04.21.08
Posted in General Rant at 10:27 am by Administrator
Microsoft announced on Friday that they are launching a stripped-down version of their Office suite – code name – “Albany” to folks on a subscription basis. Subscribers get Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint andOneNote, plus Windows Live OneCare, Windows Live Mail, Messenger and Photo Gallery.
Hmmm… so they can’t get a browser-based version working – of even basic stuff like Google did – so now they figure you don’t have the $120 to buy the student version of Office – so they’re going to RENT it to you?
WTF?
I mean, I get the fact that they are trying to be all “relevant” in the new world. I also understand that they haven’t found anyone to buy (yet) that has an online offering. I also know that Office sales are a HUGE part of their income, so they don’t want to kill the fatted calf just yet.
They also like the idea of you paying them every month – for crap they’re already shipping. In the software market it’s called “incremental revenue.” They’ve already tried it withOneCare (don’t know how it’s really selling, though), and with their Xbox Live franchise.
Seems like it’s still putting lipstick on a pig, if you ask me.
What about pricing? Well, we dont’ know yet. But if you take the street price of the Student Edition – which is $120, and you figure that there’s a 5 year ownership window; then add theOneCare $49.95 price, divide by
60 months (5 years) and you get a whopping $2.83 per month.
So, if Microsoft rounds up and doubles it (just because they can) – would you really pay $5.99 per month for Office when you can get most of the same stuff from any number of vendors (Zoho, Google Docs, OpenOffice) for free?
Me neither.
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04.18.08
Posted in General Rant at 9:45 am by Administrator
When Sun bought MySQL for $1 billion – the open source database maker was struggling to make money. In a ComputerWorld interview in June 2007, former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos said that “…only one in a thousand users ever pays..” for the software.
1 in 1,000? And you got $1 BILLION for your company? Yes, please!
Anyway – back to the story. Now that Sun owns it – I can picture them in a product marketing meeting thinking “hmmmm…. how can we make some money out of this widely-installed database?”
Then, the new guy, I’ll call him “Tom”, comes up with a brilliant idea, “Let’s make the cool new features in our 5.1 release only available to those who have a paid license! The rest of the people using it for free – can either just wait for it – or can write their own version.”
Applause all around. Problem solved. Until – their user conference this week in Santa Clara, California.
The “Community Edition” (free) users were all up in arms about Sun having “the nerve” to actually charge some money for a database (oh, the horror!).
Then the bloggers got a hold of it. In one post user Paul Saduauskas threatened to abandon MySQL in favor of Postgresql that he categorized as “fast enough.” He was incensed that the free version and pay-for version would have a different feature set – and he wasn’t alone.
Now, I can understand that if you’re used to something being free (even though it’s really not free, and most people who are using it SHOULD pay for it) – it can suck when you realize that you aren’t getting the latest and greatest in the next release – just because you didn’t pay for it in the first place.
Although, now due to the community and bloggers coming undone over the last 24 hours, Sun is now in full waffle mode on what they will finally do in the end.
However – I think Community users should just stop bitching about it and either dump MySQL for another free, open source database or pony up the inexpensive license money and shut the hell up.
People – how do you think Sun got the $1 billion to buy MySQL in the first place? Yep, it had to actually “sell” something to someone…
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04.17.08
Posted in General Rant at 2:05 pm by Administrator
So yesterday I wrote about a company that got a bunch of press because it was offering a $499 piece of hardware that would run Mac OS X.
I found it strange that on their store they weren’t taking any order because they “couldn’t process credit cards.” So I went to the “contact” page and looked up their address on Google Maps. It looks like a residential neighborhood (address: 10475 NW 28th St,Doral, FL 33172)… but if you look on Zillow – there is nothing at that address.
Hmmmmm….
Maybe they’re better at PR than they are at building hardware? Is it a hoax? Or worse, a fraud?
Another fishy thing – they don’t take any phone orders – only orders on their website. The domain is registered to a guy (not the company itself) with the same phone numbers as on the “corporate” site – but the address is different (address: 3401 SW 104 CT, Miami, FL 33165). Again, it’s an address that is based in a residential neighborhood. The domain was registered in 2000, though.
Now I was curious. So, since the name on the contact page was “PsyStar Corporation” – my next stop was the Secretary of Corporations for the State of Florida. I put in their name – BINGO – yet ANOTHER residential address (10645 SW 112 ST, MIAMI FL 33176). Looks like Roldolfo Pedraza (same name as domain registration) formed the corporation in July of 2007 – and, at least initially, was the initial officer/director along with someone named Roberto Pedraza.
While I was doing a little more digging – I decided to check out the EFI v8 emulator – the little bit of software that made it possible to load the OS X software on non-Apple hardware possible. Um, turns out the author of the software is more than slightly pissed off that they’re using it – as it turns out there is a strict “not for commercial use” that is being violated.
Hmmmmm…..
