Microsoft continues trying to 'spoil' Apple's iPod Day 2008(tm)!!!

Grow up, Paul.

Yert...stop it with your blog.

Pulitzer prize winning journalism.

:) Funny, but it's funnier to see how much some ppl loves you Paul. I just don't get it, they hates you / your blog and even hates Microsoft, but they still stay here. Sadism/Masoquism or something? ;)

Whatever Paul likes to think, these people are right in that Microsoft would love to "steal Apple's thunder", seeing that Microsoft are so bad at making a product and then communicating what it does.

<>attempting to hijack Paul's.<< Interesting concept. When have you ever seen a 'Ocean' post on the front page? I'd call that hijacking. The majority of Paul's readers never even consider the comments.

Nice spin. Don't make yourself dizzy.

What are you Paul? Twelve? I mean, seriously.

johnpapola "What makes sept 9th so special?" A few things. First, both the new Windows Live Video service has a sidebar gadget that uses stuff from the LifeCam webcams. The webcams and the mice both come from the same group at Microsoft so they're probably doing a single press event for all their new products for the holiday shopping season. Next. Announcements from almost all major companies (in all industries) are done on Tuesdays. You don't want to announce on Monday or you get lost in people catching up after the weekend. That said, you want to announce as early in the week as possible so you get the longest news cycle. That's why Tuesdays are so universal (and why Friday is when you announce things you want ignored - hence the name "take out the trash day" as popularized on The West Wing. Third, you don't have announcements during late December or right after 3-day weekends so that leaves you with about 45 possible Tuesdays. Fourth, if you are announcing a product geared for the holiday shopping season, you need to announce it between September 1st and mid-October but don't want to announce when people are still traveling from Labor Day. This year that means you have 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/ 7, 10/14. That's it. Fifth, if you also want to hit the last of the "back to school" market, you have to announce as early in September as possible. (and even that's iffy). That means 9/9 or 9/16 are your only possible dates and 9/9 is by far your best choice.

Ocean That's really just Marketing 101 and most of it was thought out about a century ago by Thomas Watson Sr. who founded IBM. (Who always announce on Tuesdays) btw: I'd also expect General Foods and GE and Hasbro and Krups and Kitchenaid and Nikon to make announcments on the 9th or 16th. I guess they're part of the conspiracy to steal Apple's thunder, too. (Seriously, just about every company that sells through the retail channel and has holiday season products will make announcements on at least one of the 6 Tuesdays and most will make announcements on several of them.)

Ocean Neither did I but you learn things whether you officially study them or not. (If not, I'd be programming in Fortran) I spent 2 1/2 years consulting to IBM back when they were still the world's dominent computer company and it was pretty much impossible back then not to pick up some Watsonisms.

Master3 What are rules 1, 2 and 4?

@Shark Not about Apple? Even thought title of the blog post is... "Microsoft continues trying to 'spoil' Apple's iPod Day 2008(tm)!!!" You are right its about "Nothing". It flame bait to drive posts. I dont think for one second MS is trying to do what is rumored. Why? Because they cant. Now if they could, as in had some announcement that would make people listen over the new iTunes/iPod event, then it would NOT surprise me at all if MS did something like that. Although I did see a new title today that described IE8 as having a "Porn Mode" and thought that was funny.

Master3, Thanks. I just don't get my iCabal monthly check and update anymore so I wasn't sure I was up to date.

@Lindy - "Why? Because they cant." They sure seem to have your attention, though... I read somewhere that this new "mouse" or, as MS likes to call them, Human Interface Devce, is going to be a GPS enabled wireless device that is accurate to within 2 nanometers. It will double as a TomTom type device for your travel needs, and has enough memory to store detailed maps of the entire known universe, incuding Canada. --tayme

Since we're talking humor and marketing, how about this? It made me laugh and it shows where MS' marketing chops are at: *You Can't Pay People to Use Microsoft Search* Microsoft has been desperately trying to chip away at Google’s dominance in search -- and the ad coin it brings in -- but it looks like its plan to pay searchers isn't having much impact on market share. In May, Microsoft unveiled its cashback search service, which gives users rebates on purchases that have been made through Live.com. As TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld points out, a small initial boost in Microsoft’s search share in June nearly evaporated by July.

Yes, Mike...I am fully aware that HIDs can be mice, keyboards, or anything else that is used to input information into the system. No need to explain every little thing. That is as annoying as "lotsa" and his [sic] bombs used to be. --tayme

@Lindy - "How is that MS has my attention?" I believe that your posts here demonstrate that well. But, you could be right...it is really Paul that has your attention for Microsoft. --tayme

Yes Paul has my attention....sometimes:)

@shark. I think Vista was pushed on consumers way to early. MS has admitted as much, especially lately. There is evidence from the internal emails (that paul even posted on this site) that they knew it shortly after it came out. How could this happen? Market dominance, monopoly like practices, and mountains of money to name a few. So I think if bad press, and lots of it can teach MS not to pull that kind of move in the future then great. I think other arrogantly, large companies can learn from their mistakes....even better. They do make some great products, especially on the server side ("backoffice") of things and that is where anytime I spend with MS products is. MS does not pay me a dime. My employers name is on my electronic pay stub that I open up on our corporate sharepoint site:)

Lindy: The most obvious issues with Vista at launch time could be attributed almost entirely to third party vendors and partners of MSFT, who dragged their sorry asses in providing proper driver support. True, MSFT could have waited a year or more for these laggards to get their act together, but what is the guarantee that they would have been ready a year later, when they didn't get up to speed with nearly two years of tech previews (alpha/beta/RC1/RC2 etc.)? Other than the third party support issues, there were not many serious issues with the OS that any other new OS doesn't have. Leopard launch wasn't bug-free either, was it?

chuckb84 Thanks. I hadn't seen "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in a long time. A true classic. Oh, and they changed the name from FORTRAN to Fortran in the ANSI X3.198-1992 (Fortran 90) spec. :-)

incite = insight. duh.

Very, very O/T (more than Ocean's posts): Manual Transmissions seem to be a better value than even Hybrids based on the numbers in the latest Consumer Reports edition. I'm surprised so many Americans still prefer Automatic Transmissions. Sorry. Had to get that out of the way. I love Manual Transmissions. :-)

Why is everyone bashing on Paul when this is actually how Apple fan boys act like in reality?