I went to a talk by author Steven Levy at the Apple Store in SOHO on his new book "The Perfect Thing." (Sorry I have no stills or video of this event - wish I did.) However, he had a Zune player with him - a brown coloured unit. Brown? And this is the cool factor that's supposed to compete with the iPod?! Yeah right! Steven briefly, well it was way shorter than a brief, more like a sentence or two - talked about it. And one of the features which is supposed to give the Zune an edge was the WiFi capability. Users could use this feature to transfer files and songs between devices. There is a limit to this transfer of files in that they can only be played 3 times or can be stored on the unit transferred to for up to 3 days, which ever comes first. This is not to cancel the Zune out altogether. On the contrary, it still however has very good potential and will surely be an area that "mister softee" (thanks Ken Ray) is going to pursue aggressively.
The date for the release of the way overlong delayed Microsoft Windows Vista, microsoft's new O.S., was announced earlier this week. The date is set for 11.30.06. Wow-wee!! So we're seeing the release of two new products by microsoft both in the same month. This version promises, much like the Zune player, to be an imitated version of an Apple product - Apple OS X Tiger. Definitely no B.A.S.F. here. But Vista does look impressive and promising. Why wouldn't it being a surfaced xerox'ed version of Tiger. For those of us who are not developers,magazine writers or techno-critics and so never got a pre-released version, we wait to see exactly how Vista performs and how it fares against Apple's Tiger.
Another initiative and sort of a first for Microsoft is its deal with Novell (makes of Suse Linux). In a New York Times article titled "2 Giants In a Deal Over Linux" (Friday November 3, 2006), it was suggested that this was a strategic move by microsoft in response to the recent Oracle-RedHat deal. This also comes in part, as analysts suggest, by customer demand and consideration.
What Does This All Mean?
With these 3 latest moves by Microsoft we can see them positioning themselves to compete more aggressively on increasing fronts. Should they be a force to fear on those levels? Not for another few years as those initiatives take time to have effect.
We end-users welcome Microsoft into the race. With this increased competition means more variety and increased choices, greater innovation and price wars leading to cheaper/better priced products. Maybe we may finally see the release of that long awaited true iPod Video and iPhone. Company's now cannot wholly rely on brand loyalty by customers, especially if the next guy has a better product. The whole reason we love the iPod so much is because it is a much better product than the others out there, not because it was made by Apple. They now have to better the next guy to retain loyal customers and to avoid defectors. And for Apple that means enough little twerks and querks of the iPod Nano already - how many Nano's can we have? - and give us something new already! We, I certainly, look forward to iTv, the iPhone, true Video iPod and the many other new products that you took out patents and are diligently working on.
Microsoft is expanding, continuing to grow and is a legitimate threat to any arena it enters. Just look at the game consoles. They are becoming even more formidable as they forge alliances, add products and services to their arsenal. We no doubt should expect and brace ourselves for greater products and developments from "mister softee". Shareholders are the ones to benefit as well as share-prices are positively affected, and in the process attract even more funding to their projects.
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