Ken Springer wrote, On 4/6/2014 9:47 PM:


This is where the lack of competition comes into play. Not much of a
need to produce better products if there's no competition. As you said,
things like XBox, Windows phones, Windows tablets, don't seem to do so
well when there's competition.



Xbox is actually the bright spot on the alternative MSFT devices
- while not equivalent to PS4 (cumulative to date total) the XB1 is
still selling units (most recently reported) over 100,000 per week. In
2013, over 3 million XB1's were sold (over 4 mil cumulative to date) and
more than PS4 in 2013.
- just like the pc vs tablet, desktop vs. modern UI. Ford vs.
Chevrolet...favorites exist and no amount of discussion from the peanut
gallery will ever substantiate which is better or worse


Phones have an uphill struggle to gain market share.
- one of the strangest decisions MSFT did was provide POP3 access on
Windows Phones but not on Win8. Granted the preference for syncability
(email, contacts, calendar) has always been the designed plan since 2006
(for all MSFT email clients including the phone)....in fact the
underlying code for Win8 is based more on their phone than on existing
email clients for obvious reasons (one of which - phone code is smaller
and easier to deploy across smart devices)

Tablets likewise have a challenge and MSFT is attempting to leverage the
'computing' ability vs. competition on their devices (Office 365 on
Surface RT ARM architecture and installable software (equivalent to
desktop o/s) on Surface Pro Intel architecture. It also appears that to
avoid inventory build up, the supply of Surface devices is being
controlled very carefully to limit expense without recievable cash flow.



--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps