Posts by Techwriter10

I'm not sure where you're going with this argument, Carling. If anything the proliferation of netbooks would mean more work getting done on the Web on web sites. Further, I see the underlying OS like Linux and the web sites we visit as totally unrelated. Search engines like Google provide a way for us to find web sites we are looking for. I'm not sure what your nationality has to do with it either.

Ron

Mark Cuban, the eccentric owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, has a post in his blog this week suggesting a way to kill Google by paying the top one thousand most popular sites $1M each to leave the Google Index. He wonders if Rupert Murdoch's plan to leave the Google Index could mark the beginning of a full-scale exodus from Google, one which could be expedited with some cash payoffs from Microsoft. Now, I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that such a ploy would not fly with the government, but for the sake of argument, let's say it would. Why would you want to wipe out Google?

Pay Me, Pay Me, Pay Me My Money Down

I'm sure Microsoft is looking for ways to choke Google. After all, that's what competitors do, but I'm not sure it's in a top web site's best interest to abandon Google, no matter how much cash is involved. If I'm getting a fair amount of traffic from Google, and I make a lot of money, would the million dollar bribe be enough to entice me to cut off that gravy train?

I suppose it's possible. After all a million dollars is not a trivial amount of money to most of us, and if it involved other enticements like placement guarantees and ad deals, it might look good. What's interesting is that the numbers involved in a scheme like this would probably not make a company like …

At a time when prices are being driven down across the spectrum of electronics, one company clearly has avoided this trap: Apple. While others struggle to squeeze profits from a market that is becoming increasingly commoditized (sub-$200 netbooks anyone?), Apple maintains its edge and its hefty profit margin. It got me wondering just how Apple continues to charge prices far above the rest of the market and not only get away with it, but thrive.

Design

First of all, you have to start with quality. If you are going to charge a hefty amount for your products, you better make damn sure you make good ones. I know that critics will say that Apple's proprietary propensity is one reason it maintains control of its market, yet it doesn't seem to bother its loyal legion of customers as much as it does its critics. As I wrote in Apple's Value is so Much More Than Skin Deep, after using PCs for more than 20 years, I didn't come out of the womb as an Apple fan boy (see my missive: The Myth of the Apple Fan Boy):

I used the product and I fell in love with it...It is a gorgeous piece of engineering and I paid a lot of money for it, a lot more than I would have had I bought a comparable PC, but when you get down to it, in my long experience, there simply is no comparable PC.

Marketing

One of the great things about the iPhone is of course the App Store, which is a growing eco system of interesting applications. I tend to stick to the free ones, and not long ago I went and downloaded a bunch of new freebies. These are my favorites from that bunch:

Louvre

This is one cool app for art lovers. It opens to a picture of the outside of the Louvre with famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) glass pyramid, then displays a cover flow with the different parts of the app. You can explore Louvre artwork, take a tour, or explore rooms inside the museum. It's amazing, comprehensive and the navigation is elegant and simple. You can even bookmark favorite places, so you can find your way back easily.

Nasa

If you want to keep up with news from Nasa, this app is a must-have for Nasa fans. It has information on missions and includes images and educational video. For instance, this month it features a video on the Crab Nebula, which is visible in the November sky using a telescope. Like the Louvre app, it's fun and educational, but it also is a very smart move by Nasa because it lets people know what they're doing with our tax dollars (and a lot of it is pretty neat, let me tell you).

ESPN Score Center

I don't know how I missed this one before because it's an essential application for any …

You can always count on Rupert Murdoch, the cantankerous News Corp. chairman, for a good laugh and he didn't disappoint this week during an interview on Sky News Australia in which he boldly stated his sites would pull out of Google Search. In fact, he once again accused search engines of outright stealing his content.

Let's Examine The Facts, Shall We

Here's what Murdoch has to say about search engines:

Sky News: You've been particularly critical of what you call 'the content kleptomaniacs' and the plagiarists. Are you particularly talking about Google here?
Murdoch: Well, the people who simply pick up everything and run with it and steal our stories...they just take them.
Sky News: Who?
Murdoch: There's Google. There's Microsoft, um Ask.com. There's a whole lot of people.

