Oops... See the full article for additional Google Analytics customer concerns.
Google Inc.'s Analytics service stopped delivering data to users on Saturday, another in a series of recent performance and availability problems affecting the popular Web site traffic-monitoring service.
The latest problem remains unsolved and is apparently affecting all Google Analytics accounts, according to a message posted Monday afternoon by a Google employee in the official Google Analytics blog.
Sign of the times
The National Archives and Records Administration announced yesterday that it has reached a non-exclusive agreement with Amazon.com and one of its subsidiaries to reproduce and sell to the public copies of thousands of historic films and videotapes in the Archives' holdings.
The arrangement allows Amazon and a California subsidiary, CustomFlix Labs, to make digitized copies of some of history's most famous, and infamous, footage and make them available in DVD form for purchase via the Internet.
[...]
Stacey Hurwitz, a spokeswoman for CustomFlix, said the first six DVDs became available on Amazon July 16 and are already selling. She said they were newsreels from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
They include scenes of the famous 1959 "Kitchen Debate" between then-Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in a model American kitchen on display in Moscow. Other footage shows a youthful Fidel Castro after the communist revolution in Cuba, along with reports about Hawaii becoming a state, and the Soviet space program.
Amazon to Copy and Sell Archives' Footage - washingtonpost.com
The glass-is-half-full view from IBM's Jeff Jonas; see the post for more details
Back in the days when I had my company, Systems Research & Development (SRD), I prevented anyone from pitching my software using "the world is a more dangerous place" as the set up pitch.
Two reasons: (A) I think it is safer to be alive now than ever before and (B) I hate the idea of using the "fear card" to sell.
Before you call me crazy, consider the following: In the 1300’s the Black Death killed an estimated 75 million people – including a third to two thirds of Europe’s population. The 1918 Spanish Flu killed 50 – 100 million in just 18 months making by far the most destructive pandemic on record.
He closes with
PS: Before you get too excited one way or the other about this post, take this into account: This is my Yin post. Stay tuned for my forthcoming Yang post which will be entitled something like "More Death in Future Cheaper."
Interesting, but not helpful for people who access wsj.com articles via blogs
If you don't have a Wall Street Journal subscription, you must have seen articles that look like this (most of them are fully indexed by search engines, so you can see them in the search results):
You're able to read a preview, but to see the full article, you need to pay $99 for an annual subscription. For recent articles, you can do a search on Google News and read the whole article from there: Google has a deal with Wall Street Journal so that all the articles can be read for free. It's called first click free: "The very first article view by a Google News user (identifiable by referrer) doesn't require subscription. While the first article can be seen without subscribing, all clicks on the article page are trapped. This means that if users click anywhere else on that page, they will be prompted to sign up."
Free Access to Wall Street Journal and Other Subscription Sites
More on Google's wireless aspirations
To go back to my question, does Google want to own and operate a wireless network of its own?
Sacca [head of special initiatives at Google]: Google is willing to do anything necessary to introduce some competition into this space and to really drive the prices of service to where they are most affordable to the broadest number of people. It is reprehensible that there are still so many people left off the Net.That entails everything from building and operating a network, if necessary, to partnering with the vast number of companies left out of this game--for whom $5 billion is an insurmountable hurdle to participate meaningfully in an auction that could introduce true competition--to any of the existing carriers, if they want to put users first in their business models and prioritize those customer experiences.
Google's battle for wireless spectrum | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
Timely snapshot
Facebook Platform, an application program interface (API) that developers can use to build applications within the social-networking site Facebook, has created a Silicon Valley gold rush. The API gives developers a great deal of access to Facebook's social resources. Developers can build applications that fit in several slots on users' profile pages; have access to information from users' profiles, friend lists, and friends' profiles; publish information through the News Feed on Facebook; and send alerts and requests. Users can add and remove applications with the click of a button. Since the launch of Facebook Platform in May, more than 2,000 applications have been made available on Facebook.
MyTwilightZone...
Behold a community spawned from twin American obsessions: Memorializing the dead and peering into strangers' lives. Anyone with Internet access can submit a death to the site, which currently lists nearly 2,700 deaths and receives more than 100,000 hits per day.
The tales are mostly those of the very young who died prematurely. Here, death roams cyberspace in all its spectral forms: senseless and indiscriminate, sometimes premeditated, often brutally graphic. It's also a place where the living — those who knew the deceased and those who didn't — discuss this world and the next.
Long NYT article about the division of labor among Gates, Ozzie, and Mundie
The new, less central role for Mr. Gates was first formulated more than a year ago at a June 2006 meeting in which the three men worked out how they would divide responsibilities for guiding the technology direction of the $51 billion company, according to Mr. Ozzie, who was a longtime rival of Mr. Gates at companies like Lotus and I.B.M. before joining Microsoft two years ago.
They decided at that meeting that Mr. Mundie and Mr. Ozzie would divide Mr. Gates’s role at the company along three axes. Along one of these lines, Mr. Mundie, who has been described as Microsoft’s “secretary of state” and who is deeply involved in federal government and international policy issues, would take a more public-facing role, while Mr. Ozzie would focus more closely on internal company matters.
In another, Mr. Mundie has tackled the company’s long-range strategic decisions, while Mr. Ozzie has taken over the near-term challenges of weaving together the product development issues. Finally, Mr. Mundie has taken responsibility for software that sits closer to the computer hardware, like the Windows operating system, while Mr. Ozzie has shaped Microsoft’s response to the growing challenge of network software.
Free, hosted, and private wikis, with a very intuitive user experience model
"Private Wetpaint Wikis are ideal for families, class projects, and clubs who want to build collaborative websites that offer their community the best of social networking, blogs and Web publishing," Elowitz continued. "Now anyone can build a private Wetpaint Wiki Website as an online meeting place for their closest family, friends, and associates while also enjoying the benefits of the extended public Wetpaint community."
Wetpaint Launches 'Invitation-only' Wikis (SocialComputingMagazine.com)
Interesting times...
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Friday he is putting the building blocks in place for a community-developed Web search service that would rival search engines such as Google or Yahoo.
Wales told a conference of software developers in Portland, Oregon, that his commercial start-up, Wikia, has acquired Grub, a pioneering Web crawler that will enable Wikia's forthcoming search service to scour the Web to index relevant sites.
Wikia details plans for search rival to Google | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com
Time to take it personally -- i.e., to pervasively use access control lists for social networking
[...] you can send text messages to individual friends or groups of friends on Pownce as well as post microblogs, or short announcements, to the larger Pownce community. This function is very similar to messaging services like Twitter or Jaiku, and is found on social networks like Facebook and MySpace (although Pownce’s messages cannot, at least for now, be sent to mobile phones). You can also send your friends links, invitations to events, or files like photos, music or videos. Of course, you can already do that on a multitude of file-sharing Web sites. It is the combination of private messaging and file-sharing that makes Pownce so novel.
A Social-Networking Service With a Velvet Rope - New York Times
Timely reality check; see the article for more details
This analysis doesn't mean that Google stock will tank next week. Irrational valuations can last a long time, and sometimes they correct gently rather than violently. And it doesn't mean that Google is poorly run. On the contrary, it has been brilliantly run. It means that amid the breathless coverage that will doubtless attend Google's IPO anniversary, we need to remember that the ringing superlatives are based on a stock price that's nuts. Google is a terrific company that may one day deserve to sit beside GE, Exxon and Microsoft. But not yet.
Google: Strong company, inflated stock price - August 6, 2007
Final Microsoft stats for today...
So, Windows Server itself, 13 percent CAGR in fiscal year '02, now 4.5 billion; the Xbox business clearly; SQL Server, another one that doesn't lend itself to a great demo, but it's a $2.7 billion business, growing 28 percent over the last few years; the advertising business, Exchange, Dynamics and SharePoint, which Jeff mentioned. Those are great businesses, have extremely good margins for the large part, and they have extremely high growth rates. Most of them were associated with decisions that we made five to 10 years ago that are now coming to fruition.
From the accompanying slide (see slide 27 of this ppt), emphasizing returns from long-term investments:
A diversified and impressive product/service portfolio...
Another timely Microsoft stat-bite
We grew Live IDs in fiscal year '07 by over 20 percent to get to that 380 million. Where are we going in fiscal year '08? The next release of Windows Live will be coming out this fall. It is a suite of user services, a single suite of user services. A single download, single download and install to the PC that will enable users to use these services whether they're on the PC, on the phone, or just directly from browser to Internet. A very rich set of services.
This next release of Windows Live is the must-have free upgrade to the Windows experience. And so we're going to drive very hard on continuing to expand the number of users we have using these Windows Live services. Let me give you some perspective. We're at 380 million Live IDs. We're getting ready to release this next release of Windows Live in the fall. Yahoo is about 245 million active registered users; Google has approximately 75 million signed-in users.
Timely snapshot from yesterday's Microsoft FAM event
RAY OZZIE: So just a quick wrap-up. There are three big take-aways. The first one is that the services transformation, this transformation from software to software plus services, is a very, very big deal for our company. It'll be a very critical aspect of all of our offerings over the next few years.
We're building a platform to support our own apps and solutions, and to support our partners' applications and solutions, and to support enterprise solutions and enterprise infrastructure. We are the only company in the industry that has the breadth of reach from consumer to enterprises to understand and deliver and to take full advantage of the services opportunity in all of these markets.
I believe we're the only company with the platform DNA that's necessarily to viably deliver this highly leveragable platform approach to services. And we're certainly one of the few companies that has the financial capacity to capitalize on this sea change, this services transformation.
More Dave Kellogg insights; see the full post on some speculation about Autonomy/Google competition
This is why always I say the enterprise search market is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
- The rock is the Google Appliance which is quickly establishing itself as the dominant enterprise search solution.
- The hard place is database management systems (including both XML content severs like MarkLogic and the major RDBMSs which are slowly improving their content abilities) that provide platforms for enterprise application development.
Impressive momentum
Today, at Microsoft’s 2007 Financial Analyst Meeting, the company reported that its Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server business generated revenue of more than $800 million in fiscal year 2007, due to strong demand for the enterprise- ready, integrated server capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This represents a growth rate of more than 35 percent over fiscal year 2006.
Some interesting data points
Microsoft’s weak [Software + Services] reception, against the backdrop of a steep decline in the overall market, came despite the company’s statement that it has sold 60 million copies of its Windows Vista operating systems. Microsoft said that this was the strongest initial sales performance of any of its operating systems. “We eclipsed the entire installed base of Apple in the first five weeks that this product shipped,” said Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer.
The company expects a billion Windows-based computers — including those running pirated copies — within the next 12 months. At that point, personal computers will outnumber automobiles worldwide.
See the full article for an update on the Microsoft Software + Services strategy
More Xerox PARC technology takes a long road to market...
Pell says that it's difficult to pinpoint one particular technological breakthrough, but he believes that Powerset's superiority lies in the three decades of hard work by scientists at PARC. (PARC licensed much of its natural-language search technology to Powerset in February.) There was not one piece of technology that solved the problem, Pell says, but instead, it was the unification of many theories and fragments that pulled the project together.
"After 30 years, it's finally reached a point where it can be brought into the world," he says.
Always insightful Cringely -- see the link below for details.
This week I was supposed to explain why U.S. broadband prices are so much higher and U.S. broadband speeds are so much lower than in most other developed countries, but then Google made an unexpected reckless move in the wireless bandwidth market and here I am trying to explain it. We'll get back to broadband prices shortly, but for now let's turn to Google, whose stock may very well have already peaked.
Mighty morphing Amazon.com...
[...] Wall Street is beginning to view Amazon more as a technology company, with the attendant high-multiple valuation, than a plain old low-margin retailer. And one significant contributor to that perceptual shift is the growth of Amazon’s Marketplaces business, which lets visitors to Amazon buy from third-party merchants, instead of directly from Amazon.com.
This growing business – 30 percent of Amazon’s sales, up from 29 percent in the same quarter last year – allows the site to offer more of a selection and to boost its operating margins, since it does not have to stock or ship these products.
It also places Seattle-based Amazon in direct competition with eBay, the auction giant of San Jose.
The Loser in Amazon’s Results: EBay? - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
File under "mixed blessing", imho...
Giving business travelers the onboard connectivity they have long sought, Australian airline Qantas says it will begin offering wireless e-mail and Internet access on its new fleet of Airbus A380 jets, which will go into service August 2008.
