I really liked my own test of the Samsung Galaxy Android Tab

I tested the Samsung Galaxy Tab and it is pretty sweet. It has a camera, some ports, and is much smaller and easier to use. Loved it.

Windows 7 has nothing to worry about from the Google Chrome OS

Windows 7 has nothing to worry about from the Google OS. The Google Chrome OS has gotten a lot of press. Google is good a getting press. Much better than Microsoft. For a long time everything Google did was going to change the world. The press is not so eager to report Google's many failures. Remember all the hype about Wave? Its retirement into Open Source gotten far less attention.

Well the Google Chrome OS is keeping up the tradition of basic non-efforts from Go0gle. Another project that sounded better in the news Google Chrome OS is a really stripped down version of Suse, and I mean really stripped down. It has Google Chrome and Open office and Evolution. It essentially can browse the Internet and write word pads.


Worst is it does not come with the tonnes and tonnes of free stuff you get on Ubuntu, and as for a samll Linux is lags well behind Puppy in features. Its just a very basic version of Linux with Google branding.

Microsoft certainly faces a lot of challenges in a world where the very concept of "computer" is being redefined by Android, Blackberry and Apple. But the Google Chorme OS, really Suse with Google and little else on it, is no real threat to either Windows 7 or Windows XP.

Microsoft will win the "Web 2.0" war on, of all issues, privacy

A few days ago, Facebook made what seemed to be a small tweak to its Friend Requests area. As first noted by Inside Facebook, the social network changed the way friend rejections work. Previously, you could either Confirm or Ignore (deny) a request. Now, Ignore has been replaced by “Not Now”. This new option takes some of the pressure off you having to reject people as it instead moves them into a state of limbo, where they’re neither accepted nor rejected. But it actually does a lot more as well.

You see, when someone requests to be your friend on Facebook, this automatically subscribes them to all of your public (“Everyone”) posts in their News Feed. Facebook doesn’t talk about this much, but it’s a very real feature, which we reported on in July of last year. You see these posts until this person rejects you (because obviously if they accept you as a friend, you’ll keep seeing them). So with this new Not Now button, and the removal of the simple rejection mechanism, Facebook has basically created a de-facto follow feature.

Facebook Has Quietly Implemented A De-Facto Follow Feature

A few years ago all these smart people were saying that the Cloud of the Web would wipe Microsoft out of business. Why would anyone, they argued, spend the money and effort to install copies of Microsoft Office, Windows, Exchange Server or SharePoint when all this functionality could be had in the public domain via new "Web 2.0" companies that charged little or simply placed ads on your content. In this model Google, Yahoo, and MySpace were to eat Microsoft alive as people stopped using Microsoft products first at home and then, or so the reasoning went, at work to reduce costs.

Well let me put my neck out a bit here and say no this is NOT how it will go down. No question sites like Facebook and Twitter are more interesting for consumers than say Excel or Word, and mobile devices right now live in a Universe pretty free of Microsoft, BUT the key money maker is still the ability of these "Cloud" based free or low cost services to move in to business. And this is where Microsoft will kick their back sides.

The thing is the temptation for any Web 2.0 site is to improve advertising revenue by compromising the privacy of users to collect more information about users. Further there is a key driver to keep most of the details of how information is managed secret from users and to protect public corporate images by trying to control what content is created and distributed.

In a word the Microsoft model is where one company produces all the TVs but their are lots and lots of TV stations and public access sites, while the Google model is where there is one TV station.

Companies, governments and organisations will NEVER allow their information to be managed in this way. They need to hold on to the information they make. They need to have full control over its life cycle. They need to decide how long to hold it and who to show it to. They need privacy and transparency to management. As far as business is concerned Web 2.0 mainstays like YouTube, Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and Flickr are good for marketing and little else. They pose significant dangers beyond just employees wasting their time at work.

So private companies are going to want to take advantage of Web 2.0 technology, BUT not use the Web 2.0 business model, and this is essential. People who write and talk about the Internet seem to just look at the technology and ignore the business model. They saw a Flickr in 2005 or a Google Docs in 2007 and stated "how can 1990s based technology sold by MS deal with this."

But the key issue is that 2 features were required for a Cloud coup against Microsoft:

1. was the Internet based technology making Microsoft's offering obsolete before Microsoft could respond,

2. a distribution model (like Open Source or Open Knowledge models) which could replace Microsoft's model in time.

Without the one two punch Microsoft could always respond in time. Certainly the technology evolved leaving Microsoft seriously behind, but the social models did not. Rather than getting something like Wikipedia or the blogosphere or independent content creators who felt morally and professionally obligated to be Open, Web 2.0 moved in to a murky world of Corporate Censorship/Branding mixed with Spying/Marketing. For private users this raises concerns but for corporations this makes them utterly impossible.

The inability of Flickr to provide a secured private service you could use at work to manage images, the inability of Google to get Docs popular or offer a secured version for businesses, the inability of Facebook for offer a trustworthy services, have all given Microsoft the time it needed to evolve SharePoint and now BPOS.

I know of one major global IT form which is actually going office Google Cloud services to BPOS right now.

The inability to provide a dedicated area that you control was what kept Web 2.0 companies like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo out of the Enterprise. And now that the system are getting more and more complex Microsoft "stack" model of a single vendor end to end is even stronger than it was 10 years ago.

The Social Computing Web 2.0 "revolution" provided the technology that could have crushed the Windows/Word view of the world. But the failure of Web 2.0 companies to develop business models flushed that opportunity down the toilet.

Google Recovery

Google, the internet search engine, has announced strong results for the first three months of this year.