If you go to Google News and enter a search for News Corp (or anything you like), you see a list of headlines, which are live links, the publication name and a blurb. You don't see the full story or even a full paragraph. There is just enough there to make a decision and click through. I'm wondering what exactly Google is stealing here.

The Sky News interviewer, David Speers, goes on to ask Murdoch is that not just driving traffic to his web site (which by the way, most sane business people see as a good thing), and Murdoch admits that it's just a headline (where in the previous sentence he suggested they were …

Good points Derek and definitely something that should be part of the overall discussion. Thanks for the comment.

Ron

I think it's great how people have continued to carry the metaphor out in your own ways. Thanks so much for all the wonderful, thoughtful comments. Fantastic.

Ron

Who knew I came up with a business idea with a post where I was just having a little fun. :-)

Glad it has stimulated a little conversation.

Ron

For the record, I would have put this in a general OS category, but there wasn't one, and since I lead off the post with a note about the Apple Store opening, I just picked that one as the forum.

I own machines with Windows, Linux and OSX on them.

Ron

The New York Times reported today that Apple has opened its first Apple Store in Paris, underneath the Louvre no less, and just two weeks after Microsoft opened up a Windows 7 cafe in Paris in another location. The idea of these two companies competing in a retail environment, and especially a Windows-themed cafe, got me thinking about what would happen if three cafes opened each run in the same style of the operating system it was named for. I figure it might look something like this:

Windows Cafe

The Windows Cafe is in a bland store front. The furniture consists of straight wooden chairs with tables with sharp angles. Unfortunately, every so often when you sit in a chair it crashes the to the floor, but you get used to this and figure it's just part of the experience of going to the Windows Cafe. (To be fair they have been testing chairs from a new manufacturer and they are reportedly less prone to breaking in this fashion.) Pictures of a smiling Bill Gates and Windows logos adorn the walls. The coffee tastes fine most of the time, but a surprising number of patrons get sick there, so that it's become standard practice to use hand sanitizer before you go in to protect yourself. The coffee is expensive, and refills are definitely not free, but it's a known quantity, and many people are comfortable going there.

Linux Cafe

The Linux …

"If we went into an “evil room” and had an “evil light” shined on us, and we then behaved in an “evil” way we would be destroyed… there is a fundamental trust between Google and its users.”
~Eric Schmidt, Google CEO

Google released an exciting new product today called the Dashboard. I don't usually call Google products exciting because it makes me sound like I'm writing their marketing literature, but the Dashboard provides a way to see an overview of all your activity across every Google product you use. And if you're like me, that's a lot. Instead of guessing what information Google has, you can now see it all in one convenient place.

Getting To The Dashboard

Accessing the dashboard is a simple matter. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Google.com.
2. Click Settings > Google Account Settings and your account page opens.
3. At the top of the page in the right column labeled Personal Settings, click View Data Stored with Account (next to the Dashboard label). The Google Accounts page opens with all of the information across each of your Google accounts.

Why It's Great

I always loved that quote at the top of this post from Google CEO, Eric Schmidt above. It suggests that for some reason we should just trust Google with our data. It's an absurd notion of course, and even more so in that ridiculous quote, but Google Dashboard is a good first step. …

Sorry skooda, but I don't have any invitations. I didn't' get any as a guest of the first round of people who were invited to test the product. Sorry.

Ron

Leslie Stahl had a piece Sunday night on 60 minutes on the supposed impact of piracy on the movie industry. (You can watch it here .) Her piece was so slanted toward the Motion Picture Association of America, it was almost laughable (if it weren't so maddening).

At one point, Stahl explained P2P networking using Bit Torrent in a way that made it sound like it was used exclusively for movie pirates and that it was the brand new gee-wizz technology--neither of which is true. In fact, many mainstream media companies are using P2P technology to deliver their content, and have been for years, because it's cheap and efficient.

