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Why not to bother with being "loyal" to Microsoft brands

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TaoPhoenix:
This particular post was inspired by their Music side. We all know what happened to PlaysForSure.
This time, let's look even further to their item that cannibalized PlaysForSure - Zune.

From Paul Thurrott:
"With Xbox Music Coming, Microsoft Cuts Zune Features
With its coming Xbox Music and Xbox Video services looming, Microsoft this week alerted Zune users via email about a couple of music-related features that will be dropped as that latter brand is put out to pasture. Among the walking dead are Mixview and channel playlists, Zune HD apps, and music videos.

But the biggest change, perhaps involves some core Zune functionality: Microsoft is killing “sending and receiving messages, inviting friends, sharing the songs, playlists, and albums you are listening to, and viewing past play history.” These features were part of what was called Zune Social."

http://www.winsupersite.com/blog/supersite-blog-39/xbox-360/xbox-music-coming-microsoft-cuts-zune-features-144140

Oh, I'm sorry MS Music people, you just got hosed *twice* in a decade. Let's call it a 5 year Arc.

What Apple apparently figured out that MS didn't, (and see the Linux on Desktop themes), is that *five years is too short for a full brand lifecycle.*

If you want users to be "loyal" to your brand, you can't just rip parts of "their life" away every five years. It makes cautious/lazy/jaded-cynical late-adopters like me look smart. And I'm not all that smart, not like you guys.

So now their big music brand is Xbox-music or something. Okay, Clock starts say about 2011. (Give me a year for not bothering to get swept up in early hype.) Cue 2015, they'll have something else.

I don't have time for that $hit. (Front loaded hyped sales PR machine and all.)

Renegade:
+1

Good post.

MS has burned people too many times. The stranded people with music that they'll never be able to use because of DRM, etc. etc.

Again, this is why DRM is so bad and why free AND open systems are good. (Not all open systems are free.)

But the companies are not satisfied to make a product and sell it -- they want you to be hooked on *their* digital heroin. They have to have you as their fix. Anytime you hear "ecosystem" - think "lock in".

40hz:
IMHO the only piece of hardware Microsoft ever really did get right was the scroll-wheel mouse.

And the only pieces of software they ever got mostly right were Flight Simulator X...and maybe (just maybe) Word 6.0. 8)

rgdot:
^ OneNote :)

IainB:
^ +1 for OneNote from me. It's a remarkably well-designed piece of software. I was very surprised when I started to use it about 3 years ago. I still keep discovering undocumented features that are quite literally mind-blowing - "How the heck did they do that?" sort of thing.
Mind you, I also reckon that Word and Excel are pretty powerful tools - but we only typically tend to use 20% or so of their functionality.

Anytime you hear "ecosystem" - think "lock in".
-Renegade (August 31, 2012, 09:52 AM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, you need to have you BS detector on at all times so as to not be gullible about words like that.

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