Posted on 01/25/2011 10:38:53 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Pointing nearly 10 years back to a game console as a big win for Microsloth is not the way to inspire confidence in today’s enterprise market.
If this is another Zune, as seems likely, it will be a money-burning laughingstock with 5% market share. If it is another Windows Vista or Windows Me, it could bring the company down.
Things change, as you say, and the biggest change I see is the speed with which companies are jumping into the Apple boat.
Commence the campaign. Seriously. Looks like MS could have the edge if basing it on total application ability. And replaceable battery packs one would think are a must. Verse, better performing operation system, higher reliability of system to crashing. But will the MS system still experience crashes. Probably so. Two different worlds. Two different users base in some ways. Both sharing a lot of commonality in the functional aspects of applications.
NVIDIA Tegra 3, equipped with 1.5GHz quad-core madness, teased by a familiar slide
All MS has to say is this:
I. Can. Do. Two. Things. At. Once.
Endgame.
Dunno why people would pay what they do for an ipad when they can pay 100 bucks more and get a fully-functional laptop.
I saw your posting on the Tegra3 yesterday. Some powerful processors indeed. NVIDIA appears it will be a strong player in the years to come in many aspects of CPU/GPU designs.
You simply do not understand.
Laptop sucks as a mp3 player, movie player and game machine. Sure, you CAN do these things, but it’s simply the wrong tool for the job. Laptops are -95% productivity devices.
iPad is great at entertainment, but awkward with productivity tools (Word, PowerPoint and Excel type suites). Sure, you CAN do them, but it’s simply the wrong tool for the job.
Like comparing a motor scooter to a lawn tractor
You mean like Vista and Windows Mobile 5-6? How about developing Vista and Zune? How about Win7 and Win7 Mobile? Historically speaking, whenever MSFT tries to attack on multiple fronts, they fail miserably - I attribute this to micro-managment. From the outside looking in, MSFT has failed to innovate more and more over the years.
Granted, you cannot accuse MSFT of being an innovation center; practically every product they have is derived off someone else's product. Windows from Mac, Excel from Lotus 123, MS Word from Wordstar, Zune from iPod, Windows CE from Symbian, Win7 Mobile from iPhone. But, it seems like their 'copy-cat' efforts are falling further and further behind the competition.
I liked Vista. Set it up myself. You spend about 3-4 hours doing it. It was a big improvement over XP. I can’t recall a single time that I lost data due to a crash.
The only time I ever had problems with my installation was 5 years later, and that’s since been replaced with windows 7.
What wasn’t to like about Vista? Once you set up your preferences, it’s clear sailing.
As for Win7, I love it, and it works even better with the old legacy programs that I use, all the workarounds are not only intact but are less of a hassle to set up as they were under Vista. So it gets a big thumbs up from me.
Again, you failed to answer the question. I’m not going to pay 300 bucks for a platform that is both weaker and far less useful than what I already have. If I wanted to have a coaster to put drinks on, or a picture frame, sure.
But I can get all that and more for 400 bucks easily. If I wanted a scaled-down version, I could get that for the same price and I’d get a keyboard to go with it.
That I can only do one thing at once, is frankly primitive. Sounds like the old Apple IIEs that I used in school when I was a kid.
MP3 player? It’s great. I don’t have to shell out for another device, it plays things well enough, and I can get stuff done.
Games? Don’t make me laugh. Seriously? I thought that too, and then when I started using a laptop for my gaming, I realised that the big benefit to portability is that you can go somewhere else and play games with a friend without most of the hassle.
It’s not great for some games, anything that would require say a joystick. But I’d say for 95 percent of it, that it does everything I would need it to do.
Movie player? Sure it ain’t a big screen, but I can sit on the couch and watch movies. I can even put captioning on them.
I’ve used it for all three, and I like using my laptop and I have come to prefer it over other things.
Ipad, you can’t play music and do something else. You can watch movies, but it’s about the same as my laptop. So no advantage there. Games, well and away for a laptop. Heck most games aren’t even ported to the mac.
So the only thing that an Ipad can do at the same level of usability as a laptop is for movies, and it can’t store as many as a laptop can. So it does nothing well.
You lost me. Pay $300 for a platform that is less capable? Huh? If you are comparing against the MacOS - that’s hardly $300 for Snow Leopard - it’s in the $150 space.
The hardware requirements on Win7 are GENERATIONS higher than what you had on XP - so it’s little wonder that Win7 works faster on legacy products. Kinda like comparing your 4 cyclinder Model T to a V-8 Chevy.
Historically speaking, MSFT has failed to develop multiple platforms simultaneously. Consider the relative size of MSFT and Apple. Apple produces not only the hardware, but the software - and has a competitive product for pretty much every product MSFT has. And yet, Apple innovates.
