Comment by StrawberryFrog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by StrawberryFrog | Hacker News Reader

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But that's if it actually does surface. Do you believe MS, still hobbling along after its Windows Vista disgrace, can really pull off such an apparently revolutionary machine?

Maybe I'm too close to MS (my posting history here indicates that may be so), but these two sentences really struck me as arrogant and dismissive. What has the OS software division in MS, who delivered Vista in November 2006 got to do with a hardware team shipping a new product, probably in 2010? How does Vista's poor reception hobble them? It doesn't even seem to be hobbling the Windows 7 (AKA the Vista do-over) push. How exactly would that "hobbling" work, shortage of funds due to poor sales of Vista? I didn't hear of MS being that short or R&D funds.

Do MS have history of vaporous hardware announcements?

A pre-announcement must serve some purpose. With an OS or hardware launch, it is probably advance warning to get third parties on board to create compatible software. Does this seem to be the case? Either that or there's a leak due to the increasing number of people who know about the product as it gets nearer mass manufacturing and retail.

Do MS have history of vaporous hardware announcements?

No, they have a history of promising breakthrough innovation and then woefully underdelivering.

Microsoft Hardware doesn't exactly have a strong track record. Xbox 360 had a failure rate of 54%. And then there's Zune: http://www.google.com/trends?q=frozen+zune

Anecdotally, I recently bought one of Microsoft's new bluetooth mice, and it stopped functioning correctly after 3 weeks.

My experience has actually been the opposite: with the notable exception of the launch 360s, Microsoft hardware has been well designed, fairly priced and long lived.

I'm still using the Microsoft natural keyboard and optical mouse I purchased in ... 2001? The sidewinder joysticks were always excellent. My original XBox is going strong; the Duke being perhaps the best designed and built gaming controller to date. The 360 controllers are similarly excellent (though I miss the Duke's size). The wireless notebook mouse I bought 2 years ago is the best wireless mouse I've used, period.

I can't speak to the Zune, having never owned one.

I assumed that with that track record, the accusation that "the 360's reliability problems were known but allowed to slide in blind pursuit of launching first" made the most sense. It was deeply disappointing, but I do give the hardware group itself the benefit of the doubt.

SquareTrade only reported a 16.4% failure rate, 60% of which was attributed to RRoD and 40% are other failures, which include overheating and consumer related damage including the use of cooling pads (ironic). This means Microsoft's failure rate for 360s on a hardware standpoint is ~10%, which is slightly above industry standards but certainly isn't deserving of the class actions. Personally I'm wondering what Microsoft has been holding back, the class actions happened way too fast after these "studies" came out meaning MS never got to make an announcement on their own findings. I have a feeling they have a silver bullet in case the class actions ever get to court or they would have already attempted to court sympathy with the public.

I'm wondering if Microsoft will have a leg to stand on arguing that consumer demand for environmentally friendly products negates their claim for defective electronics as high-density electronics are hard to solder efficiently using non-lead based solders. If they can get a judge to side with them that the consumer demand for 'green' products means a higher defect rate could get the entire class action kicked out, but then the 360 wasn't exactly advertised as environmentally friendly (like MacBooks are) so if this would fool a judge or not is a wonder.

The current 'jasper' model 360's have a RRoD rate of less than 4% which is actually significantly better than the industry standard of 5-8% for hardware failures in the first year.

You don't think the generous warranty service in the first two years and then an extension to 3 years for RROD and av plug issues was an attempt to court sympathy?

A company is giving its customers good service. Is this fact altered by their motivations for doing so?

Their peripherals are good, but their "consumer devices" have a spotty track record.

Peripherals aren't consumer devices?

Sure, if we ignore everything but the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and Zune HD their record looks far worse.

But is that a fair bucket to build?

>But is that a fair bucket to build?

Well, to some extent, it is. A mouse or keyboard is one thing, a console or tablet is another.

If the statement had been "They can't make a reliable X-box, so this hardware will be junk too", you can at least debate that as a coherent idea, but to say "They failed on Vista therefore you can't believe this" is just vague and non sequitur.

I'm typing on a Microsoft keyboard right now, the nth of many. Good stuff - works with OSX w/o custom drivers, including the volume up/down/mute - a nice touch!

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