Microsoft selling eBooks?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

But that is the majority of readers*, so why not focus on them. Also there has to be a lot of those that have iThingys, simply because a lot of people have iThingys whether they read or not. Hook one of those casual readers to become avid and they have already been lured in a really nice walled garden with higher walls than other walled gardens.

*: maybe not total reads, but readers as in individuals.

That's how iBooks got to 10%.
Getting newcomers and casual readers to buy in.

It's not all about getting people to switch; there's plenty of money to be made off the uncommited. And if you only buy a book or three a year it doesn't pay to buy a dedicated ereader. But it pays to be able to read whatever ebook you buy on a phone, tablet, PC or anywhere. Amazon proved that.

Now, it may be that Microsoft is looking to get the ebookstore up and running and more or less in business before reviving their COURIER.

https://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-...-secret-tablet

With all the talk of folding smartphones coming in the next year or two, it might be that the hardware (and economics) have caught up with the COURIER vision.

Or not.

It's all a matter of how serious MS is, whether they want to be a big player and go after avid readers or just an opportunistic one, mining one-sy, two-sy sales here and there. With a few hundred million devices to tap into, even a 1 percent conversion rate can add up to serious money.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

But that is the majority of readers*, so why not focus on them. Also there has to be a lot of those that have iThingys, simply because a lot of people have iThingys whether they read or not. Hook one of those casual readers to become avid and they have already been lured in a really nice walled garden with higher walls than other walled gardens.

*: maybe not total reads, but readers as in individuals.

Sure, Apple has always been about focusing on the 90%. It's a rational business model. But I don't know that it's a good model for growing that business. Of course, I don't think that Apple is focused on growing their ebook business. They are basically just picking the low hanging fruit and moving on.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

That's how iBooks got to 10%.
Getting newcomers and casual readers to buy in.

It's not all about getting people to switch; there's plenty of money to be made off the uncommited. And if you only buy a book or three a year it doesn't pay to buy a dedicated ereader. But it pays to be able to read whatever ebook you buy on a phone, tablet, PC or anywhere. Amazon proved that.

Now, it may be that Microsoft is looking to get the ebookstore up and running and more or less in business before reviving their COURIER.

https://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-...-secret-tablet

With all the talk of folding smartphones coming in the next year or two, it might be that the hardware (and economics) have caught up with the COURIER vision.

Or not.

It's all a matter of how serious MS is, whether they want to be a big player and go after avid readers or just an opportunistic one, mining one-sy, two-sy sales here and there. With a few hundred million devices to tap into, even a 1 percent conversion rate can add up to serious money.

It's been a long, long time since Microsoft has had a major success. They have their cash cows (Windows and Office) that have been around for 20 years. The question is can they be a big player in anything? They have the money to throw around, but they haven't shown that they can put out new products that people want to buy.

[GlenBarrington]

I suspect, this is a part of Microsoft's larger strategy, which BTW, I pretty much support. They may feel the need to have at least a token offering in every area their main competitors (Google & Amazon, not Apple) has a stronghold.

I really like Win 10, and find myself using more and more of the MS infrastructure. that being said, I have removed MS OneNote and Edge from my Android phone. I felt OneNote was too 'fiddly' for the sort of casual note taking I do in my real life. And on Edge, it kept showing those "YOU HAVE FOUR VIRUSES!" Popups that won't go away. These rarely appear with Chrome. I might revisit Edge if I hear they've upgraded their security for it.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I suspect, this is a part of Microsoft's larger strategy, which BTW, I pretty much support. They may feel the need to have at least a token offering in every area their main competitors (Google & Amazon, not Apple) has a stronghold.

I really like Win 10, and find myself using more and more of the MS infrastructure. that being said, I have removed MS OneNote and Edge from my Android phone. I felt OneNote was too 'fiddly' for the sort of casual note taking I do in my real life. And on Edge, it kept showing those "YOU HAVE FOUR VIRUSES!" Popups that won't go away. These rarely appear with Chrome. I might revisit Edge if I hear they've upgraded their security for it.

I've used OneNote at work for years, but I use the stand alone version, not the cloud version. I know that Microsoft is trying to push people to use the cloud version of everything, I guess because Goggle has been successful in that area, but Googles business model is advertising. Microsoft's business model appears to be moving all their customers to a yearly lease model, at least as far as I can tell. I don't see that being real popular, especially once those leases expire and people find themselves unable to access stuff.

