Till now, Microsoft has tried to downplay the truth that the Zune digital-rights-management system nixes the Windows Media PlaysForSure one that the corporation was championing till late final 12 months. Even so, in an interview this week with Knowledge@Wharton, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finally admits on the record that the Zune DRM system may be the one through which Microsoft's putting its future eggs. "We thought that (PlaysForSure) was a brilliant strategy — [develop] an open ecosystem, get a lot of people [to support it]." What happened? As Ballmer puts it,
Office Home And Student 2010 Serial Key, "In this particular case, the whole was not bigger than the sum of the parts." And, as a result,
Microsoft Office 2010 Update Key, "Apple — with one model that was simple and consistent — wound up taking 75%-80% of the market." "So we stated, 'Okay, what do we have to do here?'…. We had to make the market, not just let our partners make the market…. We needed to get an absolutely consistent…user experience [and] retailer experience…. We said, 'Look, we've got to take a different approach, build a new ecosystem and, by the way, we better do something that Apple hasn't done.'" The Knowledge@Wharton article continues: The change in strategy was, in Ballmer's words, a "very hard call." But his conclusion was: "We might be consistent with what is out there, which hasn't succeeded. Or, we can try a new approach, which we think has … merit and can succeed." When asked whether such a move was "partner-friendly,
Office Home And Student 2010 Activation Key," Ballmer basically says,
Microsoft Office 2010 Code, like it or lump it, according to the Wharton folks: "Some of our partners will say 'This wasn't partner-friendly.' But having our partners only have 20% of a market share between them is also not very partner-friendly. 1 of the key things … that I have learned about small business partners is that organization partners are your partners because they make money with you, they succeed with you. And if you don't succeed,
Office Professional Plus 2010 Activation Key, eventually you don't have any partners." And speaking of the Zune, istartedsomething's Long Zheng uncovered this week some interesting new info on Microsoft's Zune trademark. According to the recently granted trademark application, the Zune mark includes not just multimedia player services, but also telecommunication and Internet services. The Zune trademark applies to current and potential future services including "telecommunication services; electronic transmission of data files, documents, music and videos over the Internet and wireless networks; electronic mail services; web messaging services; text messaging services; paging services; streaming of audio and video material over the Internet and wireless networks; wireless voice mail services; voice-activated dialing services; providing wireless access to computer networks and the Internet; cellular telephone services; and audio, video and television broadcasting and transmission." Wonder if this means there's a version of Microsoft Office in the works that could work around the Zune — the same way Microsoft Office competitor ThinkFree offers a version of its online-
office product for Apple's iPod? You never know….