Check the post for more details and related links
Some big news today that Google is announcing an open source project called “Google Gears” which is an open source collaboration between Google, Adobe, Mozilla, and Opera that enables offline web applications in the browser. It seems very similar to the announcement that Mozilla made about the offline features in Firefox 3 and will be a huge benefit for browser applications everywhere (including those being developed in Flash).
It's amusing, in a pitiful sort of way, to see the mainstream press disappointment about the fact that the joint Gates/Jobs interview didn't turn into a fight
One can only hope that they were kidding and this was not the valedictory moment it seemed. These guys make good things and thrive on competition. With luck, Jobs showed his continued interest in the game earlier in the day, when he indicated that Apple's iTunes was now on over 300 million computers worldwide, mostly Windows machines. That Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) is one of the biggest external developers for Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) is a boon, he said, since having his software in Microsoft products “is like giving a glass of water to somebody in Hell.”
Check this page for a couple video excerpts
Mr. Gates said he was sometimes frustrated by the fact that the players in the industry changed so quickly. "I miss it when people come and go. It's nice when people stick around and it gives us some context," he said.During a question and answer period at the end of the session both men were asked to comment on the other's strengths. Mr. Gates singled out Mr. Jobs intuitive aesthetic sense.
"I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste," Mr. Gates said, drawing laughter from the audience. "The way he does things, it's just different."
Mr. Jobs returned the compliment, noting that Mr. Gates skills at building business partnerships were something that eluded him in his first decade at Apple.
Source: A Trip Down Memory Lane and Over the Horizon - New York Times
Snapshot of Google's expansion in the Boston area (see the full article for details)
A favorite parlor game in Greater Boston technology circles has been guessing which area company will grow up to be the next Google Inc., the Silicon Valley search provider that has become the behemoth of the Internet economy.
But if a team of Kendall Square techies has its way, the next Google in the Boston area will be Google itself
Source: Google brand of growth takes root in Kendall Sq. - The Boston Globe
This is going to backfire on Google in a big way if it's not a robust solution. Beyond-the-basics off-line support is a subtle but very complex challenge.
Google hopes other companies will use Gears to extend their own software and services. Some Microsoft rivals, including Adobe and Mozilla, which is behind the Firefox Web browser, are collaborating with Google on the technology.
But it could also help Google’s rivals. If the Gears technology proves effective, scores of software programs, including Yahoo Mail and Microsoft’s Hotmail, might one day be used offline to read e-mail messages and to compose new ones. The new e-mail messages would be sent the next time a user connects to the Internet.
Google said Gears was in early stages of development. “This is not a solution that is going to work with everything on Day 1,” Mr. Smith said.
Hmm -- so Adobe Apollo, Firefox 3, and now Google Gears are all going to address the same problem space?
Web applications bring your data online and make it available anywhere there's an Internet connection. But happens when you're on a plane or when you can't find a WiFi hotspot?
Google launched an open source browser extension for IE and Firefox called Google Gears that enables web applications to be available offline.
See the post for more details, e.g., on Gears used with Google Reader.
Google Operating System: Google Gears - Offline Functionality for Web Apps
Congrats to JJ Allaire and his team on a major milestone
Today is a good day - we're shipping Beta 2 of Windows Live Writer.
For the last 6 or so months, we've been hard at work improving Writer, splitting our time between feedback we've gotten from users, features that we believe need to be added to make the product complete, and improvements that make Writer available to more users. For a full rundown of the features, you can check out the Windows Live Writer blog.
Check out the interactive scenarios on this page (via Barry Briggs) -- very impressive.
(I guess the Surface team didn't get the Silverlight memo, however; the content is all Flash...)
Makes sense to me... The Jeff Hawkins video intro on this page (the "future" link) clearly indicates it won't just be for Palm mobile devices
With its 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard, the Palm Foleo mobile companion connects wirelessly with your smartphone to help you do more on the go. Unfold it, press a button, and it's on instantly—while just one touch brings your email to the big screen.1 Use your Foleo to view attachments, type longer emails, or to get a bigger look at web pages and photos you'd normally view on your smartphone.2 And with up to five hours of battery life packed into such a compact design, you'll do big things wherever you go.
Source: Palm, Inc. - Products - Foleo
My Burton Group colleague Pete Lindstrom's take on Google's GreenBorder acquisition (see the post for GreenBorder details)
With all the hoopla surrounding Web 2.0 security, this seems like a prudent purchase for Google. What will be interesting to see is whether it decides to charge for the software or simply considers this the infrastructure cost to further its current business models. Note that it is unlikely that GreenBorder cost a lot - I think they have been through at least three senior management changes in the past five years or so.
Neat stuff. Will be very interesting to see what a company with Google's muscle can do with it.
Source: Spire Security Viewpoint: Google gets into the security business with GreenBorder Technologies
See the article for a financial snapshot.
The upside? Novell has more than $1.8 billion worth of cash and short-term investments. And with its accounting review wrapped up, the company can now spread a little of that money around.
The company could start buying back shares or it may even reward open-source developers with a few acquisitions, analysts say. Spreading a little of its money around in the open-source community may not make it any more popular, but at least it won't be the only software company accused of selling out.
Hmm -- mkt cap is ~$2.5B, and the company has $1.8B cash/short-term investments?...
Source: Novell's Dilemma - Forbes.com
See the article for more details.
Like many other large companies, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is on a buyback binge. It has spent $80 billion on its own stock since 1995. By taking shares out of circulation, the move increases the company's earnings per share and gives IBM more shares it can dole out in stock options.
In April, largely to please investors tired of IBM's so-so stock performance, the company's board authorized $15 billion in new repurchases — two and a half times what IBM spends annually on research and development. Recently IBM has been spending about $100 million a day buying its own shares on the open market.
Source: IBM's buyback binge includes $11.5B loan - Yahoo! News
Much more info on Surface
The launch of Microsoft Surface marks the beginning of a new technology category and a user-interface revolution. Surface, Microsoft’s first surface computer, provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects. Surface computing breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology, changing the way people interact with all kinds of everyday information — from photos to maps to menus.
Deja vu -- unclear why this is a big headline in NYT and WSJ today
Instead of forcing users to write with a stylus on a computer’s slippery display, Livescribe put the computer inside a plump ballpoint pen that is used on paper imprinted with nearly invisible miniature dots. As a user writes, a tiny camera near the pen’s tip watches those dots go by, recording what is being written.
Mr. Marggraff said calling it pen computing is a misnomer. “We are creating paper-based computing,” he said.
Source: Take Note: Computing Takes Up Pen, Again - New York Times
Capable of some interesting tricks -- see the article for details.
Having just tried its hand at developing a digital music player, Microsoft is working on something new: digital furniture.
The company plans to unveil a computing device today called Microsoft Surface, featuring a 30-inch screen embedded in an acrylic tabletop. The device’s electronic guts are hidden in the low-slung table’s thick pedestal.
Source: Touch Screen in a Table Is the Latest Wrinkle in Computers - New York Times
One way to increase earnings per share...
International Business Machines Corp. said it has spent $12.5 billion to buy back its stock in one of the largest uses of an "accelerated share repurchase," a tactic that allows a company to boost per-share earnings more rapidly than it would using a conventional buyback approach.
In the complex deal, IBM created a Netherlands unit to finance the stock repurchase with overseas earnings and avoid having to repatriate funds, which would make them subject to higher U.S. taxes.
Pretty cool -- see the press release for details on other cities available in 3-D
Microsoft® Live Search Maps will today begin offering three-dimensional, photo-realistic views of New York City buildings and landscapes, with perspectives that few people — apart from Superman — have ever seen. The free online service will provide a unique look at many of New York’s iconic locations, along with local listings, ratings and reviews and driving directions to help people easily find, discover, plan and share relevant location information that is important to them on the Web.
It looks like there's not much left to this market except for high-stakes acquisition fodder.
The telecommunications sector has proved ripe for deals recently. Last week, Alltel, the wireless service provider, has agreed to a $27.5 billion buyout by the Texas Pacific Group and a unit of Goldman Sachs. In turn, Western equipment makers are facing pressure from low-cost Asian manufacturers, as well as the growing size and purchasing power of a few large phone companies.
Last year, Avaya was seen as a hunter, not the hunted, as many analysts suspected that it was a contender to buy the enterprise communications unit from Siemens. But Avaya passed, and Siemens proved unable to sell the business.
Two of the largest telecommunications equipment makers, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies, agreed to merge a year ago in a $11.6 billion deal.
Source: Avaya Is Said to Be Exploring a Sale of All or Some of Itself - New York Times
Interesting times
For NATO, the attack may lead to a discussion of whether it needs to modify its commitment to collective defense, enshrined in Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. Mr. Aarelaid said NATO’s Internet security experts said little but took copious notes during their visit.
Because of the murkiness of the Internet — where attackers can mask their identities by using the Internet addresses of others, or remotely program distant computers to send data without their owners even knowing it — several experts said that the attackers would probably never be caught. American government officials said that the nature of the attacks suggested they were initiated by “hacktivists,” technical experts who act independently from governments.
Source: War Fears Turn Digital After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times
The consolidation continues
Telecommunications-equipment maker Avaya Inc. is in talks with private-equity and strategic bidders about selling part or all of the company, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest sign that there could be a new round of mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications-equipment industry.
A pivotal moment for Google
Within a few weeks, perhaps within days, the FTC will decide whether to escalate its investigation into the Google deal, antitrust experts say. That step, known as a "second request" for information, would suggest that the proposed acquisition raises more serious antitrust issues.
Google said it was confident that the deal would withstand scrutiny.
Source: Google bid for ad firm said to face FTC probe - The Boston Globe
Timely reality check
While the concept of a “widget” might seem trivial to many outside of Silicon Valley, the ability to automatically embed a rich flash application inside another site is very powerful. It has become a new vehicle for massively gaining viral distribution. One well-known example is Youtube, as their growth was significantly driven by Myspace -- with Myspace quickly becoming Youtube’s largest source of traffic.
And this new opportunity has not gone unnoticed by the VC community. I'd estimate that over $250 million dollars has been invested in widget companies during the last 18 months.
I'm looking forward to the point where this technology mainstreams...
