The Microsoft Band Is Dead (zdnet.com) 58
Microsoft's fitness-band line of devices have not be very well adopted over the years. Last month it was reported that Microsoft will be killing off the Lumia brand in favor of a new Surface Phone brand. Now, it appears the company is discontinuing its Band devices, as it has removed all references to them from its Microsoft Store listing online. Mary Jo Foley writes via ZDNet: A tipster who asked not to be named showed me a cached version of the Microsoft Online Store listing from yesterday, October 2, which included Band devices; today, October 3, references to the Band devices are gone from the company's Store sites. Microsoft also removed the Band software development kit (SDK) today, which isn't surprising given it's no longer selling Band 2 devices. Microsoft is believed to have disbanded the software team that was looking to bring Windows 10 to the Band a couple months ago. I've gotten various tips that at least some of the Band hardware team members have dispersed, too, with some moving to other Microsoft hardware teams inside the company. Even though sources of mine have said Microsoft is planning to phase out its fitness band devices and to have no plans to roll out a Band 3 device any time soon (or likely, ever), company officials still haven't completely conceded that it's the end of the line for Band. I asked again today and have yet to get an updated statement from the company regarding when and why Band devices were removed from Microsoft's online stores. A spokesperson sent me the following statement: "We have sold through our existing Band 2 inventory and have no plans to release another Band device this year. We remain committed to supporting our Microsoft Band 2 customers through Microsoft Stores and our customer support channels and will continue to invest in the Microsoft Health platform, which is open to all hardware and apps partners across Windows, iOS, and Android devices."
Typo in the headline (Score:5, Funny)
brand*
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I wish...
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Any buyers? (Score:1)
I got a Zune Band with Clippy built in.
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Some Preparation H should heal it up
Excellent sensor package, terrible design... (Score:5, Informative)
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And I was just started to getting interested about the device family! Apparently MS has too little patience for the consumer electronics market, or I'm too slow a potential customer. A couple of Sony engineers still refurbishes the Aibo robot dogs in Japan for mostly senior citizens, and some temples provide services for the souls of the dead Aibos. The product was discontinued 2006. MS has some lessons to learn before being able to remain in the market.
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And I was just started to getting interested about the device family! Apparently MS has too little patience for the consumer electronics market, or I'm too slow a potential customer.
They've stuck it out with the XBox, but otherwise seem to be abandoning whole areas where they have little market share:
* music players (understandable with mobile phones on the rise)
* mobile phones - declining
* wearables - out
IMO the mobile & PAN devices such as wearable will continue to grow and become more complex. Microsoft abandoning these is a strange decision.
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Its not just hardware.
Games for Windows Live!
Games for Windows Live again
Was there a third one? Nevermind, no one cares.
Silverlight
Xbox Media Center (had a better run than some of them, but they got bored all the same)
I'm sure there's plenty of others, those are just the ones that spring to mind.
A lot of these things seem more like they were weak gambits to hamstring a competitor than actual products MS wanted to sell.
If a Microsoft product doesn't take off pretty quickly, they'll abandon it and leave you h
Re: Excellent sensor package, terrible design... (Score:2)
Isn't XBox Media Center an open source project now called Kodi or are you taking about something else?
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Sorry, I meant Windows Media Center
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Every time you invest in bleeding-edge Microsoft things, you get burned. Eventually this is going to happen to the Xbox.
Uh... xbox brand is 15 years old, I hardly consider it "bleeding edge microsoft thing", especially considering the 'xbox one s' is merely an upgrade to the original xbox one...
Whenever you purchase any bleeding edge technology you have a higher chance of getting burned that with technology that's been around for some time, it doesn't matter if it's a microsoft product, an apple product, or a damn tamagotchi. It is a risk that you either choose to take or not.
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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/
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It remains to be seen if the surface phone is anything more than the product of a few people's imagination. My opinion is that Windows on phones is dead. Whether Microsoft will admit this or not is probably not relevant in the end. Intel flinched and stopped dumping Atoms into the market at less than cost. They've given up, which puts Microsoft in a worse position now. And they already looked pretty hopeless.
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The what now? (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't know about this product before today. I guess it's the new Zune.
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I'm sure it would have been a reasonable for what these bands are but the reality is they all have really shitty battery lives and are tied to online / cloud like services. I don't see the point of buying something which is subject to the whims of a big business or the precariousness of a smaller one. If the cloud service is discontinued they're basically us
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Anyone else (Score:2)
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That you could readily read the headline as "Microsoft brand is dead", is a pretty solid indication that it is dying and anything M$ is being seen as uncool, distasteful, perverted, and really quite off. Windows anal probe 10 is really putting the tiny limp in micro soft advertising. Even a relatively popular product ends up with a bad nickname XBone, now that just so tiny limp ;D.
The Microsoft Band Is Dead (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit I never even got to hear them in concert.
I heard all their songs are just obvious but worse copies of other more successful bands music though.
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Yeah, pretty much. [youtube.com]
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P.S. Made you watch it!
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That video is just sooo wrong on so many levels.
Do even MS sales droids actually go for this shit?
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To be a good sales droid you need either no sense of shame, or the ability to fake it convincingly. Still, I suspect a fair number of them bit their tongues and smiled along politely.
Greatest hit of The Microsoft Band (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What will all the groupies do now?
The same Mary Jo Foley (Score:2)
"Fitness bands" are a fad (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Fitness bands" are a fad, anyway.
I agree. Remember when the Wii came out and there was sudden hype that I was going to get people up and physically active? Yeah. Didn't happen. Turns out people who want to do sweaty activities do sweaty activities.
The fitness band product has two places: as a tool for people who ultimately don't need them, and in the same room as the dusty treadmills and weight sets people buy and never use.
Re:"Fitness bands" are a fad (Score:4, Insightful)
People who exercise on a regular basis don't need to know heart rate and all of that other silly stuff, unless they're seriously competitive athletes, which is, of course, a tiny market.
Except people like tracking themselves. Data tracking as a fad has run for the best part of 20 years. I wouldn't discount it early.
As for not needing to track your heartrate, that ignores all of this talk of "fatburning zones" and "cardio zones" and all this other wonderful stuff researchers are selling us. Before declaring the one device to monitor the "zone" dead you need to invalidate the concept, which doesn't appear to be happening right now.
The Mi Band is useful and cheap (Score:2)
What's a fad is all these expensive devices with crap battery life. The Mi band does all the fitness (and sleep) tracking for $20. Now that's something you can just get for fun, and if you don't find it useful, pass it on to someone else. Personally I like mine. Making people buy $200+ devices with yearly upgrades? Of course that won't last.
Band on the run? (Score:2, Funny)
It's dead? Good! (Score:2)
Stupid, useless one-not products like this are an absolute waste of time, development hours and money.
My experience with the Band. (Score:2)
The Band is the perfect example of Microsoft's ability to come up with a great product but completely botch its execution.
I owned the first gen for a month before returning it. The thing actually died within that first month due to the ingress of sweat, and that was without doing any strenuous activity. I didn't want to be stuck with something this prone to failure, but the actual functionality was fantastic. It worked well, and it had GPS.
So when the Band 2 was released I decided to get that, assuming and
Doh! (Score:1)