Monday, July 31, 2006

[BW] Will Less Be More for AOL?

Snapshot of AOL's current status, with analysis of near-term scenarios: 

To call AOL a shadow of its former self is an understatement. The company formerly known as America Online, once a goliath among Internet service providers (ISPs), boasting 30 million subscribers, has seen its customer base shrink to less than 19 million since merging with Time Warner in 2001. Now, AOL is poised to shrink further.

Source: Will Less Be More for AOL?

Hub sets citywide WiFi plan - The Boston Globe

Details still seem a bit fuzzzy, but: 

Despite efforts around the country, no universal wireless network is up and running in a major American city. The task force report in Boston anticipates that it will take up to two years to blanket the city with radio transmitters, or routers, and wireless Internet access points.

Source: Hub sets citywide WiFi plan - The Boston Globe

Friday, July 28, 2006

Irreplaceable? - Forbes.com

 Timely update/snapshot:

pic

 

For 30 years all of Oracle Corp., maker of the database software that drives thousands of big businesses around the world, has revolved around its founder. Larry Ellison owns a 23% stake worth $18 billion, and he rarely sells. He tweaks Oracle's print ads; he fiddles with its press releases; he peppers techies with arcane questions. "I've run engineering since Day One, and I still run engineering," he says. But Ellison is turning 62 on Aug. 17. Isn't it about time he identified a successor? Bill Gates, 11 years younger, managed to do that.

Source: Irreplaceable? - Forbes.com

O'Reilly Radar > State of the Computer Book Market, Q206, Part 3: How Publishers Fared

Fascinating snapshot of the dead-tree part of the tech info business; read the full post.

 

Link to O'Reilly Radar > State of the Computer Book Market, Q206, Part 3: How Publishers Fared

In Microsoft Plan for Future, All Roads Lead to Internet - New York Times

An overview of yesterday's analyst briefing from NYT's Steve Lohr, with an interesting aside: 

In private conversations, Microsoft executives said that the skeptics were taking a short-term perspective and that Microsoft had repeatedly proved skeptics wrong.

Craig Mundie, the chief research and strategy officer, noted that in the 1990’s, when Microsoft began to move into corporate data centers with server software, many industry experts scoffed. Microsoft, they predicted, would surely fail.

Last year, Microsoft’s server and tools business reported revenue of $11.5 billion and operating profit of $4.3 billion.

Source: In Microsoft Plan for Future, All Roads Lead to Internet - New York Times

InformationWeek | Microsoft Strategy | Ozzie Predicts Customer Cost Savings In Web-Based Software | July 27, 2006

Two -- complementary -- platforms: 

Online software should be "largely additive" to Microsoft's traditional PC and server software, not compete with them, he said. For businesses, CIOs will need to make choices about "cost vs. control" when deciding whether to use Microsoft's Web products. Over time, however, the cost benefits of Web-based software may be difficult to ignore, Ozzie added.

"This is more of an additive model than it is a replacement," said Ozzie. "I do not believe the Web is the be-all and end-all of experience delivery." As part of its online effort, Microsoft will start tracking more data about consumption of online software, in a way that respects PC users' privacy, Ozzie said.

Source: InformationWeek | Microsoft Strategy | Ozzie Predicts Customer Cost Savings In Web-Based Software | July 27, 2006

FT.com / IT / Microsoft Milestone - Microsoft’s Ozzie declares end to PC era

From the interesting times dept.: 

Microsoft’s new top technology visionary on Thursday declared an end to the PC era as the software company made its latest attempt to deal with the threat to its traditional business from the rise of the internet.

Ray Ozzie, who took over the title of chief software architect from Bill Gates last month when the Microsoft chairman announced his plan to leave the company in 2008, laid out a vision for the company in which internet-based services, rather than PCs, lie at the centre of its worldview.

Source: FT.com / IT / Microsoft Milestone - Microsoft’s Ozzie declares end to PC era

Windows Vista: I’ll have a cold one - Reuters Newsblogs

Fun hallway conversation in Redmond: 

John Fontana, a reporter with Network World, stood in front of a refrigerator in the hall outside Microsoft’s annual Financial Analysts Meeting, weighing his refreshment options.

When offered a cold can of “Windows Vista” sparkling water, he asks: “Can I open it?

Then, less innocently: ”Or do I have to wait until January?” he asked.

Source: Windows Vista: I’ll have a cold one - Reuters Newsblogs

When good demos go (very, very) bad - Reuters Newsblogs

 Not ready for prime time, at least not at the front of crowded rooms:

At Micrsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday, Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, hearfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer.

The result was a disaster.

There's an excellent speech recognition-related reality-check interview with Jordan Cohen in the latest issue of ACM Queue, but it's only in the print version of the pub at this point, not posted on the ACM Queue web site yet -- go figure...  I'll post a reference to the interview when it's published on the site.

Source: When good demos go (very, very) bad - Reuters Newsblogs

Technology dinosaurs | Evolve or die | Economist.com

 A stark assessment from The Economist:

The personal computer spawned a new industry. But many of the firms that initially flourished in the PC era are now finding life difficult. Dell, the leading PC-maker, issued a profit warning last week that sent its share-price to a five-year low. Intel is trying to regain ground lost to AMD, its increasingly confident competitor. Microsoft has just announced that it will buy back 8% of its shares for around $20 billion—a sign that its high-growth days are behind it.

The article goes on to explain that the market leaders are in relatively good shape -- compared with the vendors in the following graph:

Source: Technology dinosaurs | Evolve or die | Economist.com

[BW] Big Blue Brainstorm

 IBM tries a new (and risky) form of open source:

The collective wisdom of crowds depends on your crowd, and IBM (IBM ) has one of the sharpest crowds around. CEO Samuel J. Palmisano knows this, and he wants to leverage it. He is pulling people together for the online equivalent of a town meeting. His hope: The opinions of some 100,000 minds will lead to catalytic innovations so powerful they will transform industries, alter human behavior, and lead to new businesses for IBM. He calls the project an Innovation Jam.

Source: Big Blue Brainstorm

PBS | I, Cringely . July 27, 2006 - What goes on the Net stays on the Net

Read the full post for analysis of YouTube's licensing update.  Excerpt: 

For those who live under rocks, YouTube is at present the most successful web site solely devoted to hosting video submitted by its members. There are similar sites from Google, Yahoo, and many others, but right now YouTube is the biggest in terms of average daily plays, serving up a claimed 100 million very short shows every day. But who actually owns those tens of thousands of short clips of friends doing the samba or falling off motorcycles? Facing a copyright infringement suit filed on July 14th intended to answer exactly that, YouTube management a few days ago decided to clarify in their terms of use exactly who DOES own all that video.

They do.

$.07 says the new license and/or YouTube won't last long...

Source: PBS | I, Cringely . July 27, 2006 - What goes on the Net stays on the Net

Chat rooms could face expulsion | CNET News.com

It'll be interesting to see the service providers try to spin and work around this development: 

Web sites like Amazon.com and MySpace.com may soon be inaccessible for many people using public terminals at American schools and libraries, thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives.

By a 410-15 vote on Thursday, politicians approved a bill that would effectively require that "chat rooms" and "social networking sites" be rendered inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the Internet's most ardent users. Adults can ask for permission to access the sites.

Source: Chat rooms could face expulsion | CNET News.com

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft's busy multitasking

In the Zune context: 

Microsoft would have started its work on Zune a year ago if it could have, showing that even with 71,553 employees, there are limits to the number of new areas it can enter at once.

"Frankly, we took some of the top folks out of the Xbox 360 effort, and right after 360 shipped that became the Zune team," Ballmer said. "I wish we would have done it earlier. We just didn't have the right talent capacity at the time."

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft's busy multitasking

Windows Live Spaces to Take on Social Networking Services

Read the full article for details on MSN Spaces => Windows Live Spaces.  Excerpt: 

So far, MSN Spaces has proven to be enormously popular. The service sports 123 million unique users, with roughly 3 million users visiting MSN Spaces every second. Users upload six million photos to the service every day, requiring 1TB of additional storage every nine days. To put these numbers in perspective, it took MSN Messenger six years to reach 160 million users: MSN Spaces will reach 130 million users in only 18 months.

