How Microsoft plans to market against the iPad

Mary Jo Foley has managed to dig up a series of presentation slides which demonstrate how MS plans to push back against the iPad.

Despite not really being suitable for enterprise deployment, enterprises are deploying it. Following their last set of results, Apple may or may not be the world's second biggest personal computer vendor – depending on whether or not you consider the iPad to be a personal computer. In any case, Microsoft's core markets are under threat and they need to do something. And as is often the case when companies panic, they do the wrong thing. However, without a credible alternative to the 'magical' iPad, MS doesn't appear to have many options.

Slides full of management double-speak may have been impressive a few years back, but if the success of Apple has taught us anything it is that simplicity is the key. 

Christ why is their strategy so pathetic. Grow some balls and start competing already, Microsoft.

@Bas:

Secure corporate IP: Vague, woolly and judging by Apple's latest hire, very soon to be an unconvincing point. 

Mitigate against lost and stolen device: Since early last year, users have been able to remotely locate and/or wipe their iPads. Seriously, this is the same set of slides they used for their campaign to keep the iPhone out of the enterprise. Not quite sure that was such a great success.

Provide remote assistance: And this is where Microsoft, once again, completely misses the point. Providing remote assistance is easy; what is difficult is designing a machine that doesn't require assistance at all.

The really pathetic thing about this is that Apple isn't really the company they need to worry about: it's Google. Unfortunately, most of the problems they highlight (lack of hardware diversity, security, deployment) have already been addressed by Android, and to make matters work, Google already has an OS that will prove a much better fit for tablets. I guess having no answer for that, Microsoft thought the safest bet would be to attack Apple. History should have told them that this is not a smart move.

For their next campaign, I think they should attack Corel, or Borland: someone who won't leave them punch drunk on the ropes.

@Ray7: I'm sure they know they're not in a great position and are just trying to make the most of what they have. Their real counterattack is with Windows 8 next year; for now, their sales team is stuck fighting a losing battle until the cavalry arrives.

(I'm sure they'll soon have a slide deck for Android too, if they don't already.)

1 hour ago, contextfree` wrote

@Ray7: I'm sure they know they're not in a great position and are just trying to make the most of what they have. Their real counterattack is with Windows 8 next year; for now, their sales team is stuck fighting a losing battle until the cavalry arrives.

(I'm sure they'll soon have a slide deck for Android too, if they don't already.)

Dunno. Sounds like another attempt to shoehorn a desktop OS into a tablet. In order to hang onto backward compatibility, MS is going to come up with something completely unusable. Again.

Still, we shall wait (well, we won't wait, not really) and see.

Besides, a year from now, where do you think the Apple enterprise strategy will be, while MS is still getting started?

Besides, a year from now, where do you think the Apple enterprise strategy will be, while MS is still getting started?

I don't believe Apple has an enterprise strategy. They know they cannot deliver a complete solution without huge swaves of people complaining about it with good reason (much like how Apple won't make a netbook, because they said they can't deliver a sub-$500 laptop that won't suck), so they simply don't compete.

Now it's co-incidental that the iPhone is popular in business because the UX is far superior to Symbian, Blackberry or Windows Mobile, the traditional 'enterprise mobile' platforms. However the iPhone adequately does most of the tasks accomplished on the aforementioned systems. The only difficulties are with internal application development, so Apple made a small effort in supporting enterprise applications and so they've got that crowd placated.

The same strategy will work just as well on the iPad: because the OS and UX is fundamentally the same, the only difference is the size of the device. The iPad will be used by enterprises for internal applications, and that's already supported. The iPad does not really need any kind of enterprise management beyond what's already supported. It isn't a desktop platform, there is no filesystem that needs repairing or complicated applications that users need remote support with (wtf Microsoft, c'mon!).

I see Microsoft is still going with the "we'll deliver what we think corporate customers want" as opposed to "we'll deliver what works well and our customers will bend to our will" as Apple is doing.

