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Windows chief Jim Allchin’s emails that have become even more famous since the MacWorld keynote, has a new edition to his Apple beats Microsoft tirade. Is Jim Allchin the biggest Apple fan? The Microsoft Iowa antitrust trial (Comes v. Microsoft Corp., CL 82311, Iowa District Court, Polk County) has exposed yet another internal Microsoft email that was never meant for consumers eyes. In a November 2003 e-mail by Windows chief Jim Allchin, shows the frustration that Microsoft felt with its digital music device partners. This probably helped them decide to try the Zune music player and service to challenge Apple’s iPod. As I have always said it is the iPod/iTunes platform that uses QuickTime that they most feared, as Apple has gained big time against Windows Media.
Jim is becoming the “poster-child” for why there are so many Windows switchers coming to the Mac! As you might expect, what Microsoft says in public is a world of difference to what seems to be said in private emails. Remember Gates and Ballmer saying how much they liked the Creative MP3 players? I do. Seems Jim Allchin and several others at Microsoft did not love the iPod competitors claiming to “feel pain” from these devices and their own Windows Media Player software.
In this latest e-mail exchange marked as “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL” with the subject line, “sucking on media players” — Allchin described, in detail, his lousy experience with the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra and Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. “I have to tell you my experience with our software and this device is really terrible,” he wrote, before listing problems that he encountered with the device and the software. “What I don’t understand though is I was told the new Creative Labs device would be comparable to Apple. That is so not the case,” Allchin in the email.
Allchin talks about his experience with a top-of-the-line Creative player, and pretty much trashes the entire experience, from the player itself saying, “I mean it is ugly, not smooth to the touch (hard edges and uncomfortable to hold, etc.), fragile (easy to break), the controls are difficult and they hurt your finger if you use the ‘jog’ dial much at all.â€
“I think I should talk with Jobs,” he concluded in a later message, referring to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “Right now I think I should open up a dialog for support of the iPod. Unless something changes the iPod will drive people away from WMP.” The emails are from about a month after Apple’s first version of iTunes for Windows.
The Microsofties did not like the Dell, Samsung, or Rio MP3 players either, claiming “none are a match for Apple (iPods).”
This isn’t the first time that one of Allchin’s three-year-old e-mails has made news. In a 2004 e-mail to Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer made public during opening arguments in this same antitrust case in December, Allchin criticized Windows and said “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.” Allchin, who is retiring after Vista is released, referred to Longhorn as “a pig” and said “we have lost our way.” Time will tell whether this latest one is pithy enough for another Jobs keynote joke. Jim might want to work for Apple, he is doing more and more to help with switchers!
See the full text in PDF, 2 pages. A must read. Next time you have a family member thinking of buying an MP3 player, show them these emails. Even three years later, they say tons about the iPod’s earned dominance and user experience. I give Jim Allchin credit for being a straight shooter, at least in his internal emails. I think it is odd that the Zune experience is still so lousy and does not work with Windows Media Player.