Source: Windows Live Spaces to Take on Social Networking Services

WSJ.com - An Imprint All His Own

Playing offense... 

WSJ: You had said earlier that Microsoft is a hot company to work at. Arguably, it's less than it was.

Mr. Ballmer: But can we get the facts instead of all the rhetoric? It's just flat-out wrong. Let me give you at least three things to think about, which I'm happy to defend.

No. 1, we're hiring more senior people and more great talent off college campuses today than any other time in our company's history. We've hired six or seven CTOs [chief technical officers] or heads of engineering from start-ups this year. We've hired a bunch of senior people from a variety of companies in our industry, online companies, enterprise companies. Fantastic recruitment, like never-before recruitment, frankly. I'm just talking about the technology side; by the way, the business side is going pretty darn well, too -- best recruitment we've ever done.

The second thing: retention. Our retention rates are almost too high -- in the sense that I always hope we're working hard on helping people who don't belong here not to belong here. But we're around 3% or so of what we call unwanted attrition. The only time we've ever been lower was right after the dot-com bubble burst.

And No. 3, we're one of the highest payers in our industry. So on all three dimensions -- attraction, retention, compensation -- I just think there's a whole bunch of random malarkey out there. That doesn't mean we don't lose people; we do, and I watch it carefully.

Source: WSJ.com - An Imprint All His Own

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: How large is the long tail?

More timely & insightful analysis from Nicholas Carr; read the full post 

In his column in the Wall Street Journal today, Lee Gomes tries to debunk Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory, and on his Long Tail blog today, Anderson tries to debunk Gomes's debunking. It's an interesting - and important - debate, and I find myself agreeing with both gentlemen.

Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: How large is the long tail?

Flash drive aims to improve Vista performance

A flash (ideally hybrid) drive is high on the requirements list for my next PC: 

When combined with Windows Vista's new underlying SuperFetch memory-management technology, Microsoft's ReadyBoost delivers application performance improvements by automatically loading in flash memory the applications you use most often. SuperFetch keeps track of the apps you use most frequently, and is even date aware, recognizing the difference between business days and weekends.

Source: Flash drive aims to improve Vista performance

OpenDarwin closing down | News.blog | CNET News.com

Apparently a lack of intelligent design in some respect: 

OpenDarwin, an attempt to build an operating system around the open-source "Darwin" core of Mac OS X, is pulling the plug.

Source: OpenDarwin closing down | News.blog | CNET News.com

Broadband Internet subscriptions jump - The Boston Globe

 Encouraging news:

Subscriptions to US high-speed Internet services rose 33 percent last year, with telephone companies' digital subscriber lines gaining ground on cable-modem connections.

The number of broadband lines jumped to 50.2 million at year-end from 37.9 million a year earlier, the Federal Communications Commission said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Source: Broadband Internet subscriptions jump - The Boston Globe

BBC NEWS | Technology | More than 95% of e-mail is 'junk'

Here's another great reason to explore workspaces (as complements to email and other types of communication channels) for collaboration: 

Analysis of the contents of millions of e-mails has revealed that less than 4% is legitimate traffic.

Further work has shown that most of this junk mail is originating on hijacked home computers.

Source: BBC NEWS | Technology | More than 95% of e-mail is 'junk'

Microsoft posts record job growth

 71,533 employees as of 2006/06/30

Microsoft Corp. bulked up for battle with Google and other rivals by adding more than 10,000 employees worldwide in the past year -- the largest annual increase in the company's history.

New employment figures, quietly disclosed Wednesday on an informational section of the company's Web site, represent twice the amount of growth that Microsoft had publicly projected at the start of the fiscal year. The single-year increase is more than Google's entire work force.

Source: Microsoft posts record job growth

Microsoft Expands Presence in Healthcare IT Industry With Acquisition of Health Intelligence Software Azyxxi

More details from Microsoft Presspass:

Azyxxi was designed and developed to capture, integrate and display data from wherever it was created. The system can answer clinician-specific questions with great speed; it uses existing data in new ways to enable situational awareness and facilitate the recognition of patterns in the data.

The Azyxxi system excels in environments with fragmented systems that traditionally don’t share data. It manages more than 40 terabytes of live data while offering sub-second response times, and delivers data through a dynamic interface that can be defined by the user and accommodate almost any query. In use at Washington Hospital Center, Azyxxi has increased hospital efficiency, enhanced operational capacity for emergency room cases, improved patient safety, and reduced time for rounds reporting. Azyxxi was so successful that it was exported and deployed throughout MedStar Health’s other hospitals.

Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and with Microsoft SQL Server™ database software, Azyxxi is able to scale across a range of devices including Tablet and Pocket PCs, and handle a large volume of work stations and terabytes of data to address the needs of any size of institution. Azyxxi’s intuitive, user-friendly interface also supports easy installation by requiring minimal training, and has proved itself to be extremely stable in mission-critical hospital environments, with almost zero downtime.

Source: Microsoft Expands Presence in Healthcare IT Industry With Acquisition of Health Intelligence Software Azyxxi

AOL expected to scrap charges - Yahoo! News

 

Investors in Time Warner Inc., whose shares touched a two-year low in mid-July, are seeking signs of a turnaround on August 2, when the world's largest media company is set to introduce its fourth plan in five years to save its online unit AOL.

AOL is widely expected to announce that it will give its e-mail and Web services away for free, hoping to win back customers who had switched to other free services from rivals like Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

I still don't get it -- the first word that comes to mind, when I think of the AOL user experience, is "garish".  I'm sure there will be lots of at least temporarily more-happy current AOL users if the subscription fee is dropped, but I don't see why current non-users would want to switch, fee or no fee.

Source: AOL expected to scrap charges - Yahoo! News

Microsoft to Offer Software for Health Care Industry - New York Times

 More on Microsoft's new health care strategy:

Mr. Neupert, 50, is leading Microsoft’s new strategy in health care. In 1998, after 11 years at Microsoft, he left to become chief executive of Drugstore.com, an online retailer of pharmacy and health products. From 2003 to 2005, Mr. Neupert served on President Bush’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and helped run a subcommittee focused on technology in health care.

Mr. Neupert returned to Microsoft last September, after convincing Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive, and Craig Mundie, a senior strategy executive, that Microsoft should be doing more in health care.

“I’ve had an opportunity to see how messed up the health care system was,” Mr. Neupert said. “And to really have an impact, you need a footprint like Microsoft’s.”

Source: Microsoft to Offer Software for Health Care Industry - New York Times

p.s. general note: from now on, in my posts, indentation => quotation

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Microsoft coughs up for health care software | CNET News.com

Interesting development: 

Microsoft has bolstered its health care lineup with the purchase of Azyxxi, database software for patient records, and with an alliance with the MedStar Health hospital group.

Source: Microsoft coughs up for health care software | CNET News.com

HighContrast » Metcalfe’s Law: more misunderstood than wrong?

Welcome back to the blogosphere, Sim.   An excerpt from Sim's post on the Metcalfe's Law debate this week (read the full post for his insightful analysis):

The industry is at it again–trying to figure out what to make of Metcalfe’s Law. This time it’s IEEE Spectrum with a controversially titled “Metcalfe’s Law is Wrong”. The main thrust of the argument is that the value of a network grows O(nlogn) as opposed to O(n2). Unfortunately, the authors’ O(nlogn) suggeston is no more accurate or insightful than the original proposal.

Source: HighContrast » Metcalfe’s Law: more misunderstood than wrong?

FTPOnline.com: An Expression of Frustration

FTPOnline.com: An Expression of Frustration : "Last week Microsoft announced that the Expression development tools were probably not going to be available for at least another year. To many, that didn't even produce a blip on the radar. The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), upon which the Expression works, is scheduled to be an integral part of the Windows Vista operating system. To developers, WPF is a new model for graphics programming, meaning that it is also a new model for user interfaces. To administrators, it represents a new model of computing to support, one that requires new hardware to fully appreciate."

Happy news for Adobe, if accurate.

