If Googlers can spend 20% of their time thinking up new ideas, it appears some Microsofties figure they can make a joke about Apple beating them to a pulp with iPod marketing.
A report this morning says Tom Pilla, identified as a Microsoft spokesman, sent an e-mail to the iPodObserver taking credit for a video that spoofs how its marketing team would have packaged the iPod. The three-minute clip, available on Google Video, shows the product and packaging going through revisions - the box being smothered in stickers and one model being named "Human Ear Professional Edition."
How Gates' people can make a joke about the iPod is beyond me. Microsoft COULD have owned the business that the iPod built. In the early '90s, its Sync & Go delivered free audio and video content to Pocket PC devices. Providers included NBC, the Comedy Channel and MarketWatch (I was the product contact for us).
I loved the concept. Content when and where you want, on a portable media device that played audio and video - just like everybody now realizes is the future - from Rupert Murdoch to Reuters' CEO Tom Glocer (Rafat Ali recorded Glocer's remarks last week in London).
Sync & Go had its boosters, especially among the early new media producer/adopters like Jake Luddington and Rob Greenlee. But Microsoft didn't see there was a big, BIG market to be had.
Microsoft was there first, with news and information. Adding music wouldn't have been a stretch. But marketing and product management never figured it out. My guess is there was no champion for Sync & Go inside the company, or at least no true believer with any clout.
RIP.
But, at least MSFTers can watch the video and laugh as they walk past the graveyard. Yep, those marketing people are tops.
Sync & Go was actually closer to the podcast boom than you realize. It shipped as part of one of the Plus! packs for Windows XP, which means it shipped sometime in 2001. Microsoft's mistake was in keeping it closed - all the content provided was based on a licensing deal of some kind. Had they opened it up, Sync & Go would have been podcasting.
Posted by: Jake Ludington | Mar 15, 2006 at 12:31
Podcasting companies of today can learn a lot from Sync & Go. I believe that the lessions that it can teach UI designers could be what makes video and audio podcasting consumption explode.
I still have the application loaded on my Dell Axiom Pocket PC. It you would like to see it just ask me at any tech conference I am attending. They could still bring it back if they wanted to do it, but they have moved on with a new vision that takes them back to the stone age again. They did not learn anything from it. Jake, Chris Pirillo and I pumped it up internally at Microsoft as MVP's for over a year and virtually no one at the company even knew it existed.
I am the one who told Robert Scoble about Sync & Go and he was blown away at how great it was. He thought it was very cool that Microsoft had that much vision and was shocked that they just walked away from it.
Here is another article that I wrote about Microsoft walking away from spoken-word content and the missed mp3 player opportunity: http://www.webtalkradio.com/news/000028.shtml
Posted by: Rob Greenlee | Mar 16, 2006 at 04:33