The Demise of Microsoft and RIM

To stay on top of the world of technology, a company needs to be bringing new ideas to the market and reinventing itself. For example, take the cases of Yahoo and MySpace - two ground breaking Internet technology companies in their heyday. Look where they are now. Yahoo, the once darling of the Internet, did not seem to know who they were and the direction they were going. Yahoo's home page is a mess of services that seems to be piped in from Internet sources.  All I wanted was a search without all the rest of the stuff Yahoo was trying to provide and was forcing me to consume. I was a Yahoo user but switched to Google just because of the simpler search home page. Google grabbed the search market by offering a simple yet powerful search engine and then providing additional services to their search clients, some fairly standard but useful – Gmail and Docs, others very innovative – Maps and Earth. When Goggle sees something that they think would enhance their users’ experience, they acquire - YouTube. Let's face it, not all innovations are going to work and as all Googlers know, we are all their beta testers. Some of their innovations have failed but at least they try. MySpace was another great idea that went nowhere. With respect to MySpace, whether it was poor marketing or lack of direction, Facebook came along with a similar idea and drowned it.

Image via CrunchBase

It is this lack of renewal that will take down two technology giants - Microsoft and RIM. If you think about it, Microsoft has not created anything. In the early days, Microsoft made its claim to fame by striking a deal with IBM to have a copy of MS-DOS on every computer it sold. Microsoft did not create MS-DOS. IBM approached Gary Kildall to negotiate a deal with him to acquire his operating system known as CPM. Kildall had philosophical problems with IBM and refused to deal with them. Because Bill Gates was making a name for himself in the new computer industry by writing code for the first personal computer, the Altair 8000, IBM approached him. As timelines were short, Gates bought the rights to CPM and rebranded it as MS-DOS and licensed it to IBM under the name of PC-DOS. With his lawyer father's help, Gates got a sweetheart commission from every computer sold using "his" operating system. (By all rights, if he was still alive, it should have be Kildall who should be travelling the world with Melinda, giving away billions of dollars). With the boom of personal computers in the early 1980's, this commission made Microsoft very rich.

As there is little money to be made hardware, IBM is no longer selling personal computers and Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar organization. Microsoft’s other products are copies of technology on the market. Windows was fashioned after Apple's operating systems and the MS-Office products followed other productivity tools on the market like LOTUS 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and Paradox. It is simply the size of Microsoft that forces users to install its products which are designed to work best in its operating systems that are already installed on computers. Microsoft has been taken to court by smaller competitors to stop them from forcing personal computer users to use their browser.

Microsoft's answer to the booming MP3 player market, Zune, which was released 5 years after the iPod, was removed from the market in 2011. Their recent attempt to break into the cell market is not going as planned and now, with the release of Windows 8, they are trying to break into the tablet market, long established by Apple and Google. Being a follower and an imitator, Microsoft will not be the company that is was in the days of Bill Gates. The cell phone market has long been dominated by companies like Motorola Mobility (recently purchased by Google) and Nokia, who is losing market share to Apple and Google. Now comes Microsoft trying to get in long after the races have begun. They are repeating this error by just announcing that they are getting into the tablet market with their Surface tablet. Once again, the tablet race started with the iPad 2 years ago, which is equivalent to a prehistoric period in terms on technology innovation. With the sale of desktop and laptop computers declining, Microsoft is not going to be selling as many operating systems as they have sold in the past, and as they attempt into the cell phone and tablet market is so far behind, the future of Microsoft is not looking good.

Image via CrunchBase

RIM came out with a very innovative product in 1999. Imagine a product that was so innovative, that you can get your email, answer your phone calls and have a host of productively tools in the palm of your hand. It was a wonderful tool and many people, still swear by it including President Obama, who refused to give it up in spite of it being a national security threat and Oprah who called it one of her favourite things. The problem is that RIM rested on its laurels and other manufacturers took the smart phone idea and ran with it giving us the iPhone and Android phones with hundreds of thousands of apps. They tried to produce other attention-getting products, like the Blackberry Bold and the PlayBook tablet but those products lacked the innovative nature of the original Blackberry. Even with a new CEO, RIM will have a very difficult time recovering from their lack of attention to the demands of the innovative-hungry technology market. They are hoping that their Blackberry 10 will be the saviour of RIM but it appears to be yet another device incompatible with the rest of the suite of productivity tools used by businesses.

The technology market is constantly searching for the next big thing. Microsoft and RIM are both trying to be players in this new technology marketplace using old technology operating strategies that got them to be big players in the market in the first place. Unfortunately, those strategies need to change if they planning to survive. RIM is supposedly trying something new with its new operating system but it may be too late as iPhone and Androids are well embedded in the market. Microsoft has released Windows 8, an operating systems design to be used on phones and tablets in a well-established market, as Google and Apple have a sizeable head. For both RIM and Microsoft - too little, too late.

