Microsoft: Xbox One Is Perfect For Your Small Business

[Karloff]

Microsoft: Xbox One Is Perfect For Your Small Business

Why not treat it as a business expense?

Marques Lyons, Xbox MVP, has put out an open letter to small businesses making a timely suggestion: buy an Xbox One. Heck, make it a business expense; there are many features built into the console - video conferencing, networking and the like - that will help your business grow. Like Skype? Xbox One does that, and allows for multi-person chatting. Need to store documents? Xbox One has the Sky Drive. Internet Explorer and Office Web Apps are at your fingertips, with the Xbox One. Plus there's plenty of assistance for your presentation and Power Point needs. You won't even need a clicker to navigate from page to page; Kinect does away with all that. Other, future apps could add further business functionality. Buy one for your business today! Or better yet, in November 2013, when it actually comes out.

If you're wondering who Marques Lyons is, wonder no more [http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/MVP/Marques%20Lyons-4021778]. It's an interesting pitch; certainly there are Xbone functions that a business could find useful. You have to wonder just how many businesses really want to buy into a $499 console for Skype and Power Point, or how many of the ones that need those services already have devices that provide them. Lyons himself seems to acknowledge this in the first paragraph of his open letter. "As the owner of a small business, you find great value in your computer and your phone," he says. "Between the two of them you are prepped for presentations, up to date on your appointments and able to create documents with relative ease."

And there's the rub. If you're a small business and you're looking for tech that can really help you out, why look further than a smartphone and tablet? Skype, cloud storage, presentation software, web browsing; it's all there, plus plenty more third party apps. Payroll management systems, point of sale apps, barcode readers, analytics apps, apps for keeping track of travel expenses, client databases, any flavour of accountancy and financial management package you care to name, and so on. Not only is it out there, and at pretty comparable prices, it's more convenient simply because it's mobile. You won't be putting the Xbone in your pocket or bag any time soon.

Anything's possible, but if Microsoft's hoping for a significant pick up in small business purchases, it may be disappointed. We'll know one way or the other after the Xbone's November launch.

Source: Small Business Support column [http://smallbusiness.support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/MVPPost?PostId=11&showheader=0&showfooter=0&frame=-2033448541]


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[MorphingDragon]

Yet a small business will already have all of these features available on their existing infrastructure.

I honestly don't know if this is trolling.

 

[greyfox115]

Yet a small business will already have all of these features available on their existing infrastructure.

I honestly don't know if this is trolling.

I would say its scraping the bottom of the barrel more then anything.

 

[Legion]

I don't think Microsoft quite grasped that the reason so many people disliked the XBone wasn't just the DRM, but that it seemed to be less and less about gaming. If somebody wanted what has been described here there are much cheaper, practical alternatives already out there, so this is hardly going to help promote sales and positive PR.

Not to mention how most people are going to have a hard time justifying to the tax man that the games console they bought was meant for business. PC's can get away with it and so can tablets because gaming isn't the function most people buy them for.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Umm computer's and as mentioned; tablets and smartphones. Try reaching out to kids Microsoft, they're the one's who are uninformed enough about your device and have access to people who have more money than they do.

You think they would've learned from Sony's 'It only does everything' and how much that took off (it didn't).

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

"What's the Kinect do? Don't worry about it. Just keep operating your business as if no one is watching everything you do and listening to everything you say."

Purely joking there. I don't see much of a market for Xbone in this context, but who knows. No harm in trying.

 

[rofltehcat]

So why wouldn't they just buy a 250 ? pc for office work, skype and powerpoint?
Or does MS Office come for free on the Xbone? That'd be the only way I could see this work. If it supports keyboards, mice, printers... all that stuff.

 

[bandit0802]

Every time they talk about some new feature, it becomes more and more clear that making this thing a games machine was an after-thought more than anything else. The guys in charge of this thing really need to get their act together.

 

[RJ 17]

And that right there is why people rail against all the bells and whistles slapped onto this thing: they already have stuff that does it all. The "Wave of the Future" that this XBone is bringing is pretty neat......too bad that the "future" in this case happened like, five years ago. This is why they should have stuck with just making a gaming console a console that plays games. We wanted a next gen gaming console, not a console that's desperately trying to be a general-use PC. Why? Because everyone already has a general use PC/laptop.

I mean give them points for trying, I guess...but really, it's just like the article said: very few small businesses are going to want to drop $500 to get a system that does all the things that the rest of their tech already does.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

While the services it provides can be pretty nifty, I don't see how branding the new game box as a Microsoft Office Mobile is really going to help with their image problem. It does further make the point that 'teh hardcore gamerz' are no longer the target audience, though.

"It's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him."

 

[Teoes]

Wow it's just perfect for environments already chock-full of similar machines that can cost less and perform those same actions and then some.

I know gaming needs an image overhaul, but it's going to look really unprofessional if there's a controller lying about in the boardroom.

 

[PunkRex]

QUICK! Grasp at all the things!!!

This is kinda sad...

 

[1337mokro]

Yes buy our 500 dollar console, instead of a 200 dollar PC that will do the exact same thing. Heck if you are starting a business the chances are you already own a PC. So buy this giant VCR instead where you have no options to actually do any work on it, but it works fine as a giant USB stick and projector.

 

[shirkbot]

I don't think Microsoft quite grasped that the reason so many people disliked the XBone wasn't just the DRM, but that it seemed to be less and less about gaming. If somebody wanted what has been described here there are much cheaper, practical alternatives already out there, so this is hardly going to help promote sales and positive PR.

Not to mention how most people are going to have a hard time justifying to the tax man that the games console they bought was meant for business. PC's can get away with it and so can tablets because gaming isn't the function most people buy them for.

Valid points that I feel deserve a bit of reposting. On top of that, can someone please get these people to focus? It's a Video Game Console, the other features are secondary. They are nifty secondary features, but nothing your average smartphone isn't already doing, and without DRM and a marketing department staffed by pandas.

 

[an annoyed writer]

They're definitely grasping at straws now. Not only have they lost sight of their audience, they're trying to wring in markets they already captured. That's the definition of insanity right there. They don't have a clue what their end goal is.

And to be honest, it's fucking hilarious.

 

[somonels]

So... this box that is guaranteed to be able to spy on anything you do is supposedly perfect to be used for every aspect of your business. I think i'm going to vomit. All that's left for them is to get Lavrov to give a shoutout to it.

even captcha says "no-brainer"