[John F]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It's been a long, long time since Microsoft has had a major success. They have their cash cows (Windows and Office) that have been around for 20 years. The question is can they be a big player in anything? They have the money to throw around, but they haven't shown that they can put out new products that people want to buy.

Weren't the Xbox 360 and Xbox one major successes?

[darryl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Just don't be too quick to bury them.

So yes, they're way late to the party and don't (yet) offer us any compelling reason to deal with them. But they aren't necessarily D.O.A. If nothing else, they support ePub and aren't Amazon. In some circles that is enough.

It might be enough to get them 5% of the market in a year or two. Which ain't peanuts. And it would make them a clear number three.

People keep hoping for an alternative to Amazon; well, here's one.

Edit:

By the way, people like to wave off MS as some tech has-been and are missing how they are quietly growing into new and very profitable areas with top of the line tech. If anything, their core competencies in tools and services have them extremely well positioned for the next wave of change in the ever changing computer world. They are already coleaders, with AWS, in Cloud services. And they keep adding to their services toolkit. Edge is one of the keys.

And there are forces at work that play right to their strengths and positioning.

Consider these two recent pieces:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/android...oned-platform/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/siri-yo...nal-assistant/

The second one might seem like a seasonal joke but if you stop to consider Apple's backburner-ing of the Mac in favor of the iThings, to the point some are calling for them to spinoff the Mac to let it compete properly as a standalone business, there is merit in the idea. Apple has allowed its computing side to fall too far behind the leading edge to catch up any time soon. And if they don't team up with Microsoft, Amazon will. And are...

Bottom line, those dirt cheap WinTabs might come in very handy for Edge ebooks if the Oracle ruling sticks.

Despite my use of Linux, I've never been anti-Microsoft. In recent years Microsoft has done very well with some things, not so well with others. Its position in cloud services alone is not to be dismissed lightly and must be bringing them a nice revenue stream. However, to me this initiative is too close to the Windows Phone strategy, which has proved a failure. They were just too far behind IOS and Android, particularly in availability of apps. From all accounts the product was quite good. Just far too late to market and not enough differentiating features to make people want to swap platforms. To me the book store seems like a case of deja vu. Of course, though this may come as a shock to some, I have been wrong before and it is possible that I will even be wrong again. If Microsoft is prepared to persevere, pump money into it and expand its availability, including new products of its own, it is not inconceivable that it will succeed to some degree. Or perhaps Microsoft want only to pick the low hanging fruit, as pwalker said of Apple, I think accurately.

The Oracle ruling is an extensive topic in itself, worthy of its own thread. I thought the author of the zdnet article you linked to was in full panic mode. The views expressed reminded me of SCO and its Linux licenses. This will be an interesting one to watch, as the implications could be very significant indeed. Most interesting is that Google is in fact working on a replacement OS. The problem is, of course, apps. If Google introduce a new OS which won't run all or a large proportion of existing apps, then there could be a significant opportunity for Microsoft. And, of course, if Microsoft can again attract a significant share of the phone market then even its ebook store may derive significant benefits. But there are an awful lot of ifs. Based on the situation at the moment the most likely outcome at best for MS, at least in my opinion, is that it captures the "low lying fruit".

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

The Oracle ruling is an extensive topic in itself, worthy of its own thread. I thought the author of the zdnet article you linked to was in full panic mode. The views expressed reminded me of SCO and its Linux licenses. This will be an interesting one to watch, as the implications could be very significant indeed. Most interesting is that Google is in fact working on a replacement OS. The problem is, of course, apps. If Google introduce a new OS which won't run all or a large proportion of existing apps, then there could be a significant opportunity for Microsoft. And, of course, if Microsoft can again attract a significant share of the phone market then even its ebook store may derive significant benefits. But there are an awful lot of ifs. Based on the situation at the moment the most likely outcome at best for MS, at least in my opinion, is that it captures the "low lying fruit".

Low-lying fruit is essentially the casual reader market.
Which, yes, is the best they can hope for in the near term.
I'm just thinking that casual readers are a non-trivial market, especially since neither Apple nor Google--the current non-Amazon brands mining that market--offer a PC solution.
Rather than leave the field to Amazon, MS first tried to partner with NOOK (who failed them miserably) and now with Ingram.

As I said, it's not for me, but it's an attempt to bring a bit more competition to the ebook world. Who knows, "maybe the horse will sing."

