Cool misunderstood

Dan Blacharski concludes:

My prediction: Microsoft’s Home Server will put an end to the perception of “Apple cool, PC geeky” once and for all — and hopefully an end to those annoying commercials.

Hmmm. I know that I am not the master of all things “cool”, but I think the coolness of something is determined by it’s effect who experiences it directly. I doubt that something that is hidden away in the back of a table or in another room silently working away is going to be perceived as cool.

I can imagine the conversation now:

Dude 1: “Yeah, I got all my media including ripped movies and documents in my Home Server.”
Dude 2: “Damn! That is wicked cool. Can I see it?”
Dude 1: “Well, it’s upstairs in the office area. But, here, you can see where the files come from by browsing the network connection.”
Dude 2: “Wow. That is so cool. I got to get me one of those.”

As I admitted, the home server is useful, but cool? I doubt it. In fact, why even bother comparing this to Apple instead of just judging the home server on its own merits?

iPhone cold water

Jobs noted that his goal was for iPhone to steal away 1% (or 10M units sold) of the cellphone market by 2008.

This is impossible with one just service provider (consider that the US added over 16M net subscribers from Jan-Sept 2006) unless all the MVNOs die and there is widespread attrition from other services to Cingular – so what is Steve not saying?

Do people understand market segmentation?

Steve Rubel highlights some idiotic Scoble comment about Apple TV and proceeds to nod his head. Of all the people Steve Rubel should know better, even though Microsoft is a Edelman client and he is obligated to agree.

It’s called market segmentation. Apple TV is not targeting the gaming audience and Xbox is not going to appeal to non-gamers. The Apple TV is a true mass-market device intended for a wide audience beyond just gamers. It’s intended for people who have bought Desperate Housewives. I don’t have numbers, but I am willing to bet the overlap between those who watch Desperate Housewives & High School Musical and play Halo 3 is minimal at best? 26M people bought gaming machines last year, 50M videos were purchased on iTunes alone. For them, 1080i, 720p, and 1440p matter little.