The connections for mobile handsets and laptop computers will be offered as part of a comprehensive "next generation in-flight entertainment system" that includes digital-quality big-screen monitors in all cabins, audio and video on demand with 100 movies, 500 audio CDs, audio books, and computer games, plus an external camera that will offer a pilot's eye view of flights.
Qantas To Offer In-Flight Web Access In 2008 -- Wi-Fi -- InformationWeek
Timely snapshot
It's official: Windows Server 2008 (WS08) will be launched on February 27, 2008, along with new versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server. Microsoft's flagship server operating system will probably be Bill Gates' last product launch before he retires later in 2008. Is Bill Gates going out with a bang? We examined the Windows Server 2008 Beta Community Technology Preview (CTP), which was released in June, 2007, to see what it promises for the upcoming OS.
Some concluding observations
Though WS08 comes in both x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) editions (an IA64 edition will also be available), this will be the last time Microsoft releases a 32-bit edition of its server OS. WS08 Release 2, which is expected to ship in 2009, will no longer include a 32 bit version.
There is no doubt that WS08 heralds a new age in Windows computing: One that will see massive moves to dynamic datacenters as everyone virtualizes their Windows service offerings. One that will see the end of 32-bit computing. One that will see the introduction of a "non-Windows" Windows through Server Core. And one that will fully support server consolidation and the elimination of server proliferation.
Note: Bill Gates is not leaving Microsoft, although he will no longer be the person leading events such as major product launches, apparently after the combined Windows/Visual Studio/SQL Server 2008 launch next February. Gates has clearly stated that he is switching -- from full-time Microsoft and part-time Foundation to part-time Microsoft and full-time Foundation.
Review: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta CTP -- A Major Move Forward -- InformationWeek
More Digg details
Under the three-year deal, Digg, which claims more than 17 million unique visitors a month, will likely get a big wad of guaranteed cash, much in the same way–though probably a lesser amount–as Microsoft handed over to social networking site’s Facebook in the wake of Google’s $900 million deal with MySpace.
The move appears to be a blow to Google, which lost the contextual ad business it had had with Digg, as well as Yahoo, which can’t seem to get some skin in this pricey game.
Interesting times...
Digg, the where users vote for which news articles to display, has voted itself on a new advertising provider. It has replaced Google with Microsoft to sell text ads on its site. Microsoft will also sell graphical ads as well on the site, which claims 17 million visitors a month.
Digg Digs Microsoft; Buries Google - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
Maybe they should change it back to "Apple Computer Inc." for a while...
The company’s gross margins rose substantially during the third quarter, to 36.9 percent from 30.3 percent in last year’s quarter. Mr. Oppenheimer said Apple’s margins benefited from favorable pricing for components like memory chips.
“The upside was clearly the health of the Mac business,” said A. C. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “Apple’s in a really attractive position, where the Mac’s component prices are falling but they’re able to charge the same prices.”
Déjà vu -- see the article for a ~10-year stock price history chart...
As shares of Amazon.com Inc. surged to a seven-year high Wednesday, a few analysts on Wall Street bet that the stock will eventually eclipse the $100 mark last seen in the dot-com days of the late 1990s.
At that level, the already pricey shares will eclipse other large Internet players -- and sit at a fat premium to other large retail companies in terms of valuation.
Doubleplus ungood day for Netflix...
Netflix Inc. frustrated investors and customers alike Tuesday as its stock price plunged to its lowest point in more than two years while its Web site was inaccessible most of the day because of unexplained technical problems.
The 7 percent drop in Netflix's shares wasn't a shock after the Los Gatos-based company reported the first quarterly customer losses in its history and dimmed its earnings outlook for the rest of the year.
Go figure...
When a single data center sneezes, the Internet gets a cold.
That's what several major Web sites learned Tuesday afternoon when a power outage in downtown San Francisco disabled 365 Main, a Web server company that hosts sites including Craigslist, Technorati, SixApart, Yelp, GameSpot, the homepage of Sun Microsystems (nyse: SUN - news - people ) and Red Envelope. The outage, which began at about 1:45 p.m. Pacific time, disabled the sites for more than an hour.
Hmmm...
This week, I tested a new software application called Radar that can be wirelessly downloaded onto a kid’s cellphone to digitally monitor the phone’s activities, including incoming or outgoing calls, emails and text and photo messages. Alerts are sent notifying parents of any contact with unapproved people.
Keeping Tabs on Kids’ Phones | The Mossberg Solution | Katherine Boehret | AllThingsD
Definitely some kind of magic
Some of Harry Potter’s magic has rubbed off on Amazon.com.
The company, based in Seattle, announced today that its second-quarter net income increased more than threefold on revenue that rose 35 percent.
The news pushed up the company’s stock in after-hours trading to a level it has not reached since February 2000, during the heyday of the dot-com boom.
Aided by Harry Potter Fans, Amazon Triples Its Profit - New York Times
Yeah, it's not that they aren't selling well; many of them simply couldn't connect to AT&T...
Apple Inc. shares fell the most in six months after analysts said demand may be slowing for the iPhone, which chief executive Steve Jobs expects to become the company's third major business.
[...]
UBS AG said iPhone sales for the two-day period were "likely much higher" than the number of activations AT&T reported and that investors should "not overreact."
Apple shares fall on report iPhone demand may slow - The Boston Globe
The invisible hand at work again...
For some security researchers who uncover flaws in leading computer programs, a nod of appreciation from software companies is no longer enough.
Now they want money.
Critics say the purity of research is in jeopardy as discoveries are shopped around instead of submitted directly to software vendors so they can quickly develop a fix.
Technology Review: Researchers seek payments not credit for discovering software flaws
This should count as a charitable donation, imho; by the end of 2007, you'll probably be able to get a regular Wintel/Lintel laptop for not much more than $350. HP's web site, for example, currently has laptops starting at $449.
A nonprofit group that designs low-cost computers for poor children may start selling $350 laptops on the commercial market by Christmas, an executive said on Monday.
The One Laptop Per Child Foundation's chief technology officer, Mary Lou Jepsen, said the computer could sell initially for about $350, or twice its production cost, although the group is also considering a higher price tag.
I'm sure people who bought the $800 version since it was introduced 10 months ago are thrilled
The company said its TiVo HD model, capable of recording up to 20 hours of high-resolution TV signals, would sell for about $300, starting in August.
That contrasts with the nearly $800 price tag of its TiVo Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder, which holds about 30 hours of HD programming and has more high-end audio and video features.
TiVo to sell trimmed down premium TV video recorder - Boston.com
Some scary signals that Bubble v2 may be in overdrive...
At that price, Andreessen–who owns nearly 6.5 million shares–stands to make $92 million off the deal. Which is a nice bit of validation, given Opsware’s inauspicious beginnings as Loudcloud, a managed hosting company remembered more for a string of heavy losses and a lackluster 2001 IPO.
[...]
And for Andreessen, whose first start-up, Netscape Communications Corp., marked the beginning of the Internet boom of the late ’90s, it’s proof that contrary to what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, there are second acts in some American lives.
Speaking of second lives, from today's WSJ: Amazon Shares Defying Gravity Once Again
![[Chart]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/MI-AM442_AOT_20070723195454.gif)
A river of money has flowed into shares of Amazon.com. They're up more than 80% year to date.
On the face of it, Amazon might still look like a good stock to own. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect the online retailer to report today that it earned 16 cents a share, excluding one-time items, in the second quarter, more than triple last year's five-cent gain. Sales of the last Harry Potter book could help fuel earnings in the current quarter. Amazon booked more than two million pre-sales before the book even hit brick-and-mortar stores.
Looked at another way, however, Amazon is looking more like an Internet bubble stock of yesteryear. At $71.74 a share, it trades at 121 times last year's earnings, making it much pricier than highfliers Apple and Google, both of which have price-to-earnings ratios of around 45 times. (The lower the P/E, the cheaper the stock.)
Andreessen: Ops, I Did It Again | Digital Daily | John Paczkowski | AllThingsD
Wow -- busy day for HP
HP also announced that it intends to buy Neoware in a cash deal. Subtracting Neoware's cash from the offer price, the deal is worth $214 million, according to HP.
Neoware makes thin client and virtualization software for centralizing management of corporate desktop computers. The software will be combined into the business desktop unit of HP's PC business and will boost the company's Linux business, HP said.
Looks like MarcA will have more time for blogging (see his post "HP buys my company Opsware for more than $1.6 billion in cash")...
Hewlett-Packard Inc. agreed to acquire software maker Opsware Inc. for $1.45 billion as the PC giant continues to bulk up its non-hardware offerings.
H-P will pay $14.25 for each shares of Opsware, a 39% premium to Friday's closing price of $10.28. Including debt, the deal is valued at about $1.6 billion.
[...]
Opsware was co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the young brain behind Internet pioneer Netscape Communications Corp. The company has painfully built itself into a credible enterprise-software business after focusing on Internet "hosting" and related services during its first three years in existence. When that business went south, Messrs. Andreessen and Horowitz laid off hundreds of employees and retooled the company's business. Mr. Horowitz will become part of H-P's management.
Excerpt from blog.pmarca.com link above:
In September 2002, we did a complete restart as a public company -- we sold our managed services business to EDS and turned Loudcloud into Opsware, a software company based on the core intellectual property developed at Loudcloud. Over the next five years, we executed on our original vision -- automation of large-scale modern datacenters and computer systems -- within this new model, and built a comprehensive family of state-of-the-art automation software products that power the full range of technologies you find in a modern datacenter, from servers and applications to networking and storage.
We have become the clear market leader, and today our software is in use at more than 350 of the largest and most advanced businesses and government agencies, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Home Depot, GE, Microsoft, Samsung, Comcast, Tivo, and the US Department of Defense. Along the way, Opsware has grown to more than $100 million in annual revenue and 550 employees, and has become one of the fastest-growing software companies in the world.
Recap article in Wired Magazine -- tragic...
The news that Gray was missing shocked the high tech community. The lanky coder had been a computing legend since the 1970s. His work helped make possible such mainstays of modern life as cash machines, ecommerce, online ticketing, and deep databases like Google. "Jim's work inspired us and many other computer scientists to seek out and tackle very ambitious projects," says Google cofounder Sergey Brin. "He never shied away from problems involving large-scale data and computation."
Inside the High-Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend
Not quite as freaky as, say, Homer Simpson fake crop circles...
It's freaky. It's like crop circles, or the Nazca lines. Nobody seems to know how this is happening. More freaky is that some of these sand-based iPhones actually work.
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Giant iPhones appearing in sand around the world
Another Facebook snapshot, this one from Polaris VC Sim Simeonov
Will Facebook become the next Microsoft, the next AOL or Google, or Visual Basic? I think the answer is none of the above. FB wants to be a new type of platform company where data and code are mashed up with people. We haven't seen one of those yet. As Facebook touches more and more of people's lives, more questions will come up. Hopefully, these will get resolved quickly so that a thriving ecosystem spawns on top of F8 + Parakey.
Social Computing Viewpoint: Facebook’s Secret Plan (SocialComputingMagazine.com)
Interesting Facebook snapshot from The Economist
Metaphorically, Mr Zuckerberg views himself as similar to the pioneering Renaissance mapmakers who amassed and combined snippets of information and then charted new lands and seas so that other people could use their maps to find, say, new trade routes. In Mr Zuckerberg's case, the map charts human relationships. Whereas many of the other social networks on the web primarily help people to make new contacts online—whether for hanky panky, marriage or business—Mr Zuckerberg is exclusively interested in “mapping out” the “real and pre-existing connections” among people, he says.
[...]
Mr Zuckerberg is about to be tested in two ways. A three-year-old lawsuit is coming to court in which he is accused, in effect, of stealing the idea for Facebook from three other Harvard students. And if Facebook really is going to do a Google and go public, he will have to convince investors that mapmaking can be a business. One of its investors recently said revenues might come to $100m this year. But it is not clear how much of this comes from one big deal with Microsoft, which needs Facebook as a partner and might even like it as a division. Advertising, the obvious business model, does not seem to work well on Facebook, perhaps because people go there to socialise, not to shop. Trying to make money in other ways could be risky, since it might alienate users and damage the social graph. And it is, remember, awfully easy for one “next big thing” to be overtaken by the next.
