This last week Microsoft released it’s beta of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) to the public after much anticipation throughout the tech industry.

I have been running IE9 Beta since it was released and can honestly say it’s my favorite browser so far, it’s fast, the user interface is minimal and clean and best of all supports HTML5 and CSS3 almost completely.

As a web designer it’s always frustrating trying to code sites to work in the various browsers, especially IE6. IE9 is breath of fresh air to say the least.

Head on over to their informational site: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/ for more information and to grab the beta, it’s well worth your time.

Microsoft has finally released the RTM versions of it’s Windows Phone 7 development applications and controls. I have been eagerly awaiting this release to finally start flushing out my first WP7 application.

I’m not quite ready to talk about what that application actually is but we think it’s pretty cool.

If you are a WP7 developer or interested in getting your hands dirty in the development world then jump on over to Windows phone website for additional information.

Links:

• Windows Developer Website
• Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW (Includes Visual Studio for Windows Phone 7 and Blend 4)
• Additional WP7 Silverlight Controls (ContextMenu, WrapPanel and ToggleSwitch)
• Mobile Advertising SDK

This release of tools now includes the Panorama and Pivot controls which have been showcased throughout many of Microsoft’s examples.

In the age of the iPhone and other smart phone devices like Blackberries and the Android platform it’s easy to gloss over the significance of the recently announced phones from Microsoft called Kin One and Kin Two. The entrance of the Kin phones and ecosystem is a surprising move considering Microsoft also just announced their other new phone platform called Windows Phone 7, a completely new experience and platform which essentially replaces the old Windows Mobile platform.

I have seen a lot of blogs/bloggers exclaiming that the Kin devices will fail, they just can’t seem to understand who would buy these phones, especially when there are so many smart phones on the market which can do so much more.

Personally I think this is a brilliant move by Microsoft.

1. Target Audience
Microsoft has a very specific market they are aiming for with these phones, it’s not aiming for the business person or the people who want a lot of power and applications and who have money to throw around on expensive devices and service/data plans.

Instead these devices are aimed directly at young adults, kids in middle school, high school who are heavy into social interactions with their friends, who use Facebook and text message a 100+ times a day. Kids who have part time jobs and have limited budgets, big into music, photos, videos and social networks.

2. Devices
The Kin devices are not smart phones, most people would probably call them dumb phones. I however, refer to them as “dumb smart phones”.

Dumb phones are basically your standard, cheap and basic functionality phones that you can find in every phone store. Dumb phones can’t really do much, they can make calls, send text messages, maybe have a calendar, calculator and a few low level games. The interfaces are lists of text menus.

Smart phones like the iPhone are much more expensive, come with a service plan and a data plan in many cases, They have internet access, music, high quality games, thousands of applications for just about anything you can imagine. The interface has nice icons, smooth transitions/animations and sometimes customizable.

Dumb smart phones such as the Kin falls somewhere in the middle, which is one reason I think it will be highly successful. The interface is something we have never seen before (even on a smart phone and especially not on a dumb phone), it has slick animations, vibrant images, and a dynamic/interactive experience which makes the phone “fun” to use again.

3. Experience
I touched just briefly on the user experience in bullet two but I feel it needs more explanation since I think it’s the experience which is really going to drive the sales of these devices.

The user experience on the Kin devices is crucial to the success of these phones, all these kids who want a “cool” phone at an affordable price and still does everything they need it to do will jump at the chance to get a Kin. Think about it, would you get a phone with static boring list based navigation system or something with fluid, dynamic animations/effects, dynamic content and a unique interface? I’d choose the latter of the two in a heartbeat, which is exactly why the iPhone has been so successful.

The Kin is a “step up” in the phone experience while staying within a price point (I expect) that young adults can afford with little hesitation.

In addition to the phone itself having a great experience, you also will have a great experience with it on the web. You’ll be able to view all your photos, your profile, various information in a structured, fun, interactive and dynamic and unique environment.

4. Price
Price will play an important role as well, I expect these phones will be priced between $75-$200 plus a small monthly service fee. Personally I think the phones should be priced between $50-$125 with a small monthly fee.

My guess is that Microsoft won’t make a lot of money on these devices anyway, so if they price them as low as possible, make it so that kids won’t have to hesitate because of price. A low price also makes it an affordable second phone to people with iPhones or other smart phones who want something small and easy to use when they go out to a party, or someplace where they are afraid their smart phone may get damaged or even stolen.

Low price often times means a lot of sales, if they go for quantity of users instead of high profit then they have quickly and easily guided people into their ecosystem, 1-3 years later when the kids are ready for a something more powerful they will likely consider other Microsoft phones since they are familiar with the experience and all their data is already in that system, I expect it will be quite hard to port over the data to some other system like the iPhone.

Final Thoughts
Microsoft has of blindsided the dumb phone competition, they re-evaluated the dumb phone experience and made it into something that is fun and cool. So many companies are focused on building smart phones while ignoring the huge potential of lower cost, lesser functionality phones which still outsell smart phones and will continue to outsell for a while yet. Dumb phone companies are so focused on low cost that the experience gets even worse for the end user. The Kin should provides both a great experience and a great price.

What are your thoughts, will you get a Kin? Do you know someone who would fit the Kin target audience? Will it be successful?

Earlier today, a designer, blogger, web standards “king” Jeffrey Zeldman wrote an article called “IE9 Preview” in which he outlines his initial thoughts about IE9, Webkit and overall tone of the IE team.

