Zune dreams: Microsoft's refusal to say die
A boxing match can be a fascinating thing to watch, especially when it's between deliberately mismatched fighters who probably have no business being in the ring at the same time. But since these things are more about business than fighting, anyway, audiences are often treated to cruel spectacles of an overwhelmingly powerful athlete beating an out-of-his-league opponent to a bloody pulp.
If the poor shlub doesn't collapse in a heap or put his gloves down and head for the corner, you can always count on the ref to step in and stop the carnage. But only after the members of the audience have been satisfied that they saw what they came to see.
Pixi dust: Is Palm doing enough to survive?
If you're one of those who have been waiting for a miraculous transformation at Palm, I worry you may be waiting forever. As much as I want the company to survive and thrive, to come back from a near-death experience driven by lack of compelling new products and the worst case of corporate ADHD this side of Motorola, I have a growing sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it's just not going to happen.
This past June (ancient history in this business), I wrote about Palm's prospects as it launched its first webOS-powered smartphone, the Pre. At the time, I expressed optimism that the company had finally shaken its years-long funk to bring out a fresh, modern take on converged, wireless devices. I kept my fingers crossed that this slick new smartphone, packed full of fresh thinking, would help customers get over years of neglect and lost opportunity. Palm, after all, defined the PDA market in the late '90s, and later hit it big with one of the most successful early smartphones, the Treo. I wasn't alone in wishing it could recapture its mojo.
The wireless carrier conundrum: Perpetuating the myth of connectivity
I'd hate to be a wireless carrier. Customers don't like you, regulators are constantly sniffing around the edges of your operations and you're perpetually faced with the Hobson's Choice of investing billions in new network capability or risk falling behind other, similarly vilified competitors. In short, you can't win. And the recent spate of negative publicity surrounding the real-world experiences of customers using 3G-capable smartphones suggests this situation won't improve anytime soon.
It's their own fault
It's the end of the iPod as we know it
The big news this week promises to be Apple's annual September product launch on Wednesday. Of course, the famously secretive company won't confirm anything before then, but if the rumors are to be believed, Apple is about to release another generation of refreshed iPods on a drooling world.
Which begs the question: Does the world even need a new iPod? Or, viewed another way, have the old iPods run their course? Or another, does anyone buy single-function music players anymore, or has the world moved on to multifunction devices?
Cloudy forecast? Gmail outage shouldn't cast such a chill over Web apps
Will this week's Google Mail outage frighten you out of shifting more of your computing solutions into the cloud?
On balance, it shouldn't, as no technology is perfect and failure is part of the landscape whether we keep our stuff in a data center, in a box under our desk, or on some unseen Web server on the other side of the country. But any failure of this magnitude offers up a prime opportunity to discuss -- and hopefully improve -- the weaknesses that can still bite us.
Don't drop that phone! Fragile devices threaten customer loyalty
The iPhone is a technical marvel, a full-on computer that happens to fit in your pocket. It isn't alone: The average BlackBerry is also pretty magical in its own right, as are high end phones from Nokia, HTC and a host of other vendors.
Fantastically capable as they are, don't drop yours. Don't get it wet, either. Don't stress or damage it in any way. Because if you think you can simply bring it back to the store where you got it and swap it out under warranty for a replacement unit, think again. Violate the warranty terms and you'll be buying yourself a new one.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard is coming: Yes, do upgrade!
If nothing else, the operating system market these days is infinitely entertaining. Consider the humble upgrade.
Some OS upgrades, like XP-to-Vista on a marginally capable machine, demand more up-front planning than the end result is often worth. You end up spending money and time on a machine that, while it may look prettier, runs slower and gives you more headaches than it solves. Other upgrade scenarios, like Vista-to-Windows 7, are a lot more straightforward and easier for most folks to justify.
Windows 7: Obviously I've struck a nerve
I guess I stirred up quite the beehive of activity with my last column, Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade. Before I continue, I wanted to share a few final thoughts on what's clearly been the most controversial piece of writing I've published in a while.
First, I'm a big boy, and I've got a thick skin. If you didn't agree with what I had to say (and many of you didn't) I promise you I didn't skulk back to my office with a sniffle in my nose and a tear in my eye after reading the comments. Pro or con, agree or disagree, if I get readers to think critically about a given issue, I've accomplished my goal. I don't particularly enjoy fanboys agreeing with my every word, so don't expect my writing to reflect some kind of middle-of-the-road festival of milquetoast mutual admiration.
Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade
To upgrade or not to upgrade: It's the issue of the moment for Windows users everywhere as the hype machine for the October 22 Windows 7 release gathers steam. And as we gaze at our existing machines, either running a snappy but outdated XP or a pokey but still slick looking Vista, and wonder whether we should be planning a late night trip to the big box store for our very own copy, I've got one word for you: Stop.