Interesting EMC/X-Hive perspectives from X-Hive competitor Mark Logic's CEO Dave Kellogg. Excerpt:
My strategic concern with X-Hive has always been focus. While the offerings are layered on each other, the reality is you have a 25-person company in the Netherlands conducting war on three fronts. All three categories in which the company competes are highly competitive, and X-Hive has approximately 8 people working per category. That strikes me as way below critical mass.
Actually the $176 education device with incomplete software, apparently
Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.
Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable.
The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007.
Google acquisition de jour
Google has acquired ImageAmerica, a company that builds high-resolution cameras and uses them to take aerial photographs.
The search engine giant announced the move Friday on its LatLong blog about Google Earth and its other mapping efforts. It didn't disclose terms of the deal.
Google acquires ImageAmerica to boost mapping | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
Another interesting dimension in the multifaceted search competition
Building on their respective efforts to protect consumer privacy, industry leaders Microsoft Corp. and Ask.com, a wholly owned business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI), today joined together in the commitment to call on the industry to develop global privacy principles for data collection, use and protection related to searching and online advertising. The companies will work with other technology leaders, consumer advocacy organizations and academics to come together and join them in working on the development of these principles, which could include developing and sharing best practices to provide more control for consumers.
The rest of the story... perhaps
A problem with Duke University's wireless network caused outages at the school, officials said Friday, exonerating the initial suspect, Apple Inc.'s new iPhone.
"A particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service," Duke spokeswoman Tracy Futhey said in a written statement posted on the university's Web site. "Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols."
Read the full article for a detailed snapshot of global broadband trends; the summary paragraphs follow
While the number of U.S. residential broadband users is continuing to increase, the rate of that increase is slowing according to several surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Extrapolating these numbers suggests that ultimate broadband penetration will be comparable to cable TV or around 85 percent absent some total coverage solution like BPL. This slowing of growth may be inspiration for the growing telco vs. cable battle over triple play digital services, with the idea that some telephone users (where market penetration is already 97+ percent) will be induced to buy broadband service to lower their telephone costs.
Who is the big winner here? Well I'll count myself a winner if my Internet pricing comes down a bit (I pay $168 for 8/1 cable service with five static IPs) but the REAL winner is Cisco Systems, whose largest market is service providers. With Comcast and Verizon pushing AT&T toward offering new technologies at lower prices, EVERYONE is going to need a new router.
This isn't going to further endear Google with the current telecom establishment...
In the Internet giant’s view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier they wanted. Instead of wireless carriers choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on them.
Google believes that the cost of voice calls and data connections to the Internet may be partly subsidized by advertisements brought to users by Google’s powerful online advertising machine.
There might even be a Google phone.
Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans - New York Times
Sign of the times
Dell has signed a deal with a U.K. mobile phone retailer to distribute free laptops with the purchase of a broadband Internet access subscription, continuing the company's push into the retail market.
Starting in September, consumers who buy a two-year contract for America Online's broadband service through the Carphone Warehouse Group will get a coupon for a free base-model Inspiron notebook from Dell. AOL broadband costs £19.99 ($41) per month.
Timely snapshot
Over the last year, all of the big three tech companies (Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo) have created their own online mashup editors. Both Microsoft's and Yahoo's are publicly available, but Google's is in a small private beta. Today I'm taking a look at the pros and cons of all three.
Jumping to the conclusion:
After looking at all three of these mashup editors, I have found that the easiest one to use, by far is Microsoft's Popfly. It provides a really easy entry point for those who want to get started in developing Web applications.
The battle of the mashup editors | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
Apparently not in a rush to curtail spending...
Google, seeking to extend Internet access to more people, which helps it make more money from its own services, made two big wireless announcements today.
It said it will bid at least $4.6 billion in an upcoming up-coming auction to operate a part of the wireless spectrum.
It also said it is leading a $25 million investment into a U.K company, Ubiquisys, which is developing hardware that lets cell phones run on home WiFi networks. In other words, it helps carriers move some of their data traffic away from their own cellular network, onto a home’s local area network, or the so-called “edge.”
VentureBeat » Google earmarks $4.6 billion for wireless bid, backs Ubiquisys
This one is a subtly significant milestone; read the full article for context
X-Hive, a privately-held company with 25 employees in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, brings XML tools to the Documentum content management division of EMC's corporate lineup, adding what an EMC spokesperson called a "smart new repository combining XML indexing, XML query, full text and transformation" to round out EMC's own XML infrastructure offering.
Go beyond the host name (CollegeHumor.com) and the post subtitle ("What a horrible time to be blind") and check out this TED demo of Microsoft Photosynth -- very cool. I don't think we'll be seeing that class of app in AJAX "real soon now..."
You can explore the Photosynth tech preview on this site (the TED video is also available there but I opted to keep the original reference as it was sent to me by a colleague). Also note the subtle connection between the video "Distributed by BMW" and the demo scenario including a drill-down BMW ad; hmm...
Timely snapshot/reality check from Kurt Cagle -- 14 observations/predictions (numbered 1 - 15, but #10 is missing at the moment).
In short, while XML is not exactly doddering off to the rest home, its angle-bracket knees are no longer as flexible as they used to be. If it were a person you’d expect it to be muttering about those damn JSON punks and how property taxes and inflation are eating up its standard of living. It no longer is as flashy a technology as it used to be (even as Flash has been migrating to an XML format), and more than once I’ve run into twenty-something AJAX hot-shots who declare XML so yesterday (even as they write applications that bind AJAX objects to XML structures). It’s become the establishment, though in many respects I suspect that while its glory days are behind it, XML is becoming more integrated into the fabric of computing.
To that end, I wanted to offer up an assessment of where XML itself is going.
A few excerpts, with my $.02 added:
[#3] The Marriage of XQuery and REST. I’ve written about this fairly extensively in this venue, but think it is worth reiterating here. Combine an XQuery based system with a server objects namespace and you have the foundation for a remarkably powerful server environment comparable to ASP.NET, PHP or Ruby, and what’s more, such a system is remarkably neutral in its deployment (you could deploy such solutions from ASP.NET, PHP, JSP or Ruby).
Very intriguing scenario -- a more data/content-centric vision for future app server models, with the expressive power of XQuery (and its strong typing etc.) potentially displacing/reducing the role for web-centric scripting/"dynamic" languages.
[#4] Add XForms and Stir. XQuery is effective because it reduces the middleware “translation” layer to practically nothing; if you work with UI components that can in turn consume that XML (either via standalone model instance islands a la XForms or via other XML aware toolkits) and you have a remarkably powerful combination where you are shuttling XML back and forth without ever having to worry about the underlying implementations. Such a solution isn’t a “total” solution, but then again it doesn’t need to be - you can effectively wrap services such as sendmail calls or image manipulation in an XQuery module that lets you stay at the XML abstraction layer.
I've been an XForms fan for several years, but it's a lonely recommendation/standard at this point, especially with Adobe and Microsoft trying to diplomatically argue that it has no place in the XML universe. On the other hand, with strong support from vendors including EMC (through Documentum) and IBM (through Workplace Forms, née PureEdge), it'd be premature to dismiss XForms.
[#7] Semantics isn’t just for kids anymore. The rise of folksonomies have brought the terms “taxonomist” and “ontologist” out of the domains of library science and religion respectively, and turned them into remarkably high paying jobs. We’re now discovering that the process of defining schemas is remarkably difficult, and that meaning is similarly difficult to hold and describe. While I am still not sure that RDF is the best language for describing such semantics, I see much of the borders of what used to be called AI and cybernetics increasingly described in angle-bracket terms, and declarative languages in general enjoying a renaissance as we push our awareness of meaning to the next level. If I was entering IT as a newly managed IT college graduate, I’d be looking at semantic systems and knowledge management as the “hot” fields to be getting into.
Anybody else remember Turbo Prolog?...
RDF and OWL are useful for expressing relationships and rules, and I'm intrigued with leading-edge RDF-like models such as Freebase (request an alpha account and explore; very thought-provoking stuff), but I don't see proto-"Semantic Web" developments reaching the tipping point in mainstream IT anytime soon.
[#15] XML Databases and the plateauing of SQL. This will take a while longer, but I see SQL-based server systems plateauing in the next few years - they won’t go away, but those databases will likely begin to look increasingly like XML databases, while existing XML based database systems will continue to gain market share. Part of this will likely be due to XQuery (plus some form of XUpdate, which will likely be introduced shortly). I think that XUpdate has been slower out of the gate because the entrenched SQL vendors realize that by having both query and update that a big rationale for their SQL products as separate, self-contained systems goes away, but customer demand, hungry commercial upstarts and OSS projects will likely drive towards a need to readdress this issue.
One step too far, imho; I see XQuery and SQL having complementary -- indeed, synergistic -- roles for the foreseeable future. XML is in some ways an idiosyncratic data model, and it is not a viable substitute for many important aspects of the relational model. It may seem mundane to some, but the IT world has a huge and growing need to deal with databases, not just (data- or document-centric) XML documents, and the leading-edge DBMS vendors are on a very significant power curve -- in part because they're also incorporating XQuery where appropriate.
I also think the best way to master XQuery is to first master SQL -- learn about set theory, relational calculus, normalization, etc. (you don't need to master the vocabulary; the concepts aren't that much of a braincramp for practical/real-world applications), then start accommodating the XML model differences and idiosyncrasies as embodied in XQuery.
More Facebook/Parakey info from NYT BITS
But according to an article last year in IEEE Spectrum, the company was designing a system to synchronize user’s data between their computer desktop and the Web:
Parakey is intended to be a platform for tools that can manipulate just about anything on your hard drive—e-mail, photos, videos, recipes, calendars. In fact, it looks like a fairly ordinary Web site, which you can edit. You can go online, click through your files and view the contents, even tweak them. …. Best of all, the part of Parakey that’s online communicates with the part of Parakey running on your home computer, synchronizing the contents of your Parakey pages with their latest versions on your computer. That means you can do the work of updating your site off-line, too.
So how does this mesh with Facebook’s social network? At the company’s Platform launch earlier this year, it was clear founder Mark Zuckerberg had ambitious aspirations to turn Facebook into an operating system on the Internet—an online platform on which other software applications could run, and where computer users would spend the bulk of their online time.
Hmm -- so now we have a few potential solutions for the pesky desktop/cloud sync challenge
Facebook Buys a Web Celebrity – and His Company - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
Another take, from the NYT BITS (Business Innovation Technology Society) blog
Still, the company was hardly feeling like it needs to pinch pennies. (And perhaps it shouldn’t, given that it now has $12.5 billion in cash, up $568 million in the quarter alone.)
Revenue from AdSense, Google’s service that places advertisements on other Web sites, had no growth in the quarter, largely because Google fired a bunch of customers whose sites didn’t meet its quality standards.
When the company really starts to have to work for its money, it may be less likely to turn away business. We don’t know when, but that day will come.
The Food Line at the Googleplex Did Seem Rather Long - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
More dare-to-be-different modus operandi at Socialtext. The TWTTR component on his blog home page currently notes "Boy, suddenly I've got a lot of email"...
As a company founder, as I've written before, it is inevitable and necessary that your role evolves for the best interest of the company and what you own of it. Today I'm invoking the most powerful inflection point I can for Socialtext. We've grown to 3,000 customers, 50 people, the leading brand in the space, an innovative product, solid revenue growth and are targeting profitability. It is time for Socialtext to be taken to the next level, and for that, I want to openly recruit the CEO 2.0 for Socialtext.
An interesting leading indicator
She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed.
Lothberg's 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said.
In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer _ many thousand times faster than most residential connections, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, head of the Karlstad city network unit.
Technology Review: Swedish 75-year-old woman gets superfast Internet connection
Apparently did some evil, but not on purpose; he still has Google's full support. A former CFO without any accounting background?...
"In retrospect, Mr. Drummond acknowledges that he would have been better served in his role at SmartForce had he possessed an accounting background," Drummond's attorney Harvey Wolkoff said in a statement.
"However, it was not unusual during this period in time to find many CFOs like David who were not trained as accountants, but instead were hired for their expertise in other important corporate functions."
Google exec settles with SEC for SmartForce work | CNET News.com
Having made impressive progress as an application playground recently, Facebook now apparently aspires to become a web platform as well.
In an interview with engineering news site IEEE Spectrum last year, Ross described a plan to create what he called a WebOS, or Web operating system, a central place where different online resources might be found, similar to the way Microsoft Windows pulls together computer resources into one view.
