google - Gary Edwards on Diigo

Project 10 to the 100th

Repurposing the Microsoft desktop monopoly to save the Open Web

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Why Google Isn't Enough - Forbes.com

One key refrain that expresses this trend is heard in companies around the world: "Why can't we have a Google inside the four walls of our company?" While at first this seems like a good idea, the problem of using search inside a company is much more complicated than just indexing documents, throwing up a search box and asking people if they feel lucky.

This week, JargonSpy explores just what "enterprise search" means and why it is a complicated challenge that is becoming increasingly urgent for most companies to solve.

Tags: search, google, webkit, wikiword, rdf, metadata on 2008-09-23 -All Annotations (1) -About

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Will Collaboration Pit Cisco Against Microsoft, Google? - GigaOM

the growing popularity of cloud computing means corporate data centers will increasingly start to look like Internet data centers. Cisco has already recognized that as the “network” continues to become the focal point around which our digital personal and work lives revolve, the opportunity to make money will be immense. That’s why Chambers never misses an opportunity to talk about “collaboration.”

For instance, in the press release announcing the company’s latest numbers, he said: “We believe we are entering the next phase of the Internet as growth and productivity will center on collaboration enabled by networked Web 2.0 technologies.” But Cisco isn’t the only one with this vision — Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) are thinking along these lines as well, and are much further ahead in the game.

Tags: webkit, chrome, cisco, webex, sharepoint, microsoft, google on 2008-09-17 -All Annotations (2) -About

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The Omnigoogle | Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog

It’s this natural drive to reduce the cost of complements that, more than anything else, explains Google’s strategy. Nearly everything the company does, including building big data centers, buying optical fiber, promoting free Wi-Fi access, fighting copyright restrictions, supporting open source software, launching browsers and satellites, and giving away all sorts of Web services and data, is aimed at reducing the cost and expanding the scope of Internet use. Google wants information to be free because as the cost of information falls it makes more money.

Tags: webkit, google, chrome, microsoft on 2008-09-11 and saved by6 people -All Annotations (28) -About

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Google on Google Chrome - comic book

Google Chrome is Google's browser project based on the extraordinary WebKit portable layout engine. Yes, Google has written their own open source browser. The reasons for Google taking this unusual step are very compelling - as this excellent presentation explains.

I also think Chrome will be a game changer. The WebKit engine shows up in Adobe's Apollo RiA and, Apple's SproutCore-Cocoa RiA model. Microsoft of course offers the OOXML-XAML-Silverlight RiA that is based on .NET-WPF proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces. These are RiA efforts can be used as either browser plug-ins or stand alone runtimes.

Now Google has entered the RiA fray with both feet coming down hard on a browser based runtime engine. Google RiA isn't a "Plug-in". It's the browser as both a browser and RiA runtime engine. Very cool. Let the battle begin!

Tags: google, chrome, silverlight, apollo, webkit on 2008-09-01 and saved by22 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Google bets future on improving Client, Connectivity, and Cloud | Ed Burnette’s Dev Connection | ZDNet.com

5 page article covering Google's vision of the future Web. Excellent stuff.

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Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX « counternotions

WebKit is Apple's Trojan Horse! Excellent introduction to WebKit presented in the context of Adobe and Microsoft RiA's.

Tags: webkit, RiA, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Sun on 2008-06-18 -All Annotations (0) -About

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A Cloudy Forecast for the Enterprise - Here comes Google | InternetNews Realtime IT News -

Google moves into the Enterprise Cloud arena, and has some interesting things to say:

Cloud computing will give rise to the 'power collaborator', who will "connect with people and find dispersed information across an organization and make it relevant," said speaking in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference continuing through Thursday.

Tags: cloud-computing, google, enterprise20 on 2008-06-12 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Is MSOffice the new Netscape? | Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog:

Microsoft faces down threats from Google, IBM and SalesForce.com with it's threat to enterprise IT - MSOffice as the ultimate browser.