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Battle of the Giants

Image via CrunchBaseThroughout the development of modern technology, there have been products and services that have come and gone. Some have transformed into other products and some companies have gone in a completely different direction. Companies like IBM, Borland, Lotus, WordPerfect, WordStar and Netscape are have played a part in software and hardware development over the course of the past few decades. There have also been some memorable battles, with companies vying for supremacy and copyright. Lotus sued Borland claiming that the Quartto Pro had the same "look and feel" of 1-2-3. And then there was the browser wars. Microsoft's dominance in PC operating system software settled many battles by introducing MS Office. I was a committed WordPerfect user but when over to the dark side by sheer force (I still look for the Reveal Code screen).

It look as if a modern battle is brewing. Facebook is set to release an email service. Some are saying that this would be the death of other Web-based email services like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. As Facebook has 500,000 users across the world, a Facebook email could take a bite out of the market. Not being a Facebook user, I hope that loyal Google followers support Gmail as Google is known to abandon under-utilized applications. I do not see this happening as many thousands, including myself, have chosen Gmail as my primary email provider. Google, on the other hand, has tried to get some social networking into their suite of products and has failed. They claim not to be completing to Facebook.
I think that the result of this battle would be that Facebook users will have access to an email program and that Google will lose some of this Gmail users, but provide other services to tempt users to stay. Gmail is one of Google's primary services and I don't see it going away or there will be some very angry people and lost credibility in Internet services.

No matter how it works out, I think that the clear winners will be the users of FaceBook and Gmail.

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The Two Faces of Google

Image via WikipediaThere are two interesting developments over that past few days that shows the two sides of Google. The first is the lawsuit brought on Google by Oracle. Oracle recently purchased Sun Microsystems that developed Java. Oracle is suing Google because the Android mobile operating system is based on Java and Google has not paid any royalties. Oracle is saying that Google is using the Java Micro Edition which is not part of the open source licensing agreement. Google is saying it has developed its own Java virtual micro environment and that the lawsuit is an attack on the open-source community.

The other story relates to Google and Verizon Communications putting forward a joint proposal to the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality. Net neutrality is the concept that implies all users of the Internet have equal access and bandwidth to all part of the Internet. This means that large corporation will not have priority over personal communications online. Your online bill comes to you as fast as an email from a friend. What Goggle and Verizon is suggesting in its proposal is that net neutrality is applicable only to part of the Internet but suggest blocking content and application on wireless platform.
So on one hand, we have Google claiming the rights and privileges of the open-source community but on the other hand, they are saying that they want to limit access to part of the Internet. These actions clearly show the two faces of Google and how they spin the facts and the technology to suit there influence on the Internet. I do not know enough details about the Oracle lawsuit to make judgement on whether Google infringes on Java's licensing agreements but I do know that limiting the Internet by giving special treatment to a group of users is wrong.

In the early days of the Internet, I used to give talks to novices about how to use this emerging technology. At the beginning of my talk, I would lead a discussion on who owns the Internet. The most popular response was Bill Gates. I would assure the group that no ones owns the Internet but now it appears that Google is trying to take it over. Let's hope that they do not succeed!

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Google Me

Have you Googled yourself lately? Most people have but the Google Me in this context is the much-rumoured and anticipated social networking community powered by Google. Google's attempt at social media in the past has not been successful. How many of you have used or even heard of Orkut, Buzz or Friend Connect? All these are examples of Google products that have attempted to crack the social media market and have not.

The rumour of Google Me started when Digg founder Kevin Rose tweeted that that Google is working on a Facebook competitor. It was seconded by former Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo on the question and answer Web site Quora - "This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this." This would be an opportune time for Google to come up with a competitor to Facebook that has been having problems of late with their security setting.

I left Facebook because of the weak security and the lack of control I felt I had with my privacy settings. I'm sure that the developers of Google Me will learn from the privacy mistakes committed by Facebook and release a more secure social networking site.

After all, it is in Google's best interest to get to know more about you. What better way to find out then to create a platform where you voluntarily spell is all out for them. Then try Googing yourself and see the information that comes up. How did they find out all that information about you? Beats me! - No .... Google Me!

Google and BP

I have wrote many times in this blog that Google is trying to take over the Internet world and that they are predominately a marketing and advertising company, not a search tool. Or maybe I should put it this way - they are a search tool  but their search results are motivated by the highest bidder and not the quality of the result.

You already know that Google clear puts sponsored links and Adwords pages on your search results page. Fair enough, they have to get paid for their services and they deserve an income. Those areas are clearly marked so the user can decided whether to investigate those companies that showed up as a result of a search. My problem is that the rest of the search results, which are not labeled, are also a result of paid advertisers.

Google Coming Clean (?)

