I just got my Treo 700w to sync over Bluetooth.  And I am very proud of myself.

But, in a technologically sensible world, I shouldn’t be…that is to say, setting up an ActiveSync partnership over Bluetooth shouldn’t be that hard.  In fact, there shouldn’t even be a concept of setting up a “partnership.”  I should just be able to tell ActiveSync to allow Bluetooth connections and go.

Instead, I have to go into the Bluetooth stack software on my laptop, enable the serial port profile, determine its COM port in the property sheet, go into the ActiveSync Connection Settings dialog, allow connections to that COM port, pair the phone with the laptop’s ActiveSync profile, fire up ActiveSync on the device, and then, finally, tell it to connect over Bluetooth.

Bluetooth was initially designed to replace the cables used to connect PCs and peripherals.  But until Bluetooth is as easy to use as a USB cable, it will be relegated to a specialized protocol for cell phone cordless headsets.  People will plug and play with cables until playing unplugged doesn’t require voodoo or passing a certification exam.

Musicmatch, first known for its jukebox player software packaged with many PCs and sound cards, was one of the first online digital download music stores for the Windows Media platform...I'm reasonably certain their online store beat Napster to the punch.  The two services have been largely similar: both offer Windows Media protected format music downloads, at 99c per track or (usually) $9.99 per album.  MSN music joined the fray recently with a similar service, but their store is so terrible and difficult to use that I have to assume they've "thrown the game" on purpose, to let the third party ecosystem of music stores (and broad support for WMA protected format) flourish.

Both Musicmatch and Napster also offer subscriptions that give you unlimited access to a majority of their libraries, with the ability to stream or download the files, but not to burn them or copy them to other PCs or portable devices.  The subscriptions are a terrific way to explore new music.  The Napster subscription is especially good, because they've built a Windows Media Center front-end to the service, so you have access to a huge library of music from your home entertainment center (i.e. your "stereo").  The software is buggy, but it's worth putting up with the bugs because there's so much good music, all available from your remote control.

Recently, Napster upped the ante by offering a $15/month subscription that works just like the aforementioned one (which is only about $10/month) but also allows you unlimited copies of the downloaded files to portable music players.  Not bad.  But the plot thickens.  Yahoo bought Musicmatch a while back, and through that acquisition is now offering Yahoo! Music Unlimited, its own subscription service with unlimited copying to portable players.  Better yet, it's only $4.99/month if you pay for a year's worth of service ($6.99 on a month-to-month basis).

This means Yahoo, arguably the most recognized brand on the Internet (OK, maybe 2nd or 3rd at this point), has standardized on Windows Media and "Plays for Sure" as its platform.  There are now a lot of music services on Microsoft’s platform, and one of them is HUGE.  How many sites use the AAC format in a form compatible with Apple's iPod?  Just one that I know of: iTunes.

Furthermore, Philips and Microsoft have jointly announced the release of a new chip set for portable players that has Windows Media baked right in the silicon.  Strike two for Apple.

Apple's iPod has a huge market share (something like 70%, I believe).  Their hardware looks great, and people love their iPods.  Most Windows Media-based portables look like cheap knock-offs by comparison.  As a fashion item, iPods rule, and until Microsoft understands the fashion component of this market, their success will impeded.

But eventually Microsoft will get this part right, and even if they don't, it may eventually matter less and less.  Sony's Betamax once had a fiercely loyal customer base and had the VCR market to itself.  Then scrappy ol' JVC came out with an inferior format called VHS.  They licensed it to every OEM under the (rising) sun and "VHS" eventually became synonymous with "VCR." The same ubiquity-to-also-ran-status transformation will happen to the iPod.  And for the same reasons.  Call me crazy.  Just remember that you said that when the Windows Media Audio format is so universally adopted that no one will even notice anymore.

I _love_ my new ThinkPad T42.  I got it (care of my benevolent employer) loaded with 2GB of RAM, a 60MB 7200RPM internal drive _and_ an 80MB 5400 RPM second drive for the "UltraBay."  I'm running all VPC images off the second drive, and this is really amping up my presentation capabilities.  For the talk I gave at today's Microsoft ISV Community Days event, I had two separate VPCs running (one with Whidbey Beta 1/Yukon Beta 2 and the other with the Whidbey December CTP) as well as PowerPoint on the host/physical machine, and I was Alt-Tabbing between everything with ease.  Oh, and the VPCs ran pretty quickly too.

This is my first IBM laptop, and I'm never going back (unless Lenovo really screws up the superior engineering of these things, which I doubt).  I previously used Dell Latitudes (have owned 3 of them in total), and before that a couple of WinBook models (that was ages ago).  The Dells were never great, but the last one was a horror show...I had it serviced more times than I can remember, replacing the hard drive, the DVD/CD-RW combo drive, the keyboard, and the motherboard (three separate times).  The ThinkPad is just leaugues better; the 1400 x 1050 display is lovely and high-res without being illegible, and the UltraBay is especially impressive.  I do think the Dell docking station was easier to use (especially because it was truly front loading), and the icons for the myriad IBM software utilities are ugly as sin.  IBM's continuing refusal to put a Windows key on the ThinkPad keyboards is beyond absurd.  I have mapped the Right Alt key to be the Windows key, but that's far from elegant.