Tags: msoffice, mesh, xaml, google on 2008-05-16 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Google Office productivity alternatives are "trapped inside the browser". MSOffice, Silverlight, Live Mesh and Adobe Flex "RIA" browser alternatives are comparatively feature rich and powerfull.
post by garyedwards on 2008-05-02

One of the cornerstones of Microsoft's competitive strategy over the years has been to redefine competitors' products as features of its own products. Whenever some upstart PC software company started to get traction with a new application - the Netscape browser is the most famous example - Microsoft would incorporate a version of the application into its Office suite or Windows operating system, eroding the market for the application as a standalone product and starving its rival of economic oxygen (ie, cash). It was an effective strategy as well as a controversial one.
Google is trying to pull a Microsoft on Microsoft by redefining core personal-productivity applications - calendars. word processing, spreadsheets, etc. - as features embedded in other products. There's a twist, though. Rather than just incorporating the applications as features in its own products, Google is offering them up to other companies, particularly big IT vendors, to incorporate as features in their products.
Add Sticky Note
- It's easier to re purpose MSOffice for the Web rather than try to replace it. For consumers, replacing MSOffice is easy. For businesses and organizations that depend on MSOffice bound business processes, rip out and replace is impossibly difficult, disruptive and costly.
  
  Microsoft owns the client in "client/server". They seek to own both the client and the Web-Stack in the emerging "client/Web-Stack/server" model. For Microsoft, this means controlling the transition of MSOffice bound business processes from the desktop to the Web-Stack.
  
  To pull this off, Microsoft had to garner control of the formats and protocols future web enabled business processes would depend on. MSOffice does not produce clean, standards clompliant W3C HTML, XHTML, CSS, XForms, SVG, SWF, PDF or RDF. And it never will if Microsoft has their way.
  
  Instead, Microsoft has provided these transitioning business processes with a complete set of proprietary dependencies based on ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML and a conversion component to the proprietary XAML "fixed/flow".
  
  XAML is of course part of the proprietary Windows Presentation Foundation layer set of technologies. Other aspects of WPF include Silverlight, Smart Tags and LINQ. All proprietary.
  
  The Microsoft "Web-Stack" is based on the Exchange/SharePoint/SQL Server core, which has in recent years become an unstoppable juggernaut - rolling OSS and proprietary alternatives alike. The success of the MS Web-Stack is based on one simple advantage: superior integration and interop with the MSOffice-Outlook desktop "cliient".
  
  I would argue that MSOffice can be re purposed using the developer plug-in model provided for MSOffice, and, reverse engineering the relevant MSOffice-Outlook <> Exchange/SharePoint connecting protocols. Using the plug-in model, we are able to to produce standards compliant open web formats. Using the reverse engineering approach, we can tap and redirect connectivity cha
  posted by garyedwards on 2008-05-16
Google's advantage here doesn't just lie in the fact that it is ahead of Microsoft in deploying Web-based substitutes for Office applications. Microsoft can - and likely will - neutralize much of that early-mover advantage by offering its own Web-based versions of its Office apps. Its slowness in rolling out full-fledged web apps is deliberate; it doesn't see Google Apps, or similar online offerings from other companies, as an immediate threat to its Office franchise, and it wants to avoid, for as long as possible, cannibalizing sales of the highly profitable installed versions of Office.
Add Sticky Note
- No! Microsoft has provisioned MSOffice with proprietary web connectivity and collaboration. The days of highly profitable MSOffice sales are perhaps over, replaced by the highly profitable MS Web-Stack - Mesh model.
  posted by garyedwards on 2008-05-16
It knows that, should traditional personal-productivity apps become commonplace features of the cloud, supplied free or at a very low price, the economic oxygen will slowly be sucked out of the Office business. That doesn't necessarily mean that customers will abandon Microsoft's apps; it just means that Microsoft won't be able to make much money from them anymore.
Add Sticky Note
- This is the IBM approach to defeating Microsoft. Suck out the oxygen of MSOffice profits. The only difference is that IBM uses the "free" shared source application OPenOffice.org to achieve this goal.
  posted by garyedwards on 2008-05-16
Microsoft may eventually win the battle for online Office applications, but the victory is likely to be a pyrrhic one.