He described creating a protected space inside a Web browser that allows users to store digital information and share it with designated friends, family and colleagues. In effect, the browser is designed to act as a social network space rather than simply a personal information viewing tool.
And then there's Microsoft...
It'll be interesting to see if Google is showing double-digit growth in 15 - 20 years...
Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $13.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, a 13% increase over the same period of the prior year. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.31. Excluding $0.08 of previously announced charges primarily related to Xbox 360™ warranty policies, earnings per share would have been $0.39, an increase of 26% over the same period of the prior year when also adjusted for certain items.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007, Microsoft announced revenue of $51.12 billion, a 15% increase over the prior year. Diluted earnings per share for the year were $1.42. Excluding certain items, earnings per share would have been $1.49, an increase of 17% over the prior year when also adjusted for certain items. $31 billion in cash, or approximately 175% of operating cash flow, was returned to shareholders during the year through share buybacks and dividends.
Reading between the lines in the response to the Google numbers: still very impressive growth, and the investment community is perplexed because Google is not providing detailed guidance or otherwise playing by the (often ridiculous and tacit) domain rules -- e.g., how can financial analysts assert Google spent too much when they don't know details about Google's strategic plans or financial projections?
Fine, so Google lost about $11B in market cap since the market close yesterday, after its earnings announcements. It's down to a paltry ~$160B and is, BTW, still generating huge revenue and profit numbers. Google was never one to play by others' rules; it's still full speed ahead in the Googleplex.
Within minutes of Google’s announcement, which was made after the close of markets, disappointed investors sold off Google’s shares in after-hours trading, slashing their value by about $42, or more than 7 percent, to about $506. Shares of Google had risen steadily in recent weeks, in part, on speculation that the company, which does not provide guidance about its expected financial performance, would surpass Wall Street estimates.
Google Earnings Up 28% but Miss Expectations - New York Times
Full speed ahead... maybe with an occasional speed bump.
Google shares are tumbling in late trading, losing nearly 7%, or $37, after the Internet search giant’s earnings fell short of Wall Street’s lofty expectations. Why are investors disappointed? After all, revenue pole-jumped 58% from a year ago. Maybe it’s because one of the few things outstripping Google’s sales growth are its costs. Expenses surged 69% to $2.77 billion in the latest quarter. That’s more than a few free lunches in the Googleplex cafeteria.
Yes, Google’s business continues to grow quickly and the company is taking more than its share of Web searches and online advertising. But Google is spending more and more to do it — and getting bigger and bigger. In just three months, Google added 1,548 people to its payroll — most were engineers or in sales and marketing — bringing its total workforce to 13,786 at the end of June. That’s more than three times the number of people Google employed just two years ago (4,183).
Never underestimate Craig McCaw...
Sprint Nextel Corp. (S.N: Quote, Profile , Research) and Clearwire Corp. (CLWR.O: Quote, Profile , Research) plan to build a U.S. nationwide mobile broadband network using WiMAX technology that will be five times faster than current wireless networks and cost less.
The announcement by the two companies on Thursday sent shares of Clearwire, which was founded by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, up 32 percent. Sprint shares rose 1.5 percent.
Sprint, Clearwire to build national WiMAX network | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com
Maybe true for some SunRocket customers
Thousands of SunRocket subscribers found their phone lines disconnected this week after the start-up Internet-phone service provider abruptly shut its doors Monday.
... while at least some, according to a story in today's WSJ, can still hear a dial tone, but are dealing with unanticipated switching costs (new monthly fees atop their original annual fees for defunct SunRocket):
Creditors of SunRocket Inc., a failed Internet phone company, have reached deals with two former competitors, 8x8 Inc. and Unified Communications Corp., that names those companies as "preferred" service providers for SunRocket's 200,000 customers.
SunRocket customers, who abruptly lost service Monday, will not have to pay 8x8's normal start up costs for its Packet8 service, a little over $100, according to a written 8x8 statement. The company also plans to offer one month of free service for former SunRocket subscribers who will be able to maintain their existing numbers. Unified Communications, which offers a service called Teleblend, will offer SunRocket customers a special rate of $12.95 a month for the remainder of their contracts, according to Unified's Web site.
For SunRocket Customers, Sounds of Silence - washingtonpost.com
Another timely reality check
It seems like such a short time ago that MySpace was the place to be in terms of social networking – now it seems that’s all over and Facebook is now the 'site du jour.'
It’s not the first time something like this has happened, either - there have been countless communities online that have grown, peaked, and slowly faded into obscurity. Like a roving band of wildebeest, it seems communities arrive en masse, graze for a while, and move on to pastures anew.
See the full article for more details.
I consider sites/services such as MySpace to be instances of what might be called "the restaurant at the end of the Internet" pattern -- fashionable and fun for some, but also popularity roller coasters that have to contend with unclear differentiation and relatively low switching costs (and often outrageous monetary soul-sell-out temptations for founders...).
Facebook might prove to be an exception, staying stridently independent (and thus avoiding the stigma of being owned by advertising-centric and dubious "news" organizations such as News Corp.) and morphing into an accessible platform that is proving to be fertile ground for creative application development/sharing (in the form of "mashups", composite apps, etc.). Indeed, Facebook may be at the center of a perfect storm of sorts -- at the intersection of social networking, user-generated content/apps, and the mainstreaming of the always-on net generation. (But now I've exceeded my cliche quota for the day, so I'll leave it at that...)
'ByeBye MySpace, Hello Facebook' – The Ebb and Flow of Social Networks (SocialComputingMagazine.com)
A timely reality check from Mark Logic CEO Dave Kellogg
As frequent readers know, one of my memes is the rise of special-purpose databases, whether they be data warehouse appliances like Netezza, stream databases like Streambase, or OLAP (aka multi-dimensional) databases like Essbase, recently purchased by Oracle through the Hyperion Acquisition.
I believe that MarkLogic is one of a class of special-purpose DBMSs that will be necessary to handle new requirements that were never envisioned when the RDBMS was born. The relational database is now pushing 40 years old since its invention (and pushing 30 since the first implementations in commercial products).
See the full post for more context-setting and links to Stonebraker's papers.
While I believe the market shift to XQuery is going to be transformational in many respects, creating very significant opportunities for vendors such as Mark Logic, I don't think it's game-over time yet for extended relational database management systems. I'm currently working on a Burton Group report on XQuery, and this is a topic domain I'll be regularly revisiting in my blog.
Another Stonebraker snapshot to peruse: ACM Queue's "A Conversation with Michael Stonebraker and Margo Seltzer"
Mark Logic CEO Blog: Stonebraker's "One Size Fits All" Papers
Watch for the 8th part of the series, "Harry Potter and the Lawyer Full-Employment Act"...
The US publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is taking legal action against two companies for dispatching copies of the book early.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Potter publisher sues over breach
Hmm -- why does this remind me of yesterday's FSJ post on Microsoft and Red Hat -- "Don't be afraid, I just want to interoperate"?
NEWSPAPERS reeling from major losses of advertising revenue to the Internet are getting a lift from the company that helped lure advertisers away: Google.
Google plans to announce today a significant expansion of its Print Ads program, in which advertisers purchase ads in newspapers through the Web. The company introduced a limited test program last November in which 50 newspapers sold ads to 100 selected advertisers through Google’s computer system.
Google to Expand Program, Giving Newspapers a Lift - New York Times
Reality check: FSJ is often fun and insightful (and cruel, and occasionally lewd...), but the game can't continue indefinitely; he/she/they can't expect to sensationally but anonymously taunt industry leaders without being investigated.
The writer of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs appeared to break character Wednesday in decrying "invasions of privacy" that have the anonymous author rattled.
Fake Steve Jobs, as he or she has come to be known, posted a two-paragraph rant saying he has been consulting with lawyers and computer security experts after discovering activity "that may or may not have crossed over the line of legality but definitely fall outside the boundaries of what most decent civilized human beings consider to be appropriate behavior."
I'm still betting Kara Swisher is somewhere in the FSJ picture.
Fake Steve Jobs lashes out against 'invasions of privacy' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
For a stark reality check in this context, check out the chart in this Wired article (based on a Pew Research Center study) -- Fox News appears at the bottom of the chart.
“There’s a real culture of passion for the truth, for shining lights in dark places and making the mysterious understood,” said a reporter, one of dozens of people interviewed at The Journal and Dow Jones, nearly all of whom asked for anonymity, fearing a backlash from the current regime or the next one. “The overwhelming view here is that under Murdoch, that gets compromised from Day One, and that idea is devastating, heartbreaking, to people.”
Murdoch’s Arrival Worries Journal Employees - New York Times
Walt Mossberg tests a new VoIP alternative -- note the link below is to the no-wsj.com-subscription-required version of the article.
Ooma is a $399 piece of hardware that you pay for only once. There are no monthly bills. You just buy an Ooma Hub, a small device that looks like an answering machine. You plug it into your Internet connection and attach a phone, and you get free, unlimited domestic calls, local or long distance, as long as you keep your Ooma.
Second, with Ooma, you can easily keep your regular phone service as an integrated backup, for 911 calls, and in case the Internet service in your home goes out.
The Linux superplatform competition continues to expand...
Today Xandros, the leading provider of intuitive end-to-end Linux solutions and cross platform management tools, announced the acquisition of Scalix, the premier award-winning Linux e-mail, calendaring and messaging company. The acquisition represents another step in the fulfillment of Xandros' strategic vision for developing a complete Linux stack, including desktop, SMB and advanced enterprise servers, cross-platform management tools, and mission-critical IT infrastructure applications, in order to provide organizations and enterprises of all sizes with single vendor support of their diverse and growing IT infrastructures
Scalix: Xandros Acquires Scalix - Linux E-mail, Calendaring and Messaging Company
Classic Fake Steve Jobs post -- with interesting Microsoft/Red Hat/etc. analysis
Well this little mini drama between Microsoft and Red Hat continues, where Microsoft is trying to form a "partnership" for "interoperability" and Red Hat is freaking out because if makes any deal with Microsoft the nutbags in the Linux "community" will accuse Red Hat of selling out and making a deal with the enemy.
I also love the image selections on The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs...
![[cat-and-mouse.jpg-1.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pNJFZtinpKY/Rp4OpkRXwvI/AAAAAAAABcg/jOsWjrPThUs/s1600/cat-and-mouse.jpg-1.jpg)
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Don't be afraid, I just want to interoperate
Perhaps BEA management is losing control of its destiny
"Using our leveraged-buyout analysis we believe a financial buyer could pay somewhere around $15 to $16 (per share), while a strategic buyer has the potential to pay $1 to $3 (per share) more," [Credit Suisse analyst Jason] Maynard wrote. "While management may still be hesitant about selling the business, it's our opinion that they are rapidly losing the ability to influence that decision."
He thinks the company would likely be acquired by a private equity firm or by database software maker Oracle Corp.
This is going to become a milestone event...
But those less mindful of the publishers’ wishes could go onto various file-sharing Web sites yesterday to look at amateur-seeming photographs of what appeared to be each pair of facing pages of a copy of the book. The pictures, which could be downloaded through sites like the Pirate Bay and MediaFire, showed the book laid out on a green-and-red-flecked beige looped carpet, with fingers holding the pages open. Some of the photos made the text difficult to read, but the fiercely protected ending was definitely legible.
New Potter Book May Have Made Its Way to Web - New York Times
See the article for some scary statistics.
More than a decade after the Internet went mainstream, the world's richest information source hasn't necessarily made its users any more informed. A new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that Americans, on average, are less able to correctly answer questions about current events than they were in 1989. Citizens who call the Internet their primary news source know slightly less than fans of TV and radio news. Hmmm... maybe a little less Perez Hilton and a little more Jim Lehrer.
If you have a wsj.com account, also check out a "Web 2.0" debate between Andrew Keen ("The Cult of the Amateur") and David Weinberger ("Everything is Miscellaneous").
Infoporn: Despite the Web, Americans Remain Woefully Ill-Informed
But no ODF?...
This is pretty cool. I already talked about how there is support for the open xml formats on the palmOS.
I was looking into the iPhone today and it looks like it has support not just for .doc, .xls, .pdf, and .html; but also has for .docx and .xlsx. Very cool!