Zeldman applauses Microsoft’s efforts in it’s improving web standard support into IE such as CSS3, HTML5, SVG and more. On this point I agree with Zeldman that standards support is much desired and sought after by web designers building sites for all the various browsers. On the other hand I disagree with his comments about suggesting that Microsoft should simply switch to webkit so that all/most browsers are running the same engine.

Throughout his article he talks about the issues and drawbacks of the dominance that IE once had and for the moment still maintains (though steadily declining). So then why, at the end of his blog post does he suggest IE should switch to Webkit? It makes no sense to complain about the control of IE as a bad thing then on the flip side praise the idea of total control of another simply because it’s “better”. In my opinion this will lead us down the same path we are trying to get out of with IE6.

Competition is good, always has been and always will be, as someone so embedded in the tech industry as Zeldman is, this seems to have slipped his mind.

Microsoft’s Tone

The primary reason for Zeldman’s blog post was to criticize Microsoft over their tone of announcements. Frankly, the web experiences which Microsoft showed today (in relation to their competitors) is valid reasoning for being excited and even cocky about what they have managed to do. The fact that they were able to play TWO HD videos with minimal CPU usage, using HTML5 on a netbook is pretty impressive. I don’t know of a single company that doesn’t try to show that their product is better than their competitors product, advertising IS being cocky/bragging by nature. Why is he calling Microsoft out but no one else?

If he thinks Microsoft is bad, he should learn about a company called Apple. Do a Youtube search for Mac vs PC and tell me who is cocky, arrogant and bragging. Where are his posts about the misleading advertising in all of Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads? How about Zeldman himself, on his About page he clearly promotes the fact the Business Week calls him the “King of Web Standards”, he doesn’t seem to mind “bragging” and pushing the fact that he is the “KING” in our faces, so why can’t Microsoft brag about what they have developed?

Almost everything Microsoft showed in IE9 today was better than what their competitors are doing for the supposed “Standards”  (which aren’t even standards yet) within other browsers, yet Zeldman bashes Microsoft over it.

People seem to forget that Microsoft can’t just change something overnight, when they change something as big as IE is, then there is lots of potential for lots of things to break and that is bad for everyone. IE9 so far is clearly headed in the right direction, support the fact that Microsoft is working to do things right.

In the tech world today Google is a hot topic, it seems as if everything Google does creates a storm of positive reviews, articles, tweets and more. Google has become the ‘savior’ from all things Microsoft, people who hate Microsoft have moved over to Google because they think they are dealing with a company that is less “evil”.

Interestingly enough, this is the same type of situation that happened when Microsoft started to grow by leaps and bounds in the late 80’s and early 90’s. What’s the difference? At that time it was IBM who was the evil one, Microsoft came along and people flocked to their software and services because it was a new and provided cutting edge software and most of all it wasn’t evil like IBM.

What are some of the primary reasons people started to hate Microsoft?

• Market share – Microsoft controlled virtually every market that it entered
• Security – Microsoft got hurt big time by the massive number of virus attacks and malware infecting millions of peoples computers.
• Arrogance – With comments like Steve Ballmer’s about the iPhone having no chance at success.
• Control – Microsoft was able to grow and continues to grow rapidly by simply buying out the competition.

How many of the points above are we starting to see creep into Google’s basket. I’d say all of them and frankly Apple is going in the same direction as well.

Google dominates search it has continued to maintain a strong market share over every other competitor without a blink of an eye. Even big name companies like Microsoft have not been able to gain strong momentum even with their new Bing search engine. Search is the strongest service that Google provides and dominates in, but they are trying hard and really just starting to enter new markets with Android, Chrome OS, Chrome, etc. Each of which could begin to really prosper in an environment like we have today where people are ready for something new.

Security is certainly extremely important to almost all companies, including Google. With the latest comments by Google’s Eric Schmidt about privacy, makes many wonder how important security really is to Google. Android is just now starting to get some traction and Chrome OS and Chrome are in development, when these 3 systems are popular what kind of security issues are going to begin to arise? Microsoft learned the hard way and now have solid and intense security tests it runs, does Google spend the same amount of time testing security?

Arrogance is probably the one reason I don’t have a specific example for in regards to Google but I’m sure it’s there.

Control is very important to Google, almost all of Google’s primary services require that you have a Gmail account to access additional functionality. Every page you visit in Chrome gets reported back to Google (from my understanding anyway) which allows Google to better understand your habits whether this is good or bad is up to you. Google single handily has access basically ALL of the information on the internet and now even emails, phones, discussion, photos and now documents. With Chrome OS they want to control everything about you, on their servers on the cloud, scary.

As Google continues to create new services and offer them for free, it will begin to step on the toes of those who may be big supporters of Google which will lead to some un-happy people. Just look at what was released today, a new url-shortener by Google. I can’t imagine any of the other url shortening companies are very happy about this, how many people did Google just piss off by creating one little service. Or how about their new iPhone navigation system that places like TomTom have been trying to control or at least make money from, Google in one swoop crushed an entire industry. How many people did that piss off?

This very thing is what is eventually going to hurt Google, just as how it hurt Microsoft and before that IBM. The bigger you are the more markets you can enter, the more markets you control the more people you tick off, eventually this will catch up to them and their reputation will change for the worse. Despite their “do no evil” slogan, as a major company which influences many markets they are guaranteed to do some kind of evil whether they believe it is evil or not. Ask TomTom if Google did evil with their new navigation system, I’d bet they wouldn’t have to many positive things to say.