8 things Marissa Mayer needs to do at Yahoo NOW
Pundits can't seem to glow enough about Yahoo's new CEO, who has been on the job for less than a week. Marissa Mayer is a Google darling flown the coop and swooped in just as Yahoo shocked shareholders with another quarter of disappointing performance.
It's get to work time, and we've got a to-do list for Mayer -- eight things she should do as soon as humanly possible.
A (p)review of Microsoft Office 2013
Microsoft released the preview version of Office 2013 less than a week ago. This new installment of the productivity suite has many of the same features as its previous versions, 2003, 2007, and 2010: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook. But there are other programs as well, and Microsoft has connected the Office Suite to the Azure Cloud.
In this review I’ll discuss the requirements for installation and the installation process. I’ll also discuss the contents of three of the Office 2013 suite programs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and how the cloud-based Office 365 may change the way many users work with the suite. I’ll also talk about Windows 8 integration, and wrap up with a discussion about the impact that Office 2013 can have in business enterprises.
HTC EVO 4G LTE review
With the roll over to LTE from WIMAX, Sprint has taken the path to have Android 4.x on all its new 4G Android devices, the first being the Google flagship Galaxy Nexus. But one of the first third-party LTE Androids is the update to the HTC EVO line. The original HTC EVO 4G became the top-selling launch-day phone on Sprint back in 2010. Minor updates to the line followed, such as the EVO 3D, as well as a Star Wars-branded White R2D2 model. So how does the new HTC EVO 4G LTE, an Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3) using HTC Sense 4.0 UI stack up to the family title in 2012?
The EVO 4G LTE is only 0.35 inches thick, compared to the 0.5 inches of its predecessor, with a form factor of 5.3 inches by 2.7 inches. The screen is a sharp 4.7-inch Capacitive Super-LCD 2 -- 312 dots per inch with 720 x 1280 pixel resolution at 24-bit (16.7 million) color. To watch HD video is a joy; its easy and fair to say it is impressively crystal clear.
Nokia and Windows Phone are misfits
Some relationships aren't meant to be. That's how I felt about Microsoft and Nokia when they announced their partnership in February 2011. You've seen some of my missives: "Nokia does the Windows Phone death dance" (April), "Windows Phone can't save Nokia" (February) and "Windows Phone transition is killing Nokia" (July 2011), among others. Let's not forget the memorable "Windows Phone 7 Series is a lost cause", from February 2010.
The problem is simple: Microsoft's usage philosophy around Windows Phone is fundamentally flawed and doesn't jive well at all with Nokia's enormous install base. As such, Nokia should never have cut the deal with Microsoft that replaced Symbian with Windows Phone. Symbian was the most widely used mobile operating system in the world when the companies cut the deal -- and in many geographies where Nokia remains market share leader, it still is. Seventeen months ago, new CEO Stephen Elop should have fretted more about holding onto existing customers -- how to move them to new Nokia handsets -- rather than compete with iPhone. The ex-Microsoft president doomed Nokia, instead.
Well done Microsoft for bringing Office closer to the cloud
One of the areas of this week's Office 2013 launch that received slightly less attention as the updated Office Web Apps. These are the light weight web counterparts of the ‘full fat’ desktop applications, and are Microsoft's answer to Google Docs. Existing users of Skydrive, Office 365, or SharePoint 2010 will be familiar with them.
The apps received various updates, some major and many minor. Most obvious is the Metro look and feel, in line with everything else you have seen of Office 2013. Excel gains the ability to insert forms, PowerPoint sees its rendering engine markedly improved, and OneNote doesn’t seem to get anything other than a lick of paint. All in all its an incremental improvement, and certainly nothing to make happy Google Docs users sit up and take notice.
BYOD apocalypse deniers suffer from post-PC depression
It’s a form of denial. In my recent post on the Office team dissing Windows 8, I noted how the lack of full touch support in Office 2013 undermines Microsoft’s efforts to break into the Post-PC space. And while I expected some push back from the Redmond choir, I was surprised at how many readers seem to be having a hard time accepting the reality of the Post-PC phenomenon.
Simply put, the PC as a technology driver is dead. Yet some people -- most notably, IT professionals who fear the coming BYOD apocalypse -- are determined to prop-up the corpse, slap some lipstick on those rotting lips and pretend that it’s still 2009.
Google+ wins me over
“Bigger is always better” is an expression we’ve become accustomed to over the years and while counter-intuitive it best describes everything that’s wrong with Facebook. The most popular social networking website is the best example of size losing over quality. Are we really satisfied with our Internet alter-ego living in the largest environment or the better one?
