Okay where are the Windows Mobile 5 phones for Verizon and Sprint? My CEO loves Verizon’s coverage in NYC, but hates the battery life of the new Blackberry 8703e. The standard battery only lasts 3hours of talk time, and there isn’t an extended battery available currently. He had a Motorola E815 with extended battery and liked it, but it eventually got worn out and he wanted to go for a combined device. Sprint and Verizon both offer Windows Mobile 5 PDAs with full QWERTY keyboards, but no simple phone WM5 devices like Cingular and T-Mobile. Does that mean people don’t want the Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition? I don’t think so, since I know several people who own the T-Mobile SDA, Cingular 2125, Audiovox SMT5600, and Motoral MPx200 and 220.
Hooper just left his job with me, and needed a new PDA-type device since he wasn’t going to use his Blackberry. You might remember that he had been using the Nokia 6682 from his article on CityID. It was not really “Outlook compatible” in both of our minds as the sync software was clunky at best, and required a USB cable. He needed a professional device that he could use as a mobile worker, but without the bulk of a blackberry.
Castle and I have the Audiovox SMT5600, but it runs Windows Mobile 2003 SE. While great, it is not top of the line with only offers GPRS data speeds along with a lot of software bugs. Schlosser upgraded from his Motorola MPx200 and picked up the new Cingular branded 2125. Would that be the device for Hooper? (more…)
Microsoft is doing some guerilla marketing of Visual Studio 2005. They look like 16 employee created short clips to highlight a few of the the new 400+ differences they put into the product. This video on coffee is my favorite. Check out Coffee!
A few of the others that made me laugh were:
King of Coding?
Change Request
Project Manager
Whiteboards?
This time I found the MakeSomeNoise Podcast. MakeSomeNoise (aka MSN) is a podcast from Andreas Churchill out of London who mixes some new and old mashups. You can get the last 8 podcasts over at makesomenoise.co.uk/podcast. He has track listings, and great links to the creators. Each one is 60 minutes long too! I hope to show some of these off at a BBQ this weekend.
I went on a Beta binge this week and grabbed the new Microsoft Windows Media Player 11. I love it! Super fast, and a nice interface. I’m not ready to give up iTunes yet until this is out of beta, but I like what I see. The only downside currently is that the WMP 11 tray doesn’t function, so you can only run it in a window and not on the taskbar. Grab it from Microsoft.
UPDATE WMP11 Beta doesn’t work with Windows Live Messenger 8 Beta’s “What I’m Listening To”
Everyone was wondering what the Origami device was, why it is special, and if Microsoft was going into the hardware business. Personally I think it is clear that features and devices they showed in March at CeBIT didn’t live up to the hype. These Ultra Mobile Portable Computing (UPMC) devices are supposed to fall between Tablet and PDA.
Samsung has the Q1, which is basically a small 7-inch tablet pc with an 900MHz Intel Celeron and 512MB of RAM, and a 30GB hard drive. The only differences between tablet pcs and this thing are extra controls/buttons, instant-on multimedia player (no XP load to play). Why in the world do I need this thing? It costs close to the same as some tablet PCs at around $1100. It isn’t going to have a longer battery life, which will be 3 hours to start.
I personally predict this thing will flop. People have not been flocking to tablet PCs like they have to PDAs and ultra small media players. I think this market won’t pan out until the battery life is there and the device is thinner and lighter. The idea is great, but I think there is a disconnect between the current offerings and what would be successful in capturing the consumer market. I could be wrong since pre-orders at Best Buy sold out within 24 hours. Sure that grabs some media attention, but I don’t think the marketing for UMPC was done properly. Next I’ll post on why and how I think Microsoft should change marketing techniques.
To make up for my post yesterday about the Firefox ad, I wanted to point out some entertaining advertising from Microsoft. They have launched a new viral campaign for their product OneNote 2003 called stationaryisbad. Here’s just one ad from the campaign and view more below to see some others.
Apple is a brilliant designer and marketer, one area where this really shines through is their packaging. In this brilliant spoof, take a look at what the package would look like if Microsoft designed it. If Microsoft really wants to play in the consumer electronics space they need to rethink their design and marketing, and do it quick.
This is a great video to promote Internet Explorer 7. I wish they would put it on TV since I think people would laugh so hard! It also does a great job not showing the product, which is exactly what so many companies do these days. Hype up the brand/name, and deliver something new and usable. Anyway you can watch it in WMV format, or click below to watch it via YouTube.
You have got a plethorea of services that start with “Windows Live”: Windows Live Messenger (WLM), Windows Live Mail (WLM) [wait, which one is WLM?!], Windows Live Local (WLL), Windows Live Safety Center (WLSC), Windows Live Expo (WLE), Windows Live Favorites (WLF), Windows Live Search (WLS). Then there is another set of “Live” services: Windows Office Live (WOL) and Windows OneCare Live (WOCL or WOL). But the worst came today when I found out about the new Windows Live Local Search Free Call (WLLSFC).
At a company with over 60,000 employees, and a committee could ruin much of the work they do by making a huge mistake in naming. I don’t mind getting rid of MSN, which has a slow, clunky, non-innovative history attached to it. I understand that the naming works with the new organizational structure, but it makes no sense to the consumer to add extra words or letters.
Why not make MSN into just Live? Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Search, Live Local. You could even play off it for advertising Live (change it to live as in living). They could do something even better, and get a whole new word/letter/phrase similar to “i” in iPod and iTunes. Branding is a huge pain and I think they are digging a hole with the new naming pattern. People can hardly tell what services are without long names like “Windows Live Local Search Free Call”. That is an absurdly long name, which could have been called Live Search Connectoid. I am partial to the word “connectoid” because I think it sounds interesting and unusual. Microsoft is trying to continue domination of the desktop by keeping the word Windows as a top buzz word. I think they are excluding users of Apple or Linux platforms who can easily access the Web 2.0 software being used.
When Lucent spun the Enterprise Networks Group out in 2000 it had to come up with a name. They picked Avaya, pronounced uhv-EYE-uh, because it would set them apart and capture what they were doing. Google was a made up word that came from the word googol, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Yahoo! is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” and the founders liked the definition of “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth”. Red Hat came from a lost Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes). Cisco is short for San Francisco, Intel came from INTegrated ELectronics and HoTMaiL as it was originally spelled was constructed with the letters HTML, which were used to create the web-based software.
What do you think of this new naming scheme from Microsoft? How would you change it?
PS: I do really like the name Microsoft, and it would have been nice to see them stick that back in. They have made great software. I know the name has had a bad reputation with games, but the Xbox has changed that around and given birth to Microsoft Game Studios.
As posted on Scoble and Engadget this morning, interesting developments. I have been hearing talk about some kind of mobile device, the question is what functionality it will contain. My guess would be a mobile media center with wireless connectivity and some link to xbox live. Maybe two flavors: one for business, one for media. Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks.