Mercury's Star Rises

Mercury's Star Rises: "Mercury specializes in software that helps information technology executives plan and test the deployment of other corporate applications -- for instance, making sure a new procurement system actually streamlines operations rather than slows them to a crawl. It's a business IDC Research expects to top $1.9 billion in the next few years. Sources close to the company's negotiations say originally Mercury was asking $55 a share and talked to several potentially interested parties including HP, Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM), Computer Associates (CA), and Symantec (SYMC). 'Even after Amnon was fired, Mercury was one of the hottest girls on the block,' says one software executive. 'With its massive market share and proven products, every big enterprise software company has looked at them, from IBM to CA to HP to EMC.' "

Laptops in tow, more Americans work on vacation - Boston.com

Laptops in tow, more Americans work on vacation - Boston.com: "The number of Americans who work during their vacations has nearly doubled in the last decade, with the laptop computer replacing the cellular phone as the most useful tool for working on holiday.
Some 43 percent of office workers said they work on vacation, compared with 23 percent in a survey taken in 1995, said the poll conducted for Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Steelcase Inc., a designer and maker of office furniture."

Microsoft Readies New Office 2007 Beta Updates

Microsoft Readies New Office 2007 Beta Updates "The Beta 2 Technical Refresh (TR) code is likely to be the last of the public Office betas. Microsoft is advising testers to expect the Beta 2 TRs to be applied like patches atop Beta 2. After Beta 2 TR, it's full-steam-ahead to release to manufacturing (RTM)."

H.P. to Pay $4.5 Billion to Acquire Mercury - New York Times

H.P. to Pay $4.5 Billion to Acquire Mercury - New York Times: "While Hewlett-Packard has reported that revenue from its OpenView software, which manages a corporation's servers, data storage and computer networks, has been growing about 20 percent year over year, the overall software unit has not been very profitable.
The Mercury acquisition could change that because it gives the combined companies more products to sell. It doubles the size of H.P.'s software business to more than $2 billion in annual revenue."

Maybe this is the one area in which HP can be a successful software company. E.g., anybody else remember Bluestone?...

No doubt lots of interesting planning meetings today at, e.g., BMC, CA, Compuware, and IBM Tivoli, in any case.

WSJ.com - It May Be a Long Time Before the Long Tail Is Wagging the Web

WSJ.com - It May Be a Long Time Before the Long Tail Is Wagging the Web: "It would be wonderful if the world as Mr. Anderson describes it were true: one where 'healthy niche products' and even 'outright misses' collectively could stand their ground with the culture's increasingly soulless 'hits.'
But while every singer-songwriter dreams from his bedroom of making a living off iTunes, few actually do, mostly because so many others have the very same idea. And to the extent that Apple is making money off iTunes, thanks go to Nelly Furtado and other hitmakers. Indeed, you can make the case that the Internet is amplifying the role of hits, even in relation to misses, not diminishing them.
So maybe Mr. Anderson really has unlocked the sort of new business rules the cover promises. I say we wait before ripping up any business plans. Let's see how the tail shakes out."

WSJ.com - Sun Microsystems Swings to a Loss While Sales Rise

WSJ.com - Sun Microsystems Swings to a Loss While Sales Rise: "Sun reported a net loss of $301 million, or nine cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30, compared with net income of $50 million, or one cent a share, a year earlier. The latest period included $156 million in charges primarily related to acquisitions, including Storage Technology Corp. last year.
Sales rose to $3.83 billion from $2.97 billion a year earlier, beating Wall Street's estimate of $3.6 billion.
'We have increasing confidence in the stability of our business,' Mr. Schwartz said."

Looks like Sun was successful in buying incremental revenue streams, at least. E.g., Storage Technology had ~$500M in quarterly revenue for Q2 2005.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Ning | FAQ

Ning FAQ: "What is Ning?
Ning is a platform for creating and sharing Social Web Apps, or websites, on the Internet today. And it's free!
With Ning, you have the power to create your very own Social Web App in a few easy steps."

Co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini.

(Thanks to Eric Auchard for the pointer)

GigaOM : ? Revenge of Nintendo

GigaOM : ? Revenge of Nintendo: "I would have laughed at that thought even a year ago, but the numbers speak for themselves. The Kyoto-based company is on a seemingly unstoppable path to winning the Japanese side of the next generation console war.
[...]
"It’s too soon to write off Sony, of course, and you have to believe they’ll make some drastic moves to stay competitive. Then again, the president of their game division recently suggested that if consumers think the PS3 is too expensive, they should just work harder. So even that’s hard to say."

Microsoft Plays a Different Zune, Admits to iPod Killer

Microsoft Plays a Different Zune, Admits to iPod Killer: "Though the first Zune products the company will release are a portable MP3 player and accompanying music service, Microsoft says that Zune is much more than that. The company is developing an entire family of entertainment-based hardware and software products under the Zune code name, and it will release other Zune products in 2007. Microsoft is reportedly working on a portable video game machine modeled after the Xbox as well. It's unclear at this time whether that device is part of the Zune initiative."

DealBook - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - New York Times

DealBook - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - New York Times: "Mr. Case: If you look at it from this particular juncture, from the context of the shareholders of AOL and the shareholders of Time Warner and the employees and customers, it has not turned out the way certainly I expected, it has been a disappointment. But it goes back to the question of was it a good idea; I think it was a good idea. I'm disappointed and frustrated that it hasn't developed in the way that we all hoped at the time it could."

WSJ.com - McCaw Succeeds, Avoiding Vonage Undertow

WSJ.com - McCaw Succeeds, Avoiding Vonage Undertow: "In exchange for the investment, Clearwire, based in Kirkland, Wash., has agreed to adopt Intel's version of WiMax technology. Intel plans to incorporate WiMax in its Centrino chipset that had propagated WiFi technology. Intel wants its chips to be standard issue with WiMax in the same way its Centrino technology currently is with WiFi. Until now, Clearwire had been using a proprietary technology. WiMax 'is a strategic initiative for Intel,' notes Intel spokeswoman Amy Martin. She wouldn't comment on what financial expectations Intel has for Clearwire."

Gmail: Server Error

Gmail: erver Error: "Server Error
We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes."

Not a great week on the software-as-a-service front -- MySpace, Blogger, and Gmail have all been down at various times, over the last few days.

Monday, July 24, 2006

bit-tech.net | Why Web 2.0 will end your privacy

bit-tech.net Why Web 2.0 will end your privacy: "We all know the plushy, rounded, pastel-coloured faces of Web 2.0. MySpace. Digg. Flickr. The achingly trendy Silicon Valley startups that are selling for millions to big media conglomerates and making their founders into stars. Tom Anderson. Kevin Rose. These are the pinups of the Web 2.0 generation - but little do they know the monster they've created.
My firm belief is that the net effect of the Web 2.0 movement will be a marked loss of privacy on the internet, one which leads to big business knowing more about you than it ever did before. This is why."

Timely (and stark) reality check -- read the full post...

Socialtext Releases First Commercial Open Source Wiki | Socialtext Enterprise Wiki

Socialtext Releases First Commercial Open Source Wiki Socialtext Enterprise Wiki "Socialtext, the first Wiki company, releases Socialtext Open at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON). Available for immediate download, Socialtext Open is the first open source wiki with a commercial venture as its primary contributor. Over 2,000 businesses run Socialtext Wiki products today as a hosted service or appliance."

Socialtext is a fascinating company. In many respects it's an independent software vendor (ISV) that refuses to play by established rules. It offers a hosted service, an appliance-based alternative (which essentially means a hosted service running behind an organization's firewall), and now a free, open source version, but it doesn't sell software products per se.

Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield told me he anticipates a sufficiently large percentage of people who benefit from the Socialtext service/software will opt to pay for it (as a service and/or appliance), and I think he has placed a smart strategic bet.

In any case, it's great to see Socialtext continue to accelerate wiki evolution and mainstream adoption.

Techcrunch ? Blog Archive ? Gotuit Furthers Television's Demise

Techcrunch ? Blog Archive ? Gotuit Furthers Television's Demise: "Boston based Gotuit Media launched Gotuit late Sunday evening. Gotuit offers users on-demand free premium content like music videos, sports clips and short films (the stuff that gets deleted from YouTube). Find what you want, click it and watch it immediately.
The site is Flash based and will have a familiar interface for YouTube users. This isn't about long tail user generated content, though. Gotuit has struck licensing deals with labels and other content owners to show a deep library of premium content."