Does Microsoft have 'vision' anymore, or have they stagnated as a company? Microsoft needs a Steve Jobs figure of their own, and of course, I'll gladly volunteer myself if Scott Guthrie is overwise engaged

1 hour ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

Dunno. Sounds like another attempt to shoehorn a desktop OS into a tablet. In order to hang onto backward compatibility, MS is going to come up with something completely unusable. Again.

I'm not so sure about that, if you look at some of the stuff going on, such as the MinWin effort which helped cleanly detach the kernel/Executive from all the crap above it and that NT has always had support for replacing the user mode environment.  Couple that with the fact they are planning on suporting ARM, which gives them a good reason to cut lose from a lot of backcompat.  I feel that there at a point where they could actually stand a chance of putting a new tablet UI onto the existing kernel and make it work well.

More likely is that that they'll settle for lipstick on a pig, but we can hope.

More likely is that that they'll settle for lipstick on a pig, but we can hope.

Radical idea: what if Microsoft re-implements Cocoa Touch as an alternative API for Windows? It wouldn't be impossible and suddenly makes them more developer-friendly.

@W3bbo: actually, I'd be more interested in a method do develop iPhone applications on Windows. Because that's really the only thing holding me back from developing from the app store right now.

25 minutes ago, Bas wrote

@W3bbo: actually, I'd be more interested in a method do develop iPhone applications on Windows. Because that's really the only thing holding me back from developing from the app store right now.

Assuming you stick to C/C++ (and not ObjC) then it might be possible, if you wire GCC up into VC's build process and do cross-compilation.

Current Windows is not build with touch in mind and they wanted Windows (instead of WinPh) to be the tablet OS. Their Arm support is one step. But, for human interaction, where it matters the most in comsumer electronics, they really need to do something about it. What I mean is, don't just add another shell like WMC because people won't use it. If they want to succeed in tablet, they need to make sure the entire OS is touch friendly.

1) All buttons are easier to touch.

2) Universal Zoom for higher touch precisions.

3) Auto "large" virtual keyboard or simple keyboard button somewhere, like Systray.

Honestly I don't think they would do well on the human interaction part and fail. It is not just from MS's track record, but, it is a gigantic change that cannot be done in reasonable amount of time when the legacy designed remains in the OS.

And even with all that, I don't like the customization aspect of the Windows OS. Obviously people just want things to be done and they want to do wacky stuff unintentionally while being protected. The possibility of allowing user to change everything in the hard drive simply makes it a less "user friendly" OS. Windows is user friendly when it moved from command line, but, it is time to think about the next-gen user friendliness.

I warned you, but did you listen to me?  Oh, no, you knew it all, didn't you?  Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it?  Well, it's always the same.  I always tell them

1 hour ago, W3bbo wrote

*snip*

Assuming you stick to C/C++ (and not ObjC) then it might be possible, if you wire GCC up into VC's build process and do cross-compilation.

GCC has supported Objective-C for awhile. In fact I'm pretty it's XCode's default Obj-C compiler, although Apple has been working on a replacement called "Clang".

It's all management double-speak.

"Windows 8 on ARM will be great because can support all of the legacy LOB apps!"

"Windows 8 using MinWin on a tablet will be great because with MinWin we'll get rid of all of that legacy support bloat."

You can't have both. WP7 on a tablet and progression of porting their productivity apps to Silverlight makes the most sense. Corporations investing in iPads or Android tablets are going to write clients for the legacy LOB apps for those OS's TODAY while Microsoft works on this Windows Everywhere master plan. Windows 8 on ARM will arrive in a year or two with crap for usability on a tablet ("oh it's coming just wait" - tm) which a few might get a glimpse of in their rear view mirrors as they leave Windows in the dust.