As, for the Oracle ruling, it is a bit more than the SCO linux lawsuits.

Remember that ZDNET coverage is enterprise-focused, while sister site CNET is consumer-focused. So the ZDNET author is coming at it from the point of view of corporate line of business app developers. These developers are very risk-adverse. (The same people who wait for the first service pack before migrating to new versions of Windows.)

So it's not panic: it's a recognition that corporate IT types need certainty and will not stick with a development environment that might expose them to legal claims.

Since the court ruling is about the use of the APIs, not just the implementation of the APIs, it impacts all Android apps, not just the OS itself. Absent Oracle saying they will not sue app developers no IT department is going to risk having to explain to their CEOs why Oracle is suing them over an inhouse app.

The case is headed straight for the SCOTUS but that will take years.
In the meantime new IT app development will have to be leery of Android as a development environment.

It's the nature of the beast: corporate managers don't really trust their IT departments and many see them as a necessary evil. That's why so many outsource to IBM, DELL, HP, etc.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by John F

Weren't the Xbox 360 and Xbox one major successes?

Yes, I will certainly grant that one. But then again, the xbox has been around for 17 years.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Low-lying fruit is essentially the casual reader market.
Which, yes, is the best they can hope for in the near term.
I'm just thinking that casual readers are a non-trivial market, especially since neither Apple nor Google--the current non-Amazon brands mining that market--offer a PC solution.
Rather than leave the field to Amazon, MS first tried to partner with NOOK (who failed them miserably) and now with Ingram.

As I said, it's not for me, but it's an attempt to bring a bit more competition to the ebook world. Who knows, "maybe the horse will sing."

As, for the Oracle ruling, it is a bit more than the SCO linux lawsuits.

Remember that ZDNET coverage is enterprise-focused, while sister site CNET is consumer-focused. So the ZDNET author is coming at it from the point of view of corporate line of business app developers. These developers are very risk-adverse. (The same people who wait for the first service pack before migrating to new versions of Windows.)

So it's not panic: it's a recognition that corporate IT types need certainty and will not stick with a development environment that might expose them to legal claims.

Since the court ruling is about the use of the APIs, not just the implementation of the APIs, it impacts all Android apps, not just the OS itself. Absent Oracle saying they will not sue app developers no IT department is going to risk having to explain to their CEOs why Oracle is suing them over an inhouse app.

The case is headed straight for the SCOTUS but that will take years.
In the meantime new IT app development will have to be leery of Android as a development environment.

It's the nature of the beast: corporate managers don't really trust their IT departments and many see them as a necessary evil. That's why so many outsource to IBM, DELL, HP, etc.

Certainly there are issues with large corporate IT departments, but that has nothing to do with why companies outsource to IBM, Dell and HP. Usually, it's the IT departments that do the outsourcing. The biggest reason companies outsource is they think they can save money by doing so. For the most part, it's fool's gold, but they still chase it. Frankly, the real issue is that most corporate managers have so distanced themselves from the day to day work that they don't have a clue how things actually work anymore.

As far as the Oracle verse Google ruling, this is Oracle killing the golden goose. The Supreme Court has been hinting for a while that they want to clean up the mess that is copyright and patents in the US. Allowing people to copyright code was a bad idea from the start and doesn't reflect the way that coding actually happens. I can guarantee that there is code in the various Java API's that is borrowed from earlier coding projects. Most coders build up a library of code that they use going from job to job over the course of their career. It's the only way to code efficiently.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yes, I will certainly grant that one. But then again, the xbox has been around for 17 years.

That is like saying that Apple hasn't done anything innovative since 17 years ago with the first iPod. Since then only incremental changes and added features. The iPhone is an iPod with calling features built in, iPad is nothing but a giant iPod with bigger screen.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Low-lying fruit is essentially the casual reader market.
Which, yes, is the best they can hope for in the near term.
I'm just thinking that casual readers are a non-trivial market, especially since neither Apple nor Google--the current non-Amazon brands mining that market--offer a PC solution.
Rather than leave the field to Amazon, MS first tried to partner with NOOK (who failed them miserably) and now with Ingram.

As I said, it's not for me, but it's an attempt to bring a bit more competition to the ebook world. Who knows, "maybe the horse will sing."

As, for the Oracle ruling, it is a bit more than the SCO linux lawsuits.

