Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 25th Jun 2012 08:50 UTC
The New York Times further fans the flames of the emerging uneasiness between Microsoft and its hardware partners. As the paper reports, Microsoft decided it needed to get into the hardware game (with Surface) after the utter failure of HP's Slate 500 Windows 7 tablet. "Microsoft worked with other hardware partners to devise products that would be competitive with the iPad, but it ran into disagreements over designs and prices. 'Faith had been lost' at Microsoft in its hardware partners, including by Steven Sinofsky, the powerful president of Microsoft's Windows division, according to [a] former Microsoft executive." The biggest news is not Surface itself. It's the changing industry it represents. Microsoft failed to deliver capable smartphone/tablet software, which pissed off OEMs, who, in turn, turned to Android (and webOS for HP) - which in turn pissed off Microsoft, leading to Surface. Had Microsoft gotten its act together sooner, we'd have had far better OEM products.
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Member since:2005-11-15
The problem for OEM is that to be recognized and stay relevant you need to somehow differentiate. And what is the easiest way to do that? Software layers modifications. Their thinking is simple: people acquainted with some added features may stick to them and teach others to do so too. Their failing point is that most of the things they modify/add is crap.
Probably would be wiser to invest more on build quality and services around the device but, guess what, few of them have the resources to do that and some that have are afraid because the bigger risk associated. These are precisely the Apple strong points. Also, they would compete with their front vendors, the telcos and ISP. Not an easy task if you are not that big.
So, really, if you are doing hardware and is not Apple, Samsung or perhaps some 3 to 4 others more, you do not have that much choice.
RE[3]: Microsoft's fault?
by Neolander on Mon 25th Jun 2012 12:24
in reply to "RE[2]: Microsoft's fault?"
Member since:2010-03-08
It is possible to differentiate through hardware quality and software stability though.
Until Nokia got Elop'd and fell into software madness, I used to recommend their phones for their sturdiness and the good stability/feature set equilibrium provided by s40 and Symbian for the price. Similarly, I strongly suggest friends not to buy Acer laptops due to their horrible build quality.
Edited 2012-06-25 12:24 UTC
Features
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Member since:
2005-07-08
And as I mentioned in my post, this is something OEMs will always do regardless of the OS being used.
Just look at what they are doing with Android, or did with Symbian, or the Linux distributions created for the first wave of netbooks.
They will always try to diversify somehow.