* iPod vs Zune
* iOS vs MSFT Touch screen drivers
* AppleTV vs ?
* iPad vs ?
* iPhone vs. Windows Phone
I expect more from MSFT, given their relative size, their relative resources and leadership - MSFT is failing miserabley.
Now add some other factors. Apple is lead by Steve Jobs, but Steve is also the involved in running Disney; and this is a man who kicking butt while fighting for his life with Pancreatic Cancer.
How often to you take your laptop with you on a trip? Do you use it on a flight? And, when you do - how many hours do you expect to get with it?
I didn’t say you CAN’T use your Laptop as a movie player, MP3 player, or entertainment machine. I said it generally sucks. Why? The laptop is cumbersome, the keyboard is in the way, it’s heavy and the battery life is miserable. Maybe you are an exception; but I fly A LOT. I see people lugging their laptop on the plane and putting it above their seat - then breaking out their iPod to listen to music, or watch movies on the 4 inch screen.
I pack my laptop in my luggage. It’s heavy, and if I open it on my seat tray - if the person in front of me reclines, if I’m not fast the screen will get damaged.
The iPad weighs 1.5 lbs. I get a battery life of about 11 hours on a charge. I have read more books on the Kindle and iBook software in the past year, than I have with paperbacks. Instead of lugging a book, I lug a package the size of a magazine. I have 42 movies, 2,200 MP3’s, 30 books and 82 Games on me at any given time. No keyboard to get in the way - the iPad is a LEISURE device.
Sure, I could put this on my Laptop - but it would be miserable. That’s why people buy a Kindle AND a Laptop - because reading books on the Laptop forces you to sit in 1 position and the keyboard is in the way. Battery life aside - the reading, movie watching experience and general useability of a Laptop sucks, when compared to the smaller, lighter and better screen on the iPad.
The Laptop excels at mobile productivity. I can take my laptop into my hotel and crank out expense reports, review designs, approve schematics and BOM’s, and prepare a presentation for managment. This is Productivity.
I can do the above on my iPad - but it sucks. Why? Well, unless I connect a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse - the task is miserable. Again, why? Well, I have only a 10 inch screen to work with, vs 17 on my Laptop.
For productivity - the laptop excels, but for leisure it’s almost impossible to beat the iPad.
Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need a pliers. This doesn’t mean that the hammer or pliers are better/worse - they are simply different tools, for different purposes.
It’s my primary communication device. I’m deaf so I can’t use phones.
The Ipad is useless to me because I cannot put messenger on it and use instant messenging at home while I am trying to do other work.
Yeah, I do take a laptop with me, and no I don’t use it on the plane. However, it has been indispensible when driving and using it to get from point A to point B, and still being able to work on the road.
Not having a replaceable battery is another sore point.
Having had to live and work with desktop computers, a laptop has been a tremendous boon to me. I can’t really understand the complaints wrt portability.
A keyboard doesn’t get in the way with my games, nor does it really for reading. I enjoy reading on my laptop and having access to all kinds of sources.
I’m comparing a laptop purchase price (I’ve bought used 400 dollar ones) for the road, with the IPAD.
The OS comes bundled in with it.
As for WIN7, it is more reliable, and considerably so than XP. Fewer crashes. I’ve been a heavy user of both, and I’ve yet to see WIN7 drop for any reason whatsoever.
So call me a satisfied customer. I had my doubts about Vista, but comparing my Vista machine’s reliability over 5 years as compared with 10 years with XP, and it was no contest. That convinced me.
You bring up some very intersting points.
You require a high speed input method (Keyboard) - so I can see where the iPad would be a poor choice. And the small screen makes having multiple windows both impractical - but this is not a feature the iPad performs.
The battery is good for about 10 hours of serious use - I take mine to work with me, I read books on it. My job has periods where my reports need to be digested, and until the report is digested - I cannot move forward. So, I read on my iPad. I use it daily.
The battery has lasted 1 yr so far, of daily use. I fly with my iPad exclusively (laptop in luggage) and can check flight status, email, and keep myself entertained on my flights. Jailbreaking my iPhone allows me to surf the net practically anywhere there is AT&T coverage (that means in very limited areas). :-)
When the battery does fail to store a charge - Apple charges a flat fee of $95 for a refurb iPad. So, I simply swap my iPad for a fresh one - and connect it to my PC and in about 45 minutes I have a complete and full replacment.
In your case, I can certainly see where the iPad would not be all that benefitial, as you need the keyboard for easy communications. And unless you keep a bluetooth keyboard as part of the case - the iPad simply wouldn’t work.
Points well taken.
It’s not a bad machine.
Oh, you should upgrade to the new Revis model. Unlike AT+T, it covers everywhere. ;)
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