Karma.

Sony BMGs hypocrisy: company busted for using warez

PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, received a call from a Sony BMG IT employee for support. After Sony BMG supplied a pirated license code for Ideal Migration, one of PointDevs products, the software maker was able to mandate a seizure of Sony BMGs assets. The subsequent raid revealed that software was illegally installed on four of Sony BMGs servers. The Business Software Alliance, however, believes that up to 47 percent of the software installed on Sony BMGs computers could be pirated.

March 31, 2008 - Sony - Comments (0)

Microsoft doesn’t do well in brand loyalty. In IT, even people who use Microsoft tend to hate its living guts. Anyone who’s had to run IIS, Exchange, or any other of their proprietary, poorly developed server-side junk is not usually happy. Windows and Office are just so dominant you likewise have to use them. The development apps and maybe stuff like World Wide Telescope are rare exceptions.

Also, outside Windows and Office, where Microsoft got in early and (famously) abused their monopoly, they haven’t been doing well. Xbox is barely profitable even years in and Zune has floundered.

The only thing saving them is that Sony, thusfar, has floundered worse. They lost the MP3 market to Apple, and now the console back to Nintendo.

For developers, a cell processor on the PS3 may not be as familiar as the PowerPC in the Xbox 360. I’ve heard it described as programming for 11 size 1 CPUs (for Sony) rather than 1 size 10 CPU for the Xbox.

All of them are crazy. Whoever first gets to market with a single development platform with complete code portability/leverage for mobile, PC, and living room will clean up from developers. Be that Zune/WinMob/Vista/Xbox 360 or PSP/Viao/PS3 or iPhone/Mac/Apple TV.

PS3Blog.net » Blog Archive » Is the PS3 an Afterthought among Developers?

N’Gai Croal writes that most developers seem to prefer the Xbox over the PS3, not only as a development platform, but also for their personal gaming. Even beyond the tech people, the business side of the industry seems to generally favor Microsoft as well.

March 22, 2008 - Apple, Microsoft, Sony - Comments (0)

I bought an original Xbox right before its effective end-of-life, and when I was looking to upgrade (my little brother loves him some vid games), I naturally considered the 360. Games were there (especially if you liked shooters and drivers) and the PS3 did (and still does) suffer from a lack of games.

Then I found out about the 30% failure rate (red-ring-of-death, since reduced to somewhere around a still unbelievable 10-16%).

Microsoft strapped their customer service balls on, however, and offered 3 year warranties. But there was a larger problem: the relatively cheaper price of the Xbox 360 compared to the PS3 was an illusion. With a PS3 you got HDMI out, but also Blue Tooth, an HD video player built in (Blu-Ray), Gigabit ethernet, Wi-Fi built in…

With an Xbox 360, at the time, you needed to spend another $200 if you wanted HD-DVD. Another $150 if you wanted Wi-Fi. That’s +$350, and even that couldn’t buy you HDMI (you needed to wait for the more expensive Elite, and then wait more for it to filter down).

But now that HD DVD has lost the format war, rather than junk an entire Xbox line with built in HD-DVD, they can (and did) just chuck the extra player. Good for them.

Not sure it was ever good for consumers. (The Xbox 360).

Xbox 360 HD DVD Support Statement Updated - Paul’s SuperSite blog

As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD.  Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market.  As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace.  HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.

February 24, 2008 - Microsoft, Sony - Comments (0)

Microsoft has frequently said that it sees a world powered by software, and that it (Microsoft) wants to be the source of that software, be it for corporate servers, office workstations, home entertainment, robots, etc. Microsoft is all about software.

In the beginning, licensing that software drove Microsoft’s revenues beyond the stratosphere and into the heavenly glories. It didn’t always (or ever, for some) make the best software, and certainly placed innovation second to pushing Microsoft versions of existing technologies, but for many years it did make some of the most widely adopted technologies (Windows and Office).

That, along the way, it came under fire (and even under anti-trust) for the methods in which it sought to expand, control, and preserve it’s markets (GUI desktop, browsers, media players), will no doubt haunt them in the history books. But what they accomplished is undeniable.

And writing about it, consciously, as something that seems in the past tense seems odd. As Google and Amazon consume the cloud, as Apple takes consumer mindshare, as Microsoft comes to be perceived as too little, too late (Vista, Zune, Windows Mobile, Windows Live) or as money-bleeding (Xbox), as Allen left long ago and Gates is poised now to leave as well, and as they (perhaps smartly) seek out Danger and try to find a way into the 21st century with Yahoo, it seems not only odd, but equally undeniable.

Is it Karma as Roughly Drafted details, with unabashed bias, below? A reaping of what was sewn? Or is it all just business, and the same natural flow that saw IBM tumble and Microsoft rise during the last paradigm shift?

Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

The death of HD-DVD says more about Microsoft and its future than the general media seems to recognize. It’s not a format war, its a culture war between industry players working to advance the state of the art collectively in partnerships, and one company working to own everything while contributing very little. It’s not hard to see why Microsoft’s bruised and abused former partners are working to align themselves with open solutions rather than buy into more pain with technology tied to Microsoft. That’s very bad news for a company that exists solely as a licensee of third rate product ideas.

February 21, 2008 - Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony - Comments (0)

The real competition for BD, for the near-term, remains DVD, especially upscaled DVD, which comes boxed with nearly every HT system sold and mega-discounted DVD players and titles.

BD will need to continue BOGO and other disc-selling initiatives to get mindshare away from DVD.

By then, maybe HD downloads will be on the serious radar (not that anything stops a BD player from being download-to-rent either…)

With HD DVD dead, Blu-rays next threat is digital downloads

Toshiba has finally bowed to the inevitable, announcing its intentions to stop the manufacture and development of HD DVD players. Citing “recent major changes in the market,” the company concluded after a “thorough” review that the torrent of support for Blu-ray was too much to overcome. Even with HD DVD gone, however, Blu-ray still faces challenges on other fronts; more on that below.

February 19, 2008 - Media, Sony - Comments (0)