The American Customer Satisfaction Index has revealed rather interesting user satisfaction results on Facebook and Google+. Satisfaction is the word of the day and Facebook users don’t really get it, which is curious because there are more than 900 million of them. The satisfaction index rating decreased from 66 in 2011 to 61 in 2012. That's out of 100 points. Surely CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be concerned. Why? The sun shines brighter on Google+, which ranks 78 its first time on the index, equal to Wikipedia.
People don’t like Facebook, They like their Friends
Which Firefox is right for you -- 14, 15, 16 or 17?
The recent release of Firefox 14 FINAL means the whole developmental cycle has moved on again, and as expected versions 15 (Beta), 16 (Aurora) and 17 (Nightly/UX) of Mozilla’s web browser have made their first appearances. Version 14 was a relatively minor release after the excitement of version 13, but versions 15 and 16 both promise some exciting new features as we reveal below.
Get a head’s up on what’s coming and discover which build is best for your personal needs with our updated guide to what the future holds in store for Firefox.
Why isn't Windows Phone more successful?
As Nokia reports its earnings, I can’t help but feel bad for the company's efforts here in the United States. To me, 600,000 units in North America (and supposedly that includes other devices besides Lumia 900) is not exactly what I would call a win.
But that’s just me. I’m a Windows Phone user. It’s a fantastic platform. The interface is gorgeous, and the OS is fast. I haven’t had issues with Windows Phone that I have had with Android. So in my opinion, the platform deserves a spot at the table with Android and iOS. So why hasn’t it been very successful?
Marissa Mayer is not facing a Steve Jobs-type opportunity at Yahoo
I see an interesting trend among people emailing me to comment about Marissa Mayer: They see her hiring at Yahoo as some kind of trick by Google. Ms. Mayer is Google to the core, readers say, and she’s going to Yahoo simply as a commando to pick and choose future Google acquisitions.
No, she isn’t.
Crowd funding: How to limit the risk of getting ripped off
The Kickstarter website has moved crowd funding into mainstream media. There is virtually no news site, newspaper or TV network left out there that has not reported on recent funding success stories. You may have heard about Double Fine Adventure's million Dollar ride that got the ball rolling for some serious game funding on the site, or Pebble, the e-paper watch for iPhone and Android that managed to rake in more than $10 million.
People who pledge a certain amount of money often get something in return. In the case of Double Fine it is a copy of the adventure game that the developers want to produce with the money, and for Pebble, it is one of those iconic watches. Pledges can be retracted for as long as the funding has not ended. Afterwards, the money is only transferred if the funding has reached the desired goal. If that is not the case, backers are not charged a single dime. It gets fuzzy when a project has crossed the funding goal and reached the end of the funding stage. Once the money has been transferred, there is not really any transparency as to what happens with the money from that moment on forward.
I don't know whether to cheer or cry for Microsoft
From one perspective, 2012 looks like a great year for Windows Phone, with about 17 percent year-over-year growth in the United States. Outstanding! But, uh-oh, that's from a tiny base. Get out your magnifying glass -- share will rise from 3.5 percent to 4.1 percent, according to Strategy Analytics. Ah, yeah.
The analyst firm's forecast is for actual number of smartphones sold, not shipped -- 123 million, 5 million of which will have Windows Phone. That's up from 101.8 million and 3.5 million, respectively, in 2011.
Got Windows XP or Vista? You won't get Office 2013
Microsoft really wants you to stop using XP and Vista. Office 2013, which preview released this week, only supports Windows 7 and 8. XP is still the most widely-used Windows version (although Net Applications says that could change this month). From the perspective of customers, the move doesn't make much sense. But Microsoft, of course, is more interested getting them to upgrade.
Microsoft gambles a lot on this decision. According to NetApps, 47.28 percent of computers run the rather old Windows XP and a minuscule 7.29 percent use Vista. Combined they have 54.57 percent usage share, which is not insignificant by any matter and a clear warning sign about the move. Office 2013 cuts off more than half the current Windows install base.
Eight awesome ways to improve Windows 8
Like all previous versions of Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 8 is highly customizable, so if there’s something about it you don’t like -- something fairly minor that is, rather than the entire OS -- you might be able to change it by installing a third-party app, or making some registry tweaks.
There are a lot more than eight ways to improve Windows 8 of course, but these are some of the ones I’ve found the most useful.
Office politics are killing Windows 8
A letdown. That's the only way to describe Microsoft's Office 2013 announcement. With the fate of the Windows ecosystem hanging in the balance, the Redmond, Wash.-based giant is doing what it always does when faced with a tough, course-changing decision: It’s playing internal politics.
On one side you have the Windows division. Right now, they're facing an existential crisis, with Apple and Google poised to dominate the emerging post-PC landscape. Division head Steve Sinofsky and his team need all the help they can get to crack into this new territory that threatens to subsume everything that came before.
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