With all the news of Facebook's privacy issues, Google does not want to be in the same boat. They already have recieved some bad press with the news that they were gathering unsecured WiFi information during their street view data collection process. In attempt to put this faux pas behind them, they are complying with a request from the from the governments of France, Germany and Spain to turn over the data they collected. Let's hope they hand in everything they collected. And even if so, what will happen with it and what can those governments do to Google? Hefty fines and a slap on the wrist? I just hope this sends a message to Google that they are being closely watched and they cannot do anything they want with Internet data.

Coincidentally (I think not!), Google is releasing a paper explaining its corporate security strategy. Entitled Security Whitepaper: Google Apps Messaging and Collaboration Products, the paper describes the company's corporate security policies, organizational and operational security, asset classification, control practices, personnel, physical and environmental security, access control, systems development and maintenance, and disaster recovery efforts.

One thing I can say about Google, their PR with regards to privacy is better than Facebook's poor response to a similar issue. With Google complying with the European countries' requests and making their security strategy (supposedly) transparent, does that make you feel better? Not me! I think? I think Google will continue to make attempts to control everything Internet until the day that the Internet is renamed - GoogleNet!

Google Drops Microsoft

In a report today, Google announced that they are dropping Microsoft as their operating system, opting for Mac OS or Linux, citing security concerns as Chinese hackers tried to break in Google and other large companies in January of this year. Back then, Google used it as an excuse to pull out of China. I think the only concerns Google has is to knock Microsoft at this time because of the pending release of MS cloud computing applications, Office 2010, and Google's, soon-to-be-released, operating system based on the Chrome browser.

I attended a Google Apps seminar last week where they ensured the audience that they take their security very seriously and even had gone to the length of hiring ex-Pentagon staffers to help in that regard. They said that their security is much tougher and much harder to break in to then most other organizations. Good thing because they have millions of people using their Gmail, Docs and their other cloud applications. A security breach would be devastating for Google and its users. On the other hand, 9 out of 10 computers in the world are running Microsoft's operating systems. If there was a serious computer threat from China, I'm sure that many other large corporations would be leaving Microsoft or they would be find a way to block the threat.

Although Google is probably a huge target for hackers, I think that their switch out of Microsoft is more of a competitive move rather than a security concern.

Reigning in Google

I've had a couple of blog post about Google and by now, you probably think I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet giant. You are right! They provide a lot of great services to the Internet community but it seems that the US government is taking notice of what appears to be Google trying to take over the Internet (Web Giant Google: Is so big so bad?). Back in the 90's when Microsoft was the dominant force in the computing world, many people tried to stop their monopoly.  One of these ways was to stop Microsoft' from automatically installing their browser during the installation of their operating system. Looks like the same people who were successful in that endeavor are trying to take on Google. 

Google is huge and getting bigger every day. I heard a statistic that said that one third of all pages browsed on the Internet start off as a Google search. Look what they have announced just in the past couple of days:

1. US Approves Google's AdMob Purchase ($750 million for a mobile ad service)
2. Google unveils Web-ready TVs
3. Google buys Norwegian audio-provider ($68 million - 27.5% higher that closing price)
   

Trolling for your Information

Two stories caught my eye this week that I found very alarming. The first was about Google intercepting WiFi signals with its Street View cars. Apparently Google was doing more than just taking pictures of your house for its Street View version of Google Maps (see Google Wi-Fi Breach Spurs Calls For Investigation). They gathered network names and computer information from unsecured wireless networks as they drove by. Shame on Google!! For this and many other reasons, you should encrypt your wireless signal. If you don't know how, contact the people who sold you your router or contact your Internet Service Provider.

Message to Google - STOP!!!

The behemoth that Google has become is staggering. A company that started as a search engine in March of 1996 made a net income of $6.5 billion for the year 2009. They contributed to the decline of Yahoo and have added to modern pop culture as well as adding another verb to the dictionary.

My problem with Google is their rapid expansion. There are many, many Google apps (including the one I'm using for this blog). Their apps are useful but there are so many of them, I wish that Google would devote the  resources to develop any of them into a complete application.. They must be accepted and used as is with the hope that they will be continued and be supported. Most of their products are still in beta to reminder of this fact. Case in point is Google Pages and Google Gears which are no longer available.

MS versus Google?

Microsoft targets Google with free online version of Office 2010

Battle of the giants?? I must admit that I have been a faithful user of Google Docs but have had some frustrations with using it, namely the lack of features in the editors and the rough export features in converting to MS Office.

This news excites me. Finally, I'll be able to edit and share documents that are compatible with MS Office. The fact that is ti free is a huge bonus. Seems to me that, although Google Docs are handy, the lack of full editing tools was a downside. Is Microsoft targeting Google? Could be! They are definitely trying to get into the cloud computing market and frankly speaking, I think they will win. Their Office products have been a staple in productivity tools for years. This new feature will certainly caused me to try it out.

Now ... will there be an App for that??