"Google had a good quarter given the depth of the recession," said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.
"These results underline both the resilience of our business model and the ongoing potential of the web as users and advertisers shift online," he added.

(Remember that the dot coms all bombed?)

Privacy

This story confuses me. Since moving to the UK I have been shocked by the number of CCTV devices which mean everyone over here is being filmed, sometimes hundreds of times, every day.

But when images are placed on the Internet so that we know just a small fraction of the degree to which privacy has been destroyed people complain.

It is my take that people might like to know just how much of thier lives are being spied on by governments, companies, and criminals. But it looks to me that people would rather just ignore the true issue by killing the messanger.

Sad facts about Office Live vs Google Docs

Though Google Docs has more functionality that Office Live its UI is very confusing and even though it has been my Document editing platform for years I still have a hard time making use of most of the functionality. Office Live offers a better best fit to most users and a better UI, BUT, I started a paper in graduate school. I have 2 Linux computers and in the current form Office Live can't handle them. So I am continuing to do my graduate paper in Google Doc.

Is this a problem?

Traditionally Microsoft could count on total client ownership in most businesses. The occasional Mac was handled via a Microsoft Mac team. But with the rise of the micro-lap top more and more of your information workers are going to demand support to their very small machines that run better on Linux. As you so smaller and smaller Linux with Open Office becomes a better and better option.

As long as you have a few important people on Linux you can't really join them up to Office Live but you can to Google Docs. AND the two don't connect yet.

Maybe my love of Linux is blinding me to the fact that Microsoft own the desktop space and will continue to do so. Well for my own professional sake and for Microsoft future in the Cloud, they better either embrace Linux or hope that change does not come.

Microsoft testing new Internet search engine Kumo

Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed it is testing a new Internet search engine it hopes will power the US software giant out of distant third place in a market dominated by Google.

A Kumo.com search engine being privately tested by Microsoft workers is reportedly based on semantic technology that enables it to understand sentences and relationships between words.

Current search engines, including software used by Google, rely on matching words typed into search boxes with those found at websites and in data found on the Internet.

"There's a good deal of excitement brewing over this test, both internally and externally, which we're always glad to see," Microsoft Live Search general manager Mike Nichols wrote in an online message.

"Our hope is that our employees will give us great feedback on our new features and that it all becomes part of the external experience soon."

The Internet has buzzed with speculation regarding whether Microsoft intends to replace its Live Search with Kumo since an internal memo written about it by Satya Nadella, a Microsoft senior vice president, was leaked online this week.

Microsoft said Tuesday that the memo that ricocheted quickly about the Web "is in fact accurate."

Nichols posted a "sneak peek" screenshot of Kumo with his message at an official Live Search blog website.

Nichols said it remains to be determined whether the Kumo codename with replace "Live Search" when it makes its public debut.

"We're using the Kumo brand and URL for this test experience to make sure employees understand they're in a test experience," Nichols wrote.

"We believe this will encourage more active feedback. As for rebranding, it's something we're still considering."

Nadella said in his memo that statistics show that people searching online often don't find what they seek and that Internet hunts take more than 20 minutes in nearly half of the cases.

"We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks," Nadella wrote.

"During the test, features will vary by country, but you'll see results organized in a way that saves you more time."

Microsoft tried last year to buy Yahoo! for 47.5 billion dollars in a vain effort to merge online resources to better battle Google, which rules more than 60 percent of the US online search market.

Yahoo!'s share of the market is about 21 percent and Microsoft trails with 8.5 percent, according to recent figures from industry tracking firms.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has stated publicly that he is still open to a deal with Yahoo!, which recently hired a new chief executive who is mulling the California Internet pioneer's options.

Source

And the Google killer is?

Facebook - Google Image Search

Yahoo - Google Image Search

Microsoft Live - Google Image Search




Today I saw an ad for Orange mobile phone showing a combination of Cloud productions that would provide a killer app of mobile Cloud technology. What was striking is none of the products were owned by Google, in fact if Microsoft can get Yahoo, which I think they should, the product set would be dominated by Microsoft.

I see the killer application set of the 21st Century mobile user as based around an improved Windows. Hey I love Linux but the OS space is owned by Microsoft and with Mesh and Singularity it is clear that Microsoft can do better than Vista over the coming years.

Okay so what do you need for a Cloud:

1. Single Sign on Security

Provided by a .NET account. Microsoft is pretty advanced in their area.

2. Email

Hotmail is an established technology that can stand, IMHO up to GMail

3. Social Network

This space is owned by Facebook. Linkedin and MySpace also fill a cluster. Facebook has a very close relationship with Microsoft.

4. Blogging and Wikis

This is where Microsoft has been weak but Live promises to provide platforms for both. If you had a chance to check out Popfly you can see what possible.

5. Search

I think Google surface search is nearing the end of its usefulness. Microsoft is in a much better position for deep search the links back-end systems to an Internet search.

I have been cloud for 4 years and until recently I have had to use a lot of Google technology. I still love Google and I have nothing but good wishes for this amazing company that has done so much to structure the experience of going on line for everyday users. I just happen to think Microsoft has some massive potential NOW to take on Google.

Office Live vs Google Docs, and the Winner is?

Microsoft Office Live


I have been a long time user of Google Docs keeping my graduate school documents on it for some time.  I think Microsoft has hit a massive home run with Office Live.  The migration of Microsoft in to a web based Live product has been slow and painful, but Live just a better site than Google Docs.  The primary problem is the Live is Microsoft centric still and I can't use it on my Linux machines using Flock browser, but for an XP based machine the integration between Microsoft Office Live and Office 2003 and 2007 makes it a no brainer.  The site is also easier to use and provide more pre-existing business templates.