BitTorrent is Mainstream, Baby

BitTorrent , the software that Stahl shows off in the piece was developed by Bram Cohen , who is Chief Scientist and company co-founder of BitTorrent, the company. His company, the one if you listen to Stahl's piece is responsible for moving pirated content around the internet, has many media companies as its clients.

According to its web site, clients include Fox, MTV, Warner Brothers, Lions Gate and Paramount. If the movie industry is so worried about piracy on BitTorrent, it certainly has no problem using its 100+ million client network to distribute content.

The MPAA flacks interviewed in the piece who suggest that pirates are stealing their profits neglect to say MPAA members are using the same technology the piece was demonizing.

Understanding …

There are no guarantees about Google, but the fact is we are using their tools for lots of tasks. As for the cloud questions, well, those are going to sort themselves out, but I think we will see more tasks moving to the cloud. I have the feeling that Google will create products for enterprises that are reluctant to put all of their internal conversations in the cloud.

Thanks again for your comment.

Ron

You should go to the Google Wave site though and sign up, so when they release another bunch you will be in line for one.

Ron

Thanks for the comment. I would if I could, but they didn't give any invitations to the second generation of users.

Ron

I go on in "The Bad" section to discuss that. It was supposed to be segue, but I apparently didn't do a great job of making the transition.

The fact is that Google Wave is a cloud application, regardless of whether Google ever develops a Cloud OS or not.

Ron

Hi:
Your English is fine, not to worry. I think it could be a project building tool. If you think about, my example was a simple instance of doing just that. We were able to coordinate and exchange information very quickly inside a Wave. I think that will be one of its strengths.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

A few weeks ago I received a Google Wave invitation from my friend David Knopf (after publicly begging for one in my post Hoping to Surf the Google Wave). Since then, I've had a chance to use it and I've seen the good, the bad and the ever-present potential of the tool. While it does have tremendous potential, I think some of my initial concerns as outlined in my post A Curmudgeonly Look at Google Wave, have proven true.

The Good

Just the other day, I was invited to be on a panel to discuss Google Wave at the Gilbane Conference in Boston on December 3rd. Larry Hawes, the Gilbane consultant organizing the panel, invited me to participate on Twitter and moved the conversation to a Wave. There, the participants were able to get an idea of the scope of the panel discussion, the logistics and organization of the panel and we were able to exchange bios and pictures for the conference program. We did this quickly and efficiently all inside a Wave.

As John Blossom, a panel participant who is president of Shore Communications, Inc and author of the book Content Nation, pointed out, we were able to use Wave to do in a few minutes, what would have taken hours and many emails back and forth to achieve with traditional email. It certainly proved the power of Google Wave, but at …

There was a good analysis in the NYT yesterday regarding the Google Android strategy, which according to author Saul Hansell, is intended not to make money for Google, but to block Microsoft from getting traction in the mobile space. Given that Google is giving Android away, it's a theory that makes a lot of sense.

Yes, There is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch

For Google, the apparent reason for giving Android away is that if it expands access to the internet, it increase the likelihood that people will use Google services and view Google Ads. And Google Ads are really what it's all about for Google. Hansell writes:

After all, Google isn’t approaching smartphones like a normal business. It has made Android open source available freely to any handset maker to use and change at will. It says its only reason is to expand the use of the Internet on cellphones because it believes this will allow more people to use its search engine and other products on which it sells ads.

He goes onto say that Microsoft is handling the Mobile Windows market like any other, charging for the right to install Windows Mobile on each phone, just as they charge PC makers to install Windows on each machine they sell.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Freedom?

Microsoft says when you get Win Mobile, you get a familiar interface, familiar tools and you can get up and …

There was a a lot of news coming out Microsoft and Apple last week:

* On Monday, Apple released its stellar earnings report.

* On Monday, Microsoft opened up the SharePoint 2009 Conference in Las Vegas

* On Tuesday, Apple released its latest product line

* On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a deal with Twitter to expose Twitter information in Bing

* On Thursday, Microsoft released Windows 7.

* On Friday, Microsoft released their earnings report, which was shall we say, less than stellar (compared to Apple's).