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Google Search To Surpass Size of Microsoft Windows in 2009 - Silicon Alley Insider

The Henry Blodgett article comparing Google and Microsoft. Excellent source!

Tags: MSOffice, google, microsoft, web-platform on 2008-05-14 and saved by4 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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The "Windows monopoly+Office monopoly=Microsoft" story was absolutely true 10 years ago, but less so now.

1. It looks as if the "Office" revenue figures are coming from MSFT's reported revenues in the Business segment. That's not all Office. Based on what they've said at the last few Financial Analyst Meetings, Exchange is approaching $2B/year, SharePoint is about $1B/year, and Dynamics (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions) is more than $1B per year. I also know that Project has been a $1B/year business for a long time (believe it or not), and products such as Comms Server and Visio contribute around $500m/year. Margins on all these products are lower than on Office, but most (not Comms Server) are profitable.

2. In addition to all the non-Office products that compose its Business segment as mentioned above, the Server and Tools business (Windows Server, SQL Server) is profitable (30% margins) and growing revenues average of 15% for the last six years. Not monopoly, but a good business.

Look at all these stats together, and seems like they should get out of search and advertising and sell off (or scale back to maintenance mode) most of the consumer online sites, focusing instead on hosted business apps--they're already doing it with Exchange and SharePoint, why not Office? If somebody's going to canniblize their "real" business, it might as well be them.

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A reminder of why Microsoft wanted Yahoo | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Review of Henry Blodgett's predicitve analysis that within the next year Google's search revenue will surpass Microsoft's revenue from Windows. MS still has MSOffice and the Exchange/SharePoint/SQL Server juggernaut. But Blodgett fearlessly predicts the beginning of the end fo rthe great monopolist. Great quote from Microsoft's Ben Slovika.

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Live Mesh as the next information bus :: Incremental Blogger » Blog Archive »

More review of the Gilmopre Gang interview

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Microsoft Says Yes With Mesh While Google Waits On Officenomics

Techcrunch review of a recent Gilmore Group interview with MS Live Mesh product manager

Tags: mesh, microsoft, google, yahoo, cloud-computing on 2008-05-06 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Whimsley: Mr. Google's Guidebook

Mr. Google's Guidebook

Whimsley Hall is now strewn, like Miss Haversham's house, with cobwebs and dust. Most visitors no longer come in by the front door to take a tour. Instead, Mr. Google (a travel agent who doubles as our butler) directs them straight down to the basement where the family archives are kept and tells them to look at one particular historical document called The Netflix Prize: 300 Days Later. They read this and then they walk right out.

Tags: carr, google on 2008-03-28 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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What Cloud Means to Marketing Forecast - Nick Carr The Big Switch

There are dark sides to the blurring of media and software. As companies become more adept at tracking the activities and preferences of people, the temptation to monitor and even manipulate personal behavior will grow ever stronger.

Continued fragmentation
We are also likely to see a continuing fragmentation of media and audiences, as sophisticated software algorithms are used to create custom bundles of content geared to individual preferences. Google has said it wants to store "100% of a user's data" inside its data centers, enabling it to achieve what it calls "transparent personalization." At that point, the company would be able to automatically choose which information to show you, and which to withhold, without having to wait for you to ask.

Of course, the value of advertising would grow substantially in this scenario. But what would happen to the common culture that provides the glue for society? The mass media that emerged from the electric grid a century ago had plenty of flaws, but it did help to bring people together. Our new computing grid promises to reprogram not only advertising and marketing but also culture with the cold logic of software code. Everything will become more efficient, but we may find that we've sacrificed a little bit of our humanity in the process.

Tags: cloud-computing, google, grid-computing, microsoft, server-farms on 2008-03-17 and saved by4 people -All Annotations (0) -About