Will Microsoft's "Me Too" Wearable Strategy Work
Exploded view of the Microsoft Band
With huge anticipation for the coming Apple Watch, developers are working night and day on innovating the latest and greatest fitness, health and medical apps using the Health Kit and the Apple Watch SDK.
Google is attempting the same with the Android version of "Google Fit" and the Android Wear SDK.
Now Microsoft is launching their attack on the, yet to be defined, wearables market with its' "Microsoft Band".
The Microsoft Band
The Microsoft Band will work on both IOS, Android and Windows Phone, but with Windows you will be able to use the Microsoft voice assistant "Cortana" (but not Apple's Siri).
Like Apple's Health Kit, Microsoft is also launching it's version of personal health data in the cloud with "Microsoft Health". This will be a device agnostic cloud service i.e. it will work with most wearable devices on the market.
Question remains, will the "Microsoft Band" be able to compete with the Apple Watch or will it become another "Zune player" or Surface tablet write-off for Microsoft? (Microsoft wrote off $900 mio due to unsold Surface tablet inventories last year).
Different design options of the Apple Watch
Disclosure: None.
I actually owned a Zune (which was great) and a Surface which is by far my favorite tablet (I own Android and iPad as well - Surface is by far the best in my opinion, even with the fewer apps, you get far more bang for your buck) and I even experimented with a Windows Phone, but the lack of apps caused me to return it to Amazon while I still could. MSFT has all the right ingredients to succeed. Yet... they never seem to. I'm wiling to give their product a try, but what matters is what everyone is willing to adopt. And Apple is still the leader.
I don't think Microsoft has what it takes. Historically, Apple doesn't invent products, they take a product which never quite realized its potential and made it better. They did it with the mp3 player, the tablet and are now doing it with mobile payments and the Apple Watch.
Microsoft by contrast always follows Apple. Anything they do, they try to make better. Once ipods took off, they came out with the Zune which flopped. When iPads took off, they came out with the Surface tablet which flopped. When the iPhone took off, they came out with the Windows phone which flopped. They just don't have what it takes.
Apple has also done a great job building up a user base. There are millions of people that will automatically buy the Apple product based upon name, regardless of the specs and technology. Their marketing is far superior to Microsoft, and as a result even though Microsoft might sometimes have the better product (technologically speaking), Apple will still take the lead in sales.
Unfortunately, you are right. I think the biggest problem is they have so few apps. Apple and even Android did an amazing job at building up an unbelievable offering of apps, many for free. While Windows does have some big ones now (like Netflix), the offering is paltry at best. This more than anything else holds them back.