I saw this in their product documentation: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iPhone_User_Guide.pdf
Interesting to see the leading doc mgmt, content mgmt, and search vendors striving to complement SharePoint
In addition to supporting 80 languages, FAST ESP will enable Office SharePoint Server’s users to employ advanced navigation capabilities to refine results and find facts, leveraging the power of FAST’s Contextual Insight® technology to enrich the customer experience. It also uses Office SharePoint Server as a platform, extending Web Parts capabilities to expose customers and industry partners to more relevant information. “FAST and Microsoft understand that in today’s world it’s not just about searching for information, it is about connecting people with the right information quickly in a security-enhanced environment,” said John Markus Lervik, CEO of FAST. “The market’s rapid acceptance of Office SharePoint Server is a phenomenon. By extending Office SharePoint Server’s content management, collaboration and search capabilities with FAST ESP’s advanced analytics dynamic navigation capabilities, we are enabling users to derive even greater value from Office SharePoint Server 2007. Together with Microsoft, we are enabling organizations to maximize their existing information assets, putting the data to work for them and positioning them for future growth.”
The search business is in a bit of a chaotic state these days, with Autonomy's acquisition of Verity, Open Text's acquisition of Hummingbird (which had in turn acquired Fulcrum), Google seeking to dominate enterprise search, and specialists such as FAST building very impressive customer and partner momentum.
Not your typical phone company...
Telephone service could be lost for more than 200,000 customers of SunRocket, an Internet telephone company that said on Tuesday that it had gone out of business, according to a person involved in its liquidation.
The customers also could lose money paid in advance to SunRocket, which offered unlimited telephone service for a year for an upfront payment of $199, said Martin D. Pichinson, co-founder of Sherwood Partners, which signed a contract on Tuesday to handle the distribution of assets to creditors.
SunRocket Users May Lose Service and Payments - New York Times
Timely reality check
I.B.M. has been reorganized from a classic multinational company with country-by-country operations, working in isolation, to a more seamless global enterprise with centers of expertise in industries and technical skills, scattered around the world, each a hub in a global network for delivering services.
The changes, according to Mr. Palmisano, amount to “a huge reinvention” of the company.
Its experience offers a textbook case of a company successfully navigating the twin challenges of globalization and rapid technological change, at least for a two-year stretch.
More fun with politics and standards. It's not the final word, however; see the article for more details.
Rob Weir, an IBM employee and advocate of the rival OpenDocument format, on Sunday detailed in his blog the proceedings of a three-hour meeting of the committee, which is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Despite a number of Microsoft partners joining the committee in recent weeks, the committee did not approve recommending Open XML as an ISO standard, Weir said. He said that it failed to pass an "approval" vote by one committee member.
Microsoft's Open XML hits snag in standards process | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
Also see a wsj.com article about Google reportedly developing a search service for cellphone-related stuff such as ringtones and mobile games.
Google is set to launch on Tuesday a fee-based hosted site search service targeting small and medium-size organizations that will undoubtedly stir up more talk about Google aiming for Microsoft's enterprise business.
The new Google Custom Search Business Edition offers a way for companies to add a search capability to their Web sites that is powered by Google. A free version of Google's site search service displays ads. Businesses with more complex Web sites can buy the Google Search Appliance to offer site search and intranet search for behind the firewall.
Excerpt from the WSJ article referenced above:
Google's plans to broker the sale of mobile content like ringtones and games could become a threat to large cellphone operators like Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., especially if Google enables customer payment through eBay Inc.'s PayPal or its own online Checkout service. The operators have built their own storefronts to sell such material, and they would prefer to hold on to consumers' attention and spending. If billing goes through the carriers instead, appearing on customers' monthly bills, carriers could actually benefit because they usually get a significant cut of such transactions.
Google launches fee-based hosted site search for businesses | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
More consolidation -- and perhaps more "The Cult of the Amateur" themes in action...
Business 2.0 magazine, a seven-year-old Time Inc. publication that covers start-ups, technology trends and changes in the new economy, might publish its final issue in September, according to people briefed on discussions about the fate of the magazine.
Though a reprieve is still possible, according to these people, executives at Time Inc., the nation’s largest magazine group, are threatening to shut down Business 2.0 in the midst of a sharp drop in advertising at the San Francisco-based magazine.
Ad Downturn Threatening the Survival of Business 2.0 - New York Times
Vonage, meanwhile, has a mkt cap of ~$460M, even with its stock at < $3/share.
SunRocket, one of the largest start-up companies offering Internet phone service, has ceased operation and is moving its customers to one or more other companies, a person briefed on its status said yesterday.
A message on SunRocket’s customer service line said the company was “no longer taking customer service or sales calls.” Executives of SunRocket, which is based in Vienna, Va., and had 200,000 subscribers as of April, could not be reached for comment.
Can't say I'm thrilled about this prospect, as a wsj.com subscriber for the last 11+ years.
Murdoch has long wanted to own the Journal, which has won many prizes for editorial excellence. He has denied making plans for major cuts, instead saying he would invest in its online and overseas operations and tap the company's resources to help build a business cable news channel that would rival General Electric Co.'s highly profitable CNBC network. The channel, to be called the Fox Business Network, is to debut on Oct. 15.
News Corp. in tentative deal to buy Dow Jones - The Boston Globe
Interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose
Technology Review: The common criticism of Digg is that what tends to be dug is often superficial. Are the most popular stories that rise to the top of Digg the best stories?
Kevin Rose: As we speak, right now, the top three stories on Digg are do-it-yourself lucid dreaming, an update about the Apple iPhone, and why a former official of the Reagan administration thinks that President Bush should be tried as a war criminal. We get a mixture of all types of news on our front page. In any case, users can customize their home page: if you're not into technology or you're not into celebrity gossip, you can remove those sections, and you don't have to see them.
Oops...
The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school’s pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown.
IPhones flooding wireless LAN at Duke University - Network World
I'll be ordering one of these soon -- I've been using the test builds for several months and am very impressed -- the back-up, media sharing, and remote access features are very useful.
Right on schedule, Microsoft announced that its Windows Home Server software is off to the presses. This clears the way for HP, Gateway, LaCie, Medion, and now Iomega and Fujitsu Siemens, (both also announced today, the latter in Europe only) to begin selling their Home Server-powered hardware later this quarter.
For more on the history of the product, see this WHS team blog post.
Windows Home Server off to production, gets new partners | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
IBM acquires another data/information management player
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and DataMirror Corporation (TSX: DMC) today announced an agreement for IBM to acquire DataMirror based in Markham, Ontario. Under the Arrangement Agreement, IBM will acquire all of the outstanding DataMirror common shares at a price of C$27.00 per common share payable in cash, amounting to total consideration of approximately C$170 million (approximately $161 million USD).
DataMirror is a provider of technology that identifies and captures data that has been added, updated or deleted and allows the changed data to be delivered in real time to processes, applications and databases, ensuring that continuous, accurate and trusted information is available for decision-making.
IBM to Acquire DataMirror to Deliver Real-Time Information on Demand
Interesting app/tool list -- including OpenOffice.org, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Skype, and more
Surf. Shop. Burn music. Trade stocks. Write letters. Crop photos. Calculate profits. Watch videos. Talk to friends. Zonbu comes with all the software you need to work hard, and play harder. There's nothing to buy, configure or troubleshoot — the world-class OS and 20 open source applications come installed and ready to go. When the latest application upgrade is released we automatically and transparently install it, keeping you up-to-date without you lifting a finger.
$99 and $12.95/month, cost-justified in part because the PC will apparently use ~$10/month less electricity than a normal PC
The computer is the size of a cigar box and uses a low-power Intel-compatible microprocessor from VIA Technologies of Taiwan. It comes with four gigabytes of flash memory instead of a disk drive, a spinning mechanical part that uses much of a PC’s power. It also lacks a fan, another big energy user.
The Zonbu PC also uses a Gentoo version of the Linux operating system and will come with a range of software applications like the Mozilla Firefox browser, Skype voice-over-Internet service, OpenOffice software suite and many games. An additional 25 gigabytes of free online storage is available, with more offered for purchase.
A PC That Uses Less Energy, but Charges a Monthly Fee - New York Times
Go figure...
On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog — or the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.
Or so thought John Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods Market, who used a fictional identity on the Yahoo message boards for nearly eight years to assail competition and promote his supermarket chain’s stock, according to documents released last week by the Federal Trade Commission.
The Hand That Controls the Sock Puppet Could Get Slapped - New York Times
Brief interview with Peter Norvig, Google's director of research; excerpt:
TR: Which research has the most people and funding?
PN: The two biggest projects are machine translation and the speech project. Translation and speech went all the way from one or two people working on them to, now, live systems.
TR: Like the Google Labs project called GOOG-411 [a free service that lets people search for local businesses by voice, over the phone].
Another widget-mania snapshot, including a "very brief history of the web" -- from browsing to searching and now sharing (via widgets).
There's a land grab under way in Silicon Valley. Not in real land (even in Tech Town, home sales are sagging), but on the Web. What's fueling the frenzy is something that couldn't sound more prosaic: widgets.
In the Web world, widgets are modules of software that people can drag and drop onto the personal page of their social network or onto a blog. There, widgets typically look like a little window or box, packing a bit of the functionality that you would get with a stand-alone Web site or software package. The result can be as mundane as the WeatherBug, or a YouTube clip of your favorite video of a bulldog riding a skateboard, or your wish list from online jewelry retailer Blue Nile (NILE ).
Interesting snapshot -- in this case a $600M Google data center
Just as Google has pushed the boundaries of its Internet business, it plays the real estate game aggressively. Beginning with an anonymous approach in late 2005, the company elicited a stream of promises from local and state officials in North Carolina, all frantic to lure a major tech company, even before they knew which one. During months of negotiations over Google's shifting requirements, the company never failed to remind those officials that it could go elsewhere. In the end, the North Carolinians agreed to a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir.
Later in the article:
Since the company's plans in Lenoir were announced in January, Weiss has struck similar deals for new computer centers in South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Google won't say how many server farms it operates nationwide.
Useful snapshot
Given the muddled state of 3G networks in the U.S., Apple's decision to go with slower technology in the first edition of the iPhone was understandable. But right now we are stuck having to choose between the iPhone, with a good browser and a painful network, and rivals such as the Palm (palm ) Treo 700p from Verizon or the HTC Mogul from Sprint, with fast networks and lousy browsers. Apple and AT&T have their work cut out for them.
Also see Making the iPhone Mean Business in the same issue
Cute article, but my print subscription to Fortune will be high on my list of things to cut, if, as is the case with this week's issue, the ratio of advertising (or "special advertising sections") to content is greater than 1:1...
[...] I tallied up the total monthly cost of my family's digital and cultural lifestyle. I was shocked and awed. Stupefied. Then queasy. Diagnosis: Chronic Subscription Fatigue Syndrome.
CSFS is a 2lst-century malady loosely related to mouse-induced carpal tunnel syndrome and to the neurological disorder that habitual videogamers call the "twitch." It's the kind of infirmity that sneaks up on you, sort of like "feature creep" - the slow accumulation of arcane bells and whistles that transforms perfectly usable software like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop into an intimidating, leaden mass.
Other interesting stuff from the latest issue:
Modern technology and Chronic Subscription Fatigue Syndrome - July 23, 2007
Interesting times...
Thanks to the open source NEPOMUK (Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge) effort, the Semantic Desktop isn't a dream; it's an emerging reality and will be here with the upcoming release of KDE 4 for the Linux desktop.
"NEPOMUK is a project attempting to address what we see as a major missing component of the open source environment -- what we call 'semantic capabilities,' which you can think of as the ability to define and take advantage of the relationships between different items and types of data throughout the desktop and beyond," Stéphane Laurière, Semantic Web activities coordinator at Linux distribution Mandriva, told internetnews.com.
Adobe AIR checkpoint/snapshot
Adobe released the public beta of its Adobe AIR runtime environment (previously codenamed Apollo) about a month ago. The software is designed to allow the development of rich Internet applications that work on any operating system. I'm sure that there are technical differences, but it seems a lot like an amped-up widget engine to me.
Needless to say, AIR apps aren't nearly as ubiquitous as Adobe Flash apps (yet), but there have been a few interesting recent developments. The most-polished AIR application so far is Adobe Digital Editions, software for reading, downloading, and managing e-books. To learn more about it, check Seth Rosenblatt's First Look video for Adobe Digital Editions.