Instead of Windows 8 tomorrow on ARM they should be pumping WP7 development coupled with Silverlight development on the desktop. All the while they need to be hauling * to get out a WP7 tablet by Christmas to stay in the game. If Windows 8 on ARM comes out and rocks then great! All of those Silverlight desktop apps will run nicely on those tablets plus the ability to run legacy apps  -- a win-win.

12 hours ago, W3bbo wrote

*snip*

I don't believe Apple has an enterprise strategy. They know they cannot deliver a complete solution without huge swaves of people complaining about it with good reason (much like how Apple won't make a netbook, because they said they can't deliver a sub-$500 laptop that won't suck), so they simply don't compete.

Now it's co-incidental that the iPhone is popular in business because the UX is far superior to Symbian, Blackberry or Windows Mobile, the traditional 'enterprise mobile' platforms. However the iPhone adequately does most of the tasks accomplished on the aforementioned systems. The only difficulties are with internal application development, so Apple made a small effort in supporting enterprise applications and so they've got that crowd placated.

The same strategy will work just as well on the iPad: because the OS and UX is fundamentally the same, the only difference is the size of the device. The iPad will be used by enterprises for internal applications, and that's already supported. The iPad does not really need any kind of enterprise management beyond what's already supported. It isn't a desktop platform, there is no filesystem that needs repairing or complicated applications that users need remote support with (wtf Microsoft, c'mon!).

I see Microsoft is still going with the "we'll deliver what we think corporate customers want" as opposed to "we'll deliver what works well and our customers will bend to our will" as Apple is doing.

Does Microsoft have 'vision' anymore, or have they stagnated as a company? Microsoft needs a Steve Jobs figure of their own, and of course, I'll gladly volunteer myself if Scott Guthrie is overwise engaged

Oddly enough, what you've described here is their enterprise strategy. I think they're calling it 'consumerization.'  Don't pander to the enterprise because they've been stuck in a tech rut for past twenty years. Let them see what the consumers are getting and wait for them to come begging for it. Microsoft's answer is to wave presentation slides and start yelling, 'No! You mustn't forget the old ways!'

And yes, Microsoft has stagnated. What they need is for Bill Gates to come riding into Redmond and announce he's taking over the strategic direction of the company. Ballmer can handle the day-to-day operational stuff which I'm sure he's very good at.

@Bas:

10 hours ago, Bas wrote

@W3bbo: actually, I'd be more interested in a method do develop iPhone applications on Windows. Because that's really the only thing holding me back from developing from the app store right now.

My problem is that I'm not really that keen on Apple's archaic development tools. However, JetBrains are planning an ObjectiveC IDE. Once that's released, I'll take a look. 

11 hours ago, PerfectPhase wrote

*snip*

I'm not so sure about that, if you look at some of the stuff going on, such as the MinWin effort which helped cleanly detach the kernel/Executive from all the crap above it and that NT has always had support for replacing the user mode environment.  Couple that with the fact they are planning on suporting ARM, which gives them a good reason to cut lose from a lot of backcompat.  I feel that there at a point where they could actually stand a chance of putting a new tablet UI onto the existing kernel and make it work well.

More likely is that that they'll settle for lipstick on a pig, but we can hope.

There's the problem: the reason they're doing this to maintain backward compatibility. It's another attempt to hang on to the existing monopoly, like the string of mobile failures they have had before.

This is the real difference between Jobs and Ballmer: Jobs (love him or hate him) believes that Apple is robust enough to trash stuff that isn't working and rebuild it until it's a hit. Ballmer just doesn't have that same belief in Microsoft.

13 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

This is the real difference between Jobs and Ballmer: Jobs (love him or hate him) believes that Apple is robust enough to trash stuff that isn't working and rebuild it until it's a hit. Ballmer just doesn't have that same belief in Microsoft.

It may just be me, but I think there's something to be said for a company strategy that considers both the company itself and its customers. I mean, sure, if they cut all backwards compatibility Microsoft may survive, but all the organisations that depend on all that legacy stuff are screwed.