Microsoft can't out-cool Apple

[Mac Reporter]

Leader
ZDNet UK
October 04, 2004, 12:20 BST
Microsoft wants to be invited into your living room - but Apple looks the cooler bet
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told UK journalist at a press briefing on Monday that he feels the market for converged digital devices in the home is at a 'tipping point' - Malcolm Gladwell's useful phrase for that dramatic moment when something unusual suddenly becomes ubiquitous. He's right: we've gone digital and we want our toys.

Microsoft longs to own that market. It has ambitious plans to dominate the software and standards in consumer audio and video: it did it for business and it feels it has a right to win here too. Yet Microsoft, as Ballmer admits, has been chasing this particular train for nearly a decade but to no real effect. Worse, after all Microsoft's efforts it's Apple which has the market at its feet, with the killer iPod and iTunes combo winning hearts, minds and wallets worldwide.

The convergence market plays directly to Apple's strengths in industrial design and ease of use. The new G5 Macintosh already looks like a TV from the future and with a tuner card it will be. It's a long way from the drab standard PCs running Microsoft's Media Center, most of which seem to have been designed by people in love with 1970s era hi-fi.


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[Satoshi]

blah. I want an Apple system. When will the money come