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 :-)

Microsoft Unified Communications Server launched....

No one other than Bill Gates launched Microsoft's entry into the VOIP market last week. Microsoft Unified Communications Server is a web conferencing and chat server that can be integrated with existing PBXs (Although the enterprise version has a switching module). Microsoft has validated the VOIP market and this will definitely help educate the market about the benefits of software-based phone systems. Though the route it has taken is a strange one - it's counting on partnerships with PBX vendors to create the total solution. Exactly why PBX vendors would want to partner on this plan is unclear to me, though it seems Nortel has offered to be the first lamb and bought into the idea of letting the Trojan horse into their customer base. I believe CISCO, Avaya and others will put up a tougher fight, leaving resellers to do the integration with the existing PBXs on their own.

Traditional PBXs are more or less black boxes and are notoriously difficult to integrate with. Coupled with the fact that most Microsoft Resellers have little telecommunications experience, I believe that it is going to be an uphill battle for Microsoft.

Not surprisingly Bill Gates announced the demise of the hardware based PBX, (along with message that it wants to partner with PBX vendors), and that a software switch will be doing that work in the future , obviously supplied by Microsoft. As a matter of fact, 3CX can do software based switching today ....

So Microsoft enters yet another market. But will it be successful? Microsoft has launched a series of unsuccessful products that have had a hard time getting significant market share - Microsoft ISA server, Dynamics, Virtual Server to name just a few. Even at no cost, Virtual Server is unpopular. Yet its core products, Operating systems and Desktop applications, are under heavy attack. Vista is a spectacular failure.

I can't help thinking that under Steve Ballmer Microsoft has lost its focus. Frustrated by a share price that has been static for nearly 7 years, Microsoft is behaving like a cornered dog, taking bites at any market it thinks might help its plight. Focusing its efforts on the release of a truly good operating system and desktop application upgrade might help Microsoft more....

Microsoft buys Aquantive

Microsoft spending 6 billion for an acquisition! Thats very rare. And for aquantive.... Seems like a lot of cash indeed. Microsoft is looking to reverse its fortunes in the Ad business... But i doubt that this acquistion will increase their chances. I'd say their chances of effectively competing with Google we're zero before this acquistion, and about two times that after shelling out 6 billion.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/18/microsoft-to-buy-aquantive_1.html