NaughtySpawn

Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

Check out some of these figures in regards to how much Microsoft is probably spending on the launch of Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft easily spent over a billion dollars over three years to develop and launch the now-defunct Kin phones.

I’d say it’s safe to say we’re easily at or over $1 billion at this point. Microsoft made $62.5 billion in fiscal 2010. One of the company’s biggest black eyes at this point is its lack of a credible and coherent answer to the iPhone and Android.  A billion dollars would be a small price to pay to achieve this.

This does take into account salaries and other things, but that is still money being spent on this project. And the part that kills me is this after they spend a billion on the Kin which was a complete flop. Sure, MS made $60 billion but a billion dollars is still a lot of money to throw at a failed project. Plus, this is a billion for this year, the phone isn’t even out yet. They have a TON of phones to sell to make up for that investment.

And the problem is, the iPhone 4 is out, a new Touch is coming out (for games and Wifi/Skype), multiple revs of the Droid are out. These people have made an investment in hardware and data plans. Microsoft is pretty bold in thinking that these people will just toss them aside and jump to their new phone.

And let’s not forget, Microsoft is spending a billion in the Xbox arena with Natal, and even more billions trying to catch up on search. I’m tellin’ ya, these billions are starting to add up. Are they making enough headway to justify this kind of spending?

Has yet another billion been spent on making a tablet? I wouldn’t be surprised when all is said and done.

A billion to launch Windows Phone 7? I bet Microsoft is paying a lot more

With three new revisions out there, will people finally kill off IE6? YouTube is dropping support, and now Facebook claims it will drop IE6 support when the IE9 beta hits (September 15). Really, what is it going to take to make IE6 go away? What reason can people possibly have for still using this browser? You really have to be going out of your way not to upgrade. I guess if your holding onto Windows 98 or Windows 2000 then you can’t upgrade. But my word, what utter piece of crap machine you must have if your still trucking along with Win98 and liking it!

And if you’re a company who claims they can’t upgrade because of legacy applications that depend on IE6, then we shouldn’t be doing business with you. That is a tragic excuse. IE6 is tragically slow and feature deficient compared to browsers today. To say you’re dependent on IE6 to carry out business function makes me question who you are and what you do. I’m sure my data and property is perfectly safe with you…

Are you sure you’re Y2K compliant?

That’s got to have Apple worried. I knew the Droid was going to be pretty big, but 200,000 units activated a day is HUGE! I bet Apple didn’t expect that either. Who knows, maybe they did. That Steve Jobs kid is pretty wiley.

I was talking with a buddy yesterday (who owns a Droid only because MS hasn’t come out with their device yet) and he was very excited about the sales numbers but doesn’t think it compares to what Microsoft will be doing by Christmas time. I have to completely disagree. I do think this does change things for MS who is now just as much competing against the Droid as they are against Apple and the iPhone and the iPad. I will concede that it’s possible for MS to sell 200,000 units between now and Christmas, but I really don’t see them selling and activating 200,000 units *A DAY*. Seriously, I just don’t see that. I still think Microsoft is stuck in a bad place of not having quite the right OS or quite the right app store to make that kind of inroad into the mobile market.

Some of the features sound interesting, but once again, we are still a few months away from a Microsoft offering actually being on the shelves. And both Apple and Google now have millions of users in their stable. Those people won’t be trading in anytime soon. Are there really that many MS hold outs that are going without a device in anticipation of the Windows Phone Series 7? (By the way, I hate that damn name!) I think not.

I think we’ll see some interesting sales, (can’t be worse than the Kin, right?) but I have no idea what kind of reception this thing will get. Google and Apple are so far out in front there just aren’t that many customers left for them to grab. Years ago you could almost count on Microsoft making up this kind of gap in relatively short order. But that was a different time and different MS. This is an MS that makes more mistakes than headway. They have a long road ahead and a bad track record in this arena.

Can Microsoft hit 200,000 activations a day?