And so it went in a week full of big news. Google got into it too, announcing its own deal with Twitter. It was enough to make your head spin, but surely one thing that stood out among all that news was how well Apple did in its earnings and how poorly Microsoft did in comparison.

Apple Scores a Record Quarter

As I wrote the other day in Win 7 Left in the Publicity Dust, Apple had a quarterly earnings report for the ages:

Not only did they do well, they did freaking incredible scoring their best quarter ever. In the middle of the biggest recession in 50 years, Apple generated a whopping $1.67B profit.

You don't need to be a financier to know that's doing really well and the profits resulted in earnings of $1.82 per …

You're right. The way they released it has taken the air out of the sails as a starting point, but Windows is the flagship product for the company and you think it would warrant at least some respect internally. I haven't seen that David Coursey piece. I'll have to look for it. If you could leave a link for other readers who come by that would be great.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

It's supposed to be Windows 7's big week, but other news just seems to keep getting in the way. And it's not just competitors like the news coming out of Apple this week, it's big announcements coming from inside Microsoft too. You would think that Microsoft could at least keep its own house in order, but that doesn't seem to be the case this week.

Apple's Earnings Surprise

As Joe Wilcox writes in Beta News, the timing of Apple's news this week was not coincidental. On Monday Apple released its quarterly earning reports and it blew analysts' expectations away. Not only did they do well, they did freaking incredible scoring their best quarter ever. In the middle of the biggest recession in 50 years, Apple generated a whopping $1.67B profit.

Consider that Apple sold more than 3 million Macs and 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter. The only bad news was that iPod sales were down 8 percent as people gravitated toward the iPhone. Beyond that, the only thing Apple has to worry about is unrealistic expectations for next quarter.

Apple Releases new Toys

As though the outstanding earnings report weren't enough, Apple released a new line of Apple products on Tuesday generating yet another wave of publicity. There was the new Mac Book, the updated iMac, the new Mac Mini server and of course, the superbly named, Magic Mouse (who wouldn't want one, so much cooler sounding than …

Right that should go over very well, Vanax. :-) But perhaps they can have a panicking PC looking for his data in the next Get a Mac ad. That would be a kick in the head.

Thanks for the comment.
Ron

I've lived long enough to have learned The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned But that won't happen to us 'Cause it's always been a matter of trust ~Billy Joel, Matter of Trust

When word got out last week about the Sidekick data loss debacle , you knew it would be fodder for every cloud critic on the planet. When you're Microsoft and you lose data, there isn't going to be any place to hide. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, gets this.

That's why he was trying to soothe cloud consumer fears, while at the same time pushing the new SharePoint Online service in an interview with Network World yesterday, following his keynote at the SharePoint 2009 Conference in Las Vegas. Perhaps calling the data loss "not good" was minimizing the impact, but overall Mr. Ballmer seems to get the enormity of the problem (even while hoping to minimize it; that crazy political tightrope that CEOs like him must walk).

Kicking Sidekick data to the Curb

Microsoft had a major data loss last week involving Sidekick smart phones. This much is clear. There are indications (at least coming from Microsoft) that they are in the process of recovering the data, and that their initial fears that the data had been lost for good was fortunately not the case. But the Sidekick data disaster has to be seen in the context of the bigger cloud picture, …

In a story this week by German news magazine Der Spiegel, I was surprised to learn that German book publishers are actively avoiding the eBook market, fearing it will eat into their print publishing business, instead of seeing it as an obvious new market for consumers to read their books.

eBook Market Slow to Grow in Germany

For now, the eBook market in Germany is lagging far behind the US and other countries where eBook readers are being sold. In fact, according to numbers cited in the article, 10,000 readers have been sold in Germany. Recent projections have the Kindle selling 1.2M units in the US in the 4th quarter of 2009 alone (and that's just one manufacturer). German readers bought just 65,000 eBooks in the first six months of this year compared with some estimates that have Kindle owners buying 600,000 ebooks per *week*.

This is partly due to the way that Germany regulates its publishing industry keeping book prices artificially high in an effort to protect authors, publishers and small book sellers in a highly competitive marketplace, and partly because German publishers want to keep the prices of eBooks high.