One of the more interesting conversations I had at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) last week in Los Angeles was with two guys from Samsung. They talked about their company's push into solid-state memory as an enhancement -- and eventually a replacement -- for rotating hard disk storage on computers. Samsung isn't the only manufacturer working to develop plug-compatible flash memory-based storage. In January the five largest drive makers -- Samsung, Seagate, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Hitachi, formed the Hybrid Hard Drive Alliance to promote the technology. HHD seems to be ready, and the market seems to be primed. The only hold-up seems to the price.
Source: Driving Toward Solid-State Drives - Consumer/Personal Tech Blog - InformationWeek
Timely reality check
More than a third of UK bloggers risk the sack by posting derogatory or damaging details about their workplace, boss or colleagues, a survey claims.
Human resources company Croner, which commissioned the study, warned that such bloggers could be sacked from their job for gross misconduct.
Source: BBC NEWS | Business | Third of bloggers 'risk the sack'
Bad press karma for Google this week -- see the post for more details
The company’s enormous success and relentless pursuit of new markets has inspired some in the entrepreneurial culture that produced it to take an evil-empire view of the search-engine phenomenon–one that’s increasingly echoed in the media. To wit, a rather hysterical front-page story in the (London) Independent draws some rather unoriginal comparisons between Google’s efforts to organize the world’s information and Big Brother’s efforts to control it.
Source: I Am Locutus of GOOG. Resistance Is Futile. | Digital Daily | John Paczkowski | AllThingsD
Social software competitive dynamics
Some of the new features, demonstrated by software developers at a Facebook event here on Thursday, will allow members to recommend and listen to music, insert Amazon book reviews onto their pages, play games and join charity drives, all without leaving the site.
The result is expected to be a proliferation of new tools and activities for Facebook’s 24 million active users, who have largely been limited to making online connections, sharing photos and planning events.
Source: Facebook Expands Into MySpace’s Territory - New York Times
Kinda weird...
But as trendy as lifecasting may become, it will be just one of many applications for live video-streaming services, says Chris Yeh, Ustream's CEO and an investor and serial entrepreneur. Other customers are using Ustream to broadcast product launches, church services, college graduations, and the like. "I don't know for sure if [live video streaming] will be big, but it's one of those ideas that has the potential to be a multi-billion-dollar business," says Yeh.
If nothing else, I suspect there is serious potential for people who operate like the gargoyles in Snow Crash.
Timely Cringely reality check -- read the full post.
Google is an amazing entrepreneurial petri dish. Yet at the same time, it is doomed to disappoint nearly every entrepreneurial type who works there. This is key: Google is sowing the seeds of its own eventual destruction. It can't help doing so.
I agree there's considerable potential for Google to pull a Netscape -- to implode before external threats become critical.
Source: I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Final Days of Google | PBS
Quite a contrast to the Palm press of the past
Not even three years ago, the Treo 650 smart phone looked revolutionary. But its latest successor, the Treo 755p Palm unveiled two weeks ago, feels more like a relic.
The Treo's basic concept -- uniting a cellphone, handheld organizer, miniaturized keyboard, touch-sensitive screen, Web and e-mail access and media playback in one device -- makes sense. But while competitors have advanced, Palm has been napping on the train tracks.
Source: Rob Pegoraro - Palm's Dumber Smart Phone - washingtonpost.com
Timely reality check; see the post for a few examples
If you want to evaluate the “evil” quotient of any company’s strategy/behavior, consider how you’d feel about it if it were Microsoft in the driver seat.
Robert McLaws of Windows-Now.com fame reminded me of my “Is Google evil?” litmus test in his post, “Google: The New Big Brother.” As McLaws paraphrased it: “When looking at any new Google venture, swap out the word ‘Google” with ‘Microsoft’ and ask yourself if you’re still OK with what’s happening.”
Source: » Google is failing the Microsoft litmus test | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
Confidence and/or negotiating tactic?...
Microsoft said Wednesday that it did not need to buy Yahoo to gain scale in online advertising, because it had “all the pieces” to build a successful ad business.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft’s chief advertising strategist, Yusuf Mehdi, said that the company was already bigger than Yahoo in terms of users of its Web services like e-mail and instant messaging.
Very pragmatic
The MovieStation, available at J&R Computer World and Amazon.com, starts at $300 for 250 gigabytes. The largest version, a 500-gigabyte model that costs about $400, can store about 128,000 MP3 files or 125 movies. The drive has optical and analog audio outputs along with composite video outputs for playing that content on any stereo or compatible television.
Source: Product information for the Trekstor MovieStation - New York Times
Interesting times...
The future of journalism is in your hands.
That was the message yesterday as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation handed out more than $11 million in prize money to various bloggers and computer programmers, and organizations ranging from MIT to MTV, for proposals that will empower ordinary people to participate in digital media.
[...]
"We talk about the fifth estate -- the fourth estate is traditionally newspapers, but the fifth estate might be an army of citizens that uses new media to keep an eye both on government officials and on professional journalists," said Henry Jenkins , director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Comparative Media Studies Program, which shared the top $5 million prize with the MIT Media Lab to create the new media center.
Source: $11m aims to foster a new digital 'fifth estate' - The Boston Globe
Extensive profile of Gordon Bell and his work
This, by the way, is the Gordon Bell, aged seventy-two, of Microsoft, who has been described as “the Frank Lloyd Wright of computers”; who, at the Digital Equipment Corporation, was among the first engineers to fashion computers into a network; who led the National Science Foundation effort to link the world’s supercomputers—the Internet. The Gordon Bell, incidentally, who believes that one day houses will have no windows, so it won’t matter where they are—screens on the walls will display whatever we want to look at.
Source: Dept. of Technology: Remember This?: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Interesting milestone
Amazon.com Inc. Wednesday agreed to buy Brilliance Audio, an independent publisher of audiobooks. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
The acquisition will allow Amazon, Seattle, to "make it more efficient for authors and book publishers of all sizes to expand the number of titles produced in increasingly popular audio formats," Amazon.com vice president of books Greg Greely said in a prepared statement.
Amazon.com said Brilliance Audio is the largest independent publisher of audiobooks in the U.S.
Source: Amazon Agrees to Buy Brilliance Audio, Independent Publisher of Audiobooks - WSJ.com
Somehow I don't find this comforting
Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.
Source: FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google’s goal: to organise your daily life
And it'll probably only cost ~twice as much as the 120 gig Xbox Elite...
Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console will come with a beefed up 80-gigabyte hard-disk drive in South Korea, and that model is being considered for the U.S. and other markets, a company official said Wednesday.
Source: Sony may sell 80-gig Playstation 3 in US - Boston.com
Read the full article for more details, e.g., on legitmate firms that will suffer as a result of this policy
Google's forthcoming ban on adverts for "academic paper-writing services and the sale of pre-written essays, theses, and dissertations" means that essay websites join a blacklist of "unacceptable content" including adverts for weapons, prostitution, drugs, tobacco, fake documents and "miracle cures".
The move has been applauded by universities which have struggled with the problem of students dishonestly submitting material copied from the internet.
Source: BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Google bans essay writing adverts
Timely reality check.
In what I can only describe as a sentimental-veering-toward-weepy riff on the ongoing saga of “Silicon Valley Bubble: The Sequel,” TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington waxes on about the need for a downturn to stop the madness.
“Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks,” he writes in earnest about how all that was once beautiful and pure about the Web 2.0 culture has become a wee bit tawdry.
Hmm -- I hadn't read many of Kara Swisher's AllThingsD posts before (I did read and enjoy her AOL book a few years ago), but her writing style is vaguely reminiscent... of FSJ.
Source: Message to Michael: Just Say, Well, No. | BoomTown | Kara Swisher | AllThingsD
Weird that Google would apparently invest in part to close out Sergey Brin's personal loan. With fuel prices near record levels, maybe he needed the cash for his 767.
In Silicon Valley’s version of “The Bachelor,” Anne Wojcicki not only landed one of America’s richest men, Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, but she also got her husband’s company to finance her start-up.
Source: Google Investing in Company Started by Co-Founder’s Wife - New York Times
Read the review, read the book, discuss/debate the topics with your friends and family, and get involved
Much the way that the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” showed a more accessible Al Gore — at ease with himself and passionate about the dangers of global warming — this book shows a fiery, throw-caution-to-the winds Al Gore, who, whether or not he runs for the White House again, has decided to lay it all on the line with a blistering assessment of the Bush administration and the state of public discourse in America at this “fateful juncture” in history.
Source: The Assault on Reason - Al Gore - Book - Review - New York Times
Review of Popfly with several screen shots
Popfly, currently an invitation-only alpha, is an authoring tool that lets users build simple data mash-ups inside a cute, game-like interface. It's a bit like Pipes, the mash-up creation service Yahoo debuted in February. People were a little confused when Pipes came out, but Popfly is even simpler. Data services appear as floating cubes. You string the cubes together, tell them how to talk to each other and -- voilà -- you've got a mash-up.
Eager to see what Silverlight is all about, I played with PopFly for a couple of hours. While it definitely benefits from its rich user experience and its creators' strong understanding of how non-developers approach common programming problems, I found it not quite as easy to use as I had hoped. I also encountered a few bugs with the Silverlight platform itself that indicate it has some toughening up to do if it's going to seriously challenge Flash.
My take:
1. It's alpha software -- don't be surprised if it hangs/crashes occasionally
2. The output/input parameter mapping issue is an inconvenience but isn't rocket science
3. Popfly is likely to become a lot more powerful when it's updated to work with Silverlight 1.1 (i.e., with the .NET Framework and languages)
Overall, I'm very impressed with Popfly so far.
Source: Compiler - Wired Blogs
Yikes...
Google's program to identify internet sites that distribute computer viruses and other "malware" has so far uncovered one million web pages that are infecting the computers of unsuspecting surfers, report Panayiotis Mavrommatis and Niels Provos of the search company's Anti-Malware Team. Most of the sites engaging in what the researchers term "drive-by downloads" are ordinary sites whose owners "are often unaware that their web servers have been compromised."
Based on an analysis of a sample of sites, the Google researchers estimate that one in every thousand websites may be "malicious."
Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google uncovers a million malware sites
First detailed review of Notes 8 (beta 2) I've seen so far. Jumping to the final paragraphs:
IBM's overhaul of the Notes user interface is largely for the good. Even though I don't personally like the consumery look of the new calendar, things like in-message "conversation" viewing and the new "Open" button for applications are useful additions. But it can still be a daunting piece of software to get to know, with some nonintuitive UI issues remaining.
