Microsoft Q3 2013

By on April 19, 2013

And here’s our favorite moment: the financial results. Good job Microsoft!

The decrease of PC sales couldn’t keep Microsoft from improving their results. How impressive is that?

As usually, let’s focus on the online services division. First, the income:

2010 2011 2012 2013
Q1 490 547 641 697
Q2 581 713 784 869
Q3 566 667 707 832
Q4 565 680 735

Then the losses:

2010 2011 2012 2013
Q1 -480 -573 -513 -364
Q2 -466 -559 -458 -283
Q3 -713 -775 -479 -262
Q4 -696 -744 ?

 

So now, we have a superb year over year sales increase of 17%, up to 832 million$.

And when it comes to the acutal loss, this is the best quarter so far for the division. So obviously, if the same trend goes on, that division will actually be profitable with the next 3 quarters, at most. So by the end of the year, Bing will finally bring money to Microsoft. How about that? I still remember Ballmer telling the world at some event: “Bing will be profitable”. Well, there it comes, only a few more months to wait. Of course, it will take a few years to have Bing actually compensate for the whole investment. But that’s probably irrelevant.

So the question is: why is this trend the way it is?

And part of the answer certainly lies within Windows Phone’s current market share gains. Nokia announced they just sold 5.6 million phones last quarter. All reports indicate the Windows Phone’s market share is going up, in some countries above 10%. Being a long time Windows Phone user myself, I will tell you this: the Bing search is quite good on Windows Phone. I never feel the need to use any “other” search engine when on my phone. This is most definitely due to the kind of searches typically performed on phones: most of the time, I look either for a phone number, or for an address. And almost everytime, the first result is what I expected.

If other people feel the same, well there you have a nice reason to see Bing market share go up steadily.

This entry is filed under Financial Results, Microsoft.

Glasses and watch, mmmmm

By on April 15, 2013

So everyone’s gonna come with one of their own. Google’s apparently not gonna stay alone for long in the smart glasses market, and Apple’s not alone anymore as a rumoured smart watch maker. Microsoft’s reportedly making all of these things, too!

These 3 companies, in alphabetical order, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, are really giving us a show now. Since Microsoft acknowledged the need to officially move to a devices (and services) company, the war is on. So within the next couple of years, we’re gonna see a number of new products:

  • Smart watch
  • Smart glasses
  • Smart TV

When looking at them, my first feeling is that the last true innovation came with the smart phone, and to be honest the iphone. And these new products are merely gonna take smartphone capabilities, and put them on other devices. So while these products will probably hold some technological innovation, they should be revolutionary.

BUT, one of these products will potentially be, according to me, a true driver for change, and it is the glasses. They will have an impact on our lives, and will push again the limits of our private life. Think of the potential use:

  • These glasses will be connected. Just imagine a government with access to all glasses live feed. With face recognition software running and audio.
  • I don’t personnally like too much to be filmed. Will I have to ask, everytime I talk to someone wearing these things, if he’s filming? And I ‘ll have to trust him…
  • We become more and more assisted creatures. The GPS was the first step in that way. Now we’ll have opening hours, phone numbers, whatever, so easily available! What are we gonna do on the day the web stops…

The watch, on the other hand (ha), is probably closer to the phone, in that I perceive it as less intrusive. I actually don’t see a true interest in a smart watch, beyond the fact that it’s smaller than a phone, and is attached to your wrist. Appart from that, what’s the point? With such a small screen, I can’t think of many useful uses.

These devices are certainly natural and expected evolutions. I mean everyone expects to see smart glasses and watched emerge at some point. I just have to think of these old cartoons I used to watch as a kid, like:

  • Ulysse with his great watch, that he could talk to and that was a super powerful shield… :)
  • Dragonball, with the glasses giving the warriors plenty of information about their opponent.
  • Knight Rider, talking to his car with his watch.

There’s probably a ton of such examples.

Now the true question is: what is the step beyond? And there, I must say my imagination suddenly becomes blurred.

Seld driving cars (that you can talk to with your watch…) are certainly on their way. But beyond that ??? Is the next step in artificial intelligence? Robots? Flexible devices? 3D and holograms? What about the now famous 3D printers? What is their potential for building smart stuff?

 

This entry is filed under Microsoft.

Android Facebook OS? Muh?

By on March 29, 2013

Facebook is really becoming a strange thing. Less cool than before (aren’t all the parents using this?), it seems that Mark Zuck is gonna miss the point again with phones. After the famously unfamous Cha Cha, here’s the next thing coming.

I totally understand that Facebook needs to grow and diversify. But does Mark do? Diversify means to … diversify, not to do the same thing again and again.

My point is: Facebook is just a social network. They have nothing else. Now, they want to make a phone that makes it easy to use their social network. And, they have more and more competition coming against them. Google for starters. And does Facebook do? They use Android for their smart phone. How does that make any sense at all?