Remember that ZDNET coverage is enterprise-focused, while sister site CNET is consumer-focused. So the ZDNET author is coming at it from the point of view of corporate line of business app developers. These developers are very risk-adverse. (The same people who wait for the first service pack before migrating to new versions of Windows.)

So it's not panic: it's a recognition that corporate IT types need certainty and will not stick with a development environment that might expose them to legal claims.

Since the court ruling is about the use of the APIs, not just the implementation of the APIs, it impacts all Android apps, not just the OS itself. Absent Oracle saying they will not sue app developers no IT department is going to risk having to explain to their CEOs why Oracle is suing them over an inhouse app.

The case is headed straight for the SCOTUS but that will take years.
In the meantime new IT app development will have to be leery of Android as a development environment.

It's the nature of the beast: corporate managers don't really trust their IT departments and many see them as a necessary evil. That's why so many outsource to IBM, DELL, HP, etc.

The Oracle case is indeed "a bit more" than the SCO one. An unfortunate parallel with SCO is the uncertainty and the threat to third parties, in SCO's case end users, in this case app developers. And, of course, the possibility of selling licences as a form of insurance until the matter is finally decided. Unfortunately whilst SCO's case seems to have had little merit, the same cannot be said of Oracle's. I expect SCOTUS will hear the matter, but there are of course no guarantees. Where I thought the ZDNet article was going overboard is its talk of an imminent mass exodus from Android, particularly one involving a boom in IOS and a resurgence of Windows Phone. It's not that it is impossible, but I am not expecting it to happen, conservatism and potential risk notwithstanding. There simply does not seem to be an acceptable alternative to reach all of those Android users, though there may be a lot of money to be made by anyone who can quickly provide such an alternative. I haven't followed the situation too closely but there were a number of alternatives under development, some of which could actually run Android software, though I would be very surprised if they were able to manage this without the use of Android API's.

There will certainly be a lot of nervous developers around, especially the larger ones, who will no doubt be seeking advice as to their exposure. I'm no expert in US law nor am I am aware of Google's full Android licensing terms. I'm simply not sure what exposure developers may have over and above Google's exposure. The damages situation alone is fascinating. If only Sun had held on!

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Allowing people to copyright code was a bad idea from the start and doesn't reflect the way that coding actually happens.

How do you suggest to go about it then? There has to be some copy protection system in place for software. Something that prevents a simple disassemble and recompile with different optimization options. Different executable, same features without doing copy and paste.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

How do you suggest to go about it then? There has to be some copy protection system in place for software. Something that prevents a simple disassemble and recompile with different optimization options. Different executable, same features without doing copy and paste.

The basic model is sensible: patents for ideas, copyright for implementation.
There is value in software and investments of time and money in creating them. Software in all its forms is worthy of protection and copyrighting the source code is the proper tool and place to do it as it protects against unathorized derivatives but allows true clean room copies. It's good policy.

In literary spaces you copyright specific stories but not plot ideas or titles.
You can tell the same essential story idea (boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets alien vampire and dies) a hundred different times as long as you tell it in different ways. Lots of writers make a good living telling the same story over and over.

Oracle vs Google is different from most software catfights because there is a smoking gun and the derivative product is, as the appeals court said, a one for one replacement of the original. Google simply didn't want to pay for a license.

Most of the people opposed to Oracle's position are only opposed because of the expected disruption from a definitive Oracle win, not because they don't think Android "plagiarized" Java. Most would be the first to sue if it was "their" software getting ripped off.

The key thing to remember is the Android API started out as an exact copy of Java *and* the interpreter used Java code. In legal terms that makes the entire product (Android) an unlicensed Java derivative. It is not unlike the mess with J++ where Microsoft had to pay Sun for creating a Java derivative, something they did not have a license to do.

Creatives have to be protected or they won't have reason to create.

As "the irascible Harlan Ellison" says: pay the writer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

That is like saying that Apple hasn't done anything innovative since 17 years ago with the first iPod. Since then only incremental changes and added features. The iPhone is an iPod with calling features built in, iPad is nothing but a giant iPod with bigger screen.

The original iPod was very, very different than the iPhone. The iPod touch (which I generally call the iTouch), came out in 2007, roughly the same time that the iPhone came out.

If you want to say that the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad line hasn't had any major innovations since it came out in 2007, I would agree with you. That's been improving incrementally. The AppleTV and iWatch on the other hand, I would consider innovative.