general. The basis for the interview was to get the father of Linux reaction to Microsoft's donation of 20,000 lines of driver code to the Linux community. Of course this donation was not altruistic, Microsoft sees Linux as pain in their behind, but they saw an opportunity to help their Hyper V product line by providing better virtualization support in Linux. A win-win situation for both environments. However, some in the Linux community see this as nefarious and that Microsoft must have planted some malware in the code. Let's get real, some of Microsoft's largest customers run Linux and they need to support those customers if they want their business. For individuals to really think that the hate must be so strong that it has turned into a disease. Linus is right on the mark.

 

The Microsoft vs. Apple War is Heating Up (update)

Microsoft has been slowly gearing up its marketing campaign against Apple with the laptop hunter ads, Windows 7, and its retail store strategy. Whether you agree with them or not, the laptop hunter ads seem to be having the desired effect of highlighting the reality and perception of an Apple Tax (Gizmodo) on Mac purchases.

Last week at Microsoft's worldwide partner conference, COO Kevin Turner announced that his office had received a call from the Apple legal department saying "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." (MS press link). He mentioned that this was a true story and I have not seen any denials from Apple. What a bizarre event, why would someone at Apple do this, it does not make sense.

Then, you get very differing views from Gartner and IDC on Mac sales growth and market share. According to MacRumors.com, Gartner sees a 2^nd Quarter Mac sales growth of 2.5% giving Apple an 8.7% market share or .3% better than the second quarter of 2008. IDC on the other hand sees a market share decrease of .9% from the 2^nd quarter of 2008. It will be interesting to see who's right tomorrow when Apple reports its earnings.

The Microsoft's marketing campaign success or failure analysis will start and both camps will throw out talking points, although it will be tough to argue that the economy's state is not part of the mix.

Update 7/21: Well there you have it, Apple announces 2.6 million Mac shipments for the 2nd quarter a 4% increase over the 2nd quarter of 2008. Gartner and IDC where way off. It looks like MS is not having any impact. This is pretty impressive...Now why the weird call to MS, who knows...only Apple.

Exchange Tasks and the iPhone – My Environment for Now

After trying multiple approaches this is my current Exchange 2007 Tasks synchronization with the iPhone, here is my current configuration:

• PC – Outlook 2007 with ToodledoSync
• Web – Toodledo web site
• iPhone – TaskTask (Exchange Task Sync)

Since the only way to currently enable push notifications with Toodledo (they are working on it) is to set the "remind me" flag use the web site, I have decided to use TaskTask on my iPhone to manage tasks. I use a combination of the toodledo web site and Outlook on my PC.

This seems to work pretty well for now; I can add tasks to Exchange with TaskTask and set the "remind me" flag using the toodledo web site. "remind me" flag note: there can be a fluctuation of +/- 5 min on the notification time you set. I receive my push notification 4 minutes before the set time. It would be nice for Toodledo to remedy this, but I understand their concern about potential congestion on their systems and it is better to get an early notification then a late one.

I am also beta testing tasktask 1.1 which has some exciting features including support for Exchange 2003 and flagged email support for Exchange 2007 (this is a big one).

The EU Case against Internet Explorer is Just Plain Silly

There was a time when Microsoft needed to be reeled in; the US and EU did that. Then, they let competition happen, but the EU commission members, who clearly have a bias against Microsoft, had other plans; attack Internet Explorer. What makes this even sillier is that over the past 2 years the market share of Internet Explorer has been shrinking. According to the Wall Street Journal today; "Net Applications, which tracks browser share, Internet Explorer has 66% of the market, while Firefox has 22%. As little as two years ago Microsoft had over 80%".

The case was brought on by Norway's Opera Software ASA, but there was and is no case here. The basic premise of an antitrust case is that a company has such a hold on the market that the hurdles to compete are extreme. This is just not the case here and the statistics prove it.

In response, Microsoft has chosen to remove Internet Explorer from the European version Windows 7. Now the according to the New York Times the EU commission is criticizing the move, because they want to force Microsoft to provide several browser which would not be fair to Microsoft since they would be saddled with potential support costs.

In the end the EU consumer loses out. What next, force Apple into remove Safari from the iPhone…These folks need to find another occupation.

Apple TV’s Lackluster Sales may be the Crack in the iPod Armor Zune HD Needs

With the official announcement of Zune HD, Microsoft may have the opportunity to crack the iPod's armor. Not that I think the Zune HD will be so wonderful, but because Microsoft currently owns the digital living room's eco system. Microsoft's foray and success into the gaming world, with the Xbox, gave them an opportunity to capitalize with a device designed to be connected to the internet and the TV. To Microsoft's credit they are capitalizing on this functionality with the ability to purchase music and videos, stream from NetFlix's online library (1 million Xbox subscribers), and access one's own media center content. Xbox 360 has accidentally turned into the living room media device Microsoft has been talking about forever and according to Silicon Alley Insider is "kicking Apple's butt".