There are a few things that the people “thinking” up there and defining “strategies” should understand:

  • Social Network does not mean success
  • Facebook does not mean success
  • And, no one wants a phone that is totally Facebook oriented

That last point is probably something Mark is not ready to here, but you’re gonna look dumb with your “Facebook phone”.

Want to look cool again Facebook? Then stop being just a social network. That network’s image is spoiled anyway:

  • The movie made it clear that there’s some unclean stuff about who had the idea first (millions were paid and blahblahblah)
  • Way too many privacy issues
  • Someone said Facebook is not cool anymore

In  a word: too much bad press happened.

Now, to change your image, you need to disassociate your brand from that spoiled product, by bringing a new, fresh and different product. Something not tied to the spoiled social network. Here are a few totally random ideas:

  • Search engine
  • Smartphone OS
  • Smartphone hardware
  • Tablet OS
  • Tablet hardware
  • Something new?

:)  Good ideas aren’t they?

My favorite option, of course, would be: something new. Something totally unexpected.

But until then, Mark, you need to understand this: your brand is spoiled.

This entry is filed under Microsoft.

Bing results: new features for forums

By on March 28, 2013

While I am not sure when exactly this feature was added, as a regular Bing user, I am pretty sure it was added pretty recently.

So, when performing searches that yield result from discussion forums, such as StackOverFlow for example, here’s what I’m currently receving:

Bing Forums

 

 

Notice the full question/best answer arrow button.  The old Bing users will probably remember the short lived “quick view” feature, that allowed users to display the page on the right by hovering over an arrow.

It’s always questionable, in my opinion, to turn a search engine into a content provider, but since only a small piece of the page result is displayed, this might actually not be an issue. Anyway, I am totally convinced with the usefulness of this feature, and am not using it at all. I like StackOverflow and would rather look at the results there, especially since the other answers (ie below the best answer) usually are of quality as well.

I think that Bing should present results coming from forums in a differentiated way. That’s for sure. So I can see it immediately. This is not the case yet. The title is just another blue link among a list of other blue links, and I can’t see the difference immediately. But this strange arrow/button is probably just another strange and short -lived feature from the Bing team.

This entry is filed under Bing, Microsoft and tagged .

Bing Home Page: Today’s Version

By on March 27, 2013

The Bing home page seems to be – again – in heavily testing on Microsoft’s side.

Bing Home Page _ Small 1

  • Today in IE10, I am back with the “old” version, like this:

Bing Home Page _ Small 3

  • BUT in Chrome, here’s what I’m seeing today:

Bing Home Page _ Small 2

 

 

How about that? Always interesting but somehow disturbing to see Microsoft running these Bing home page tests. They obviously still haven’t figured out what to display on their home page, and how to do so. While I think a home page is important, I can’t help myself to think that these cosmetic changes are somehow irrelevant, kind of useless and only just about details. So what I can’t understand is their need to widely beta test those changes.

The Bing home page is just a home page… Obviously, it’s not displaying pictures here or there, or popular stuff here or there, that will attract more people towards Bing. Only the quality of the proposed service will: the quality of the search results, their organisation, their relevance.

As I have mentioned before, the main question that Microsoft needs to ask about Bing, is why does Bing exist? And I think they do that. But they should do it in multiple perspectives:

  • Why does Bing exist for Microsoft?
  • Why does Bing exist for the user?

Bing, like other Microsoft consumer products (ie Windows Phone and Surface), suffers from a problem of image. When asking the question: why do these products exist? The main feeling is that they are “me too” products. Windows Phone is an answer to the IPhone. Bing is an answer to Google. Surface is an answer to the IPad. These products do not really exist for another reason. The problem is that this is true. This creates the feeling:

  • That these products do not exist for the good reason, which is to solve people’s problems and to improve their lives. They exist only because competitors created them.
  • That Microsoft is not sure and does not understand why they make these things.

I mean, when you think that they release Windows Mobile 6.5 in 2009! At the same time as the IPhone 3GS… It means they don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

Right now, my main fear is for them is this: Apple, Google, or Samsung or you name it, is gonna come with the next big thing. Is it gonna be a watch? Glasses? Something else? Whatever it is, Steve Ballmer should refrain himself from criticizing it anyway, especially if  it’s to copy it 3 or 4 years later. So, that product is gonna be a huge success. And 3 or 4 years later, Microsoft will follow and come up with a pale, half baked copy. When will that pattern stop??? When will they come up with a new, innovative, product of their own, that will give sense to what they do? That will make people understand why they do it?

This why thing is fundamental. They can make it because they love technology, and new stuff. that would work. But they need to stop the me too thing. They need to explain why Bing, Surface and Windows Phone are Microsoft’s vision, not just an answer.

