Vista Point

Cisco IT chief is scared of upgrading to Vista. Is this a ploy to get deeper discounts or is he worried enough to look at other options? Of course we’ve seen other grumbles regarding Vista’s cost considerations. Grumbles or no, everyone knows that 30% of users will still upgrade and all will be quiet. The real question is, why do firms, after years of taking a beating, continue to flock to Microsoft, especially now when there are several more credible and lower cost alternatives available. Tina, Ike. Ike, Tina. Run Tina run.

Verizon wants its M TV

Is it possible that Verizon has better software engineers than Microsoft?

Microsoft has been pushing for years to get its software into the hands of television companies and has had good success; in early 2005, it trumpeted its new relationship with Verizon to deliver TV services. Under the terms of that deal, Verizon would use Microsoft’s Foundation Edition middleware stack.Microsoft would also supply a set of customer-facing applications. While Foundation Edition remains in use by Verizon, the development of the other applications was taken over by Verizon engineers.

Microsoft promised that its interactive program guide would be “attractive, intuitive and easy to use,” and said that its software would bring consumers “the benefits of voice, video and data convergence.” It did not say that its program guide would require more memory than was available in the Motorola set-top box being designed for Verizon, though this turned out to be the case. Microsoft also fell behind on an application designed to let users use their TVs to listen to music and watch photos stored on their PCs.

This is the kind of stuff that one would expect happens to a start-up. Can someone explain why Microsoft still has any credibility left?

What’s Microsoft waiting for?

The Stalwart looks at Apple’s iTV and other TV top boxes:

There’s Microsoft’s XBOX, the TIVO, the set top box from your cable company, the DVD player, and if Apple has its way, there will be space for an iTV, a box made for streaming movies from your computer to your TV.That’s a lot of boxes all doing very specific tasks.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how high the stakes are in this game. If Apple succeeds in getting its box in America’s living rooms, it can sell you movies, TV shows, video games (?), charge your for DVR-like services, etc.

What’s funny is that this is what the XBOX was supposed to be all about. Everyone’s been talking about how this was Microsoft’s secret Trojan horse. It’s supposed to be their toe in the door, so that eventually it can sell movies and all that stuff that Apple’s doing. Well what are they waiting for?

Surely the Stalwart realizes that Microsoft does not know what to do! That’s the reason the firm has hedged its bet with the XBOX, the Media Center PC, and somewhere out there, MSN TV (formerly WebTV) still lives. Another fundamental difference between Microsoft and Apple – the current Apple knows what markets it wants to enter and enters strong and loud. Microsoft has always imitated others and has no idea how to enter (other than using its monopoly given clout to generate press).

Don’t be surprized when Microsoft doubles down and introduces a XBOX+ Tivo+Slingshot+Akimbo, a competing Media Center+…., a MobiTV+Mobile 6.0+Tivo+Radio Shark, and a Zune+MobiTV+Tivo+Slingshot+ blah blah.

Its a good thing that that Vista is a cash cow.

[Update] A comment questioned whether Vista will be a cash cow for Microsoft. Here’s an assessment from Seekingalpha on Microsoft from a financial analyst perspective:

I still think Microsoft is an undervalued company, but only because I think the impact of Vista on Microsoft and the whole PC value chain is going to be immense over the next year and a half, assuming that Vista ships in working order and does what they say it will. I might buy Microsoft to get exposure to Vista, but not to get a piece of Zune.

If assumptions do hold, Microsoft will enforce software assurance licensing to get firms to upgrade to Vista. XP witnessed a 30% upgrade (the majority driver for XP adoption was new hardware purchases) – assuming just south of the 30% figure still results in enviable free cash flow