From the perspective of the end-user e-mail client alone, I'd be happy to upgrade to Notes 8 to get added features such as in-message threading and Activities, but not so much so that I'm ready to plead with our IT department for an upgrade. I might make a single request, though: With the word processing and spreadsheet collaboration that Quickr is supposed to bring, an upgrade would be more appealing.
See the full article for details and screen shots.
Link to Lotus Notes gets a facelift: Version 8 beta review and visual tour
Interesting times...
Salesforce.com Inc.'s stock price climbed by more than 4 percent Monday in response to a report that the online software pioneer is poised to team up with Internet search leader Google Inc. in a double-barreled attack on Microsoft Corp.
Although details are still being negotiated, the alliance would most likely involve blending Google mass-market applications like instant messaging, word processing and spreadsheets with Salesforce.com's business programs for managing customer relationships, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Source: Technology Review: Google, Salesforce.com aim at Microsoft with possible alliance
See the post comments for an on-average ambivalent response -- go figure...
Do your Notes apps make use of much OLE embedding? If so, how numerous and/or important are these apps?
Does you organization make use of the embedded MS word editor?
I ask this because the user experience with any embedded OLE object will be different in Notes 8. Specifically, INSTEAD of in-place activiation,
creating a new document or clicking on OLE control causes full client (Word, Excel, Paint, etc.) to launch.
Source: IBM developerWorks : Blogs : Designing the User Experience for Lotus Notes and Sametime
Some potential clues about what's next for Google search; see the article for mroe details
Recent patent applications filed by Google shows that the online search leader is working to soup up its search algorithm to provide more detailed and targeted results. Those improvements could lead to improved media search and dynamic content, according to a search engine expert who discussed the findings at this week's Enterprise Search Summit meeting in New York and in a Wall Street analyst report.
Stephen E. Arnold, managing director of Arnold IT and the author of a book on Google, said his analysis of recent patents filed by Google indicate the search engine company will be able to increase its dominance of the search market and dash predictions that competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo will whittle away at the firm's lead.
Source: Google Patent Applications Point To PageRank Changes -- Google Patents -- InformationWeek
More on salesforce.com's latest
What Salesforce really seems to be delivering instead is the first enterprise-class mash-up platform, enabling developers to use its Apex platform to provision the functionality of internal applications as services and orchestrate them together with partner or Salesforce services. That may fall several miles short of SOA as a service, but it could be a boon to businesses that want to develop complex Web applications quickly.
Source: Salesforce.com launches SOA in the cloud - Yahoo! News
Interesting times
But in the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail, which allows them to post the entire exchange if they feel they have been misrepresented, truncated or otherwise disrespected. And some go further, saying, You want to know what I think? Read my blog.
"The balance of power has shifted," says Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University. "Everyone used to be landlocked, and the media was the outlet to the sea of public discussion. But now there are many routes. . . . Readers have more power because they have more sources, and sources have more power because they can go direct to readers."
Source: Howard Kurtz - Interviews, Going the Way of the Linotype? - washingtonpost.com
Excellent and extensive book review from Charles Fitzgerald.
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is sort of a follow-up to his earlier Fooled By the Randomness, which dealt with why people are poorly suited to decision-making in the face of uncertainty.
The Black Swan deals with the "impact of the highly improbable" and argues that these events, dubbed Black Swans, are far more common then we think, in part because of the perverse influence of modern statistics which assumes all kinds of things are normally distributed except for the minor detail that they aren't.
Smart move, although I imagine a large percentage of the people who could benefit from such an offering already have wide-area wireless broadband services.
Avis Rent A Car System is offering customers a wireless Internet service to use in its rented cars, hotel rooms and other places a traveler might go.
The new Avis Connect service, priced at $10.95 per day, can transmit a Wi-Fi signal to multiple laptops and other mobile devices at the same time.
Interesting times
As part of its continued commitment to deliver interoperability by design, Microsoft Corp. today announced a new collaborative effort with the Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) and others to create an open source translator project between China’s Unified Office Format (UOF) and the Ecma Open XML File Formats. In addition, the company announced the beta release of translation tools for Windows® XP, and the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft® Office Excel® and Microsoft Office PowerPoint® as part of the Open XML Translator project launched in July 2006.
Source: Microsoft Continues to Expand Interoperability Options for Office Customers
I suspect any Salesforce.com/Google deal would be more a function of Salesforce.com competing with Microsoft CRM than Google competing with Microsoft.
The companies are still hashing out details of a potential partnership, expected to be announced in the next few weeks. But one outcome, these people said, could be a Web-based offering that integrates some of Google's online services such as email and instant-messaging with those of Salesforce.com, whose "customer-relationship management" tools help salespeople track their accounts. Details about how such a service might be sold are still in flux, they added.
[...]
Unrelated to the Salesforce.com negotiations, Google announced Friday that it is launching a new Google Apps Partner Edition, which will let other Internet companies build Google's online word-processing, spreadsheet and email services into their own products. Google Apps Partner Edition has both a free service and a package that includes phone support as well as additional branding and advertising options for a monthly fee.
Source: Google, Salesforce.com Weigh Alliance to Battle Microsoft - WSJ.com
Timely reality check; read the full article for more on the Firefox/Google relationship.
Another complication for Mozilla, some critics say, is that it could be perceived as acting as an extension of Google. For example, they note that one of Google's growth areas, Web-based software applications, would have a better chance of success with a browser not controlled by its biggest rival, Microsoft.
Timely snapshot
You are the future of the entertainment industry. So's your neighbor, and that person across the breakfast table. At least that's what the proponents of "crowdsourcing" believe.
Crowdsourcing essentially means throwing your arms open to the Internet community and inviting them to help create content or software. Often, there is prize money involved, but sometimes people pitch in for fun or glory (see The Internet Movie Database, originally built by users before it was acquired by Amazon.com).
Source: Crowdsourcing: Mining the masses for the next big thing - The Boston Globe
Sign of the times
Employers are developing computer simulations and games and combining high-tech with high-touch approaches to harness their enthusiasm and energy.
Nike is experimenting with putting sales training on mobile devices, perhaps eventually cellphones.
Other companies are posting videos and "vlogs," or video blogs, to give candidates a look at what jobs entail.
On a related note, see the NYT "Why Work is Looking More Like a Video Game"
Source: Business & Technology | Generation Y plays games on the job | Seattle Times Newspaper
I'm surprised this didn't mainstream sooner
By tracking e-mail traffic, instant messages and other digital communications — stripped of personally identifiable information — he and other researchers are beginning to study the flow of work and ideas through the social networks inside companies — minute by minute, bit by bit.
“We’re really on the cusp of being able to understand what goes on inside corporations in a much more scientific way than ever before,” he said. “It’s similar to the way that the microscope opened up biology in the 17th century, so that you could see blood cells. Now, we can start to see bits of information as they flow through the organism of the corporation.”
Source: Reaping Results: Data-Mining Goes Mainstream - New York Times
Go figure...
Market research indicates the consumers mostly likely to send and receive text messages are those between the ages of 13 and 24. Last year, 158 billion text messages were sent nationwide, nearly double the number in 2005, according to CTIA, the Wireless Association. With that kind of growth, texting will continue to be very profitable for wireless companies, said Roger Entner, senior vice president for the communication sector at IAG Research, even with bundling plans to lower consumer cost.
Source: For Texting Teens, an OMG Moment When the Phone Bill Arrives - washingtonpost.com
Hey, maybe Russia should hire Symantec to help them in Estonia...
A signature update to Symantec's anti-virus software crippled thousands of Chinese PCs Friday when the security software took two critical Windows .dll files for malware.
According to numerous blog entries from Chinese computer users, a virus signature database seeded yesterday mistook two system files of a Chinese edition of Windows XP SP2 as a Trojan horse which Symantec dubs "Backdoor.Haxdoor." The anti-virus software -- Norton AntiVirus, for example, or the anti-virus component of the Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security suites -- then quarantined the netapi32.dll and lsasrv.dll files.
Source: Symantec false positive cripples thousands of Chinese PCs
Interesting...
Brian MacDonald, the former Microsoft manager in charge of the company’s stealth Web-based productivity-suite project at the end of the 1990s, is coming back to help run the search group, according to sources close to the company.
Microsoft veteran MacDonald led the NetDocs project back in 1999. NetDocs was to be a Web-based word-processing and calendaring system, which Microsoft officials decided to kill in order to prevent possible competition with Microsoft Office.
Netdocs, aka "universal canvas" at PDC 2000, never completely went away; it became XDocs, then InfoPath.
Source: » Former Microsoft NetDocs manager comes back to run search | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
Popfly guy John Montgomery's view:
No product is complete without a top-ten list of cool features, so here's mine for Popfly.
- It's easy to get. All you really need is Firefox 2 or IE 6 or 7. Oh, and Silverlight, but that's pretty easy to get.
- It's easy to use. People have talked about wanting programming to be like connecting Lego blocks; Popfly gets pretty close.
- You can create mashups with it. This is kind of its purpose, but it's neat nonetheless.
- You can create web pages with it. We "borrowed" the Office Live team's page editor technology.
- You can use it with Visual Studio. If you're a VS user, you can get Popfly Explorer and start to share projects with your friends on Popfly.
- You can use it with Windows Live Spaces. There are a few tricks to it that we'll document shortly, but you can both pull stuff from Spaces and embed Popfly creations into Spaces.
- You can create Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets. Again, a few tricks to it, but neato.
- You can use it with your own blog. We'll just hand you the iframe and you can embed it.
- You can extend it with new blocks. Don't like our blocks? Add your own.
- It has some attitude. We had fun creating it. I hope it shows.
Pretty cool example of building on and building for Silverlight (Popfly runs on Silverlight and can generate Silverlight code); likely to get a lot more powerful with Silverlight 1.1 and .NET support.
The hosted service, called Popfly and now in alpha testing, gives consumers a visual way to create a Web site or add features, such as mashups, to existing blogs or personal pages. Mashups are Web applications that combine content from more than one source.
Popfly includes a builder tool that allows people to create an application by dragging and dropping block icons onto a design page. These blocks represent tasks or services, such as a widget that displays photos in a slide show, with which a person can build.