One important consideration, reading between the lines for Gotuit, Google Video, YouTube, etc.: Flash video is everywhere.

Read/WriteWeb: Gotuit Launches Broadband Video Portal

Read/WriteWeb: Gotuit Launches Broadband Video Portal: "Gotuit.com is a free service. It offers instantaneous video delivery of a variety of professional media content - e.g. mainstream music and sports. The UI is slick and navigation between videos is pretty much seamless. But the most exciting part of Gotuit.com, for me, is its ability to search inside a video item. For example you can do a search for 'Lance Armstrong' and it'll deliver a set of video snippets that feature the 7-time Tour de France winner. This is possible because Gotuit employees have indexed metadata for all videos on the service (more on this below). Users can also create playlists based on keywords - and share those with other people.
Gotuit was founded in 2000 and up till now has been mainly focused on the cable TV industry - competing with TV networks, like HBO and Showtime, that offer on-demand video. Apparently they are the number 1 VOD and music on demand provider in the US markets they are distributed. Now Gotuit is entering the broadband tv market, plus it has big plans for mobile tv later this year. "

Read the full post for more details and analysis.

Jeff Eisen: Hannover 101 -- The Basics

Jeff Eisen: Hannover 101 -- The Basics : "Currently, there is no official number assigned to Hannover or Domino Next because any numbering and naming has to clear lengthy legal hurdles. But, between you and me, the number is likely to be somewhere between 7.99 and 8.01.
Hannover brings the most significant changes to the Notes client since probably Notes 4.0, when we introduced LotusScript. "

Read the post for more, e.g., on Lotus Expeditor (evidently Lotus marketing is still uninvolved in product naming discussions :)).

GigaOM : ? MySpace Down Again

GigaOM : ? MySpace Down Again "But seriously, it is hard to believe that a service this large could just have one data center. Have they not heard of redundancy? I am pretty sure there is more to the story. One can only imagine how millions of MySpace users feel right now. Mashable has more information on this developing story."

Kazaa, Skype, and now "The Venice Project"

Kazaa, Skype, and now "The Venice Project" "Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the entrepreneurs who created the pioneering Web applications Kazaa and Skype, are working on a new communications venture, BusinessWeek.com has learned. The pair plans to develop software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web, according to people familiar with the matter.
[...]
Zennstrom and Friis will not be leaving Skype or spending less time there than they are now, if only because they would be walking away from their share of up to $1.5 billion in additional eBay payments over the next three years. The Venice venture will get an investment from Zennstrom, one person familiar with the matter said. But Zennstrom isn't expected to contribute much work, beyond strategizing at a very high level. Friis is expected to spend up to 20% of his time on the venture to help develop the business model. But it appears that he won't be active in an operational sense,and others are being recruited to run the project on a daily basis."

JotSpot Intros Wiki 2.0

JotSpot Intros Wiki 2.0: "I do wonder whether heightening the resemblance of a service to a dominant software suite like Microsoft Office is an invitation to get stomped. But Kraus thinks JotSpot needs to demonstrate how its longer-term vision of do-it-yourself applications works in a familiar setting. In any case, the demo I saw looked pretty slick, and the utility is easy to see, so it may get some takers, especially among folks who want the collaborative features baked in from the start."

[BW] Microsoft Buyback: Should You Bite?

[BW] Microsoft Buyback: Should You Bite?: "The software giant wants to repurchase up to $20 billion of its shares by Aug. 17. Here's why investors may want to take the offer."

Timely snapshot and summary of some key Microsoft challenges. Bottom line, in the article:

"Microsoft's buyback bid may not make investors rich by Aug. 17 or in the months afterward. But for shareholders seeking an exit strategy after years of stagnant stock prices, it's a chance to reboot."

BBC NEWS | Business | Nintendo profits on console craze

BBC NEWS Business Nintendo profits on console craze: "Top selling games during the quarter included Brain Training for Adults and New Super Mario Bros, the latter of which has topped US games charts for the past two months.
[...]
Figures earlier this month showed that in 2005, Nintendo sold 2.6 million units of its handheld DS Lite and a further 1.3 million of the original DS.
Sony sold less than a million of its PlayStation portable.
Nintendo also made the best-selling game, Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? "

On a related note, see Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time (NYT article).

MercuryNews.com | 07/24/2006 | Under-The-Radar Wiki Web Sites Aid Collaboration, Improving Efficiency And Cutting Down On E-Mail

MercuryNews.com 07/24/2006 Under-The-Radar Wiki Web Sites Aid Collaboration, Improving Efficiency And Cutting Down On E-Mail: "Imagine if someone quietly came by and cleaned out your e-mail, making all the threads of mind-numbing corporate blather disappear before you even had to read them.
That's one way software guru Ward Cunningham describes the effect of a ``wiki,'' a type of collaborative Web page he invented 11 years ago."

Timely snapshot

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: War of the Internet world

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: War of the Internet world: "Many people have heard about the huge data centers that Microsoft and Yahoo! are building east of the mountains.
In the War on Google, those are the aircraft carriers. Less well known are the special-forces teams the erstwhile tech darlings have assembled for nimble, strategic attacks on their rival."

Read the article/post for details...

After Delving Into 33 Other Lines, Amazon Finally Gets Around to Food - New York Times

After Delving Into 33 Other Lines, Amazon Finally Gets Around to Food - New York Times: "Webvan and Pets.com tried to defy fiscal logic by selling goods with profit margins as low as their shipping costs were high. But these and other companies quickly learned that there was no easy way to make up the money lost on selling 50-pound bags of dog food or 20-pound packages of diapers.
Amazon?s approach is at least slightly different. The company will not ship perishable items, and will instead concentrate on dry goods like packaged cereals and canned food. Many of those items come packaged in groups, like last week?s best seller, the 4-pack of Senseo Douwe Egberts Dark Roast Coffee Pods. The 72 single-serve pods cost $16.40. "

In the Race With Google, It's Consistency vs. 'Wow' - New York Times

In the Race With Google, It's Consistency vs. 'Wow' - New York Times: "Do Internet users prefer services that are consistent and predictable, like those offered by Yahoo, or are they more interested in Google's wow factor? These two approaches define a pivotal front in the battle for online loyalty between the major players in the Internet search business. "

Timely reality check, with some interesting stats, e.g.,

"Google, by contrast, is much less consistent. Its map service is now a very close third behind MapQuest and Yahoo. And the two-year-old Gmail is now the No. 4 e-mail service in the country, with 8.6 million users in June. That is not bad in a market where people do not switch e-mail addresses casually. But over the last year, according to comScore, Yahoo added 11.8 million e-mail users, more than Gmail’s entire user base.
Moreover, some of Google’s products are languishing. Its Google Talk chat software had only 44,000 users in June, according to comScore. And its Orkut social networking service had 279,000 users in the United States, although it is quite popular in Brazil."

A.M.D. to Acquire ATI Technologies - New York Times

A.M.D. to Acquire ATI Technologies - New York Times "In a transaction that will reshape the semiconductor industry, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. announced today that it would buy ATI Technologies Inc. for $5.4 billion in cash and stock.
The deal comes as the semiconductor industry is becoming the focus of intense investor interest. Later this week, Philips Electronics plans to field final bids worth more than $10 billion apiece for its semiconductor division from three consortiums of private equity investors, people involved in that auction said. Philips had been considering an initial public offering for the unit."

Technology Review: The Internet Is Your Next Hard Drive

Technology Review: The Internet Is Your Next Hard Drive: "New Web-based services don't just store your data online -- they keep it synchronized across your laptop, desktop, and mobile phone."

I routinely use 3 PCs, and I currently use a mix of Groove and Notes to sync stuff. I used Novell iFolder for a while, but it stopped working on my primary PC for some mysterious reason, and apparently Novell considers Windows a secondary platform priority relative to SUSE these days, so it's no longer a practical option for me. I'll be exploring some of the services covered in this article soon -- and many of them are free. This domain is also expected to be central to the next wave of competition between Google and Microsoft. Cool...

I'll continue to use Groove and Notes (and a mix of other collaborative workspace-centric tools/services), of course, but these sync services are complementary.

