A dissenting view on Microsoft's playfulness - dare I say double standard?

As I previously noted, both Steven Hodson and I have written posts which discussed, in part, the celebration of the Microsoft employees who released the new version of Windows Mobile. A fun little story, right? Not the prevailing view elsewhere.

Jeff LaMarche, after stating that he hopes that this new version of Windows Mobile will succeed, explains why he was bothered by the goings-on.

Who throws a victory party before the race has even started? Hell, who even throws themselves a parade??

LaMarche links to a Wil Shipley tweet:

I’m all for Microsoft’s people celebrating successes! Throwing *yourself* a parade is just gauche, tho. And reeks of corporate.

I just have to wonder. If Microsoft is being criticized about holding a big celebration surrounding a product release, does this same "hold your nose" attitude apply to other companies? Subsitute words like "Zune" into this description and see if you gag - whoops, I mean, go gaga.

9:34 am: John, Kara and Adam are here waiting for the doors to open at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the start of the event.

9:54 am: Packed house today as these events often are. Seated in the theater, we’re treated to another variation on the Jobsian playlist: The Beatles, Clapton, etc.

9:58 am: A first “take your seats” warning. There’s a piano stage right, presumably for today’s musical guest. Long shot speculation in the audience that it may be Lady Gaga who was reportedly spotted on the Apple campus about 2 weeks ago.

10:00 am: Jobs takes the stage at 10 AM sharp to enthusiastic applause.

Remember how holding a parade for yourself is undignified? How about parading between all of your stores?

10:01 am: And with that, we’re off. First a quick retail update. Jobs discusses Apple’s new stores in Paris and China, notes that the latter with its massive glass cylinder is a monument to glass engineering.

10:03 am: On to London. Another slick store in Covent Garden, Apple’s 300th. Jobs notes that Apple now has stores in 10 countries and will soon add an 11th — Spain. “We’re seeing 1 million visitors to our stores on some days, several days a month.”

And while people in Washington are doing dance moves, people in California are talking about - themselves:


Apple Unveils New iPods, iTunes Social Network, Video Rentals

by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 1, 2010 at 9:28 AM PT

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Steve Jobs held court this morning at Apple’s traditional September music event, unveiling goodies like a refreshed lineup of iPods; Ping, a new social network built into iTunes 10; and an updated Apple TV, with support for TV and movie rentals. Also announced was iOS 4.1, with a multiplayer Game Center, High Dynamic Range photos and HD video uploads over Wi-Fi.

The complete liveblog coverage:

9:34 am: John, Kara and Adam are here waiting for the doors to open at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the start of the event.

9:54 am: Packed house today as these events often are. Seated in the theater, we’re treated to another variation on the Jobsian playlist: The Beatles, Clapton, etc.

9:58 am: A first “take your seats” warning. There’s a piano stage right, presumably for today’s musical guest. Long shot speculation in the audience that it may be Lady Gaga who was reportedly spotted on the Apple campus about 2 weeks ago.

10:00 am: Jobs takes the stage at 10 AM sharp to enthusiastic applause.

10:00 am: Job recognizes his “partner in crime” who’s in the audience today: Steve Wozniak.

10:01 am: And with that, we’re off. First a quick retail update. Jobs discusses Apple’s new stores in Paris and China, notes that the latter with its massive glass cylinder is a monument to glass engineering.

10:03 am: On to London. Another slick store in Covent Garden, Apple’s 300th. Jobs notes that Apple now has stores in 10 countries and will soon add an 11th — Spain. “We’re seeing 1 million visitors to our stores on some days, several days a month.”

10:04 am: “Our stores are bringing a lot of new users into the Mac family,” says Jobs, noting that about half of Mac purchases are made by first-time Mac buyers.

10:05 am: Moving on now to iOS devices. Apple’s shipped 120 million iOS devices since the first iPhone launched, says Jobs, adding that Apple is activating 230,000 iOS devices a day. “People throw out a lot of numbers about how many devices they’re activating per day,” he says. “We are doing 230,000 activations a day. …We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers … and we think we are ahead of everyone — if we were counting upgrades, our number would be WAY higher.”

10:06 am: “200 apps are downloaded from the App Store every second … we’ve got over 250,000 apps in the store and over 25,000 of them are iPad apps,” says Jobs. “Today we’re introducing iOS 4.1.”

And so on, and so on, and so on.

Now let's talk about all of the celebrities that showed up at Microsoft's event to further demean it. Oh, there weren't any. Around 11:10 am, Chris Martin from ColdPlay showed up. OK, I will give Martin points for joking around (or is this demeaning too?).

11:21 am: After a few songs, Martin pauses: “I’m not sure what to do … is Steve around to tell me what to do next …We’re moving on now to Coldplay 2.6 … this one has a lot a features, multiple chords that our competitors aren’t yet aware of …. it’s in the chord of ‘i minor’”

Now I have no problem with Steve Jobs and his friends going on and on about how wonderful Apple is. And I have no problem with Larry Ellison and his friends going on and on about how wonderful Oracle is - well, I have a personal problem with the Psychedelic Furs, but other than that I'm OK.

So what's the harm in Microsoft throwing itself a party?