Text 12259, 117 rader
Skriven 2006-07-27 18:08:56 av /m (1:379/45)
Ärende: Microsoft copying Apple?  Again?
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From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060726_652632.htm

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Microsoft, Design Guru
It's pushing a sleek new hardware vision to PC makers. Will they bite?

A How-To kit for the ideal PC has been making the rounds of leading design
shops. It calls for "accelerated curves" and "purposeful contrast." The
preferred colors include a shade of black called Obsidian and a translucent
white dubbed Ice. "We want people to fall in love with their PCs, not to simply
use them to be productive and successful," reads the enclosed booklet. "We want
PCs to be objects of pure desire."

Doesn't sound much like Microsoft (MSFT ), does it? But it is. BusinessWeek has
learned that a team of 20 in-house designers has been working quietly for the
past 18 months on an elegant new look for PCs that will run Microsoft's next
operating system, Windows Vista. It's a major departure for the company, which
historically has left design to the likes of Dell (DELL ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ
), and Gateway (GTW ). Persuading the hardware guys to embrace the toolkit
won't be easy. They're already working overtime to build better-looking gear on
their own.

But Microsoft feels the PC world needs a major face-lift, and one way to do it
is through better integration of software and hardware. No one does that more
effectively than Apple Computer (AAPL ), and the folks in Redmond may be
worried that their resurgent rival is getting too much traction in the race to
dominate the digital home.

WHOLE NEW LEVEL.  What's more, a slick new look can only help the debut of
Vista, which will reach consumers in January, years late and lacking many of
the features it was supposed to have. "This has always been the issue with
Vista: Who cares!" says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies
Associates, an industry analyst. "So they're going to try to pull all these
elements together, to make [the launch] into a major event."

Microsoft is no newcomer to hardware design, of course. The company has made PC
mice and keyboards for years. The Xbox game console has been a hit. Microsoft
is working on a music player, Zune, that it hopes will rival the iPod. And the
company routinely gins up ideas for PCs, including a small liquid-crystal
display screen on the outside of a laptop to display appointments and e-mail.

But trying to transform the PC ecosystem—even peripherals makers such as
Logitech received the kit—takes things to a whole new level. It reflects the
fact that the economics of the computer business is changing. The PC world used
to be divided into two camps: those who made lucrative software and the poor
schlubs who built the low-margin hardware it ran on.

ECHO OF APPLE ETHOS?  Apple has turned that model on its head. From the
beginning it has managed to create a unified design for its products by
building everything itself, first with the Mac and then later with the iPod.
Although Apple sells one computer for every 20 PCs, the iPod's success has
proved how crucial it is to create a seamless experience for consumers, who are
buying much of the gear these days. Says a top PC design executive: "You're
going to see more and more of this desire to integrate hardware and software."

Even if it means borrowing from Apple. Microsoft denies doing that, saying it's
simply responding to demand for good design. Yet its approach has more than an
echo of the Apple ethos.

"We're decomposing the look and feel of Vista and bringing it into a language
that hardware designers understand," says Steve Kaneko, design director of
Windows hardware innovation. And here's another Apple-esque detail: The Zune
player will work only with Microsoft's planned music service, sources say. In
other words, it will be part of a closed system, like iPod and the iTunes Music
Store.

SOFT SELL.  So far, microsoft is using a soft sell with PC makers. The Windows
Vista Industrial Design Toolkit, hand-delivered to about 70 designers, contains
everything a PC maker needs—color palette, suggested materials, even graphics
for icons and power buttons—to create computers, laptops, and peripherals that
hew to Vista's look. A separate booklet exhorts hardware makers to eschew drab,
utilitarian boxes. Microsoft is providing the toolkit for free and vows not to
strong-arm any company into incorporating the concepts.

Will hardware makers take the hint? Those most likely to use the toolkit are
upstarts with tiny design budgets and little brand identity. One is A Living
Picture. The British startup plans to launch digital picture frames in October
that use Wi-Fi to display photos stashed on a PC. The first two products rely
heavily on the toolkit, from colors and materials to suggestions for geometry.
In the end, Microsoft saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, says
Jesse Grindeland, president of A Living Picture. "The question of using it
wasn't really why," he says, "but why not."

Big PC makers such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo won't dive so deep. "This will look
to [the hardware makers] like another way for Microsoft to take value from them
and move it back to Redmond," says NPD Group analyst Steve Baker. "If they
can't offer a unique look and feel, that takes away a lot of the value of being
a hardware company."

COOL RECEPTION.  In other words, if everyone uses the same design, a market
with razor-thin margins will be further commoditized. Lenovo received the
toolkit but is cool to the notion of implementing its concepts. "Our ability to
differentiate ourselves comes from our industry-leading innovation," says a
Lenovo spokesperson. "And design is a big part of that."

Trying to influence PC design is a no-brainer for Microsoft, since doing so
costs the company almost nothing. That it's bothering at all shows that having
a software monopoly isn't enough anymore.
===



"...In other words, if everyone uses the same design, a market with razor-thin
margins will be further commoditized....."

Yup, Microsoft wants to be the only one in the PC industry with the high profit
margins.  While competition has driven down hardware costs drastically,
Microsoft's monopoly has kept the price of Windows nearly the same for years
and years.

 /m

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