To that end, eBooks are only made available only after the paper back version of book has hit stores, and then, unlike the US where the eBook is sold for a fraction of the cost of the hard cover version, German eBooks are sold at the cost of …

Network World reports that Microsoft has been able to recover much of the data:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/101509-microsoft-apology-sidekick-tmobile.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2009-10-15

Good point Shade01. Definitely not the best name!

Ron

I believe Ken Hess (who is our Linux blogger) writes frequently about virtualization. If we come across meaningful stories in those areas, you can be sure we will be writing about them. Definitely interesting areas of computing and worth writing more about.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Ron

I'm not quite technical enough to understand how the encryption key corruption could cause such a problem, but it seems like those who are paid to maintain the data would be aware of such a danger, no? And would plan for such a possibility? I don't think even a plausible explanation would excuse the data loss. It's up to Microsoft to make sure it doesn't happen.

Thanks for the conversation here. It's great when readers respond and get into a discussion around what I've written. I really appreciate it.

Ron

David:
While I appreciate the subtle distinctions of your definition, what you describe is how it was supposed to work. What this situation proves is not that this isn't an example of cloud computing because I would argue that it is, but that Microsoft failed the most basic requirements as a cloud vendor. It was definitely cloud computing in my view, just done very poorly.

Thanks for reading and for taking the time to comment.

Ron

No kidding! How stupid could they be? It's really beyond belief.

To put it mildly, it's been a bad week for cloud computing. First of all word got out that Microsoft, the keepers of the data for users of Sidekick phones completely hosed the data. I mean kaput, gone, vanished. See you later, bye. If you don't have a back up, you are pretty much screwed because the keepers of the data have committed the ultimate sin and lost it.

Meanwhile, the The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports that MobileMe might be having a data leak and letting people randomly see the contents of your address book. This is the kind of nightmare scenario that cloud computing naysayers always seem to bring up, but we quickly dismiss as not likely to happen. Well, it did happen and it happened twice in one week.

We're Not Talking an Outage Here

Last month, I made fun of they hysteria that developed when Gmail went down for a few hours in my post, The Day Gmail Stood Still: A Tale of Horror, but losing a service for a few hours is a minor annoyance. Losing your data? That's catastrophic and there is no sugar coating it. That these two cloud computing doomsday scenarios were perpetrated, not by some Mom and Pop cloud company, but by two of the largest computing organizations, Apple and Microsoft, makes the situation all that much worse.

Tough to Defend

As a fan of cloud computing, I tend to dismiss …

I have to say that I really hate the term "fan boy." It's usually used as a dismissive term to put down someone who speaks favorably of a product. It suggests that if you like a particular brand, it must mean that you blindly support everything that company does, and will come to its defense even when it's not warranted. The term is most often used with the word "Apple" in front of it, as in "oh, he's just an Apple Fan Boy."

If you speak positively about Apple products, it could be that they are often good, but it doesn't mean they're perfect. Nor does it mean you automatically defend every action of the corporation behind the brand. I use Apple products. I've got an iPhone, a Mac Book Pro and several iPods. I buy them because they are mostly well designed, they work very well and they look great. Yes, they're expensive, but in my 20 years of working with computers and gadgets, I would gladly pay for what I perceive as quality. That doesn't make me a "fan boy." It makes me a smart and reasoned consumer.

Definitely Not Flawless

All that said, it doesn't mean I don't go after Apple in this space when they deserve it because regular readers know that I do. I remember when I bought iPod Mini, having never used an iPod before, I sat there frustrated trying to figure out how to use it. Once I understood …

Nice going, Ken. Great stuff.

Ron

Hi js112:
Thanks so much for the view on the ground in China. It's great to get your perspective and thanks for the comment.

Ron

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Dell plans to build its own cell phone running Google's Android operating system, and release it some time next year. It's worth noting that Dell has tried to get into the gadget business before. They made a couple of failed stabs at the MP3 player market. They also tried a PDA back in the day. None of these attempts made much of a dent in the market. That's why I'm wondering why they think they can succeed in the crowded cell phone market.

