Again and Again Microsoft Shows It’s Not A Consumer Company

While the major and minor consumer electronics companies unveiled their holiday joys, like 3D televisions, home networking products that really work, mobile phones that replace just about everything and accessories that kind of sneak into prominent position in living rooms, Microsoft disappointed its followers twice in one week.

The Redmond, Washington behemoth introduced its next and hopefully final version of a “Smart Phone” that was so far behind the curve that even its service providers like AT@T and T-Mobile couldn’t get excited about the launch. We previewed the product about 4 months ago and were promised that the real version would blow away IPhones and Droids, but it certainly didn’t. The Windows 7 Mobile phones look like terrific touch screen devices but are missing elements like cut and paste (due next year) and contextual browsing (even non smart phones have that). If social media is your thing then these outdated before they start phones are decent, but everything from handling documents, to getting to and from websites quickly is so disappointing that it’s silly.

Even the one size fits all design of the Windows phone pales in comparison to the many different types of Android-based phones, and even any version of the IPhone has more pizzazz.

Very Little Difference Among Windows Smart Phones

The Windows Phone can use many of the good MP3 features of the Microsoft Zune, but who owns one? The Windows Smart phone is something you may never own (like the Zune). Unless you want to be an outsider with less than competitive technology, there are very few reasons to drop your IPhone or your Android based phone. We were rooting for Microsoft, since Google is quickly taking over the world, but perhaps Microsoft should have at least looked at its terrific competitors rather leap to oblivion in consumer electronics again.

A Big Bump In The Road For The Long Awaited Office For Mac

I am not a big fan of the Apple Macintosh computer in any format. Yes, they don’t crash or have many issues with viruses or spam or other strange things. But, for my use, the Mac is usually slower, still has over priced and too few software programs to boot and, to this day, some of my MP3 players and cameras either don’t run at all or are rendered nearly useless by the Mac OS.

But I plunked down my two grand and use it half the time. The one thing that bothered me the most is that the Microsoft created Office for Mac and didn’t use conventional Outlook. It used the single worst program developed for any computer: Entourage. At almost every press event, I joined 100s of other writers always asking when Outlook would replace Entourage. Finally, a few weeks ago, Microsoft launched Mac Office 2011.

I eagerly opened the package like a kid who finds his special gift under the Christmas tree. It installed in seconds! Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint were cooler and better than the PC version, and Outlook 11wiped out the dreaded Entourage email program. You could hear me cheer for miles. But soon, just like the boy who got a book instead of a PlayStation, I almost cried.

Outlook 11 for Mac took me four days to program correctly because they didn’t instruct their tech support in India and the Philippine’s correctly on the program. (Microsoft sources acknowledged that the other day.) Outlook 11 wound up screwing up my email and then also screwed up my PC based contacts, calendar, notes, folders and to do lists when I imported them following the printed directions.

I wasted hours on the phone with tech support. By the time Microsoft had a U.S. based Outlook trained tech support person apologize to me for the installation disaster, I had finally fixed the many issues. I did this by using sources at the company who were even more embarrassed. An official spokesperson said there weren’t many calls about these issues…another Microsoft executive acknowledged the issues and said a fix was going to be ready soon. But too late for those of us expecting our early software Christmas present.

And by the way, the first thing that Microsoft advertises for the entire Mac Office 2011, is that it is faster than a PC version, that it opens and closes and performs sophisticated editing, number crunching, presentation features in an improved fashion. It doesn’t. According to sources at Microsoft, that upgrade is a few months away.

The Cisco Kid Strikes Again

Last month, a spokesperson for Cisco, the giant networking company whose foray into consumer products like the Flip camera series and the Valet routers, said that its tech support division, notoriously behind most consumer product companies, would be beefed up to service it growing customer base. NOT!

I just installed the much-touted Valet Plus Router.

Guess what the software and hardware settings designed to boost speed, access and quality of a home or apartment’s WIFI leaves off the settings for the most popular and useful WIFI purchases: The Wii, PlayStation 3, Squeezebox and Xbox 360. So you have to call tech support to activate those ports on the router. The well-meaning and polite support person took over my home computer and voila she activated those products’ WIFI access in about 20 minutes. But why the hell should I have had to call a company’s support department to get that done? It should have been built into the software in the first place…especially for a company that’s trying to become consumer friendly.

I Saved the Good News for Last

The long awaited Intel driven, Google designed, Logitech and Sony produced Google TV products were terrific in our first test.

The Logitech Revue, a smallish set-top box that will work with any TV, installed in less than 5 minutes and gave us full browser capabilities on a four-year-old HDTV set. The Logitech Revue also added a slew of applications that were easy to use and made so much more sense than the apps that come with Apple TV, TiVo or Panasonic, Sharp and non Google Sony Bravia Internet TVs. (Full review appears here.)

Unfortunately only a few hours later, the APP I was really looking for to reduce my cable TV bill, Internet driven TV stations, was pulled from the mix by the networks as they are negotiating a fee from Google which hopefully won’t be passed on to Revue owners.

The free Logitech high definition video calling system (with the $69 HDTV camera) was the best video calling system we’ve tried. We liked it even without the TV over Internet feature. We also liked the Sony version of Google TV. I won’t have to have my laptop next to me while I’m watching TV and get and urge to get my email or look up Jon Hamm’s career before he became the star of Mad Men.<

Bytes and Pieces: We’ve been closely watching and working with certain aspects of Intel’s development of Google TV and Smart TV in general. The so-called Intel inside Your TV and the chipmakers umpteenth attempt at getting in your living room is actually working well with these new products. But why isn’t Intel taking any kudos? Are Sony, Logitech and other CE companies asking for more fees to promote the fact that Intel is inside their products?

The 3D TV from Panasonic, Sony, Visio and Sharp, while enjoyable with cartoons and animation, hasn’t exactly driven 3D theatrical video sales yet.

A recent trip to Best Buy and Costco resulted in hardly any 3D titles for sale.