Now Microsoft Wants To Get Into The PayPal Business As Well?
from the good-luck-with-that dept
There's a short blurb over at CNN suggesting that Microsoft is getting ready to enter the online payments business, based on some off-hand comments from Bill Gates at Davos. It very well could happen, but it's odd that the press report doesn't even mention PayPal and seems to assume that this is really an attack on credit card companies. It's certainly possible that it would be directed at credit card companies, but the brief description sounds much more like PayPal. Of course, beating PayPal at its own game has proven a difficult chore for just about every competitor. eBay couldn't do it, so they ended up buying PayPal outright and shelving their own competitor. Google is trying to beat PayPal and finding it to be more difficult than expected. There's nothing wrong with Microsoft entering the space (more competition for PayPal would be good), but it seems unlikely that any of the credit card companies need to be worried any time soon about Bill Gates' plans.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
brand recognition
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: brand recognition
PayPal did its job well?!? I know a lot of people that really hate PayPal, mainly from freezing accounts for no valid reason.
Frankly I was surprised when eBay gave up and bought PayPal, warts and all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: brand recognition
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Imagine the hate
Factor in the multitude of current hacker/fiscal entrepreneurs that would feast on the inevitable holes that integrating banking, home computing, and the everyday idiot users would open. Now this is already arguably in place...but your Passport ID isn't tied to your credit rating.
All things considered, Microsoft would do well in the business as long as users aren't left as a major line of defense against theft.
stupid users...FTL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Living Off of the Innovation of Others
Soon we will see Microsoft answer to YouTube, MySpace, and host their own blog service ala Wordpress, TypePad and Vox. God forbid they spend time, energy, and resources on the secure computing platform they dumped from Longhorn.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Living Off of the Innovation of Others
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Living Off of the Innovation of Others
You are quite confused.
You would rather Microsoft sit back and not improve their products? You would rather they focus on the security aspect that very few consumers care about instead of the usability factors that the vast majoriy of users do care about?
How would that benefit anyone besides Apple?
Innovating is not Inventing. Do not confuse the two, or your arguments wont make sense.
Innovating is paying attention to your products, and improving them in ways that consumers care about.
As for living off the INVENTIONS of others, well, thats what we have patent protections for.
If all car manufacturers had been using square wheels, and one manufacturer discovered that round wheels greatly improved the driving experience, would you flame Ford for "copying" the innovations of Toyota? No, that would be absurd.
Of course, if Toyota had patented the round wheels, we'd all be fubar'd, but thats a tangent for another post.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Living Off of the Innovation of Others
And?
So one of the biggest and arguably most powerful software companies on the planet doesn't invent new stuff, yet somehow they manage to make money out of their butts. I'm all for the "innovation is good" mantra but let's not drink the koolaid too long without looking at reality.
Yes, it can easily be argued that Microsoft has a substantial history of leeching of the innovation of others, but inherently you are assuming that innovation is the optimal business model, and I would argue that isn't always the case. In fact, history has shown several instances in which the guy who tries something first ends up the big old loser. A close examination of the history of many "top of the market" companies reveals that they weren't necessarily the first in that space, and probably learned substantially from the mistakes of others. Google, contrary to popular belief, was not the first search engine. MySpace was not the first social networking site. iTunes was not the first online music distributor. Yet all of these companies are seen as the "most popular" and/or "best in class".
In short, being the first to market and innovating sometimes is a recipe for poverty and the guy who sits around and waits for you to work out the kinks could end up the big winner. From an communal standpoint, innovation is of the greatest benefit to society, but in a good ole money grubbing kind of way marketing and good business savvy have shown to win out most of the time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
cut out the middle man
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: cut out the middle man
Actually, credit card companies already do that.
Why not cut out the middle men?
The benefit of a service like Paypal is it hides your credit card info from the seller.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So?
Why would you use a title that makes it look like Microsoft is bad for entering into this business?
I agree that it is bad for Microsoft to enter into this business, just that entering this business does not make them bad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
omg, shutup
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You know..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Used the Xbox or Zune Marketplace?
At the moment it's only really useful in the Zune and Xbox360 marketplaces but a logical next step would be to roll it out to buy bling for Messenger or upgrades for Vista...
Imagine then if they were to start to open it up to allow 3rd party online stores to use it, and then as a peer-to-peer transaction method.
Imagine a secure app on a windows mobile device that acts as your wallet and they've got a reach that PayPal and others may find hard/expensive to duplicate.
I personally dislike PayPal (and even more since they became part of eBay) and would love to see some competition.
None of the credit card companies seem to have realised yet that there is a market here for micropayment (ebooks, music downloads etc) so MS and Google (both trusted brands on the whole) have a good oportunity here.
Of course eBay will do like it did with Google Checkout and refuse to let MS play in "their" space as well "... in the interest of protecting their users..." but they are slowly finding their grip on the market slipping
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Innovation is key to survival
I am not a big Microsoft fan but I am not a hater too. I realize that the more big companies like Microsoft come out with innovations, it is for the good of consumers like us. It just creates healthy competition and those companies trying to outdo each other will result in us having great products/ services, vast options to choose from and inturn cheaper/ higher valued products.
Do you think Apple "invented" the system of putting music in compressed form into a portable box with the iPod? Not even close, that technology had been there for a while, all they did was take it and improved the concept. Don't forget Google bought Blogger and improved on it to compete with the likes of Typepad, Wordpress etc. Angelfire innovated from free hosting to free blogs now. If Xbox 360 didn't come out, they wouldn't have tried to make a superior product in PS3 so fast, and Nintendo wouldn't have come out with WII. Apple also came out with their own version of Office to compete with Microsoft. What I am trying to say is that it is all a chain reaction that is part of innovation, marketing and healthy competition and it is not just Microsoft that is doing it -- they just seem to be out in the news a lot more because they are a gigantic company.
Having another Paypal type service is great in the fact that it will kick Paypal's butt to make sure that they offer good or even better service. I haven't had problems with money transfers with them but I must admit their customer services sucks! Competition is good, it'll only kick start them into making a better product and improve themselves or else their customers will go to the competition.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
First does not equal best
Look at MS' own history. MS Word, back a ways, it only had 2% of the market share. Now look at it. Where is WordPerfect? Amypro? The word processor that everyone said was a lost cause ends up being the most widely used word processor in the world.
Same story with Windows. Remeber that HP and Apple came first. Who holds 92% of the market in this sector as well.
The Xbox 360 is just the latest accomplishment in a long list for MS.
Microsoft has a very long history of successful underdod enterprises.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Making money
THAT's where the money is. That's where MS is going.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]