Woburn firm starts online video service - The Boston Globe

Woburn firm starts online video service - The Boston Globe: "Unlike YouTube and MySpace, which thrive on amateur videos of bizarre talents and comedy skits, Gotuit.com will stream professional content such as news clips from Associated Press and Reuters and music videos by Rihanna and Christina Aguilera. Free to the public, the ad-supported portal has lower lag time between videos and a search function that lets users dig for highlights stuffed in longer clips, like a touchdown in a football game. Visitors can also create their own video playlists and share favorite clips."

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Another Kind of Gore '08 Bandwagon

Another Kind of Gore '08 Bandwagon: "But there's a more logical job for Gore to pursue, a job that doesn't make any sense until you think about it. It's a job that would give him the power to do something about global warming, along with other major issues close to his heart, without highlighting his political deficiencies. It's a job where it helps to be wonkish, and doesn't really hurt to be wooden. And it's a job he knows how to do -- because he already did it for eight years."

I wish...

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Zune and the Apple way

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Zune and the Apple way: "Microsoft's new Zune player, formally announced yesterday, represents an about-face for the company. Instead of going the 'Windows way,' Microsoft is going the 'Apple way,' creating a proprietary system combining hardware, software and store."

Read the full post...

I think the criteria for what constitutes a "special-purpose" device are highly variable, and that Microsoft tried for years to do end-to-end media delivery "the Microsoft way" before apparently opting to go it alone, but it's an important milestone in many respects.

Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time - New York Times

Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time - New York Times: "Video games have long entertained users by immersing them in fantasy worlds full of dragons or spaceships. But Peacemaker is part of a new generation: games that immerse people in the real world, full of real-time political crises. And the games’ designers aren’t just selling a voyeuristic thrill. Games, they argue, can be more than just mindless fun, they can be a medium for change.
The proposition may strike some as dubious, but the “serious games” movement has some serious brain power behind it. It is a partnership between advocates and nonprofit groups that are searching for new ways to reach young people, and tech-savvy academics keen to explore video games’ educational potential."

Very timely reality check -- read the full article.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Syd Barrett [obit] | Economist.com

Syd Barrett [obit] Economist.com: "His band last saw him in 1975 as they recorded, in “Shine on you Crazy Diamond”, a tribute to him that sounded like yet more encouragement. (“Come on you raver, you seer of visions/Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.”) Mr Barrett wandered in, fat and shaven-headed and hardly recognisable. As his friends sang “You shone like the sun”, he seemed to laugh sarcastically. He stayed a while in the studio, and then went away."

Sad -- he managed to both burn out and fade away...

Answers.com - 1-Click AnswersTM 2.0 for Windows -- Product Info

Answers.com - 1-Click AnswersTM 2.0 for Windows -- Product Info

I downloaded the latest version this morning, as one of the zillion or so Windows Updates I've applied recently somehow broke my previous configuration, and was very pleased to discover the user experience/interface of this invaluable (free!) tool has been much improved. I've been using the utility for years -- known, along the way, as Gurunet, Atomica, and now Answers.com; highly recommended.

(p.s., Irwin, there's a Mac version as well...)

Gillmor Daily moving | Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter | ZDNet.com

Gillmor Daily moving Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter ZDNet.com: "from 8:30 PM Eastern 5:30 PM Pacific to
9:30 PM Eastern 6:30 PM Pacific
starting July 31
Sirius satellite 102 "

Looks like Steve Gillmor is pulling a Howard Stern -- good luck with the new adventure, Steve!

Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger: I want a wiki

Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger: I want a wiki: "I’m trying to do a Wiki for my Off-the-Grid campout. But, I don’t know where to put it. So, off to Google I go. The trouble is I’ve poked around for a while and haven’t found a wiki hosting service that’s appropriate for doing something small like this. In fact, it might be fun to have one linked off of my blog permanently. Any good wiki services out there? Low cost is better."

Check the comments -- we are definitely in the "embarassment of riches" phase...

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: Not Ga-Ga for Google

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: Not Ga-Ga for Google: "I maintain that the culprit is GOOG's pesky capex figure. The company continues to grow capex faster than revenues, putting up a near $700m figure this quarter. What are these guys, a utility or something? Soon they'll be floating bonds."

Friday, July 21, 2006

WSJ.com - Microsoft to Launch iPod Rival

WSJ.com - Microsoft to Launch iPod Rival: "Microsoft Corp. confirmed it will launch a line of music and entertainment products under the Zune brand name, including a portable player and online service that will challenge Apple Computer Corp.'s dominant iPod and iTunes.
[...]
The new product 'is the company's strongest effort yet to rein in Apple Computer's iTunes/iPod juggernaut, currently responsible for about 70% of the digital music market and 75% of the portable digital music player market,' Mr. Stephenson told Billboard."

DELL: Summary for DELL INC - Yahoo! Finance

DELL: Summary for DELL INC - Yahoo! Finance With Dell's warning, Apple is now worth a lot more than Dell (~$43.6B DELL, ~$51.7B AAPL). Happy days in Cupertino...

Apple signals iPhone to come in early '07

Apple signals iPhone to come in early '07: "Apple Computer Inc., known for its secrecy about new products, has given the strongest signal yet it's working on an iPod phone that analysts said could be released early next year.
'We don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players -- we think the iPod is,' Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in a conference call Wednesday. 'But over time that is likely to change, and we're not sitting around doing nothing.'"

That would be a fun "co-opetition" case study -- I suspect it would, for example, help Microsoft's mobile/wireless platform business...

Jeff Eisen [Notes Hannover Chief Architect]

Jeff Eisen [Notes Hannover Chief Architect] "After much deliberation and much prodding by my colleagues such as Ed Brill, Alan Lepofsky, and Mary Beth Raven, I'm finally starting a blog. Let me introduce myself. I'm Jeff Eisen and I'm the (drumroll for highfalutin title) Chief Architect for Lotus Notes. I've been at IBM for 12 years or so. I'll post my background soon if anyone's interested. These days, I'm quite preoccupied with Hannover, which is the next release of Lotus Notes."

Exchange Data Store Change Still in the Cards

Exchange Data Store Change Still in the Cards: "While Exchange 2007, the upcoming e-mail, calendaring and messaging server from Microsoft, is still based on the Extensible Storage Engine, a derivative of the Jet database store, the company says it remains committed to unifying this with the SQL Server database store going forward.
They just don't know exactly when yet. "

Timely snapshot/reality check. $.07 says "Exchange 14" will be based on SQL Server [2009?...].

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: The Long Tail and the Structure of the Media Industry

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: The Long Tail and the Structure of the Media Industry: "Even for those who have been following The Long Tail blog, the book is a welcome contribution to our understanding of a fundamental force reshaping the media industry. At this point, virtually everyone has heard of the long tail but, just in case, here’s the capsule summary. While more and more media businesses have become blockbuster-driven over the past century, three forces are working to increase the economic and cultural importance of the “long tail” – the growing abundance of products that individually sell in small numbers but that, in aggregate, account for substantial consumption."

Read the full post for an excellent review/summary.

Fast Forward: Will Microsoft's new principles be its undoing - Jul. 20, 2006

Fast Forward: Will Microsoft's new principles be its undoing - Jul. 20, 2006: "While in general I can't find fault with any of this and it is probably good for the world, I can't be so certain it will, in the long run, be good for Microsoft.
The whole thing reminds me of a portentous conversation I recently had with a longtime IBM veteran. He described to me just how damaging he believes the government's antitrust assault was on that one-time industry monopolist, back in the 1980s. He explained how IBM had been one of the most aggressive companies on the planet. Salespeople were essentially ordered never to lose a sale.
But once the government sunk its claws into IBM, its culture changed '180 degrees,' he said. Sometimes products were even priced a little bit higher just to ensure that competitors would have room to operate under IBM's umbrella, he recalled with bitterness."

37Signals, 1 Big New Investor: Jeff Bezos

37Signals, 1 Big New Investor: Jeff Bezos "37signals, the little-software-outfit-that-could and prolific producer of popular collaborative services such as Basecamp and Backpack, has its first venture investor: Bezos Expeditions, the personal investing firm of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
[...]
He has long been a fan of what he calls two-pizza teams, those small enough be fed by two pizzas. He thinks that's about the right size for any new project."

