Wed 19 Jul 2006
Despite the talk of a new music store for Microsoft’s new media player, I actually think the best bet would be for Microsoft to link the new media player with Urge, which is powered by MusicNet (as are some other PlaysForSure stores like Yahoo and Virgin Digital.) They’re just launching Urge right now, along with the new Windows Media Player 11 (Urge is the ‘featured’ or primary music store for the new WMP 11.)
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Fri 14 Jul 2006
TMF: Re: Bought 2K shares of MSFT today / Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
Vista being late, therefore not contributing to optimism, doesn’t make it undervalued - it makes it fair market valued.
Yeah, I wouldn’t put too much into the negative press as a buying opportunity in itself. Now if you have a very strong feeling that Vista is going to be a great product, then that in combination with the negative press presents a good buying opportunity. (more…)
Wed 12 Jul 2006
Tue 11 Jul 2006
Here’s a nice article listing some important factors if the Microsoft media device is to achieve success.
Another thought about this from a business development- I think Microsoft would launch this entire product line and accept low or no profits, as long as it took a hit out of Apple’s profits and shine (”iPod halo effect”). That’s sort of what they accomplished with the XBox…I mean I know they want to make money off this thing, but strategically there are some other goals that would be just as, or even more important:
1. The iPod has become the centerpiece of digital media, not just a mp3 player.
2. Microsoft could really use some positive publicity and buzz right now.
Mon 10 Jul 2006
Some nice info, actually quite analgous to my last post about how the ‘MicroPod’ will likely emerge as the iPod’s first real competitor..
Thu 6 Jul 2006
Why the Micropod is a significant threat
I am predicting this Microsoft player will end up being more competitive than we think.
Thus far Microsoft has not had a whole lot of success in digital music. They have developed a DRM platform for online music stores (Napster, Yahoo) and hardware makers (Creative, etc.) These devices are advertised as being Microsoft’s WMA compatible, PlaysForSure, etc. so they have Microsoft handprints all over them. But these efforts haven’t been very successful so far, and I think blame can be sprinkled around to the various partipants (Microsoft, the music stores, the hardware makers.)
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