Pownce invites and the rise of Adobe AIR | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
It'll be interesting to see the next wave of headlines in this context
Intel contributes about $100 million to educational activities annually, he said, and the company now views the new partnership as a simple way to expand its impact.
As part of the partnership, Mr. Swope will take a position on the One Laptop Per Child board and the group will use the chip maker’s server technology as a component in the educational systems that are deployed in countries abroad.
Intel, in Shift, Joins Project on Education - New York Times
Recommended reading -- click here to order from Amazon.com
In A CROWD OF ONE, John Clippinger takes us through the historical origins of identity and the way it is influencing – and being influenced by – today's world. He examines origin narratives from around the world and the religious underpinnings of many people's identities, and explores the competing theories of human nature developed by Hobbes, Adam Smith, and some of the other leading philosophical minds throughout history. He applies principles from evolutionary biology to show why and how we evolved some of our most unique capacities: trust, empathy, retribution, honor, virtue, leadership, reciprocity, and collaboration. Drawing on modern scientific studies, he debunks some of our strongest-held beliefs about individualism, rationality, self interest and moral absolutism. He challenges thinkers on the Left and the Right and proposes a new theory of leadership, social virtue, and cooperation derived from evolutionary biology and neuroscience.
The book is audaciously ambitious in some respects (and I agree with the Publishers Weekly editorial review on Amazon.com suggesting the book would benefit from a clearer central thesis) but is nonetheless a very timely and thought-provoking read, and also a useful complement to other books I've read recently including The Cult of the Amateur and The Assault on Reason.
Thanks to Jamie Lewis for the book recommendation
A Crowd of One : The Future of Individual Identity by John Henry Clippinger
Check the full post for video and screen shots of the Zimbra client on iPhone
Few things have generated as much buzz as the iPhone. According to USA Today, up to 700,000 iPhones have been sold. Some of the people who purchased them were Zimbra Customers and Users. They've been asking us in our support portal, as well as in our forums, if/how were we going to support the iPhone. . .and so far, our story as been iSync or using our standard client on Safari - which works quite well.
However, today we're announcing that we've developed a mobile web client for the iPhone that is 100% standards compliant, and will be included with ZCS 5.0. We will be bundling it into our Network and Open Source editions as a standard feature, much like the Standard HTML client. It's built upon a JSP tag library that we've developed which allows Customers to easily change the Zimbra UI to fit their needs.
Another example of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful."
Even though they had the pass code needed to get into the company's main office and the combination to the safe, the two men still couldn't open it up. "It's more involved than a combination on a school locker," said Fox. "It's not rocket science, but it's more involved." Stymied as to what to do next, the men found a computer that had been left on in the office and simply Googled for information on how to break into the safe.
Definitely not rocket scientists in this case -- e.g., using WD-40 instead of spray paint on security cameras...
Criminals Google 'How To Open Safe' In Middle Of Burglary -- Crime -- InformationWeek
DEC 1994 Internet infomercial
[...] this three-minute promotional video from Digital Equipment Corp. sure takes me back. I was online news editor for InformationWeek around then, we produced a flat Web site much like the ones shown here.
Actually a bit depressing to watch the video -- in many respects it doesn't look like the industry has made a huge amount of progress since 1994, except perhaps for pervasive in situ advertising...
Video: This Is What The Web Looked Like In 1994 - Digital Life Blog - InformationWeek
Useful counter-ODF-FUD reality check -- timeline starting in 1998 in the parallel developments of ODF and Open XML.
I posted on this earlier in the year, but I thought it was worth repeating, as I've seen a number of threads lately that question why Microsoft originally created Open XML rather than going with ODF. As you'll see from the timeline below, both formats were actually developed in parallel, and had very different design goals.
Strange days indeed
The attention paid to Facebook has even eclipsed MySpace. It was MySpace's own rapid growth that helped make Rupert Murdoch a Wall Street darling. Bought by News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million, it is now considered worth about $10 billion by some Wall Street analysts.
Asked if the rise of social networks has had a negative impact on Google, Brin said, "Social networks are creating lots and lots of content...and that's more for us to search."
Google's Brin does not see Facebook up for sale | CNET News.com
Interesting "manifesto" -- see the source below for a pdf download.
For those of us email addicts who can’t quit cold turkey but are increasing stressed by the size of our inbox each morning, Shipley and Schwalbe offer advice for managing our input and output in this engaging manifesto.
Excerpt:
One of the biggest problems with email is that people use it reflexively: Get an email? Reply by email! Have a random thought while you are sitting next to your desktop or laptop or when your handheld is at hand? Fire off an email! Sure, there are good emails and bad emails. But there are also a lot of emails that never should have been emails in the first place: They should have been calls, letters, visits, or nothing. Everytime you choose a form of communication other than email, or choose not to communicate at all, there’s a bonus: Simply the best way to cut down on email is to send fewer emails.
And yet, the real benefit of sending fewer emails is far greater than a blessedly more sparsely populated inbox. Consider this: Too many of us send emails that seem like a good idea at the time but tear at the fabric of our relationships and create damage that can last forever. And too many of us send email that is just plain inconsiderate—email that makes our world a slightly less pleasant place to work and live. There is a huge social and karmic dimension to indiscriminate and inappropriate emailing. And there is a huge karmic benefit to knowing when to stop.
I'm not certain, but I think the net of their advice (don't email when you're right, wrong, mad, drunk, etc.) is to not use email at all... :)
ChangeThis :: When You Absolutely, Positively Should NOT Use Email: A Civilized List
See the full post for more details, e.g., on an option to use Windows Live Folders for photo backup.
After months of listening to customer feedback on Windows Live OneCare (v1.5) and designing and testing new features and services for the product, we’re proud to unveil the first public beta release of the next version, Windows Live OneCare (2.0). Windows Live OneCare 2.0 automatically manages an even greater number of security and maintenance tasks so users can spend more time using their PCs and less time maintaining them. Sign up at http://get.live.com/betas/onecare_betas!
In the new version, our aim was to help consumers better manage their home environment. Our research has shown that most homes now have approximately 2.5 computers. This means that in addition to securing and maintaining multiple PCs, consumers now need to do the extra work associated with connecting devices and securing networks. To ease this burden, we added to OneCare features such as multi-PC and home network management as well as printer sharing to help address the modern home environment.
Windows Live OneCare Team Blog: Download the OneCare Beta (v2.0) and let us know what you think!
The official announcement of 11g; see the press release for more details
Oracle today introduced Oracle(r) Database 11g, the latest release of the world's most popular database. With more than 400 features, 15 million test hours, and 36,000 person-months of development, Oracle Database 11g is the most innovative and highest quality software product Oracle have ever announced.
"Oracle Database 11g, built on 30 years of design experience, delivers the next generation of enterprise information management," said Andy Mendelsohn, senior vice president of Database Server Technologies, Oracle. "More than ever, our customers are facing the challenges of, rapid data growth, increased data integration, and data connectivity IT cost pressures. Oracle Database 10g pioneered grid computing, and more than half of Oracle customers have moved to that release. Oracle Database 11g delivers the key features our customers have asked for to accelerate broad adoption and growth of Oracle grids; representing real innovation, that addresses real challenges, as told to us by real customers."
Of particular interest for my current research agenda:
Oracle Database 11g includes significant performance enhancements to XML DB, a feature of Oracle database that enables customers to natively store, and manipulate XML data. Support for binary XML has been added offering customers a choice of XML storage options to match their specific application and performance requirements. XML DB also enables manipulation of XML data using industry standard interfaces with support for XQuery, Java Specification Requests (JSR)-170 and SQL/XML standards.
Oracle quotes Gartner putting them at 47.1% market share in Gartner's 2006 worldwide DBMS market share analysis, up a bit from 2005, and holding more market share (in terms of total DBMS software revenues) than its two closest competitors (IBM and Microsoft) combined.
See the full press release for more details, e.g., an Xbox Live-like service for PC gamers
Last night at the company's E3 press briefing, Microsoft unveiled a lineup of nearly 30 new titles that will carry the Games for Windows brand, as well as strong support for the Games for Windows – LIVE online service from three top game publishers: Eidos, THQ and SEGA, which have committed to developing Games for Windows – LIVE enabled titles. Additionally, Microsoft Game Studios unveiled plans to bring “Gears of War” and the hit “Viva Piñata” to Windows XP and Windows Vista gamers this year as Games for Windows branded titles with LIVE support.
Interesting and certain to be controversial...
This new measure will report the total time spent for all visitors and provide a better understanding of users' total engagement of Web pages and volume of traffic, Nielsen said.
Use of programs such as instant messaging and e-mail propelled AOL, Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live to the top three rankings.
Nielsen Alters Web Ratings, Favoring AOL Over Google - washingtonpost.com
Interesting reality check from Forbes
Call it the most important software release no one will notice. Oracle is set to launch a new version of its database software, dubbed 11g, Wednesday.
[...]
The problem, of course, is that after a surge in demand in the 1980s and another in the late 1990s, the market for big-time database software is saturated. More troubling still, a host of free and cheap alternatives, such as MySQL, have stalled demand for pricey database software among less demanding customers.
I disagree -- I think the industry is poised for a renaissance in data and content modeling/management, and that there will be a major resurgence in DBMS, especially for IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, as the scope of DBMS expands to include full-fidelity XML content management (with XQuery, in particular).
It won't happen overnight, as DBMS upgrade cycles are in some respects even more protracted than OS upgrades, but the opportunity to have fewer moving parts (i.e., to consolidate content/document/web content management systems), to have content benefit from capabilities traditionally associated with DBMS (locking and isolation levels, robust transaction management...), and to use XQuery, a content/data manipulation language that has significant potential to optimize the best of both worlds, will be very compelling for most enterprises.
Marc Andreessen shares initial impressions from blogging -- lesson #3:
I should have started doing this years and years ago.
Anyone who says blogs are not widely read is incorrect. I have been absolutely amazed at the range and diversity of the people who have been reading this blog, and so quickly.
It is crystal clear to me now that at least in industries where lots of people are online, blogging is the single best way to communicate and interact.
He also notes, later in the post:
"[...] if you want to get technical about it, I started my first blog in 1993"
Read the full post for an interesting snapshot of the state of the blogosphere.
blog.pmarca.com: Eleven lessons learned about blogging, so far
Timely snapshot
Ballmer explained that Microsoft already is rearchitecting its core platform to be more of a Web-centric one. As he told the Partner Conference audience, “the programming model stays .Net and Windows.” But beyond that, Microsoft is is redoing its products and business models from scratch.
In a nutshell, Microsoft is taking the datacenter infrastructure it has been building to support Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live and other Live services, and is making it the crux of the company’s future products, all across the board.
Mary Jo Foley concludes with a question about cannibalization potential. No doubt some Office product managers are worried about that, but I think the "Software + Services" shift for Microsoft is likely to be a net gain scenario -- and perhaps even more profitable than its traditional mostly-shrink-wrapped/on-premises software business.
Consider: let's say an organization pays X to have Windows Server + Exchange + SharePoint + LCS/OCS on-prem, where X includes hardware, software licensing (server and client access licenses), and assorted costs for admin, support, etc. If the organization can get the same capabilities directly as SaaS from Microsoft, let's speculate for .9X, there's a very good chance that Microsoft's revenue and profit will go up, as the hardware and admin/support costs are now value-shifted to Microsoft, which can avail itself of economies-of-scale opportunities that individual organizations can't reach.
» Ballmer: Caught between a software rock and a services hard place All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
Among other news from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver this week
Microsoft recently launched a new SharePoint resources mash-up site designed to encourage more partners to make use of SharePoint’s enterprise search and other capabilities. Microsoft is encouraging developers to think about doing more SharePoint-inclusive composite applications, like new business dashboards and mash-ups “where a new business capability is created by assembling multiple existing software assets: web services, APIs, web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom), gadgets, and screen scraping (and) where content is sourced from APIs, Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom), gadgets, web services and screen scraping.”
Hints about Microsoft's next Software + Services steps
Ballmer also said that Microsoft is moving closer to offering a service based on its effort with Energizer, where Microsoft has been essentially managing the battery maker's desktop IT support for more than two years. Microsoft won't offer that full outsourcing ability, but will have a service around communications and collaboration that it will start selling "much more vigorously and transparently."