Microsoft Announces Vista Compliance Plans

Microsoft Announces Vista Compliance Plans: "Announcing its plans this week to ensure that Windows Vista complies with various antitrust laws around the globe, Microsoft made it sound like it was willfully doing the right thing. But the truth is, Microsoft is being forced to make these changes by regulators in the US, Europe, and other locales. Still, it's interesting to see which concessions the software giant is willing to make to ensure that Windows Vista isn't delayed further."

Profit Lags as Microsoft Spends to Meet Competitors - New York Times

Profit Lags as Microsoft Spends to Meet Competitors - New York Times: "In April, when Microsoft announced that its expenses in the coming year would be significantly higher than previously disclosed, the company's stock priced dropped. Yesterday, Microsoft provided more detail on where that additional $2.4 billion would be spent: Xbox product costs; marketing and sales; new product development and research in fields like business intelligence, security, software tools and mobile phone software; and online services like Internet search."

Thursday, July 20, 2006

AAPL: Summary for APPLE COMPUTER - Yahoo! Finance

AAPL: Summary for APPLE COMPUTER - Yahoo! Finance Interesting times: at this moment, Apple is worth more than Dell, Cisco is worth more than Intel, and Google is worth more than IBM.

Read/WriteWeb: Calacanis offers to buy out digg users

Read/WriteWeb: Calacanis offers to buy out digg users "Netscape boss Jason Calacanis has offered to essentially buy out the top users on Digg, Delicious, Flickr, MySpace, and Reddit for $1000 per month"

GigaOM : ? Voice, Now Nearly Free

GigaOM : ? Voice, Now Nearly Free "First it was Skype, then came Jajah, and now it is the turn of Gizmo Project to offer almost free voice calls to the old PSTN numbers. We are seeing the price of plain vanilla voice collapse to almost zero. (Some argue, with Skype to Skype calling, those prices are already zero.)"

Boing Boing: AOL's "customer retention" dirty tricks manual

Boing Boing: AOL's "customer retention" dirty tricks manual "Consumerist has gotten hold of a copy of AOL's 'retention' manual for customer service reps. This is the manual that the notorious AOL rep was working from when he abused a customer who recorded and published his phone conversation. Link (via Waxy)"

[BW] Oracle Rising

[BW] Oracle Rising: "OK, so how much of this is good-old-fashioned Wall Street bandwagon jumping to be reversed as soon as SAP reports a good quarter, and Oracle stumbles? Well, even before today—when it matched its 52-week high at $15.21 per share—the stock has looked better in 2006. Investors in general are comforted that the big deals—and all the uncertainty that comes with them—seem to be done for now. But the real test will be Oracle’s first quarter. It has missed it three years in a row. If it makes it this year, SAP may start losing some of its Wall Street fan boys."

Collaborative Thinking: Microsoft & Nortel: A Game Of Musical Chairs Begins

Collaborative Thinking: Microsoft & Nortel: A Game Of Musical Chairs Begins: "This seems like a game of musical chairs with communication vendors picking a key partner who has an application and collaboration infrastructure stack to partner with on unified communications. Microsoft can afford to keep making as many of these alliance deals as possible. There's little risk. So expect more to come."

Read the full post for a timely reality check from my Burton Group colleague Mike Gotta.

Study challenges myths about bloggers

Study challenges myths about bloggers: "Yet Pew found that only 34 percent considered their blog to be a form of journalism. The study reported that 56 percent either 'often' or 'sometimes' spend extra time trying to verify facts; 59 percent 'hardly ever' or 'never' post corrections when they got it wrong. More than half write under a pseudonym. "

Apple Earnings Bolstered by iPod and Notebook Sales - New York Times

Apple Earnings Bolstered by iPod and Notebook Sales - New York Times: "Some analysts speculated in recent weeks that the extraordinary growth in its portable digital music business might be coming to a close. The company reported that it sold 8.1 million iPod players, however, an increase of 32 percent over the comparable quarter a year ago."

According to an article in today's Boston Globe:
"Chief executive Steve Jobs surprised investors by saying Apple shipped 1.33 million Macs, more than the 1.25 million predicted by analysts. iPod sales growth slowed from the prior two quarters."

Survey of the Blogosphere Finds 12 Million Voices - New York Times

Survey of the Blogosphere Finds 12 Million Voices - New York Times: "Bloggers are a mostly young, racially diverse group of people who have never been published anywhere else and who most often use cyberspace to talk about their personal lives, according to a report on blogging released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The report also said that 8 percent of Internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog, and that 39 percent of Internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs."

Technology Rewrites the Book - New York Times

Technology Rewrites the Book - New York Times: "The print-on-demand business is gradually moving toward the center of the marketplace. What began as a way for publishers to reduce their inventory and stop wasting paper is becoming a tool for anyone who needs a bound document. Short-run presses can turn out books economically in small quantities or singly, and new software simplifies the process of designing a book."

Windows Principles: Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition

Windows Principles: Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition "Microsoft Corp. recognizes the important role its Windows® desktop operating system products play in the information economy and the responsibilities that come with that role. To promote competitive opportunities and otherwise enhance the appeal of Windows to developers and users, Microsoft is committed to running its Windows business in accordance with the following principles that address computer manufacturer and user choice, opportunities for developers, and interoperability for users. These principles will apply to Windows desktop development projects going forward."

Enlightened, fettered capitalism?...

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

YouTube - Microsoft History - www.vidoblog.net

YouTube - Microsoft History - www.vidoblog.net Oh my...

Wired News: Video Killed the Video Star

Wired News: Video Killed the Video Star: "Attention attention-seekers! The Great Web Mother has seen fit to cast one of her millions of eyes approvingly in your direction, and she has spawned a number of sites designed to make it even easier for you to debase yourself for the attention you're not getting from those closest to you.
[...]
Already it's hard to think back to the primitive days when you had to fall off a roof to get your home videos in front of millions of people. Now the only thing standing between you and your audience is that slim and useless portion of your brain that houses the shame instinct. Ignore it."

Scott Prather's The People Generation: Big news for the mediaholics

Scott Prather's The People Generation: Big news for the mediaholics: "Cingular yesterday announced that it had finally shipped a HSDPA phone. I think this is big news not necessarily to the Desperate House Wives junkies that catch the latest on the rail line to and from work but more so for the infrastructure that is being put in place for the mobile user."

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Microsoft and the app stream

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Microsoft and the app stream "Yesterday, Microsoft completed its purchase of a little company named Softricity. It's an interesting acquisition, one that sheds a little more light on the virtual future of information technology."

Read the post for some insights on the deal.

Congrats again to Bill, Stuart, et al at Softricity!

[BW blog] Best Web 2.0 Definition Yet

[BW blog] Best Web 2.0 Definition Yet: "Paul Kedrosky, who's becoming one of my don't-miss bloggers, has the best definition I've yet seen of the vaporous term Web 2.0. After reading James Fallows' recent Web 2.0 article in Technology Review, as well as Tim O'Reilly's follow-up commentary, he boils it all down in his inimitable style:
'A data-eating and excreting combination of Internet parasite and host.'"

ACM Queue - Discipline and Focus - Transcript - Transcript of interview with Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.

ACM Queue - Discipline and Focus - Transcript - Transcript of interview with Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.: "This is a transcript of Discipline and Focus, our Queuecast interview with Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon."

Timely IT reality check from ACM Queue; clearly IT does matter for Amazon.com... On a related note, see this post from uber-architect Barry Briggs on why he's decided to join Microsoft's IT organization.

vowe dot net :: Does the internet make you stupid?

vowe dot net :: Does the internet make you stupid?: "Today at lunch I had an interesting question from a system engineer: Does the internet make you stupid? He said, before the web was invented you had to figure out everything all on yourself when you had to solve your problems. Today you just ask your favorite search engine before you start to think. Did I mention he is 28?"

See the post for some interesting comments/discussion...

Google exec challenges Berners-Lee | CNET News.com

Google exec challenges Berners-Lee CNET News.com: "'What I get a lot is: 'Why are you against the Semantic Web?' I am not against the Semantic Web. But from Google's point of view, there are a few things you need to overcome, incompetence being the first,' [Google Director of Search and AAAI Fellow Peter] Norvig said. Norvig clarified that it was not Berners-Lee or his group that he was referring to as incompetent, but the general user.
'We deal with millions of Web masters who can't configure a server, can't write HTML. It's hard for them to go to the next step. The second problem is competition. Some commercial providers say, 'I'm the leader. Why should I standardize?' The third problem is one of deception. We deal every day with people who try to rank higher in the results and then try to sell someone Viagra when that's not what they are looking for. With less human oversight with the Semantic Web, we are worried about it being easier to be deceptive,' Norvig said."

