The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Argo aims guns at more than iPod — This could be a winner to distract people from Vista and the delay.
What’s being developed is actually a complete line of Xbox-branded digital-media products, including a device that plays media, a software media player and an online media service.
The project, or at least part of it, is referred to internally at Microsoft by the code name Argo — a reference to the huge warship used by the hero Jason in Greek mythology.
Argo is being developed within the Xbox group under the leadership of Xbox co-founder J Allard. His team includes people who previously worked on MSN Music, an online music service that had a promising debut in 2004 but fell victim to Microsoft’s dithering over its music strategy.
Now the company is firmly behind Argo. It has committed hundreds of millions to produce and market the devices.
As reported last week, initially by Bloomberg News, the device is expected to go on sale by Christmas. It has Wi-Fi capability so it can connect wirelessly to home and public networks and other players.
Four years late and a few billion short sums up this story.
I have my iPod, my wife has her iPod. They work in our cars, and they work with iTunes which then works with the rest of the audio devices in our home (via Apple Airport Express).
Why should I change to drink from the M$ cup? What will they be doing that makes this whole process better.
While I’m a huge fan of the 360, this same thinking exists in that product as well with the “media extention” software. Why deal with that and an assoicated Windows based computer when for $500 I can pick up a Mac Mini and do the same thing with no fuss?
OMG, I agree with James!
😉
Ditto.
The only people I can really see buying this is the first year college student who doesn’t have an iPod and gets offered a couple hundred off the purchase price of their MP3 player when they buy a laptop.
The biggest problem for Microsoft in this campaign is that most people who own iPods bought them within the last year or two and see no reason to change. There’s also the fact that no matter what they do with this, Apple’s going to be mentioned in every article that comes out about it because it’s going to be the iPod-wannabe. I can picture the kid working at Best Buy trying to sell this and the customer says “Oh, like iPod and iTunes?”
Digital Cameras worked in cellphones because a) nobody WANTS to carry around their camera with them wherever they go, b) everyone carries their cellphone with them and c) kodak moments pop up all the time, and along with them so do the “oh, crap, i left my camera at home” moments. nobody cares about social networking on their mp3 player. unless it’s myspace. then people might buy it.
#4, your scenario was incomplete
‘ ‘ I can picture the kid working at Best Buy trying to sell this and the customer says “Oh, like iPod and iTunes?” ‘ ‘
Best Buy: Absolutely!
WiFi is a significant power drain on my laptop. It could really zap the power in a small hand held device. The only way they could penetrate the market would be to practically give the devices away for a while.
Sorry Microsoft. There isn’t any pie available. Jobs has licked the plate clean and owns the pod pie factory. Try doing something original for a change.
I’ll be the contrarian. I have two iPods. I have purchased two others for my wife. We use none of them for various reasons. Mostly becuase we don’t really like to listen to music when we drive – we listen to NPR. But also because they’re a pain in the butt to keep updated. If there wree a device out there that could be updated wirlessly then I’d be intersted.
My POV: the iPod is vastly over-rated. Expensive. Easy to use only once it’s loaded full of music. The battery life is flakey. They break down (as did my 40GB iPod).
Did I miss the news? Did M$ release Vista? How about Office 2007? Didn’t think so. Hey Bill, worry about these products before going off on another doomed tangent.
Why is this doomed? I’ve heard good things about XBox 360’s ability to serve as a wireless mediacenter proxy.
“Why is this doomed?”
It will probably be overpriced, buggy and no competition for the ipod.
#8. well, if you dont use them, four iPods would be a mighty expensive indulgence. “Easy to use only once it’s loaded full of music” dosen’t strike me as a big complaint, since loading them full of music is really the purpose. I will give you break down and battery life – my 2g freezes up periodically for no apparent reason, and fortunately I only need it for max 2 hours at a time. but as far as actual breakage goes, mine is good and scratched up, but keeps plugging away.
First James, now gquaglia. Next I’ll find myself agreeing with AB CD.
I will save them the overhype, and all the viral marketing, “enthusiast junkets”, blogger beach-ball astroturfing, seriously annoying MVP fanboyisms, and Scoble flame-ups about the “grassroots”. It’s DOA.
UMPC, Tablet PC, Pocket PC/WinCE devices and SPOT watch redux. Bulky, unwieldy, poor battery life…feature-targeting the Early Adopter Geeky markets, plus not internally dogfooded, with massive firmware and chipware updates (always resulting in a new device purchase, Pocket PC style), and then handcuffed with some evil DRM that kills the Geek market, WGA for MP3. You expect anything less? That’s been the script for 20 years.
#8 i agree
the iPod is vastly over-rated. Expensive. Easy to use only once it’s loaded full of music. The battery life is flakey.
and the software is terrible
i’ll gladly trade my ipod for one of these..
Strange that Apple owns this category, huh?
Chris (14) hear, hear – I agree – I thought BillG was out? why are they still doing his minitablet/macroPDA thing? It doesn’t work! Someone tell me that something with a 3.5″ screen and Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi!?! What will happen to the batteries?) isn’t another kick at that bucket … And people say it will be good because it comes from the XBox division – didn’t the early 360’s overheat and flake out a bunch?