Ballmer hints at Microsoft's future in the 'cloud' | CNET News.com
More Xbox news from E3
Part of Microsoft’s strategy has been to position the Xbox 360 as a living room media hub and an essential element of that plan has been allowing users to download films and television shows to the machine. Adding Disney to the roster of companies distributing movies and video programming over the Xbox Live service should help broaden the appeal of the game system to families with children.
[...]
The company also said it was developing a keyboard for the Xbox 360 controller. Currently, Xbox Live users send text messages using an on-screen keyboard. The company recently announced plans to integrate the popular Windows Live Messenger service with Xbox Live.
But even as Microsoft hopes to appeal to new sorts of users, the company wants to avoid neglecting the serious player. So Microsoft also said that the next version of the popular Resident Evil series from Capcom of Japan would also be designed to run on the Xbox 360.
Interesting, but I'd like to see Netflix streaming content available via my Xbox 360.
Beginning today, consumers of all ages will have access to a growing catalog of new and classic movies from The Walt Disney Studios including titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax Films, on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, the leading high-definition-video download service. Xbox 360 owners will be able to rent popular Disney films on demand as they become available, such as “Bridge to Terabithia,” Miramax Film’s “The Queen” and Touchstone Pictures’ “Déjà Vu.”
More Microsoft morphing...
While change is hard, Turner said Microsoft's partners need to be ready to offer customers the choice of running software on their own servers or subscribing to hosted services. "It doesn't mean locally based software is going away, but customers want the choice."
Example: Office Live now has > 400K businesses signed up...
Later in the article:
Turner also announced that Microsoft's new server operating system, Windows Server 2008, won't have its formal launch until next year. Microsoft plans to launch that product, as well as the next version of its SQL Server database and Visual Studio developer tools at an event on February 27 in Los Angeles.
Hmmm...
Verizon's installer — without warning, Powderly says — removed the copper wires that used to carry his phone calls. For most of the world, copper still links homes and businesses, as it has for a century.
Verizon's new high-bandwidth fiber lines are capable of carrying not only calls but also Internet data and television with room to grow. But once the copper is pulled, it's hard to switch back to the traditional phone system or less expensive digital subscriber line service.
And Verizon isn't required, in most instances, to lease fiber to rival phone companies, as it is with the copper infrastructure.
Let's see -- EMC pays $625M to acquire VMWare (deal completed in early 2004), and now Intel is paying ~$219M for a small minority share; not bad EMC ROI...
No. 1 chipmaker Intel will pay $23 a share for 9.5 million Class A common shares in VMware, giving it 2.5 percent of all outstanding common stock
VMware also said in a regulatory filing shedding new information on plans for its upcoming IPO that it expects to sell up to 37.95 million shares to the public for an estimated price of between $23 and $25 per share.
After the sale to Intel, the chipmaker will control less than 1 percent of voting shares because the stock is divided into two classes in which Class B shares have greater voting power, the companies said.
The WSJ this morning included an article noting "An Intel executive will become a director of VMware, a Palo Alto, Calif., company that expects to raise $741.4 million from the offering."
Impressive stats
A history-making audience of viewers from around the world united at http://www.liveearth.msn.com to experience the excitement of the Live Earth concerts and confront the threat of global warming. Since the start of the first Live Earth concert in Australia, MSN® has delivered more than 30 million live and on-demand video streams of the concerts. During the exclusive live coverage on MSN, more than 8 million people watched over 15 million streams, with peak simultaneous viewership of 237,000 people making it the most watched entertainment event in online history.
Maybe Google should also snap up the three vendors listed in the second paragraph below :)...
Cisco®, EMC® Corp. and Microsoft Corp. today announced the formation of an alliance of technology vendors that will offer one of the most comprehensive, security-enhanced, commercial, multivendor, end-to-end information-sharing technology architectures for helping protect and share sensitive government information. The Secure Information Sharing Architecture (SISA) combines industry-leading applications, information infrastructure, and networking technologies to help protect customers’ existing information technology (IT) investments. This architecture offers a consistent approach for breaking down the barriers across traditional organizational and jurisdictional IT infrastructure boundaries, so sensitive human resources, financial and other information that is critical to mission accomplishment can have increased protection and be shared among authorized communities more effectively than if they were not to deploy SISA.
[...]
The SISA Alliance also includes technology vendors that bring innovative approaches to fulfill specific requirements. Liquid Machines in Waltham, Mass., provides solutions that enhance the SISA content-protection capabilities by extending the Microsoft® Digital Rights Management technology. Swan Island Networks, Inc. in Portland, Ore., designs and operates sensitive information-sharing systems. Titus Labs in Ottawa, Canada, offers information labeling and classification solutions that determine how content protection should be applied. As customers’ needs evolve, the alliance will incorporate additional technology vendors to bring innovative approaches to fulfill other specific requirements.
A useful summary -- note that Google has also already acquired at least two companies to advance its future presentation-oriented tools for Google Apps, incidentally
But Google Apps has traditionally lacked some of the industrial strength it really needs to convince organizations they should be considering Google Apps instead of locally hosted alternatives. In addition to lacking a PowerPoint-like tool and having applications that died when an Internet connection wasn’t present, Google had some weaknesses on the security and compliance front. Through the partitioned version of GMail that’s offered as a part of the Google Apps brand, e-mails could not be secured through encryption. Nor is there an easy way to encrypt Google Apps-based documents (eg: word processing, spreadsheets) at rest (in other words, while they’re sitting on Google’s servers, even if it’s in a private partitioned area).
From a compliance perspective, Google offered no direct method for archiving e-mail in a way that it could be easily “discovered” later, perhaps due to an investigation by a Federal agency. While these two issues were not of primary concern to many small businesses, they’re clearly issues that are of import to big businesses and public corporations. The same sorts of companies that couldn’t possibly consider Google Apps for e-mail without an easy migration path off of Exchange Server or Lotus Notes.
Includes a security code option to prevent the "babysitter scenario" ("where you come home to find a bunch of movies on your TiVo that you didn't order")
The two companies joined together in March to deliver Amazon's Unbox download service to TiVo machines, but the feature required customers to place their orders on a computer through Amazon's Web site.
Now, PC intervention won't be needed. The new "Buy on TV" feature allows TiVo users to search Amazon's video catalog and rent or purchase titles using their TiVo's remote control.
It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft "software + services" advances, e.g., SaaS as it has done with Energizer (including hosted Exchange + SharePoint + LCS), are broadly factored into the analysis
Microsoft played down the notion that Google’s acquisition of Postini would create more competition for Exchange and other Microsoft applications.
“What we are hearing from our customers is that they are looking for an experienced solutions provider,” said Roger Murff, director of marketing for unified communications services at Microsoft. The deal is “further validation that we are doing the right thing and have been doing the right thing for several years,” Mr. Murff said.
If that's the primary focus, they should acquire Zimbra
Taking further aim at one of Microsoft's core franchises, Google said yesterday that it would acquire the e-mail security and management company Postini for $625 million. The deal underscores Google's ambitions to become a serious player in the business of selling software to companies and organizations, in competition with Microsoft and others.
With Postini deal, Google sharpens aim at Microsoft - The Boston Globe
It'll be interesting to see if Postini takes a momentum hit because of its new parent
So Google’s entry into the corporate software business promises to exponentially disrupt an industry that was already in turmoil, because of the prospect of a shift from selling software to software as a service. Now Google may well offer software free or at very low cost because it can insert advertising. Even if some companies would pay to offer their employees ad-free tools, Google’s global network of services may be able to help it underbid smaller rivals.
As an aside, if Google does succeed in convincing companies to accept advertising on their internal systems, it may become the replacement for trade journalism. Instead of advertising your widget maker in Widgets Today, you could simply buy an ad on Google that will appear every time someone reads an e-mail or writes a presentation about making widgets.
Google Goes Corporate - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
Wow -- the security services vendor dance floor is rapidly emptying...
Postini supplies on-demand communications security and compliance products to more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide. Google said the deal could enable it provide organizations with more hosted services similar to its Google Apps package, which includes its e-mail service Gmail, Calendar, and Talk, its messaging service.
Google to buy e-mail security company for $625 million | CNET News.com
Interesting multi-part comparison; start here for the multi-page overview
The iPhone is undeniably a thing of beauty. It represents a shift in user interaction, much like the recent "Surface" table Microsoft released. However, once you get past the exterior and superficial aspect of the iPhone, it falls short of what I expect from a $500 gadget — not to mention the $2000 fees a subscriber will rack up during their two year service plan. In fact, the iPhone is really nothing more than a tease — it’s full of potential, but thanks to DRM and a very restrictive environment it is a disappointment.
JotSpot sightings -- see this post from my Burton Group colleague Mike Gotta for more details.
Google is adding JotSpot, which the company acquired in October 2006, to the Google Apps, according to Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise. Google Apps currently includes mail, calendar, instant messaging, Web page creation, documents and spreadsheets.
JotSpot will bring wikis and easy to build team Web sites to the suite. The company has been in the process of moving JotSpot to the Google infrastructure to gain reliability and scale efficiencies, Girouard said, but he didn’t disclose when JotSpot would become available.
Collaborative Thinking: JotSpot To Surface & Other Google Musings
Dan Gillmor's take on iPhone 1.0 hype and reality
Apple’s new iPhone may well be a revolutionary product in some ways. But after testing one of the devices that went on sale late last month, I’m steering clear, at least for now, of the most shamelessly overhyped consumer product since Windows 95.
For all its admirable features–the large screen, gorgeous industrial design and advanced user interface in particular–the iPhone feels like a beta product. It’s still early in development and suffers from deal-breaker drawbacks.
Perhaps an opportunity for Sony ... to gain some share and lose a lot more money on PS3 sales.
Analysts said that Microsoft’s huge task of repairing Xbox 360s and the brand’s reputation would allow Sony a chance to gain customers. Given the amount of money that Microsoft is setting aside for repairs, as many as a third to one-half of all Xbox 360s may need to be fixed. Microsoft has declined to specify the extent of the problem.
Sony Cuts PlayStation 3 Prices as Many Xboxes Fail - New York Times
Timely reality check
Blog search-engine startup Technorati's own technorati, including its chief technologist and vice president of engineering, are leaving. With these heavy-hitters will go some of the site's geek credibility, while Google siphons away some of its traffic. It's all part of the Silicon Valley life cycle.
Timely corporate blog reality check; see the link below for more details
Last weekend a corporate Google blog raised a stink by blasting Michael Moore's new documentary, Sicko, and offering to help the health care industry defend itself with Google ads.
The blog posting generated much justified criticism in the blogosphere, and within a few days the blog writer wrote another blog entry clarifying that the opinion was hers alone and not the company's.
Google on 'Sicko' criticism--'We blew it' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
One way around the immigration visa issue...
Microsoft Corp. today announced that it intends to expand its presence in Canada by opening a new software development center in the greater Vancouver, British Columbia, area. The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will open in the fall of 2007 and will be home to software developers from around the world.
“Microsoft is a global company, and our greatest asset is smart, talented, highly skilled people,” said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. “Our goal as a company is to attract the next generation of leading software developers from all parts of the world, and this center will be a beacon for some of that talent.”
The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will operate as one of a handful of development centers outside the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters; the others are located in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel.
In addition, the company houses research and development centers in the United Kingdom, India, China and the Silicon Valley. The Microsoft Canada Development Centre builds on recently announced expansions to Boston two weeks ago and Bellevue, Wash., two months ago. The Vancouver area is a global gateway with a diverse population, is close to Microsoft’s corporate offices in Redmond and allows the company to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.
Related to the Cringely article referenced in an earlier post this morning
Across the nation, people looking to make a quick and easy profit bought one, two or as many phones as they could by recruiting friends to stand in line with them. Many of them were the first to get in line, camping overnight outside the stores. But now they are finding that the iPhone is much more like a Harry Potter book than a hard-to-find Wii video game machine: a great thing to be one of the first to own, but not high in resale value because supply is not constrained.
IPhone Futures Prove to Be a Bad Investment - New York Times
Ouch...
Company officials said that Microsoft had sold 11.6 million Xbox 360 units by the end of June, shy of the 12 million units the company had predicted. The Xbox 360, which first went of sale in November 2005, is currently the best-selling game machine in the United States, according to NPD, a market research firm.
The size of the anticipated repair bill suggests that a third to as many as half of the machines are flawed.
Microsoft to Spend $1.15 Billion for Xbox Repairs - New York Times
Useful analysis/speculation; see the full post for more, e.g., on how Apple successfully introduces disruptive technologies.