DailyTech - Movielink Will Allow Downloaded Movies to be Burned to DVD

DailyTech - Movielink Will Allow Downloaded Movies to be Burned to DVD: "A company in California called Movielink is about to make available a service that allows movies downloaded through its online service to be burned to DVD. Unlike other online movie services which only allows downloaded movies to be viewed on either the machine it was downloaded on, movies downloaded using Movielink will be watchable on any DVD player. The only problem with this strategy is the feedback it's getting from Hollywood studios."

Meanwhile, from an article titled "For Some Netflix Users, Red Envelopes Gather Dust" in today's WSJ:
"'It's a paradox of abundance,' said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of culture and communication at New York University. If people aren't pressured to see a movie in a specific time frame, he said, viewers tend to put it lower on their priority list. 'When you have every choice in front of you, you have less urgency about any particular choice,' he added."

Microsoft takes on Cisco with Nortel alliance | CNET News.com

Microsoft takes on Cisco with Nortel alliance CNET News.com: "Microsoft's announcement Tuesday that it has formed a strategic partnership with Nortel Networks to jointly develop and sell Internet-based telephony and communications services is a clear indication the software powerhouse plans to go toe-to-toe with Cisco Systems, the leader in corporate communications. "

I see a broader market trend with network equipment vendors being increasingly commoditized as plumbing, with less of a user-visible value proposition, and a shift to software-based user experiences and tools for all forms of communication; in that respect, the Microsoft/Nortel partnership may accelerate some market dynamics, but it's not strictly about Microsoft-versus-Cisco -- it's more of a market segment-level shift.

Storytelling, not journalism, spurs most blogs - Yahoo! News

Storytelling, not journalism, spurs most blogs - Yahoo! News: "Many people see Web journals or 'blogs' as alternatives to the mainstream media, but most Americans who run them do so as a hobby rather than a vocation, according to a report released on Wednesday.
About 77 percent of blog authors, or 'bloggers,' said they post to express themselves creatively rather to get noticed or paid, according to the report, released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project."

Check the full article for more timely blog-related reality checks.

Front Page of Journal to Get Ads - New York Times

Front Page of Journal to Get Ads - New York Times: "The Wall Street Journal calls it a 'jewel box,' but readers of its front page will know it by its common name: advertising.
The Journal confirmed yesterday the speculation that it would open its front page to advertisers, probably in September, a move that could bring in tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue. "

I haven't read the dead-tree version of the WSJ since summer, 1996 (the day I downloaded IE3, to be precise; Microsoft had a deal with wsj.com in conjunction with the launch of IE3, and I've been a happy subscriber since), so the front page ads won't bug me, but the Flash ads on the main page of www.wsj.com definitely bug me...

WSJ.com - Sony's Big Hopes For PlayStation 3 May Fall Short

WSJ.com - Sony's Big Hopes For PlayStation 3 May Fall Short: "'People in gaming and game publishing are drastically less excited about PlayStation 3 than they were a year ago, and also a few months back, and competition is looking much stronger,' says David Cole, a market analyst at DFC Intelligence, a San Diego market-research firm focused on the videogame industry. 'There is a lot of anticipation about PS3, but not a lot of software coming out over the next few months that would excite consumers. And the price point is staggering.'"

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Oracle singles out five growth areas | InfoWorld | News | 2006-07-18 | By China Martens, IDG News Service

Oracle singles out five growth areas InfoWorld News 2006-07-18 By China Martens, IDG News Service: "The five areas are security, content management, business intelligence, grid computing and enterprise search, according to Chuck Rozwat, executive vice president of database server technology at Oracle."

Windows Is Ready to Tout PC?s as Gaming Devices - New York Times

Windows Is Ready to Tout PC's as Gaming Devices - New York Times: "The bigger picture is that PC gaming is surging these days even without Microsoft's help. A few years ago, the conventional wisdom in game circles (even at Microsoft) was that PC gaming was stagnant, a niche backwater that would soon be swamped by consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.
The tsunami most game executives didn't see coming was the rise in subscription-based online PC gaming, which wasn't reflected in the retail sales charts that dominate big screens in boardrooms. Online PC games like Lineage II and World of Warcraft are on pace to take in more than $2 billion this year worldwide."

IM Chat Interop Just the Beginning for Microsoft, Yahoo

IM Chat Interop Just the Beginning for Microsoft, Yahoo: "If Microsoft and Yahoo! do provide a way for users to connect using VoIP, the 350 million people who use both services will be able to make PC-to-PC phone calls for free, bypassing emerging dedicated VoIP services such as Vonage and Skype. Internet-based phone calling will likely replace the traditional phone infrastructure at some point, analysts believe, due to its low cost and the resiliency of the Internet."

Microsoft, Xen to run Windows, Linux side-by-side - Yahoo! News

Microsoft, Xen to run Windows, Linux side-by-side - Yahoo! News: "Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it is teaming up with Linux supplier XenSource to allow computers to run the upcoming version of Microsoft's Windows server operating system on computers that are simultaneously running Linux software. "

See this press release for the Microsoft perspective.

Brainy Robots Start Stepping Into Daily Life - New York Times

Brainy Robots Start Stepping Into Daily Life - New York Times: "These are some fruits of the research field known as artificial intelligence, where reality is finally catching up to the science-fiction hype. A half-century after the term was coined, both scientists and engineers say they are making rapid progress in simulating the human brain, and their work is finding its way into a new wave of real-world products."

Monday, July 17, 2006

Scott Prather's The People Generation: When is a message a message?

Scott Prather's The People Generation
My friend and former (Lotus and Groove) colleague Scott Prather joins the blogosphere, starting with some big bets:

"E-Mail as we know it today will be dead in the next 7-10 years (btw you will find in my blog I will be assertive and I will take any $.07 bet out there ;-)). Users will have either completely switched over to an IM platform because they want a more contextual/less spammish environment or IM will be tossed because it never grew up to include the things like archival, backup and auditing that any kind of Enterprise communication infrastructure needs. I don't think this opens up the messaging market but I do think it will tilt the market either to IBM or Microsoft...whichever gets it first."

(Read the full post for context)

I'll take that bet, Scott. (Besides, if I lose, you can simply add it to the ~$7,777.77 I already owe you...)

[BW] A Ray of Hope for Desktop Linux

[BW] A Ray of Hope for Desktop Linux: "Linux has had a major impact on the server end of corporate computing, but, so, far not too much action on the desktop. The reasons are clear: Microsoft's Windows and Office products totally dominate and its hard to compete with network effects. Desktop Linux has only a couple of percentage points of market share. I don't see anything on the horizon that seems likely to change that, but, for Linux fans, here's a ray of hope: IBM, one of the penguin's biggest backers, is releasing a version of its Notes communications and collaboration software designed to run on Linux. Unless you have important applications running on Linux, you won't have corporations adopting it en masse. And Notes, with 125 million users worldwide, qualifies as an important application."

Interactive Netscape Site Gets Some Sour Responses - New York Times

Interactive Netscape Site Gets Some Sour Responses - New York Times: "Netscape may be known now for losing the so-called browser war to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. But Netscape.com, the default home page for users of the fading browser, continues to have its following -- so much so that when its owner, AOL, tried to update it last month, it received some surprisingly angry feedback."

I suspect Time Warner will eventually redirect www.netscape.com to www.aol.com and completely bury the Netscape brand.

Startup Helps Assess Open-Source Projects

Startup Helps Assess Open-Source Projects: "[Ohloh] A Bellevue Wash., startup founded and funded by former Microsoft executives is expected to release a public beta version of a service that provides deep information about open-source projects, including license information and estimates of how much an open-source project could cost."