This entry is filed under Bing, Microsoft.

Bing Home Page Update

By on March 26, 2013

Here’s what I saw today on the Bing home page:

Bing Home Page

This entry is filed under Bing, Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Marketing Issue

By on March 25, 2013

Microsoft’s marketing problems are pretty simple, if you ask me. When a company communicates, it can do so about the following:

  1. What it does: Microsoft does that, but not so well. I mean, in Europe, for example, I am willing to bet that at least 50% of the population does not that Bing exists, or that they don’t know it’s a Microsoft product. No one really knows what ‘s new in Windows 8, besides the new start screen. No one really knows what a Windows Phone can do. Etc, Etc, Etc…
  2. How it does it: I am pretty sure that it would highly benefit Microsoft’s image to communicate, even slightly, about how organized they are, about how much security is embedded in their development process, about how tested their products are, …
  3. Why they do it: This is by far the most critical point. Why does Bing exist? In most people’s mind, Bing is just Microsoft’s mee too Google pale copy. Which is certainly true to some extent, but it’s not only that. And even if it were true at the beginning, it’s certainly not anymore. Now Bing really is something big that is spreading across all Microsoft products, is really at the center of innovation and research at Microsoft, and should be known that way. But the thing is, only a few tech sites talk about these things, and there’s no official corporate communication about that. And that’s the whole point!

They should go into details, and in big international ads.Show the world how good they are. How dedicated they are. How passionate, smart and talented. And this would make them more difficult to hate or disrespect. My strategy would be to start a series of ads, all of them being designed in the same way, talking about all the different divisions of the company. Showing to the world that they are ONE company, working together, sharing one vision, going in the same direction. Something like that…

This entry is filed under Marketing, Microsoft and tagged , , , .

Scrollbar and Scrollviewer with Windows Phone

By on March 14, 2013

I just figured out a nice one concerning the interesting topic of the scrollbars with Windows Phone.

I had a hard time getting a scrollbar appear around my canvas. I then decided to change my code to replace the canvas with a grid, by replacing the SetValue (Canvas.TopProperty, y) and SetValue (Canvas.LeftProperty, x) with .Margin = new Thickness(x, y, 0, 0);

Still no result… In the end, after many tests,  I understood that somehow, the ScrollViewer computes the difference wetween its own height and its content height. And by setting its height to a smaller value than its content’s, it worked!

Like this:

<ScrollViewer Height=”800″ VerticalScrollBarVisibility=”Auto”>
<Grid x:Name=”MyGrid” Height=”1600″ />
</ScrollViewer>

And it worked!

This entry is filed under Microsoft, Windows Phone and tagged , , , , , , .

Playing video from Windows 8 to Xbox: what a mess

By on March 7, 2013

So, following up on my previous blog, I have been happily playing videos from my Surface or Windows 8 laptop until yesterday.

I followed the required steps: download the video, connect to Xbox SmartGlass, play the video on the Xbox.

Then I started watching a movie, 2 hours long. After one hour or so, I decided to stop watching an to continue later. Later arrives, and I want to start playing the movie again, quite legitimately, I think, from the point where I previously stopped. Well, I could not do it! Dragging the arrow in the Video app would just have no impact. Pressing the A button to show options on the Xbox basically only allowed me to pause.

So Microsoft, let me kindly ask you a question guys, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? How could you release something like that?

Since I was born, I do not recall ever playing anything where I did not have some kind of control on either the speed or the playing location. This is the first time in my life that I am confronted to a media playing device that forces me to play the whole thing, at normal speed, from the beginning.

So thank you Microsoft for bringing us all 200 years backwards. And you call that innovation? You guys still have A LOT of work to do.

When I see that kind of crappy / non sense / ridiculous / utterly frustrating stuff coming out of a 100 000 employee company, I always wonder what the hell they were thinking. Has anyone actually tested this? Let me rephrase this: has any normal user actually tested this? How many people actually work on this? What’s in the backlog? Do they realize how crappy this is? When is the change coming?

Guys, you’ve got to deliver something that meets normal people’s needs.

This entry is filed under Microsoft, Windows 8, XBox and tagged , , .

Changing TextBox Cursor/Carret color in Windows Phone

By on March 6, 2013

All you need is a style for your textbox, as follows:

<Style TargetType=”TextBox” x:Key=”MyStyle”>

<Setter Property=”FontSize” Value=”28″/>
<Setter Property=”Width” Value=”350″/>
<Setter Property=”Foreground” Value=”White”/>
<Setter Property=”Background” Value=”Blue”/>
<Setter Property=”CaretBrush”>

<Setter.Value>

<SolidColorBrush Color=”White”/>

</Setter.Value>

</Setter>

</Style>

This entry is filed under Microsoft.

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