Source: Microsoft Popfly service does mashups | CNET News.com
The Microsoft press release on the deal; see the link below for more details. At the moment, GOOG is up and MSFT is down, so I guess some investors don't see this as a clear and present danger development for Google. BusinessWeek indicates the deal represents an 85% premium relative to AQNT's closing price yesterday, so I'm guessing just maybe there was a bidding war...
“The advertising industry is evolving and growing at an incredible pace, moving increasingly toward online and IP-served platforms, which dramatically increases the importance of software for this industry,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live, and now to the full capacity of the Internet. Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all.”
The aQuantive acquisition enables Microsoft to strengthen relationships with advertisers, agencies and publishers by enhancing the Company’s world-class advertising platforms and services beyond its current capabilities to serve MSN. The acquisition also provides Microsoft increased depth in building and supporting next generation advertising solutions and environments such as cross media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV.
More related developments from the BW article referenced above:
The announcement comes just one day after WPP Group PLC, the world's second-largest advertising and marketing conglomerate, said it would buy online advertising company 24/7 Real Media Inc. for $649 million. Microsoft had been widely seen as a potential bidder for 24/7.
Last month Google Inc. agreed to buy online advertising company DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion, and Yahoo Inc. struck a deal to buy the privately-held online ad exchange Right Media Inc. for $680 million. Microsoft had expressed interest in buying DoubleClick before being trumped by Google.
Investing to win in a digital marketing game that only GOOG and YHOO can also afford to play...
Microsoft Corp. announced it will acquire aQuantive Inc., for $66.50 a share in an all-cash transaction valued at about $6 billion.
The deal expands the online advertising efforts of the Redmond, Wash., software giant. Founded in 1997, aQuantive is the parent company of Avenue A /Razorfish, Atlas Media Console and Drive PM.
Source: Microsoft to Pay About $6 Billion To Buy Ad Company aQuantive - WSJ.com
Info-voracious...
Google Book Search allows you to instantly search the full text of over a million digitized books, but we thought that wasn't quite enough. Now when you search you'll get both digitized book results as well as records for millions of other books that still just exist in the analog world.
When you view these new added book records, you can often read reviews, a summary, or see what other people had to say about the book around the web. Since these books haven't been digitally indexed yet, you can't preview the text online, but if you've discovered something great, we offer links to buy the book or find it in a library near you.
Source: Official Google Blog: Google Book Search becomes more comprehensive
Sign of the times -- and another timely reminder: information literacy is your friend...
Internet pranksters pulled a fast one on Apple shareholders this week, proving that even the slightest hint of negative news about the highly anticipated iPhone can create a frenzy on Wall Street.
Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, a spoof e-mail posing as an internal Apple news alert was sent to Apple employees, informing them that the release of the iPhone, a touchscreen hybrid phone-and-music player, was being delayed from June to October. It added that Leopard, the next version of the Mac operating system, would move back its launch from October to January.
Source: A Little E-Mail Prank, And a $2.8 Billion Panic - washingtonpost.com
Another timely reality check from Nicholas Carr. Maybe time to revisit W. Brian Arthur's increasing returns work.
In the end, though, the internet seems to be following the same pattern that has always characterised popular media. A few huge outlets come to dominate readership and viewership and smaller, more specialised ones are consigned to the periphery. Most of the largest sites are now in the midst of acquisition sprees or expansion programs intended to extend their dominion. Just last week, MySpace announced it would buy Photobucket, the largest photo-sharing site; Facebook said it would expand into the classified advertising business; and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said that his company has been acquiring small companies at the rate of one a week to build out its portfolio.
It may be that internet users will revolt against the dominance of the mega-sites. But I wouldn't bet on it. All the signs point to a continuing concentration of traffic within the fences of the new information plantations.
More on IBM's metamorphosis
IBM embarked on another stage in its transformation on Thursday by pledging to derive half of its profits from software and double its revenues in emerging markets to $9bn by the end of the decade.
The goals underline IBM’s strategy of moving further away from old-style hardware and decreasing its reliance on its large technology services arm by focusing on the high-margin market for corporate software.
Source: FT.com / Companies / IT - IBM to switch focus to software division
A timely update from IBM Lotus
On the cusp of launching Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, and Lotus Notes and Domino 8, IBM will host an on-line executive panel session to discuss these pending releases. Attend this panel to hear IBM executives Mike Rhodin, Ken Bisconti, and Jeff Schick discuss these exciting new products.
Just for registering for the panel, you'll also be given access to a Burton Group webinar: "Understanding IBM Lotus Plans for 2007 and Beyond", featuring Karen Hobert, Mike Gotta, and Peter O'Kelly.
Source: Ed Brill
Read the article for more details
Estonia says the country's websites have been under heavy attack for the past three weeks, blaming Russia for playing a part in the cyber warfare.
Many of the attacks have come from Russia and are being hosted by Russian state computer servers, Tallinn says. Moscow denies any involvement.
Source: BBC NEWS | Europe | Estonia hit by 'Moscow cyber war'
Interesting times
Even with revenue chugging along only moderately, IBM Corp. expects to find enough cost cuts, acquisitions and stock-buyback opportunities that annual earnings per share could nearly double by 2010, the company's finance chief told analysts Thursday.
Timely reality check
IDG News Service: The Fortune story has caused a lot of concern over how Microsoft may proceed in regard to its patent claims. Did you know Microsoft officials were going to reveal the number of patents?
Hilf: We did. [But] the Fortune article does not correctly represent our strategy. That's what has people so inflamed. It looks like our strategy changed and we are moving in a new direction, but it hasn't. In the Novell deal, we said we had to figure out a way to solve these IP issues and we needed to figure out a way for better interoperability with open-source products. The Fortune article makes it look like we are going out on this litigation path.
Our strategy from everyone in the company -- from [Steve] Ballmer to Brad Smith to me and everyone in between -- has always been to license and not litigate as it relates to our intellectual property. So we have no plans to litigate. You can never say we'll never do anything in the future, but that's not our strategy. That article spins it on the attack. The only new piece information in that article is that it just put a number on the patents.
Weird coincidence, relative to some upcoming (over the next couple days) Microsoft news
IBM on Wednesday announced a new Web application development tool that can help users without technical skills develop online forms for automating common manual tasks like collecting and analyzing information.
The new tool, IBM Development Engagement Service (DevEngage), is now available without charge as a hosted service on IBM's AlphaWorks site. The AlphaWorks site provides users with access to emerging technologies and provides IBM with their feedback.
It'll be interesting to correlate this with economic and social progress over the years.
A report released today by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) concludes that the scale, the scope, and the sophistication of state-based Internet filtering have all increased dramatically in recent years. The survey highlights the tools and techniques used by countries to keep their citizens from viewing certain kinds of online material.
I'm guessing the Informatica legal dept will be placing quite a few calls to other vendors now...
"The ability to create reusable transformations is a critical element of an enterprise-class data integration solution, and their use and reuse across multiple projects is a key driver of cost efficiencies and productivity," said Earl Fry, chief financial officer, Informatica. "Therefore, we are pleased with this most recent ruling and the affirmation it provides for Informatica's proven ability to innovate."
Source: Press Releases: Informatica Awarded Injunction Against Business Objects In Patent Infringement Case
Go figure...
Shares of Sony Corp. <6758.T> hit a five-year high on Thursday after it forecast a six-fold surge in group profit this year and said losses in its game unit would shrink by 80 percent as it boosts sales of the PlayStation 3.
Source: Sony hits 5-year high, sees game unit loss shrink - Boston.com
Interesting times -- in the standards + politics zone
Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has voted to support the addition of OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.0 to the nonexclusive American National Standards list. The vote took place as part of a process managed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
“We have listened to our customers, and they have told us they want choice, they want interoperability, they want innovation,” said Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft. “The American National Standards list does not include a number of document format standards in wide use today, such as PDF, .doc, RTF and HTML. The inclusion of ODF is just the beginning; we expect the list will grow in the future to reflect the choices customers already have in today’s marketplace.”
Source: Microsoft Votes for Choice: Company backs the addition of ODF to American National Standards list.
Hmmm
Until now, a Google search for “I have a dream” would have returned links to the text of the 1963 speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to other historical and informational Web sites about him. But those looking for video clips or photographs of Dr. King’s speech would have had better luck by entering a query in Google’s specialized services for video or image searches.
The same query on Google’s main service will now return a single list of results that will blend text, videos, images, and even excerpts from books. The list will appear in the order that a Google formula deems to be most relevant.
Source: Google’s One-Stop Search to Yield Text and Images - New York Times
Stimulus/response...
Amazon’s service could lead to a shift in the record labels’ relationship with Apple. Four years after the iTunes service established the market for paid downloads, the music corporations have become unsettled by the company’s clout in determining pricing and other terms.
Many label executives say a successful entrance by Amazon could provide them with needed leverage in their current talks with Apple over renewing their contracts. Of course, even if the iTunes service faces new competition, Apple retains great power thanks to the popularity of the iPod, which has 70 percent of the music player market and works smoothly with the iTunes store.
Source: Amazon to Sell Music Without Copy Protection - New York Times
See the full post for more details and a video overview (this is the no-subscription-required version)
The Q1 Ultra is a sleek, shiny, black tablet with a bright, sharp seven-inch screen that feels great in the hand and has a built-in stand on the back so it can be used upright. It weighs about 1.5 pounds, is less than nine inches long and five inches wide, and is under an inch thick. It’s slightly smaller and lighter than last year’s model.
The Q1 Ultra is run by a special, low-horsepower Intel processor and has only one gigabyte of memory, which can’t be expanded. But it runs Vista acceptably, if not exactly speedily. You can get one with Windows XP for faster performance.
Source: Personal Technology | Walt Mossberg | AllThingsD: This Time, Samsung Has Made a Tiny PC That’s Practical to Use
In other words, 2/3rds services for the quarter
BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise and communications infrastructure software, today announced certain financial results for the fiscal first quarter ended April 30, 2007. BEA reported first quarter total revenues of $345.8 million, up 7% from last year's first quarter. BEA reported first quarter license fees of $114.6 million, down 13% from a year ago, and services revenue of $231.2 million, up 21% from a year ago.
Source: Press Releases: BEA Reports First Quarter Results; AquaLogic Represents 24% of License Revenue
Interesting times. I already buy almost all of my new CDs on Amazon.com, so if they've done their homework on this offering (e.g., if it doesn't entail music fidelity/quality loss, includes the ability to easily copy purchased music to new PCs, and is competitively priced), I'll be a customer.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. Amazon's DRM-free MP3s will free customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices -- including PCs, Macs(TM), iPods(TM), Zunes(TM), Zens(TM) -- and to burn songs to CDs for personal use.
