Out of the Box

Those who say that desktop operating systems are irrelevant because the Internet is the center of the computing universe are too reductive (Using Ubuntu much, Mike?). Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo is, for the foreseeable future, more of a tactical move within the fast-growing and high-stakes online advertising battle vs. Google rather than some panacea.

That said, the other day I noticed that, of the 20 applications in my Start menu, I use 14 to interact with content over a local network or the Internet. The 14 are Internet Explorer and Outlook, Firefox, TiVo Desktop, Trillian, SlingPlayer, iTunes (where I regularly browse the store), Windows Live Writer, Slacker, Twhirl, XDrive Desktop, and VPN, wireless broadband and Wi-Fi utilities, Almost all of them are either available for the Mac or have quality Mac equivalents.

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Today Microsoft and Adobe announced that Flash Lite will be licensing Flash Lite and Reader LE for Windows Mobile devices. Flash Lite may not be able to accommodate everything that the desktop Flash player can do, but its inclusion should open up the door to more content viewable on Windows Mobile devices. Of course, Microsoft has its own competing standard for such content in Silverlight, but with its arrival on mobiles not slated for some time and with Silverlight still not able to read Flash content for some time, so I see it as more than a stopgap measure.

Adobe has seen a number of operators, such as Verizon Wireless here in the U.S., use Flash Lite as a platform for user interfaces. Enabling Windows Mobile to include such functionality should make that operating system a more viable contender for mainstream handsets.

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Over at Coding Horror, my  old friend Jeff Atwood has a great post about Vista’s file copying performance and why consumers perceive it to be slower than XP’s despite an improved algorithm and solid benchmarks. It’s yet another chapter for the operating system that is struggling against formidable competition, it’s predecessor, and abetted by a parent doing what it can to make its unaccepted child more popular while still supporting its older brother.

In any case, it’s great reading for user interface developers.

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Last May, I posted a response to a Randal Stross piece that I thought unfairly compared Apple and Sony stores. However, his Digital Domain piece today on how Microsoft should buy a large business software company such as SAP instead of taking on Google has me scratching my head.

Mr. Stross advocates that, rather than taking on a strong and nimble competitor such as Google, Microsoft should stick to its knitting and acquire a large software company such as SAP as opposed to another strong Web player such as Yahoo!, which one of his sources characterizes as “an old-style Internet access, in decline, and at a premium.”

This is like a trainer recommending that a boxer with a black eye lift more weights to improve his arms..Buying SAP may lead to further consolidation in Microsoft’s strongest market, but it does little to help it gain ground on the Internet advertising gold rush that Microsoft fears Google will use to launch applications that compete with its cash cows. Following Mr. Stross’s advice would effectively mean withdrawal from the online space. There’s a case for Microsoft spinning off that business, but for now Microsoft still sees the Web as its manifest destiny.

If Microsoft were to buy an enterprise vendor to address the Google threat, it should be salesforce.com. Such an acquisition would enable Microsoft to make a stronger foray in software-as-a-service. It could offer real applications to counter what Google might only hope to build one day under the pressure of an offering that is difficult to shoehorn into its free, consumer-focused, ad-driven model

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Rumors are circulating that Bill Gates will announce in what may be his final CES keynote that Microsoft will add HD-DVD to the Xbox 360. Microsoft has presented arguments against doing so in the past, offering that game players should not have to pay for a technology that they don’t need. At the same time, though, Microsoft has gone upmarket with the the 360 Premium configuration, and the addition of a larger hard drive contributes no more to the Xbox gaming experience as an HD-DVD drive would. Microsoft has already reduced the price of the external drive; an integrated one would be a logical next step as the component costs have come down.

There’s also the factor of how many external Xbox HD-DVD drive buyers would have preferred to have the internal drive rather than add another box to a crowded home theater, or how many are resisting purchasing an external drive for that reason. Furthermore, while the tie ratios of Blu-ray movie titles to the PlayStation 3 can be debated, there is ample evidence that many PS3 buyers are purchasing at least a few movies, and the HD-DVD camp simply can’t ignore the high volumes of the PS3 Trojan horse. Integrating an HD-DVD drive into at least one 360 Premium configuration is an opportunity for Microsoft to put its machines where its mouth is.

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