Partnering with AT&T

The announcement includes news that AT&T will distribute the phones, which like the iPhone, will boast a touch screen, but even though Android phones have gained in popularity, if for no other reason than the sheer number of them, they will be competing at AT&T with some fairly heady company including Apple and Blackberry, not to mention the very nice Samsung Propel. I've been curious about Android phones for some time, and up until recently they were only available from T-Mobile and Sprint. There are also plans for Verizon to offer Android phones very soon. That AT&T now has at least one in the works certainly makes sense, but is Dell the right partner?

Apple Didn't Make Phones Either

It's worth pointing out that before the iPhone, Apple was famous for computers and MP3 players. They had never delved into the phone market, yet they've done …

In wide ranging interview with Peter Kafka of the Digital Memo Blog, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brinn did their best to give people the impression that Google was run by a couple of arrogant SoBs. Whether it was purchasing Android or suggesting that Google could never be evil because of the fundamental trust between Google and its users, they came off as cavalier and pretentious. (But to their credit, they weren't afraid to mention Microsoft by name or admit that Bing is good for competition, unlike Steve Ballmer who refused to name Google in an interview last week.)

See No Evil

Without a doubt my favorite part of the interview was where Schmidt suggested that it was simply not possible for Google to be "evil," whatever the heck that means, because users wouldn't stand for it. Here's what Schmidt said to Peter Kafka (in a quote that is positively Kafkaesque) when he asked him "Why won't you be like Microsoft in regard to antitrust?":

"If we went into an “evil room” and had an “evil light” shined on us, and we then behaved in an “evil” way we would be destroyed… there is a fundamental trust between Google and its users.”

Seriously, Eric? An evil room with an evil light? My goodness that's some heavy load of crap he's throwing there, isn't it? I have to admit I use a lot of Google tools (I'm writing this post …

Well, I'm hoping the devices get cheap enough that replacing them isn't a huge issue and that it includes automatic backup in the cloud, so you can access your content anywhere such as a home computer. I think the issue about carrying heavy back packs is a serious one. I have two teens and I can't believe what they carry around. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Ron

I'm sure Google doesn't go out of the way to mention Bing, but I have heard Eric Schmidt talk about Microsoft and Bing, so I don't think they have the same strategy going (at least not that I've noticed). I haven't downloaded IE 8, but it's worth checking out to see if that's the default. Thanks for the comment.

Ron

I'm not a web developer by trade, but I visit web sites all the time, and as journalist I'm looking for a couple of key things. First of all, I want to find your press page and a press contact. Short of that I want to find an email address. Note that I don't want to find a form, which could as far as I know never be seen by a human and rot in the IT dustbin for all time. In short, you want to make it really easy for people to contact you.

Don't Use A Form

Some companies seem to have a real fear of contact, but social media marketing guru Seth Godin writes in his blog this week that having a real email contact is essential to a successful web site. He points out that too many sites use an email form, some of which even limit the number of characters a person can write. What could be more unfriendly than that? You want to make it easy for your customers (and yes, journalists) to find you.

Godin guesses that many companies use the form because they are afraid of Spam. He's probably right, but as he says, you can filter the Spam a lot easier than you can find customers (or journalist s who really want to write about you). He even offers a trick of using a mailto: to link with a built-in subject line to help you identify …

I'm not sure about that. I've heard that Google is trying to limit it for starters because it's still in early testing, but I will let you know as soon as get my log-on information. Still waiting... :-)

Ron

Proving the power of public whining, a friend came through with a Google Wave invitation shortly after I published this post. It takes a few days to process, but as soon as I can sign in and use it, I will write a complete post on my experience.