Source: Amazon.com--News Release: Amazon.com to Launch DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store
This just in from the unbiased-observer dept...
I sincerely hope that the reporter took Mayer's comments out of context because MySpace is the future of journalism in the same way that mold is the future of cheese.
Here's the problem: Google wants more news more often, so they can sell more ads on more pages. That's why blogs are a big business for them, and why they're interested in social networking platforms. That's where all the content creation is taking place. For this reason I'm extremely wary of Google having a voice in journalism debates. Citizen journalism is a good thing, but only if it's buttressed by traditional journalism.
Source: Google Watch - Today in Stupid - Google's Mayer: Facebook Is the Future of Journalism
Timely reality check; see the full post for more analysis
I am at DealMaker Forum today. We just finished the speed dating sessions with start-ups and I was struck by one common theme. The most common business model is Free Service with an up sell to paid premium subscriptions, commonly known as the "freemium" model. I asked each of them what kind of conversion rates they were seeing. The average is less than 3% conversion. The companies presenting include; Echosign, Seriosity, Smartsheet, Central Desktop, Oddcast, Yugma, and others.
Source: Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Freemium - Free to paid conversion rates
Amazing...
As Microsoft continues its foray into the video game business, taking on established Japanese game giants like Sony and Nintendo, the Halo franchise has proved to be one of its most formidable weapons.
Since the original Halo was introduced in 2001, the series has sold more than 14 million copies. In November 2004, Halo 2 generated more than $100 million in sales in 24 hours.
Source: Microsoft to Release New Version of Halo Video Game on Sept. 25 - New York Times
Another day, another $.5B acquisition
Oracle plans to use Agile as the foundation for its product lifecycle management business. Agile, based in San Jose, Calif., develops software designed to manage a product's lifecycle from concept and design to production, sales and service.
[...] Agile frequently appears in customer accounts shared by SAP AG, Oracle's archrival. Siemens, for example, uses both SAP and Agile, with Agile covering a wider base of Siemens business, Richardson said.
Check the press release for more details including an initial list of software vendors building offerings for WHS.
In his keynote address at the Microsoft® Windows® Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates today demonstrated Windows Home Server and announced new hardware partners for the upcoming product, which include Gateway Inc., LaCie and Medion International. The company also announced that it will release a version of the software for system builders, named eight independent software vendors that will provide applications for Windows Home Server, and revealed its plans to kick off the Code2Fame Challenge for developers to create Windows Home Server hardware and software add-in solutions.
I've been using the WHS beta for several weeks and will purchase a new WHS box as soon as they're available -- it's a great back-up, media sharing, and remote access device, and I'm expecting the 3rd party app/add-on/service market to be quite active.
Another smart move for Novell (and another bummer for Red Hat)
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) today announced that they have extended their relationship to offer a new joint support solution for customers who run their SAP® applications on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server from Novell®. With today's announcement, customers who run their SAP applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server now have a single support entry point, from the operating system through the application, to streamline resolution of support incidents, reduce complexity and lower the total cost of ownership. Branded as “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Priority Support for SAP applications,” the offering is available starting today and is a maintenance and support package provided by Novell that will be integrated through the SAP® Solution Manager application management solution into the SAP global support backbone for managing the entire life cycle of SAP applications. Through this agreement, SAP continues its commitment to deliver value to customers who choose to run open source and commercial software based on open standards. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® '07 Vienna, SAP's international customer conference being held in Vienna, Austria, May 14-16.
Source: SAP and Novell Deliver Expanded Linux Support Options for Customers
Bummer reality check of the day from IBM's Jeff Jonas
If the Cold War was won with silicon, we are currently losing the war on terrorism due to Web 2.0. Ouch! Web 2.0 enables these folks to communicate, share tradecraft, recruit and synchronize at a velocity and resiliency that is unprecedented.
This is certainly one of the key mechanisms enabling the viral-like growth of Al Qaeda-aligned missionaries. What evidence, you might ask? Check out this story ("Web of Terror") [a Fortune article; no subscription required] written by Rita Katz and Josh Devon.
Source: Jeff Jonas: Web 2.0 – Al Qaeda’s Most Effective Force Multiplier
Another timely and refreshingly objective reality check from John Fontana
Over the years, Microsoft has had some pretty harsh words (and actions) for the open source community in general and for Linux in particular. And with news this week that the company reportedly wants open source software users to pay royalties on 235 alleged patent violations, the relationship is obviously changing. We take a look at five ways Microsoft is embracing open source or Linux and five ways it is doing to battle against those same forces.
Source: Top 10 things Microsoft loves and hates about open source - Network World
There's a big difference between "building bridges" and involuntarily giving away intellectual property. For some insights on how Microsoft is constructively seeking to engage with the open source community, see Port 25.
With one stroke, Microsoft has ended any illusion that it planned to try to build bridges with the open-source community. And it appears the primary reason for Microsoft's decision to go back on the public attack against Linux and other open-source software is the looming Version 3 of the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (GPL).
Source: » GPLv3 the impetus for Microsoft’s latest Linux attack campaign | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
Interesting
The school has been beta-testing Scratch, a new programming language being released today by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. The program, named after the technique hip-hop DJs use to mix music, gives novices the ability to create dynamic programs without wading through a manual, teaching computer programming concepts while encouraging students to play.
Source: With simplified code, programming becomes child's play - The Boston Globe
What a nightmare -- see the article for more details
The price being paid is $7.4 billion, mostly in the form of capital that Cerberus will put into Chrysler. Of that sum, DaimlerChrylser itself will receive only $1.3 billion, and the German automaker said Monday that the transaction will actually result in a “net cash outflow” of about $678 million.
In essence, DaimlerChrylser, which acquired Chrysler nine years ago in a $36 billion deal, is paying to be rid of the troubled Detroit automaker.
Glad to see this
Many environmental groups offer simple carbon calculators on the Web, which allow people to figure the carbon dioxide production from daily routines like driving a car or lighting a house.
“But this is serious software, serious quantitative methods and social networking technology brought to the green world,” said Ron Dembo, the chief executive of Zerofootprint, a nonprofit group that provides information and services to combat global warming.
[...]
The Web service, called GoZero Footprint City Calculator, is a collaboration of Zerofootprint and Business Objects, a maker of business intelligence software.
Source: On the Web, an Advanced Carbon Calculator for Personal Use - New York Times
Inevitable...
Who says you can't buy love? Trying to tap into the burgeoning power of blogs as promotional tools and fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, studios and networks are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage. Flowing into the trough is everything from fancy gym bags and toasters to video iPods and free trips. Some networks -- in the spotlight this week as they unveil their fall schedules to advertisers -- have even borrowed a term from the technology industry to describe the strategy: blogola.
Source: To Create Buzz, TV Networks Try A Little 'Blogola' - WSJ.com
Another subtly significant aspect of SaaS
Now that's changing, partly because of an accounting quirk. Companies are starting to get rid of their old software at a time when capital-expenditure budgets are tight. Traditional software and the hardware to run it are considered a capital expenditure. But Web-based services are typically sold as a subscription, which means corporate buyers can account for them as a maintenance expense, which falls into a different bucket.
As a result, companies are turning to start-ups such as Ketera, LucidEra Inc. and Workday Inc. that are offering Web-based services for tasks like controlling spending and managing employees. Meanwhile, a handful of older software-as-a-service companies such as Taleo Corp. and RightNow Technologies Inc. have gone public; another, NetSuite Inc., is widely expected to try to do so.
If at first you don't succeed,...
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), a colossus built on software, is making a new push in hardware manufacturing by building a factory in China to produce its Zune media player device.
The factory will produce a second iteration of the Zune, which has so far failed to impress in its effort to compete with Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) popular iPod.
The second iteration of Zune will include a number of different versions with varying prices and degrees of storage capacity, according to Jason Reindorp, Microsoft's marketing director for Zune, although he declined to offer specifics. Web sites that follow the device have reported rumors that the newest versions of the Zune will be thinner and will include some smaller-capacity Flash-based players, similar to the popular iPod nano.
Source: Article - WSJ.com
Check the second page of this BusinessWeek post for an update -- apparently FSJ may out him/herself (themselves?...) next week
Since Secret Diary was started last year, the daily stream of such entries has made Fake Steve Jobs, or FSJ for short, required reading in Silicon Valley and beyond. It has quickly become Jon Stewart's Daily Show for the tech set. FSJ not only manages to hit many of the topics of the day, but its unfiltered satirical voice lets techies revel in their never-ending fascination of their own industry, and be entertained at the same time. "It's amazingly well read, in part because everybody gets a laugh," says Roger Kay, founder of tech consultancy Endpoint Technologies Associates. "If you're just a poor schnook, you get to laugh at what an egomaniac [Jobs] is, and at all his billionaire friends. But if you're in the game, you get to laugh at how well [Fake Steve] seems to know Jobs and his world."
Consolidation continues...
SAP said it bought Trondheim, Norway-based MaXware, which makes identify software and Espoo, Finland-based Wicom Communications, which makes Internet communication software.
The purchase prices were not disclosed.
A new Burton Group service -- see the post for more details
Today Burton Group announces the launch of its newest service, Data Center Strategies (DCS). This new service will help IT professionals leverage existing and emerging technologies to solve critical data center issues including server sprawl, power and cooling costs, storage, disaster recovery, and data center management. Introducing this new service is Richard Jones the VP and service director of DCS. Get a copy of the report "Let's Get Virtual: A Look at Today's Server Virtualization Architectures" as a part of Burton Group's complimentary content.
Source: Burton Group Inflection Point: Burton Group Answers Industry Need for Practical Data Center Advice
Speculation based in part on an interview with Yahoo!'s Scott Moore (included in the article)
Here's my theory.
Search is a great business, but the fascination with it is starting to fade. Search is becoming a utility we take for granted; content is where the Web's sizzling now.
No wonder Google bought YouTube. Google's also creating content in the form of online productivity applications.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has cut back on content initiatives and focused on building its search business.
Content has always been Yahoo!'s strength, but it doesn't have applications to respond to Google's new thrust. A partnership could fill these gaps, without sacrificing their franchises.