There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to refresh your existing machine with a cool new operating system. Pre-release versions of Windows 7 have displayed impressive performance, stability, and usability. Device compatibility -- a major bugaboo early on for the ill-starred Vista -- is much improved. It's smaller and lighter than the OS it ostensibly replaces, a nice reversal from the years-long tidal wave of ever-more-bloated products from the world's largest software vendor. Win7 scales better and can take advantage of more memory and multicore processors. That the new OS looks cool enough to not embarrass Windows fans when they run into Mac zealots at parties is an added bonus.
A browser war veteran turns wannabe
Marc Andreessen is a brilliant guy. His Mosaic browser, which eventually morphed into Netscape, introduced us all to the concept of surfing and ushered in the Internet as we know it. His new way of looking at online services -- which seems ho-hum today but was radically transformational 15 years ago -- freed us forever from the tyranny of arcane, unfortunately named services like Archie, Veronica, Jughead, and Gopher. In taking Netscape public, he set the stage for dot.com-era IPOs that created countless tech billionaires-as-rock-stars and defined an era when technology's potential was seemingly limitless. Let's call him brilliant and visionary, then.
However, even geniuses have their bad days...sometimes, they have many. Netscape was eventually wiped off the relevance map when Microsoft finally woke up to the Internet reality and paved over the landscape with Internet Explorer. The Internet bubble burst as the perverse logic that drove much of it -- eyeballs, "stickiness," and the ridiculous notion that bricks-and-mortar were headed for permanent and complete obsolescence -- was finally and thankfully replaced by the old rules of business that dictated you needed to generate revenue, and that revenue needed to exceed your costs.
Three cheers for Goliath: Microsoft Word and the battle for ideas
It's always a kick to watch little David saunter onto the battlefield, load his slingshot and knock off the dominant, arrogant Goliath. We all enjoy rooting for the little guy, and whenever he prevails over the odds-on favorite, we can't help but feel that all is right with the world.
Sometimes, though, Goliath needs to pound his tiny adversary into the ground.
Twittered off: Time to grow up
Last week's monumentally scaled denial-of-service attacks -- more recently attributed to a massive attack on a Georgian professor and part of the ongoing dispute between Russia and Georgia -- once again showed just how soft Twitter's soft underbelly is. And for a service used by 44 million people last month, getting hauled to its knees by a bunch of political/cultural enemies intent on opening up a new front in a simmering regional conflict isn't exactly a sign that all's well on the security front.
If Twitter were a bank, the angry mobs would have already descended on Capitol Hill, pitchforks in hand, calling for someone's head. But since Twitter's just an itty-bitty message service, and since it's free, it gets a pass. It shouldn't.
Windows XP forever? The OS that just won't die
Microsoft has a problem on its hands. Or more precisely one problem with three seemingly contradictory components:
Windows XP is too good for its own good. It needs to die for the company's sake. It won't die because nothing else -- not even Windows 7 -- currently approaches it.We're closing in on eight years since XP first hit the market and began the long process of making us finally forget we ever used Windows 95, 98, and Windows Me. By anyone's standards, it's been one of Microsoft's most visibly successful products. It still runs on some 60% of all PCs years after it was supposed to have been retired as a front-line offering. It's sold around 800 million copies since its initial release. And if piracy is the sincerest form of flattery, hundreds of millions more illegal copies are in use across the globe. In an age where icons are in desperately short supply, this is as iconic a product as it gets.
The Google Voice battle: What is Apple afraid of?
In the 1980s, we wanted our MTV. These days, we want our IP-based telephony, we want it at home and on the go, and we don't want to get ripped off in the process. Apple either hasn't gotten the message or has chosen to ignore market reality, and it's a mistake that in the long run could cost it dearly.
By now the facts are well known: Apple last week rejected the official Google Voice Application for the iPhone from its online App Store, and removed a whack of third-party applications that relied on or connected to the service. Apple's lame excuse? The app offered functionality already available on the device.
Yahoo deserved to die
It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, even if they're very much alive and only dead in the business sense of the word. But it's super easy these days to look at Yahoo's co-founder and ex-CEO Jerry Yang and laugh out loud at how he squandered tens of billions of dollars --and his company's very future as an Internet powerhouse-- because he thought he knew better.
The short strokes of this week's Microsoft-Yahoo Internet search partnership must make Mr. Yang sick to his stomach: What Microsoft was willing to spend upwards of $45 billion for barely 18 months ago it has now won for…nothing. Sure, Microsoft didn't swallow the company whole. It's just a partnership, after all. But that matters little in a search market where the two players were doomed to an eternity of irrelevance if they didn't get together at some point. Living together, marriage, whatever we call it, Microsoft figured out a cheap way to gain access to a much larger search audience, and Yahoo had no choice but to sign the papers and move in.
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