Ron

I have watched you on the shore
Standing by the ocean's roar
Do you love me, do you surfer girl
~Beach Boys, Surfer Girl

Google Wave invitations went out last week to 100,000 lucky people and I didn't get one. I'm stuck on the shore line while the fortunate few are riding the first Google Wave. I don't mind telling you, I really want to get my hands on an invitation. I know what you're thinking if you're a regular reader: 'Aren't you the guy who wrote A Curmudgeonly Look at Google Wave when it was first announced?' Well ya, I was and that post (which is my second most popular ever with over 50,000 views) represents a snap shot of what I felt at the time, but I'm also a technology journalist and I'm innately curious, and I want to try this dammit.

What's This All About?

If for some reason, you're not familiar with Google Wave, you can learn more in this 8 minute Google video. It is an elegant looking email/communications/social/collaboration platform. You have the ability to share email and communication in a single interface, so instead of sending multiple emails or messages to multiple people, you point them to a single wave, which acts as a central communication hub where you can share text, documents, pictures and video (which you can edit and share in real time). Using the platform, you can build widgets. …

I don't think it's related to litigation worries. You can name your chief competitor without worrying about that. He didn't say anything that was terribly controversial. I would say it's more likely a strategy to keep their name out of the story. Of course by doing that, and me noticing, he made it part of the story, but I'm guessing that's what it's about.

Thanks for all the comments.

Regards,
Ron

Love Mel Brooks and I'm familiar with Engulf and Devour. I believe it was Art Buchwald who originally came up with the name to describe the ultimate corporation. Great image.

If you read my full body of work, Yonnie, you would see that I very rarely am complimentary to Microsoft, but I also call em I as see em, and in this instance, they have a lot of interesting new products coming together in a short period of time. It's impossible to ignore that and I wanted to point out the pattern to my readers. I don't think that makes me a sheep at all, just a careful observer doing my job as a blogger to help my readers make connections they might have missed.

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

On the face of it, you would think eBook Readers would be perfect for an academic setting, but according to a post on Engadget this week, Princeton students participating in a pilot program were unhappy with the Kindle DX's feature set, particularly ones essential to students such as annotation and highlighting. Given that eBook Readers at some point will be relegated to niche devices (if they aren't already), you have to think that the academic setting would be *the* perfect niche, and that means that one of the eBook manufacturers is going to have to step up and develop a product specifically geared to the needs of this market.

Why Academics?

Let's face it, text books are heavy, expensive and they use a lot of trees. They are also require frequent updating, forcing reprints and quickly making the paper versions obsolete. If a student could carry one light-weight device with all of the texts, hand-outs and homework, it would be make life so much simpler for them. Of course, there would need to be some cloud-based updating and backup because you know that some students would inevitably lose the device. The feature set should also include solid annotation and note-taking tools, the ability to highlight text and access related materials in online libraries and on the web. None of this is beyond the reach of the current state of technology, so it begs the question: Why hasn't someone created a device like this?

What do …

Most analysts I've read feel that the hardware most companies are using today won't be sufficient to run Windows 7.

In a strange part of what was otherwise and interesting and insightful interview with TechCrunch this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went out of his way to avoid naming Google, instead referring to them repeatedly as "the incumbent." This seemed to be a deliberate strategy and left me shaking my head wondering why he couldn't refer to Google by name. (The whole interview is interesting, so I encourage you to watch it, but the part I'm referring to begins at around 6:30.)

The Harry Potter Strategy

This reminded a bit of Harry Potter, where of course they refer to the evil Voldemort, as "he who must not be named." Perhaps by not naming Google, Ballmer (and by extension his strategy team) believe they can demonize the company and maybe reflect some of its own bad karma back to Google. It's important to remember that Google started this whole thing by inserting the "do no evil" nonsense into its business charter, which was no doubt a subtle dig at Microsoft.

These two companies could back on forth on this all the live long day and you wouldn't have a definitive answer. When companies get as large and rich as Google and Microsoft (and yes, Apple), they have the capacity to do great good and they have capacity to be evil. When the nature of the business is to destroy your competitor, some nasty crap can go down in the process.

…

I don't recall anyone suggesting that Baidu had better local search results. If anything, we agree that it's based more on the fact that it's made by Chinese for Chinese, more than anything else. But as I said, a third of the Chinese search market isn't so bad in the scheme of things.

Thanks for the comment.

Ron