Source: Business & Technology | MSN, Yahoo! partnership envisioned | Seattle Times Newspaper
See the article for more details
In an interview with Fortune, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith alleges that the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, while its user interface and other design elements infringe on a further 65. OpenOffice.org is accused of infringing 45, along with 83 more in other free and open-source programs, according to Fortune.
Source: Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents | CNET News.com
Just getting started...
Monday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007, Microsoft Corp. and nine industry-leading companies — ASUSTek Computer Inc., GN, LG-Nortel Co. Ltd., NEC Corp., Plantronics Inc., Polycom Inc., SAMSUNG, Tatung Co. and ViTELiX — will introduce a new generation of devices that connect the workplace phone to e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and mobile communications.
[...]
“Today’s office phone is marooned on an island, separate from the rest of the communications tools that information workers rely on to do their jobs,” said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “By weaving the business phone together with e-mail, instant messaging, presence, conferencing and the productivity software people use most, we are putting voice communications back into business.”
Source: Microsoft, Manufacturers to Deliver New Generation of Workplace Phones and Devices
Glad to see this
Last week, the International Data Group removed the chief executive of its largest-circulation computer magazine, PC World, and reinstated its top editor, who had quit days earlier over the executive’s decision to not run an article critical of an advertiser.
Source: A Nod to Journalistic Integrity Is Seen in an Editor’s Return - New York Times
Sign of the times -- read the full (BusinessWeek) article for an overview of how some players are attempting to automate the task.
As Viacom's (VIA ) $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google (GOOG ) and YouTube grinds through the courts, another drama is unfolding behind the scenes. In a cramped office in New York's Times Square, dozens of twentysomethings work day and night scouring YouTube for Viacom TV shows and movies that have been uploaded by just about anybody. For each clip deemed stolen, Viacom's team sends out a "takedown" notice requiring YouTube to remove it immediately. Back in San Bruno, Calif., a crew of young YouTubers finds the specified clips and pulls them.
Source: The YouTube Police
I had a great time reconnecting with friends/former co-workers at the Lotus 25th anniversary event in Cambridge last night. I'd like to thank Mitch Kapor and Ray Ozzie, in particular, for making Lotus a uniquely meaningful experience for all it touched. For more insights on how Lotus came to be such a special place, read related chapters in Founders at Work.
Timely snapshot of important ways in which Joost and other services are unlike traditional TV
Time passes — and I cannot sit still. I reach for my BlackBerry to check e-mail. But wait. Joost and Babelgum have solutions for the multitasker generation. Even as they mimic television, these sites incorporate the social networking and communication tools of cyberspace. Television programs on Joost are played in windows overlaid with screens that allow the communication addict in us to IM our friends within Joost.
Salvation. I send my friend Aaron an e-mail invitation to join Joost.
Source: A Diet, Oddly Bland, of Continuous Images and Chat - New York Times
Interesting snapshot of Walt Mossberg's background and current pulpit
Mossberg’s “Personal Technology” column, which anchors the front of the Journal’s Thursday Marketplace section, is particularly powerful when it comes to judging innovation intended for the consumer market. The opening sentence of his inaugural column, sixteen years ago, was “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault,” a sentence that Mossberg has since described as his “mission statement.”
Source: Annals of Communications: Critical Mass: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
More Cringely analysis and speculation about IBM's game plan (continued from last week)
IBM's mysterious LEAN program, which the company says I mischaracterize but then won't explain specifically what I got wrong, is global. LEAN involves the restructuring of IBM's global workforce to achieve certain unstated goals, most likely centered on profitability, with the goal of regaining that 37 percent decrease in market cap IBM has suffered since 1999. This restructuring means firing employees in some places and hiring them in others. On a GLOBAL basis I can see this program easily hitting 150,000 employees, which is what makes the number not so impossible. IBM will try to focus the discussion on the total number of employees, which may not drop significantly from the current 355,000. But even a five percent reduction in force, which I see as an absolute no-brainer, could involve firing 100,000 employees and hiring 82,250 in some other place.
Timely BusinessWeek reality check on perhaps the most strategic enterprise IT competitive context for the next 5 years
In recent years, Cisco CEO John Chambers and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have met each quarter to discuss ways for the tech titans to work together--and work through areas where they compete. But this "co-opetition" relationship is increasingly tilting more toward competition.
[...]
Despite the jockeying, this battle isn't likely to get as nasty as, say, Apple vs. Microsoft. Cisco and Microsoft still need to cooperate in plenty of areas--in part because their customers demand it. Also, Cisco wants to be in the running for huge contracts to outfit new data centers being built by Microsoft. Says Cisco Chief Development Officer Charles H. Giancarlo: "Ninety percent of our businesses are very synergistic. We've been very clear with them [about areas where they'll compete], and they've been very clear with us."
Better late than never...
In a significant change to its movie ratings system, the Motion Picture Association of America on Thursday said portrayals of smoking would be considered alongside sex and violence in assessing the suitability of movies for young viewers. Films that appear to glamorize smoking will risk a more restrictive rating, and descriptions of tobacco use will be added to the increasingly detailed advisories that accompany each rated film.
Hmm...
The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient's chest for 5 to 10 seconds.
Fortunately,
"Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," Jongnarangsin said. For that reason, he said, it is unclear how often iPods cause misdiagnosis.
Source: Study says iPods can make pacemakers malfunction | CNET News.com
Interesting the founders, after selling Skype to eBay, went for outside funding.
Joost, a start-up that delivers television programming over the Internet, said Thursday that it had received $45 million in financing from venture capitalists and content partners including CBS and Viacom.
The company, based in Luxembourg and started by the creators of the Internet telephone service Skype, plans to use the money to expand its advertising, programming and marketing operations, said David Clark, executive vice president for advertising at Joost.
Source: $45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture - New York Times
Attempting to make more of the world's information -- in this case Google's business strategy -- universally accessible and useful...
Speaking at the annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive, said Google’s long array of initiatives was organized around three ideas.
“Our next strategy evolution is to really think about three components,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Search, ads and apps,” he said, using a common shorthand for applications, or software programs.
Source: Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says. - New York Times
Timely snapshot/recap of Lotus history. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with many former co-workers tomorrow night.
On Saturday, Mitch Kapor and about 650 of his friends and former colleagues will get together in Cambridge to celebrate changing the business world.
In 1982, Kapor cofounded Lotus Development Corp., the Cambridge software company that developed Lotus 1-2-3, the program that persuaded corporate America to start using desktop computers.
Source: How Lotus changed the business world - The Boston Globe
Story goes on to comment about how consensus seems to be emerging that a partnership is more likely than an acquisition. With Google's current leverage and momentum, I suspect no permutation is off the discussion table between MSFT and YHOO.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had the opportunity last night to squash once-and-for-all the rampant chatter lately about a possible purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft. He didn’t take it.
Instead, when asked at the Software 2007 conference in Silicon Valley about a deal “in the $40 billion to $50 billion range” (about what Yahoo would cost), Ballmer said that although the company’s MO is to do smaller deals, larger ones still are “conceivable,” according to this Reuters account of the exchange.
Source: Deal Journal - WSJ.com : Revisiting Microsoft-Yahoo, Courtesy of Steve Ballmer
I get his point, but his goal seems consistent with my experience as a Dell customer over the last decade as well...
"If we do our jobs right, I suspect that much of the technology developed right now in 2007 will be ready for the museum in another two or three years or so," said Dell, who dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin 23 years ago when his business took off.
Read the full post for more FSJ Sun perspectives...
So they have some Java conference and roll out some prototype phone that they're trying to say is like the iPhone. See here. Best part is McNealy, that brain-damaged goon, has his guy come up wearing a black T-shirt and then just in case the morons in the audience don't get the allusion he makes it explicit for them: "We have our own shirtsleeve version of Steve Jobs announcing a phone."
Source: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: I'm sorry but Sun is pathetic
I wonder how eventually becoming a "convicted monopolist" might alter Google's business strategy...
The latest numbers from Hitwise show that Google is continuing a slow but seemingly inexorable climb in popularity. Google accounted for 65.26 percent of all U.S. searches in the month of April. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.73 percent, 8.46 percent and 3.69 percent, respectively.
Source: Google Watch - Google Search - Hitwise: Google at 65 Percent of All Searches
Okay, maybe some technology acquisitions...
You announced today that Microsoft is acquiring SoftArtisan's OfficeWriter tool for reporting authoring in Microsoft Office. Can you provide more details about that acquisition and whether this tool is aimed at helping companies who find their IT shops struggling with report request backlogs?
That is the intention. People want access to BI from within the context of the Office tool that they use every day. It was a natural for us with SoftArtisans to want to use their technology as part of opening up the reporting to Word and Excel. [Users] can consume reports from within Word and Excel. Those become an end point for being able to have access to the information.
Source: Q&A: Microsoft's Jeff Raikes on pervasive BI, ERP encroachments
Hmm...
"I've never been opposed to the idea of looking at players in the industry. We've looked, to be quite honest," Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, said in an interview. "We just thought organic development would get us to the real solution faster."
[...]
SAP said on Tuesday it would buy privately held OutlookSoft Corp., a company that helps chief financial officers budget and forecast. A source familiar with the acquisition said SAP paid about $500 million.
In March, Oracle said it would pay $3.3 billion to buy Hyperion Solutions Corp, which competes with Business Objects <BOBJ.O><BOBJ.PA> and Cognos <CSN.TO> in the market for software that helps companies sift through data to detect trends and other information.
[...]
"The cost of our solutions will be a quarter of the traditional solutions," said Raikes, who delivered a speech at the company's first business intelligence conference. "The economics are going to get transformed."
Link to Microsoft opts to build, not buy, business software - Boston.com
Interesting times...
A Californian company has created software that can layer relevant recorded sounds over locations in Google Earth, New Scientist reports.
Wild Sanctuary has over 3,500 hours of soundscapes from all over the world.
Source: BBC NEWS | Technology | Sounds bring Google Earth to life
Yow...
Under the deal, CareerBuilder will continue to be the exclusive job search engine on Microsoft’s MSN site through 2013, and will pay Microsoft up to $443 million. The exact amount paid by CareerBuilder will depend on how much traffic MSN drives to the site, the companies said.
Source: Microsoft to Invest in CareerBuilder Web Site - New York Times
The end of the road for Outlook Express...