What made the iPod, what it is today was not that it was revolutionary device (there were plenty of MP3 devices around), but the integration with iTunes. Although the iTunes application is not that great (still no multi user functionality), it made the process of purchasing and synchronizing your music with the iPod child's play. That simplicity was a key factor in popularizing the iPod. The same can be said about the X360 marketplace, it simplified the process of purchasing and renting HD content. In addition to its primary mission as a world class gaming console, the integration with Media Center allows the Xbox 360 to be the bridge between content stored on a PC and the TV. The Zune HD will be able to take advantage of this functionality to seamlessly integrate into the Xbox 360 eco system.

If you currently own an Xbox 360 and an iPod, the Zune HD maybe the next device in line, especially when you can convert the DRM free iTunes Plus content. I think the two remaining items Microsoft needs to do to insure the Zune HD's a viable Touch competitor is Xbox gaming as well as Windows Mobile application support. And, of course phone integration.

The Microsoft vs. Apple ad war continues

As you have might have noticed in the last couple of weeks Microsoft and Apple have escalated their ad war, each by returning salvos on the key points they are trying to make.

Microsoft is attacking price for performance (the Apple tax), while Apple is drilling the virus vulnerability, bloatware (not really Microsoft's fault but their hardware partners), and reliability. Both Microsoft and Apple's point views are really based on perception, I could argue both ways, but when it comes down to the eco system (number of applications) and price point I would buy a Windows machine. As I have said many times my Lenovo X60 with Vista is rock solid. That does not mean I have not been eying a MacBook Air (the design is outstanding), but if I spent the money I would surely run bootcamp to have access to all the Windows applications I use. I just priced a Lenovo X301 on sale for $1389 with 128MB solid state drive and 3GB of DDR3 memory, although it only has 1.40GHZ processor which is slower than a 1.6GHZ 128GB MacBook Air ($2,299), but $800 cheaper. $800 for design and a 12.5% increase in processor speed, I am not sure I am game but others might see the value.

What I find interesting are the views from the Apple blogosphere, some the venom against Microsoft is pretty sad (just look at the comments on any Microsoft reporting), however I do have to commend Apple Insider for trying to take a more balanced approach. Even though they are slanted towards Apple, which I understand, they try to provide a both sides. Today they reported a study today by BrandIndex which found; Microsoft overtaking Apple in value perception when Microsoft started airing their ads. In the end the study does not tell us whether it will translate into sales for Microsoft and its partners, but I laughed when I read the last sentence; "Apple is still expected to ship fewer Macs in spring than it did last year but in line with expectations reflecting the economic reality rather than the effect of an attack by Microsoft". This is classic Apple to downplay expectation and probably a smart move.

Word/Excel 2003 to 2007 command reference

Yesterday, I was at a Microsoft Windows 7/Office 2010 presentation and learned about these publically available flash based interactive guides which look to be very useful. Especially, if you are having trouble finding a command in Word or Excel 2007 you knew how to get to in Word or Excel 2003.

• Excel  interactive guide
• Word interactive guide

There are also downloadable versions for Word and Excel.

The complete list of interactive guides is here.

In a nutshell the theme that I got from the Office 2010 presentation is collaboration on any platform. That is about all I can say since the details are still under NDA, but I am pretty excited…

Microsoft may have some bright spots in its quarterly results, but it does not look like Windows Mobile is one of them

With a 23% decrease in revenue, the quarter does not look very good for Microsoft. The only bright spots seem to be:

• Enterprise customers are sticking with the platform,
• SharePoint sales increased over 20%,
• 1.7 Million Xbox 360 consoles sold, almost a 30% increase

There was no real discussion of Windows Mobile sales but with the Entertainment and Device Division reporting a loss with a 30% Xbox sales increase, a plausible explanation maybe that the loss could be attributed to a slowdown in Windows Mobile sales. While Apple touted its strong iPhone sales, Microsoft only mentioned the announcement of Windows Mobile 6.5 which does not bode well for its future as a leading mobile platform.

From the Microsoft investor relations third quarter results PowerPoint presentation.

Before everyone hits the panic button, Microsoft still made $3 Billion in net profits in the last quarter, that is $1 Billion a month and the stock is up 4.76% in afterhours trading.

Apple steps up its ad campaign against Microsoft, rehashing viruses, stability and additional costs

Apple is not sitting idle, while Microsoft hammers away at the price differential (Apple tax); they have released 4 new ads. In 3 of its 4 ads called Biohazard Suit, Legal Copy, and Time Traveler, Apple tries to rehash the same old story about viruses, additional costs, and stability. I don't have a problem with viruses or stability on my Lenovo X60 with Vista Ultimate. On the cost side I would also contend that one would be foolish not to purchase an anti virus/spyware/maintenance suite on a Mac. All it takes is one virus and the Mac is not immune (read the last monthly CERT report), although clearly OS X is not as big a target as Windows. In June Microsoft will be providing virus protection for free and as I posted before there are already free antivirus programs available from companies like AVG. With the Windows Vista PR fiasco, these types of ads have worked before and will probably keep working, although in this economy price may be a bigger is consumer's purchase decision.

The Stacks ad demonstrates the face recognition technology that comes standard in the included iLife application. This a good point, although Adobe Photo Elements 7.0 has the same feature, albeit at an additional cost.

The new ads can be found at the Apple web site.