It is my understanding that Apple and AT&T are planning a fall rollout for full 3G iPhone service, with technical trials already underway in certain AT&T markets. AT&T's (formerly Cingular's) 3G uses a technology called HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), which is a combination of GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) and EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). It provides average mobile data download connections between 400 kilobits per second (kbps) and 700 kbps. Not as fast as any of us would like, of course, but the new service will be 3-5 times faster than the current EDGE network alone, making your iPhone suddenly 3-5 times faster than it was before, right?
I think so. The question here is whether 3G is already built into the iPhones shipping now or whether it will require a new model? Given that it is coming so soon after the iPhone introduction, I can't believe that even Steve would make us buy new phones. It is very likely that a firmware upgrade will awaken the 3G within all you iPhone owners.
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Faster iPhone faster! Kill!! Kill!! | PBS
Recommended reading -- click here to purchase via Amazon.com.
The book is a timely reality check on the "Web 2.0" trends, along with related phenomena such as MySpace and YouTube. Especially recommended for parents of teenagers. I don't agree with every assertion in the book, but I consider it a thought-provoking, important, and well-written survey of some timely and troubling new realities.
For more context:
NYT review (which led me to purchase the book...)
Lawrence Lessig review (which I found after searching for the title in Google) -- rather twilight zone-ish but interesting
Indeed, the range and severity of some of the reviews I found from my Google search tend to reinforce my sense that Keen is right about many things.
Amazon.com: The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture: Books: Andrew Keen
Strange days indeed
In the field of technology services, Mr. Levy said, the essential skill is “often a lot more about business knowledge than it is about software technology — and it’s a lot harder to ship that kind of work overseas.”
The offshore specialists in India are learning that lesson. As they increasingly compete for higher-end work, the Indian companies are hiring thousands of workers this year in the United States, adding an odd twist to the offshoring trend. Tata alone plans to recruit 1,000 workers in America, said Surya Kant, president of the company’s American unit, for “the near-shore work that requires regular contact with clients in person.”
This one warrants a Fake Steve Jobs entry...
The iPhone doesn't look, sound or feel like other cellphones. With its smooth, almost button-free contours, it could be the product of an advanced, alien civilization.
Rob Pegoraro - Apple's iPhone Is Sleek, Smart and Simple - washingtonpost.com
Yikes
Call it the case of hiring a fox to guard the hen house. A senior database administrator at a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. who was responsible for defining and enforcing data access rights at the company instead took data belonging to about 2.3 million consumers and sold it to a data broker.
The broker in turn sold a subset of the data to other marketing companies. The stolen data included names, addresses, birth dates, bank account and credit card information, the company said in a statement released today.
Database admin steals 2.3M consumer records at Fidelity National subsidiary
The invisible hand slaps eBay iPhone speculators...
Except for one: A true shortage. Despite the media hype, long lines and huge sales, the shimmering handhelds remain available for sale in some Apple and AT&T stores and at both companies' Web sites.
As of Monday evening, there were still more than 5,000 unclaimed iPhones on eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), mostly of the 8-gigabyte variety. On Sunday, a blogger at Newsvine analyzed data on the iPhone auctions and said that 52% of iPhones on the site didn't sell. The median profit for iPhone sellers was a measly $34.16.
Timely Google reality check; read the full article for more on the trust issue.
Google has used these financial flows to increase investment into new developments (e.g., its payment service, Google Checkout) and has recently increased its workforce by more than 10%, to slightly above 12,000. However, despite these developments, Google remains dependent on revenue from online text advertising (AdSense), which makes up 99% of the company's income. Google's rise owes much to its engineering prowess (the capacity of its PageRank algorithm to deliver the pages users want), but also the "two kids in a garage" myth: two Stanford students turning a small start-up into a multibillion-dollar business.
Not a happy turn of events for SAP...
Amazing how quickly a Justice Department investigation can change your perspective on an issue like this. Because today it appears that Kagermann would like nothing more than to settle this matter quickly and out of court. “I personally was surprised and disappointed that Oracle had not chosen to talk directly to me as soon as they felt something was wrong,” Kagermann said during a conference call. “We are strong competitors, but we are also parties within the industry, which has an established working practice of addressing matters of concern first between the companies rather than going directly to the court.”
Oracle CEO a Bit Smugger Than Usual Today | Digital Daily | John Paczkowski | AllThingsD
Another excellent ACM Queue interview (and another perplexing instance of the dead-tree version of the publication being updated weeks before the companion site). This one, with DBMS legend Michael Stonebraker, is certain to be controversial. Hopefully the somewhat funky acm.org URL for the interview will be accessible to people without ACM Digital Library accounts.
Over the past 30 years Michael Stonebraker has left an indelible mark on the database technology world. Stonebraker’s legacy began with Ingres, an early relational database initially developed in the 1970s at UC Berkeley, where he taught for 25 years. The Ingres technology lives on today in both the Ingres Corporation’s commercial products and the open source PostgreSQL software. A prolific entrepreneur, Stonebraker also started successful companies focused on the federated database and stream-processing markets. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998 and currently is adjunct professor of computer science at MIT.
Interviewing Stonebraker is Margo Seltzer, one of the founders of Sleepycat Software, makers of Berkeley DB, a popular embedded database engine now owned by Oracle. Seltzer now spends most of her time teaching and doing research at Harvard, where she is full professor of computer science. She was kind enough to lend us her time and travel down the Charles River to speak with Stonebraker, her former Ph.D. advisor, at MIT’s striking Stata Center.
My Burton Group colleague Guy Creese on a key content archiving/electronic discovery acquisition.
Autonomy announced this morning that it was buying ZANTAZ, a company that offers SaaS-based archiving and e-Discovery services, for approximately $375 million in cash. This acquisition gives Autonomy a vertically-oriented (records management, electronic discovery) SaaS footprint, and highlights the growing importance of delivering content management services via SaaS. Search companies impacted by this move would include Autonomy's arch rival, FAST Search, as well as Recommind, a niche player that has targeted the legal market.
Sign of the times...
CNET News.com doesn't know who FSJ is. But we do know what he thinks. On Monday, just days after Jobs' huge public relations effort build around the launch of the iPhone went off mainly as planned, FSJ sat down for an open-ended instant-message conversation with News.com. The only ground rule? That there be no discussion about his true identity. But given that the real Steve Jobs hasn't talked to CNET in years, the interview was conducted as our first such opportunity in a very long time.
I'm still willing to bet Kara Swisher is at least part of the FSJ scene.
Straight dope from Fake Steve Jobs | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
More fun from the standards zone
Like it has done with its Open XML specification, Microsoft is pushing its XML Paper Specification (XPS) alternative to PDF through the standards bodies. And just like the case with Open XML, Microsoft’s competitors are lining up to diss Redmond’s standards moves.
Even Microsoft’s critics admit they don’t like the “heavy-handed” way that Adobe turned PDF into a standard. But they are equally unenamored of Microsoft’s plans to try to get “open standards” status for XPS. The most-often-stated objection to Microsoft’s XPS push: A standard shouldn’t be created, administered and maintained by a single vendor. Otherwise, it’s not really “a standard” in the pure sense of the term.
» Microsoft submits XPS alternative to PDF to ECMA for standardization All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
All your number are belong to Google...
Google said yesterday that it had bought GrandCentral Communications, acquiring a service that lets people use a single number for all their phones.
Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
More NetSuite details -- no WSJ subscription required for this article.
NetSuite, an on-demand applications company controlled by Oracle's Larry Ellison, has filed for an auction-style initial public offering, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company, which hopes to raise $75 million based on its registration filing fee, is currently controlled by Tako Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lawrence Investments that is owned by Larry Ellison, Oracle founder and chief executive.
So, the iPhone sorta sucks as a phone, but otherwise it's pretty cool... See PC Mag's full review for more details.
It's the best portable media player ever. It's possibly the most fun we've ever had with a handheld device. It browses the Web like a champ. Yet as a voice phone and a messaging device, it's a loser. The iPhone is full of contradictions.
Fun new interface for navigating multimedia. Huge screen looks amazing. Terrific Web browser. Syncs well with PCs and Macs. YouTube function is great. Functions flow seamlessly into each other. Built-in speaker for voice calling and music.
Poor business e-mail and PIM connectivity. Bad audio quality on phone calls. Tons of "GSM buzz" on nearby speakers. Virtual keyboard hard to type on. No phone functionality with iPod speaker docks. No FM radio.
Digital turnip twaddling -- coming soon
Right about now, Steve Jobs is probably seething. The reviews of Apple's iPhone are in, and they're great. But Apple's chief is known to be almost as thin-skinned as he is secretive. This diva reads his press clips, and you can bet he's already stirring up his minions as he prepares for his next performance: iPhone 2.0.
Paul Thurrott's iPhone impressions. He has a more detailed review here.
Disappointed users notwithstanding, the device itself lives up to much of the hype. The technology in the iPhone, from the cool touch screen with unique zooming functionality to the rotating screen, usually (but not always) works as advertised. The battery life is surprisingly good for a device of this kind, even when performing battery-unfriendly tasks such as Web browsing or video playback. Functionally, however, the iPhone is a mixed bag. The built-in applications are usually excellent, but a curious mixture, and you can't download any new applications. Some iPhone features seem half-baked or are missing altogether. For example, although the iPhone sports "visual voicemail" (which is excellent), it doesn't support basic cell phone features such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). The iPhone Web browser is the best ever on a mobile device, but because Apple chose its own Safari browser, it's incompatible or non-optimal with many Web sites, especially those specifically designed for smart phones. For every vaunted feature, it seems, there's a caveat.
All this said, the iPhone is as revolutionary as Apple has claimed. It's just a typical 1.0 product, with lots of room for improvement. I'll continue to track Apple's progress with this intriguing device and will review the iPhone later this month. In the meantime, you can check out my first impressions, along with various photo galleries, screenshots, and other iPhone articles, on the SuperSite for Windows.
An interesting juggling act for Larry Ellison
Mr. Ellison's personal wealth is well-documented. As of April, he held more than 20% of Oracle's shares, a stake valued at more $24 billion. Mr. Ellison owns about 74% of NetSuite's common stock -- with a 61.1% stake of his own and 6.5% stakes apiece in trusts for his children, David and Margaret, according to the filing. NetSuite didn't estimate the number of shares it will sell or the price expected in the offering, to be conducted through an auction.
[...]
His holdings could pose tricky corporate-governance issues. As chief executive and a director of Oracle, Mr. Ellison is a major decision maker there. At NetSuite, he wields control over most matters requiring shareholder approval -- including the election of directors, executive compensation plans and approval of significant transactions.
Stimulus-response...
If Massachusetts embraces Open XML, it'll be the latest in a string of victories for Microsoft in its bid to protect its Office business. After Massachusetts disclosed its policy shift, legislators in Florida, Texas, California, Oregon, and Connecticut filed bills that would have mandated the use of an open document format. But aggressive lobbying by Microsoft defeated them all.
Andrew Updegrove, a Boston lawyer who tracks the open document dispute, said that Microsoft's embrace of its Open XML provides more choices to consumers, because rival software companies can make compatible products. "If you look at it from the standpoint of Microsoft customers, it's a good thing," Updegrove said.
State will keep Office after Microsoft makes change in software - The Boston Globe
Hmm -- high offer price variability, but lots of 8 gig iPhones on eBay for less money than I expected... Maybe Apple should start buying a few, to keep the hype rolling.
eBay - iphone, Phones w o Service Contracts, Phones w Service Contracts items on eBay.com
Typical reality distortion field instance:
So are you worried about the extraordinary expectations for the phone, I asked Jobs? "Not really," he replied, "because it's actually even better than people expect!" That is an extravagant claim, but my reading of the early reviews from people like Walt Mossberg and David Pogue leads me to believe it isn't much overstated.
Meanwhile, also on the Fortune site: The iPhone is business media’s Paris Hilton
The news value of the product launch doesn’t merit all the coverage it is getting - but yet everytime The Browser writes about the iPhone we get tons of reader feedback. (Some of it comes from Apple (AAPL) enthusiasts who seem to pore over every sentence looking for hidden or overt anti-Apple bias.) So we feed the beast with more iPhone stories and blog posts.
And like Paris Hilton, the iPhone won’t go away. To paraphrase New York magazine’s Undulating Curve of Shifting Expectations