Windows Live Mail will replace Outlook Express on Windows XP and Windows Mail on Vista in "the coming weeks," said Microsoft. The program, which will handle POP, IMAP, and Windows Live Hotmail accounts, was characterized as a faster, more robust version of Windows Live Mail desktop beta, which has been in testing for Windows XP. The beta will be retired.
According to a Windows Live Mail blog, the new client will sport features from Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and the Windows Live Mail desktop beta.
Sign me up, please...
Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.
Source: Technology Review: Comcast CEO shows off 150 megabits per second download on next-gen modem
Timely reality check from Simson Garfinkel
But peel off the skin and Apple emerges as a computer company that's tried and true. Yes, Apple has the world's largest online music store. Yes, Apple has more than 170 brick-and-mortar stores around the world, which sell a lot more than just laptops. But a deep commitment to computing is what holds this empire together.
Timely snapshot
Chairman Bill Gates spelled out his vision of the future of media Tuesday, in front of about 1,000 advertising professionals in Seattle for Microsoft's Strategic Account Summit of its top advertising customers.
"We're saying newspapers will go online, and there will be massive innovation that comes out of that," Gates said. "We're saying that TV, the biggest ad market in the world, will completely go online and have the kind of targeting interaction that you only get out on the Web today.
[...]
In a nod to how key the advertising effort is to Microsoft, Gates plans to focus on online services, search and advertising for the remainder of his 15 months working full time at the company. He plans to transition to full-time work at his philanthropy in summer 2008.
Source: Business & Technology | Media to move to Web, Gates says | Seattle Times Newspaper
HP is already the largest IT vendor; it's also getting closer to IBM's market cap (~$120.5B HPQ versus ~$153B for IBM, at the moment; Dell is ~$59B)
Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday that its earnings for the quarter just ended would be higher than previously forecast, largely because of strong worldwide sales of personal computers. The announcement pushed the company’s stock to its highest point in more than six years.
Source: Hewlett-Packard Says Quarterly Results Will Top Forecast - New York Times
Potentially more diversification for eBay
The potential price for a deal is in the range of $75 million, these people say. One of the people said that no final agreement has been reached and the talks could fall apart. An eBay spokesman said the company doesn't comment on "rumors or speculation."
Still, eBay's interest in the closely held San Francisco company is the latest sign of its efforts to expand beyond its maturing online-auction business through acquisitions. For instance, the company in February paid $292.4 million for online-tickets seller StubHub Inc. EBay expects that business to generate revenue of $105 million to $120 million in 2007.
[...]
The company's three Canadian co-founders funded its growth themselves until March 2006, then took funding from a handful of angel investors, including Google Inc. director Ram Shriram and Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor.
Source: EBay Seeks to Add StumbleUpon to Portfolio - WSJ.com
I guess it's not a secret anymore...
The inside (sort of) story of why Apple's industrial-design machine has been so successful.
[...]
Many insights from Apple alum Don Norman, e.g.,
"Jobs is a dictator, but with good taste," says Norman. "He is good and driven to the perfect experience. He doesn't want good design; he wants great design." Brunner similarly lauds Jobs's "driven, singular focus." And Rolston says, in what is perhaps the best explanation of Apple's design ascendancy, "It's a happy coincidence at Apple that the designer in chief is the CEO. He has a fantastic sense of what people want. And after all, that is design."
Interesting
Amazon.com Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. Tuesday said they have settled all patent lawsuits between the companies, ending a years-long dispute over whether patents on methods of doing business should be applied over the Internet.
Under the settlement, Amazon will pay IBM an undisclosed sum. The companies also reached a long-term patent cross-licensing deal.
Wow, my colleague RMH scores quotes in the WSJ, NYT, and CNet on the same day -- impressive. I look forward to having a debate with him about the possibility that the way to make Java more successful may be to use a different language :)...
Java has a rich "ecosystem" of products and vendors but its use for front-end design has been stymied by compatibility and performance problems, said Richard Monson-Haefel, an analyst at the Burton Group.
"It should be the sweet spot for Java. It's kind of tragic that Sun screwed up so badly with the applet performance and browser incompatibility in the late 1990s," he said. "JavaFX Script has an opportunity to redeem themselves."
Source: Sun tries again with consumer-flavored Java | CNET News.com
Timely reality check interview with Bob Metcalfe (part one starts here)
What would you say is your proudest achievement?
Metcalfe: That's a very sensitive topic. I think I haven't done it yet. I'm not dead. It's not over. I'm a mere 61 years old. I plan to live forever so the thing I hope to be remembered for hasn't occurred yet. I'm hoping that my mid-life crisis is still ahead. But if you push me, I'd say that Ethernet is good enough. If I were to rest on my laurels, that wouldn't be a bad laurel to rest on. Of course, there is my family, my children. They might want to get mentioned. Of course, they haven't quite succeeded yet. So it's hard for me to be that proud of them. No pressure or anything.I'm pretty proud of 3Com. I did work on the Internet in ways other than Ethernet, so I take some pride in the entire Internet.
Source: Ethernet papa makes Invent Now Hall of Fame - page 2 | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
More on JavaFX
Sun is hoping to attract handset makers and cellular carriers by offering a new version of Java, to be dubbed JavaFX, in tandem with a so-called scripting language that will enable designers of interactive Web sites to create content that can be easily distributed by a variety of devices — like personal computers, cellphones and set-top boxes — without having to customize for each environment.
The article also includes a Sun smartphone prototype image (which, annoyingly, I can't drag & drop into Blogger for some unknown reason); very iPhone-ish.
I agree with my Burton Group colleague quoted in the article:
“The cellphone is really the next frontier in terms of what will be the next big win in software,” said Richard Monson Haefel, a senior analyst at the Burton Group, an industry research group based in Midvale, Utah. “Sun is trying to get that position.”
I don't currently see many reasons to conclude Sun will be a winner in the next phase of competition, however.
Source: Sun Plans Version of Java for Web-Linked Cellphones - New York Times
Impressive deal. The article goes on to note that PhotoBucket currently has approximately twice the visitor volume than Kodak has for its photo-sharing site.
MySpace.com has signed a preliminary deal to acquire the popular photo-sharing Web site Photobucket.com for about $250 million in cash, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The free photo service lets users store hundreds of photos on its Web-site, customize the images with captions or music and then link them to blogs or other Internet sites. An acquisition of the site would be important to MySpace because most of the photos that appear on MySpace pages are hosted on Photobucket.
Source: MySpace Signs Preliminary Deal To Acquire Photobucket.com - WSJ.com
Interesting that Sun appears to be simultaneously:
1. Trying to appease the investment community, with a strategy for getting more licensing revenue from Java via the new JavaFX offering.
2. Attempting to directly compete with Flash (as well as the new/beta Microsoft Silverlight client) for smartphones and other device-centric scenarios.
JavaFX Mobile stems from Sun's purchase in April of the intellectual-property assets of Savaje Technologies, a Chelmsford, Mass., maker of a Java-based operating system for cellphones. Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Sun faces competitors in handsets that include Symbian Software Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. But the Savaje software is good, said Richard Monson-Haefel, an analyst for the Burton Group, and "could be a serious source of new income for Sun if they could get everybody to adopt it."
Sun's new offerings include JavaFX Script, a set of instructions for building interactive software that is styled as a competitor to Adobe Systems Inc.'s widely used Flash technology.
Somehow I suspect this is not going to put a dent in the universe.
Source: Sun Aims to Wring Profits From Java in Phone Arena - WSJ.com
Maybe Sun will announce true "write once, run anywhere" (WORA) capabilities in client-side Java -- only a decade or so since they first claimed it...
The details are a closely guarded secret until JavaOne opens next Tuesday. But all indications point to some kind of response from Sun to Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.
Source: » Sun preparing answer to Flash, Silverlight? | Ed Burnette’s Dev Connection | ZDNet.com
Major milestone for Zimbra
Comcast's move is an endorsement of the software of a relatively young and small company. Zimbra, founded in 2004, has about 100 employees, more than half of them developers, Robb said.
Terms of the deal with Zimbra weren't disclosed. The SmartZone communications center will be available to more than 12 million Internet access customers, as well as to those using Comcast's Digital Voice phone service, according to the Comcast statement.
Source: Comcast picks Zimbra for online e-mail | CNET News.com
Interesting product management case study -- there are actually two new Windows Live Hotmail clients, and one looks a lot like the original Hotmail client.
The program was too slow to load, too different and, well, just not like the old Hotmail it was intended to replace.
It was a painful realization for the more than 100 managers and developers on the project. In banking on a snazzy Web 2.0 application to try to catch up to rivals Yahoo and Google, Microsoft had dramatically overshot its audience.
Meanwhile, a market share reality check:
More than 280 million active accounts -- see the press release for more details. I've been using the beta for several months and consider it a much better user experience than, e.g., the Gmail client.
Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows Live™ Hotmail®, the successor to MSN® Hotmail, is launching globally in 36 languages. The most significant upgrade for Hotmail since it pioneered the webmail industry in 1996, the new service has been built to be a vast improvement over the previous Hotmail offering, having incorporated input from more than 20 million beta testers. Windows Live Hotmail will deliver a safer, more powerful and productive e-mail experience than previous versions with flexible access via the Web, on a mobile phone or with an e-mail client. Microsoft also announced that later this month Windows Live Hotmail customers will be able to access their Windows Live Hotmail e-mail and contacts for free* using Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 or Office Outlook 2007 via the new Microsoft Office Outlook Connector beta.
More on Microsoft/Novell/Dell
In any event, the Novell-Microsoft deal ensures that users of Novell Linux are safe from Microsoft patent infringement lawsuits. Dell's Becker said that was a key reason his company wanted to join the alliance. "There's many aspects of open source that delight my customers," Becker said, but "they have concerns . . . about software licensing. . . . Those concerns go away when they deploy Microsoft and SLES Linux."
Source: Dell to bolster Microsoft, Novell alliance - The Boston Globe
Looks like Dell is playing several Linux permutations
Dell Inc. is backing the Windows-Linux partnership set up by Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. As part of the deal, Dell will buy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft for corporate customers that are not already using Linux, the computer maker said today.
Anti-social socializing?
