Microsoft is trying to get PC designers to get some of that Apple feeling, by incorporating such exTREME! trends as the use of black! and white!
The PC world used to be divided into two camps: those who made lucrative software and the poor schlubs who built the low-margin hardware it ran on.
Apple has turned that model on its head. From the beginning it has managed to create a unified design for its products by building everything itself, first with the Mac and then later with the iPod. Although Apple sells one computer for every 20 PCs, the iPod’s success has proved how crucial it is to create a seamless experience for consumers, who are buying much of the gear these days. Says a top PC design executive: “You’re going to see more and more of this desire to integrate hardware and software.”
Even if it means borrowing from Apple. Microsoft denies doing that, saying it’s simply responding to demand for good design. Yet its approach has more than an echo of the Apple ethos.
“We’re decomposing the look and feel of Vista and bringing it into a language that hardware designers understand,” says Steve Kaneko, design director of Windows hardware innovation. And here’s another Apple-esque detail: The Zune player will work only with Microsoft’s planned music service, sources say. In other words, it will be part of a closed system, like iPod and the iTunes Music Store.
Decomposing? Anyway, given that a huge chunk of the Wintel PC market is based on churning out units as cheaply as possible for a customer base that wants to pay $499 for a computer, it’s unlikely that this initiative is going to yield anything half as elegant as the flatscreen iMac or the Mac Mini. But I give ’em credit for trying, even if it does put me in mind of that great “what if?” video about Microsoft designing the packaging for the iPod.