Mr Ballmer! Two times zero still makes zero....!

These financial ‘analysts’ make me laugh some times. Microsoft’s intended purchase of Yahoo is supposed to ‘loosen Googles grip on ads’, ‘rock the foundation of online search’, to name just a few of the quotes I have seen. Truth of the matter is that both Yahoo and Microsoft have negligible market share in online ads, and for a very good reason: Their platforms are both very bad and have very little presence. No one uses the Yahoo or Microsoft search engine – only first time internet users that use IE's default and basically don’t know what they are doing. Not a great target market. The Adwords platform is light years ahead of Yahoo or Microsoft, has the *entire* market and is backed up by excellent support from a basically excellent company. Just how two losers uniting is supposed to beat Google is beyond me. Or am I missing something? Microsoft is $44 billion down and has just doubled its online market share to Zero. Mr Ballmer, you won’t beat Google on search and ads. Make Windows and Office better, and you might have a fighting chance to survive the Google onslaught and avoid that smart little Apple right behind you morphing into a Windows, Office and ultimately Microsoft killer.

ODF Alliance - Microsoft OOXML 1-0

The ODF alliance, the organization proposing an open standard document format, hit back brilliantly at some "research" performed by the Burton Group (aka the Microsoft Propaganda Department) , in which it claimed OOXML was superior. Not surprisingly this "research" by the Burton group was provided free of charge - of course because it had been entirely funded by Microsoft in advance and is to be used as another piece in the Microsoft FUD strategy.

The answer of the ODF alliance provides a good read, check it out here. Its well written and i think a clear win for ODF! Not surprisingly the Burton Group also published some free "research" in which it warns against Google Domains. What a coincidence. I wonder who paid for that free "research". The Microsoft propaganda machine is obviously busy, but are people still listening?

Sending Exchange & Outlook to the digital trashcan.....

I recently chucked the Exchange / Outlook Fatware combo for Google Apps. And i havent looked back since. Google Apps comes with the best anti spam & anti virus in town, 6 gigs per mailbox (and counting), and is super easy to administer. You can access your mail anywhere and its backed up by Google. No need to worry about a backup mail service or about moving ISP. And its free too. What more can you wish for? Even Santa Claus cant improve on that.

Whats more, now I can actually search for mail efficiently (and find stuff). Truth is, Outlook hasn't really progressed since Outlook 97 - which wasn't very good to start with. But if you want to continue using Outlook, you can - Google recently added IMAP support. So you can replace those cumbersome public folders with Google IMAP enabled mailboxes. To top it off, Google Domains has calendaring too, as well as a neat little user portal.

If you want to start 2008 without mail hassles, check it out! Meanwhile, have a great New Year celebration :-)

Oracle volunteers for a hammering in the virtualisation market

Just read a post by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of eweek titled 'Is VMware a dead duck?'. I assume that article was not meant seriously, but in deed last week Vmware shares went down on the announcement that Oracle had 'entered' the virtualisation business. As if VMware with a technology lead from here to the moon and 95% plus market share, should have anything to worry about??

Oracle makes databases and knows nothing about virtualization. VMware on the other hand, has been doing virtualisation for more then 10 years and has fought off attacks on its core market succesfully. Microsoft's attempts have been pathetic (centered around its purchase of Connectix, a second rate technology it bought cheaply years back). Citrix just flushed $500 million down the toilet buying Xen Source (at least it knows its plumbing is OK). Well I'm off to buy some more VMware shares whilst they are still cheap (relatively)......

Patents stifle innovation and competition

Its long been known to most that patents are bad for business. The software business in particular suffers a great deal: Ridiculous patents such as “One click ordering” (Amazon) and other such totally obvious methods can from that point onwards only be done by the company who filed the patent. Patents are relatively easily obtained, since the patent officers are overworked and not particularly smart, leaving the true patent evaluation in courts by opposing patent lawyers, which is obviously really expensive. Consequently, larger companies with dedicated legal staff can easily bully a small company out of business or out of using a key method, rendering them uncompetitive. Simply because fighting a totally ridiculous patent is too expensive. The latest trend is the emergence of Patent Trolls – Companies formed by lawyers that buy a number of old patents and institute proceedings to all and sundry as a business model.

But wait there is hope! The US senate is to discuss and decide about a possible patent reform. Lets hope they see sense… Read more