At some young companies around Washington, the ones with employees almost entirely in their 20s and 30s, it isn't uncommon to find game consoles in break rooms. Though the Xbox isn't as ubiquitous as the Foosball table was at tech start-ups during the dot-com era, for some companies that don't have a softball team or the occasional happy hour get-together, office camaraderie can take root at the game console.
Timely reality check from Adobe's Duane Nickull -- see the post for details.
I have been writing a lot lately for an upcoming book on the topic of Web 2.0 with James Governor and Dion Hinchliffe for O'Reilly. During the process, we have done an amazing amount of research in an effort to quantify some of the patterns surrounding the concept. The work was actually quite intense and started with examining a single table put forth by Tim O'Reilly.
Source: Technoracle (a.k.a. "Duane's World"): Web 2.0 Definition? What is the Web 2.0?
The invisible hand at work...
A curious feature of capitalism is that threats, or more precisely, the human response to them, are economically and technologically stimulating. Or, to put it another way, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
There will always be doomsayers, and fantasies about the end of human society are a staple of Hollywood and science fiction. But these days, a lot of smart people are seriously contemplating the looming destruction of human society, whether through a cascade of natural disasters, nuclear wars, uncontrolled terrorism, novel pandemics or, of course, climate change.
Source: The Silver Lining to Impending Doom - New York Times
Timely Atlantic Monthly article about book search developments. Excerpt:
If this experience prompts anything, it will be a quick flight to your bookstore or local library. Unless publishers and authors suddenly, lemminglike, grant Google broader rights, there’s no reason to believe this search experience will become any more edifying. In other words, unless the authors and publishers get on board, Google Book Search will fail. Microsoft—thanks to its aggressive wooing of publishers with its own book-digitization product, and its recent efforts to stoke public outrage over Google’s ripped-from-Microsoft-circa-five-years-ago tactics—actually stands a better chance of succeeding.
Source: The Hapless Seed
Dave Barry review
You may feel that you don’t need, or have time for, an entire book on e-mail. But “Send” is a quick read, and if you do a lot of e-mailing, you’d probably benefit from it. So would the people with whom you correspond frequently. You might even want to e-mail them this review. In fact, it’s possible that you received this review in a mass e-mailing. If so, and you want to respond with a comment on it (such as “LOL”) please do not use “Reply All.” Thank you.
More potential deal analysis
In recent years, Google has increased its share of all the searches conducted online. Yahoo’s share has held steady over the last year, while Microsoft’s has slipped, despite heavy investments to improve its search technology. As of March, Google accounted for 54 percent of all online searches in the United States, compared with Yahoo’s 22 percent and Microsoft’s 10 percent, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
Of every $100 spent in online advertising in the United States in 2006, Google took in $25, while Yahoo got $18 and Microsoft received less than $7, according to eMarketer, a research firm. And Google is expected to capture 32 percent of online ad dollars this year, eMarketer said.
Interesting times...
Thomson Corp., a financial information services firm in Stamford, Conn., has reportedly approached Reuters about a possible acquisition, while software giant Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., was rumored to be looking at a takeover of leading Internet search engine Yahoo. The reports come on the heels of the bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to buy Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
Source: Shift to Internet fuels rush to buy media giants - The Boston Globe
More interesting speculation and projections from Cringely.
LEAN is about offshoring and outsourcing at a rate never seen before at IBM. For two years Big Blue has been ramping up its operations in India and China with what I have been told is the ultimate goal of laying off at least one American worker for every overseas hire. The BIG PLAN is to continue until at least half of Global Services, or about 150,000 workers, have been cut from the U.S. division. Last week's LEAN meetings were quite specifically to find and identify common and repetitive work now being done that could be automated or moved offshore, and to find work Global Services is doing that it should not be doing at all. This latter part is with the idea that once extraneous work is eliminated, it will be easier to move the rest offshore.
All this is supposed to happen by the end of 2007, by the way, at which point IBM will also freeze its U.S. pension plan.
Ray Kurzweil snapshot/reality check -- read the full article for details (and take your vitamins...)
If you went around saying that in a couple of decades we'll have cell-sized, brain-enhancing robots circulating through our bloodstream or that we'll be able to upload a person's consciousness into a computer, people would probably question your sanity. But if you say things like that and you're Ray Kurzweil, you get invited to dinner at Bill Gates' house - twice - so he can pick your brain for insights on the future of technology. The Microsoft chairman calls him a "visionary thinker and futurist."
Source: The smartest (or the nuttiest) futurist on Earth - May 14, 2007
More potential Google stimulus/response actions...
A year ago, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. explored the idea of combining to form a greater competitor to Google Inc.
The talks led nowhere leaving Microsoft and Yahoo to forge their own paths in pursuit of Google. How did they do? Well, they're talking again.
In what appear to be early-stage discussions, executives at Microsoft and Yahoo are taking a fresh look at a merger of the two companies or some kind of match-up that would pair their companies' respective strengths, say people familiar with the situation.
The renewed talks are a sign of the continued growth in Google's power and problems over the past year with in-house efforts at Yahoo and Microsoft to ride a boom in Internet advertising. Meanwhile, management changes at both companies could help pave the way for a pairing that a year ago couldn't happen. The talks were first reported in the New York Post.
Interesting speculation
Today, Banc of America recommends that they have a look at CNET, the operator of sites including the CNET.com news site and download.com, which distributes software programs online. BofA, initiating coverage of CNET with a buy rating, estimates that the company could fetch $13 a share in a takeover, a premium of nearly 50% from the current stock price. The estimate is based on five recent deals for Web properties, including DoubleClick and About.com, which New York Times bought for $410 million in 2005.
Source: Deal Journal - WSJ.com : Will CNET be Next to Get DoubleClicked?
Interesting times...
Joe Anthony, a Los Angeles paralegal, detailed his falling out with the Obama campaign in a post on his personal MySpace page Tuesday. A profile created by Mr. Anthony three years ago for Mr. Obama had become the focus of online support on MySpace, bringing the candidate some 160,000 "friends," users who are approved by the page's owner to visit and post comments.
![[B O]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/HC-GJ670_Obama_20070404185338.gif)
Mr. Anthony had given the Obama campaign access to update the page, but the campaign eventually wanted more control. When negotiations broke down he changed the site's password. Mr. Anthony then requested at least $39,000 to compensate him for the time he had put in so far.
The Obama campaign complained to MySpace, which froze Mr. Anthony's account and gave the "Barack Obama" name to the campaign. In the process, Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, lost some of the friends he had accumulated on Mr. Anthony's site and had to start over. As of last night, Mr. Obama had about 20,000 friends.
Source: Obama Runs Into Dust-Up About a Profile on MySpace - WSJ.com
So apparently now, at least in some cases on the Internet, it is evident when you're a dog...
SNIF Labs--the company's name is short for Social Networking in Fur--is developing what its website calls "a custom radio communications protocol" that allows special tags dogs wear on their collars to swap dog and owner information with other SNIF-tag users. When two dogs wearing tags come within range of each other, the tags start to swap dog and even owner information.
Read the article for more details -- e.g., Microsoft poised to overtake IBM for the #2 (overall market) DBMS spot next year.
Oracle Database generated $7.3 billion in sales in 2006, giving the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based vendor 44.4% of the $16.5 billion global market. "Oracle continued to glide along in first place, bolstered by apparently broad acceptance of the 10g R2 release and the success of key options," IDC analyst Carl Olofson wrote in a report.
Source: IDC: Oracle extended lead over IBM in 2006 database market
Interesting times...
The Mono open-source project will create a Linux version of Silverlight by the end of year, said Miguel de Icaza, a Novell vice president and head of Mono.
Source: Tech news blog - Silverlight on Linux? We're in, says Mono founder | CNET News.com
See the interview index on this page for a 2-part SharePoint presentation/interview I recorded last week.
Another significant way in which the competitive landscape is shifting
In addition to the integration of .NET with Silverlight, Ozzie announced Silverlight Streaming, a service that would allow developers to store and deliver their Web applications using Microsoft's servers.
It "takes advantage of [Microsoft's] huge investments in services infrastructure," Ozzie said.
One such example is the "server farm" Microsoft recently opened in Quincy, Grant County.
The service, which Ozzie described as "a sign of things to come" from the company's services strategy, would be free for storage of 4 gigabytes of data.
Ozzie said there are other "very significant" infrastructure projects under development at Microsoft that need more time to gestate before being announced more broadly.
Source: Business & Technology | .NET programming tools add sparkle to Silverlight | Seattle Times Newspaper
Excellent CNet interview with Ray Ozzie -- excerpt:
[Martin LaMonica:] Walking out of the keynote, I heard some people wondering whether Microsoft products like Silverlight will really work on the Internet or just inside company networks. You talk about Mac support today, but what about Linux? Let's just start with Silverlight on the Mac--is it going to be on par with what's on Windows?
Ozzie: Yes...I'm extremely serious about the fact that when you are developing for the universal Web (browsers for a range of devices), you can't think about what platform the user is running on. It could be on the phone, it could be on a PlayStation portable--do they have a browser on that? I don't know. It could be something that you don't even know what the platform is and we have to take that very seriously. We also want to make Windows the best possible platform for rich applications. So my guidance to the (Microsoft development) teams would be: look at the audience, where is the audience, and prioritize the development for Silverlight based on where the audience is. And we are investing that way.It's not religious--let's just put it that way. To the extent we look at the audience for a given (Linux) distribution, given OS, whatever. And if it's a material thing, we'll prioritize it.
I'll post my Mix impressions over the next few days.
Source: Ozzie's quiet revolution at Microsoft | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
Oops...
On the night of Monday, April 23, the magazine’s editorial system crashed, wiping out all the work that had been done for its June issue. The backup server failed to back up.
Good thing the magazine, based in San Francisco, is a monthly. “If it had happened a week later, we would have been in trouble,” said Josh Quittner, the editor.
Source: Magazine Learns to Heed Its Own Advice - New York Times
Read the full article for details -- timely reality check.
Responding to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit over video clips on YouTube, Google said Monday that it would not back off, declaring that the law was on its side.
[...]
Viacom said Google’s response misses the mark. “This response ignores the most important fact of the suit, which is that YouTube does not qualify for safe harbor protection under the D.M.C.A.,” Viacom said. “It is obvious that YouTube has knowledge of infringing material on their site, and they are profiting from it.”
This definitely does not look like "negotiation by other means," as Google wants to believe.
Source: Google Calls Viacom Suit on YouTube Unfounded - New York Times
