re: money vs creativity
There were articles in the WSJ and Forbes last week on the contradiction between a focus on making money, vs. a focus on making great products. As the authors see it, you can make money while focusing on creating great products, but there is an inherent contradiction between focusing on making money and making great products. These media outlets are not known for their liberality (although while Malcolm was still partying on this side of the river, Forbes had the kind of integrity which defies simple classification), so I was particularly happy to see that this concept is getting spread throughout the culture. Microsoft comes close to making great products, often: and then they get watered down by the money people. So you're right: when they get battered enough that they have no choice but to stop trying to protect their stock price and focus on product, they have the resources to create great stuff.
Hank
>I agree with you on the vision/marketing of MS. Horrible. Remember how big of a slash Spotify made? I believe most of those features have been available in the Zune subscription service for a long time now.
>
>MS is still making money. If that stops, I'd expect them to get creative.
>
>>Agreed it sounds like a great marketing idea.
>>If you think further along it might make you wonder how easy it is
>>to get metro style apps working across other OS devices -
>>which was the old silverlight/mono idea,
>>but possibly without the need of installing silverlight runtimes.
>>
>>Such an approach might give MS clouds/dev tools a much needed boost
>>in the device reach area - but the silverlight pull back is not that easy to forget
>>if you are only presented new guesses/visions.
>>
>>Some MS employees over here seem to be nearly as baffled as myself on
>>MS vision and target (personal talks..) and I did not have the impression
>>this was done because of gag orders issued to them.
>>
>>YMMV
>>
>>thomas
>>>Kudos to Microsoft on this move. Brilliant.
>>>
>>>
http://gizmodo.com/5863385/how-to-try-out-windows-phone-on-your-iphone-or-android