Steve Ballmer: Worldwide Partner Conference 2006

Steve Ballmer: Worldwide Partner Conference 2006: "I want to frame what's going to happen over the next 12 months, because frankly we are in the middle of the most amazing year of product innovation coming from Microsoft of essentially of all time. We have this year coming to market Windows Vista, and, of course, Internet Explorer version 7. We've got the new release of Microsoft Office, Office 2007. And we as a company are entering into a set of new markets, new for us: business intelligence, the portal, workflow, content management, collaboration market. Everybody likes to call it something different, but that's really now one category, one market that we're entering in full force this year."

See the full transcript for other Microsoft priorities.

YouTube serves up 100 million videos daily online - Yahoo! News

YouTube serves up 100 million videos daily online - Yahoo! News: "YouTube videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online, the company said. Videos are delivered free on YouTube and the company is still working on developing advertising and other means of generating revenue to support the business."

WSJ.com - Intel's Itanium Comes to Key Point

WSJ.com - Intel's Itanium Comes to Key Point: "Intel Corp. is opening an important chapter in the long-running saga of Itanium, a chip that continues to provoke strong reactions from fans and critics.
The company tomorrow will introduce a long-delayed model, code-named Montecito, which is the first in Intel's Itanium chip line to pack the equivalent of two electronic brains on a single piece of silicon. Containing more than 1.7 billion transistors, the product is one of the most ambitious chips ever built."

Meanwhile, in Technology Review, a 1,000-core CPU from start-up Kilocore.

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact "A veteran technology commentator attempts to live entirely on Web 2.0."

James Fallows on Web 2.o. See this page (5th of 5) for his conclusions.

A Wake-Up Call From Craig McCaw

A Wake-Up Call From Craig McCaw: "McCaw's Clearwire Corp. has amassed enough licensed radio spectrum to create a nationwide, wireless broadband network based on an emerging technology called mobile WiMAX -- a powerful cousin of WiFi. Clearwire got a big boost on July 5, when Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. pumped nearly $900 million into the company. The tech giants aim to turn WiMAX into a mainstream consumer technology and hope to make lots of money selling the chips, laptops, cell phones, and other gear that work with it."

Face value | Surfing the airwaves | Economist.com

Face value Surfing the airwaves Economist.com: "Craig McCaw was a pioneer of mobile telephony. Now he is betting on a new wireless-broadband technology"

Timely update on Clearwire's progress

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Microsoft Allegedly Planning 'Argo' MP3 Player

Microsoft Allegedly Planning 'Argo' MP3 Player: "The most alluring aspect of Argo is a new service that Microsoft is reportedly going to offer with the device. Essentially, Microsoft will scan your computer for any songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store and make those songs available to you from URGE for free, and in higher-quality Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. Microsoft will pay the record companies fees that are owed on the songs, so the net effect is that you've purchased the songs again, but Microsoft has paid for them. Although these costs are expected to be extravagant, Microsoft feels it's the only way it can overcome the final hurdle of moving people from the iPod: If users can't bring their music collections with them, many won't abandon Apple's device."

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Vonage - Leading the Internet Phone Revolution

Vonage - Leading the Internet Phone Revolution: "Now with our Unlimited plans, calling to Europe with Vonage isn't international, it's local. By waiving international fees to Italy, France, Spain, UK and Ireland, Vonage treats calls to these countries just like traditional local calls throughout the US. So calls to Paris cost the same as calls to your neighbor down the street - nothing!"

Cool...

Microsoft releases new OS for old PCs

Microsoft releases new OS for old PCs: "Microsoft Corp. released a new version of its operating system for businesses this week that extends the life of older PCs by effectively turning them into thin-client computers.
Called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, the software is offered only to customers on Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing and maintenance program. It is not a full-featured operating system, but it improves the security and manageability of PCs for customers with systems that are too old for Windows XP and who aren't ready to upgrade their hardware, Microsoft said."

Clearly placing win, place, and show client OS bets...

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

At AOL, a Plan for a Clean Break - New York Times

At AOL, a Plan for a Clean Break - New York Times: "In two weeks, the board of Time Warner Inc., which owns AOL, will hear a proposal from Jonathan Miller, AOL's chief executive, calling for a near halt in marketing for AOL's 17-year-old Internet access service, price cuts for existing customers and thousands of layoffs. His goal is to devote all of AOL's energy into building its free Web-based services."

A reasonable plan, I suppose, given the alternatives...

(p.s. sorry for the lack of posts for the last week -- I've been on vacation in a place with awful Internet access, and stayed off-line most of the week. I expect to be back to my normal routine Thurs.)

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The Internet Knows What You'll Do Next - New York Times

The Internet Knows What You'll Do Next - New York Times: "A few weeks ago, Google took a big step toward changing this -- toward making the database of intentions visible to the world -- by creating a product called Google Trends. It allows you to check the relative popularity of any search term, to look at how it has changed over the last couple years and to see the cities where the term is most popular. And it's totally addictive."

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Netscape's junk drawer

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Netscape's junk drawer "Netscape served as the midwife at the birth of Web 1.0. Now, in what would be a lovely ironic twist, it may be the undertaker at the burial of the Web 2.0 hype. A few days ago, Netscape turned its traditional portal home page into a knockoff of the popular geek news site Digg. Like Digg, Netscape is now a 'news aggregator' that allows users to vote on which stories they think are interesting or important. The votes determine the stories' placement on the home page. Netscape's hope, it seems, is to bring Digg's hip Web 2.0 model of social media into the mainstream.
There's just one problem. Normal people seem to think the entire concept is ludicrous."

Monday, July 03, 2006

Seems Somebody Is Clicking on That Spam - New York Times

Seems Somebody Is Clicking on That Spam - New York Times: "Spam messages promoting pornography are 280 times as effective in getting recipients to click on them as messages advertising pharmacy drugs, which are the next most effective type of spam."

"5.6% click-through rate for porn spam"

A Blog Mogul Turns Bearish on Blogs - New York Times

A Blog Mogul Turns Bearish on Blogs - New York Times: "One of the overlords of the blogosphere with 15 sites and enough buzz to arm every doorbell in the nation, Mr. Denton has watched page views at his sites double in the last year; Gawker Media and Nielsen/NetRatings put monthly unique visitors at 4.2 million. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Mr. Denton celebrated a very upbeat stretch in the blogging industry by putting two of his sites on the block, reorganizing others and laying off several people."

A Search Engine That's Becoming an Inventor - New York Times

A Search Engine That's Becoming an Inventor - New York Times: "To be closer to its users and speed response time, it is building a worldwide string of data centers, including a huge site in The Dalles, Ore., with technologies it designed to reduce its ravenous need for electricity. These computers in turn use software developed with advanced tools that Google also designed itself. There are signs that Google is even preparing to create its own custom microchips."

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Some MacBooks have premature age spots | CNET News.com

Some MacBooks have premature age spots CNET News.com: "'My MacBook is three weeks old and looks as though I've been using it for three years and rubbing my hands in turmeric each day (OK, a slight exaggeration),' read one post from a London man. 'Everything else about my MacBook has been fantastic, and I'm really, really happy with it; but I am appalled that it gets discolored so easily.'"

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: E-mailing from work? Guess who's watching

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: E-mailing from work? Guess who's watching: "Almost one-third of companies said they've fired an employee in the last 12 months for violating e-mail policies, and 52 percent of the companies said they have disciplined an employee for violating e-mail rules in the past year, according to a survey of 294 U.S. firms with 1,000 or more workers."

[BW] So Much Fanfare, So Few Hits

So Much Fanfare, So Few Hits: "But if you cut through the hype, Google's intimidation factor quickly fizzles. An analysis of some two dozen new ventures launched over the past four years shows that Google has yet to establish a single market leader outside its core search business, where it continues to chew up Microsoft and Yahoo."

Timely BusinessWeek reality check article.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Red Hat sued over JBoss technology | CNET News.com

Red Hat sued over JBoss technology CNET News.com: "Red Hat has been hit by a patent lawsuit related to JBoss, just weeks after completing its purchase of the open-source software company. "

Judge Rules for Microsoft in Antitrust Suit - New York Times

Judge Rules for Microsoft in Antitrust Suit - New York Times: "A judge has ruled for Microsoft as part of an antitrust lawsuit brought by the founder of a tablet computer company in one of the last remaining civil lawsuits from a 1998 federal antitrust case against the company."