And, for the most curious thing about the whole sordid affair – Apple is still mum. They haven’t sued anyone yet! I mean, it’s been almost 3 days!
Maybe they can’t find them either…
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04.16.08
Posted in General Rant at 10:02 am by Administrator
So the folks over at Psystar have come up with a piece of off-the-shelf Intel hardware that they claim will run Mac OS X.
For $499!
That’s about $100 less than a Mac Mini. With twice the RAM, three times as big hard drive (compare). Hmmmm… so how did they do it? Magic – and software. The company claims that with some “minimal patching” users could install Mac OS X 10.5 on the system. “With theEFI V8 emulator it is possible to install Leopard’s kernel straight from the DVD that you purchased at the Apple store barring the addition of a few drivers to ensure that everything boots and runs smoothly,” according to thePsystar site.
Apparently, all the attention caught them off-guard as well – since the announcement on Tuesday, their server was down for most of the day. As of today – the site is up – but you’re out of luck if you want to order because – according to their online store’s homepage:
“Thank you for visiting Psystar. We’re sorry but the store is temporarily down due to the fact that we are currently unable to process any credit card transactions.Please send an e-mail to support@psystar.com with the subject line “UPDATE” so that we can update you when the store comes back online. For customers who have already placed orders: if you received a confirmation e-mail then your item is in queue to be built and shipped.”
Ummmm…. what? Store down because they can’t process credit card transactions? Nice. Yeah, sign me up for one of those Mac clones…
If you’re old (like me) – you’ll remember the great Apple-sanctioned clones of 1995. Basically, Power Computing got the license for the Apple ROM, and so they were able to make it all work.
However, once Steve Jobs came back into power in July of 1997 – he bought Power Computing for $100 million in stock and quickly put the kibosh on all the clone maker’s ROM licenses – effectively putting them all out of business. Nice.
There is even some question as to whether people can legally install Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. The end user license agreement (EULA) says: “You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.”
Hmmmm… If I were a betting man (and I am) – and I was an executive at Psystar (I’m not) – I would have my legal team on speed dial. You KNOW it’s only a matter of days before Apple Thugs serve a cease and desist and then start applying the Full Monte legal cluster.
Should be fun to watch, though!
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04.14.08
Posted in General Rant at 10:16 am by Administrator
Hey, there’s a new merger alliance in town: Salesforce.com + Google! Yep, the geeks at both companies have apparently been working hard to integrate Google Docs and Google Talk into the default Salesforce.com CRM install.
All in all it looks pretty cool. IF you like Google Docs.
We all bitch and complain about the fact that Word, Excel and PowerPoint are the definition of bloatware – and there are lots of people who bitch that Google Docs is an underpowered “toy.”
Now, Google Docs is OK for a lot of folks who don’t live and breath Excel Macros and advanced functions. These knowledge working are sometimes put down as “…just sales and marketing personnel…” – insinuating that they aren’t “real” users.
I beg to differ.
It’s “these people” that have driven the adoption of Salesforce to begin with. It’s these people that also use Google Docs on a regular basis. Having the two integrated together is a terrific idea – and one that they have done a great job in making as seamless as possible (video).
Just as I can imagine SOHO users rejoicing, I can just hear the laments of enterprise IT folks. Most enterprise IT folks have been working for years to narrow the number of vendors they work with – just to keep their heads above water. They want to lock down all desktops, control every packet over the network, make sure that they have a hand in every single instance of real or imagined “security” breaches, etc.
Which is good. that’s their job. However, I’m betting that they’re going to whine about the Google integration (I believe they have the option of turning it off altogether) – and the horrors of having people store their data in the cloud that they can’t control.
They may have a point. However, I think it’s the sales and marketing pukes (read: real users) who are going to dictate what they will and won’t put up with. They WILL drive adoption.
Hopefully, that will spur Google to enhance and fix their Docs offering… I mean, hey – Zoho has a much more robust suite of (also free) of online applications. You would think that Google would take their online Docs products more seriously, now that they have a higher rate of adoption.
Google: ENOUGH with the “Beta” tag on Docs already! People use it. People are coming rely on it. And, oh yeah, another company is banking on that functionality for THEIR customers. Suspend the free gourmet meals for your entire campus for 3 days and you can pay for 100+ engineers to finish up and fix the damn thing already.
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04.10.08
Posted in General Rant at 3:51 pm by Administrator
For me, the word “hacker” conjures up visions of pimple-faced kids in a cold state somewhere – toiling away with “cool hacks” in their parent’s basement – or nefarious underworld thugs in 3rd world countries trying to spam, steal and worm their way into stealing people’s identities.
Take a look at what “hacker” actually means (from the American Heritage Dictionary):
- One who is proficient at using or programming a computer; a computer buff.
- One who uses programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file.
- One who enthusiastically pursues a game or sport: a weekend tennis hacker.
- [Perhaps from hacker, amateurish or inept golfer or tennis player (possibly from hack), or perhaps from hack, practical joke, clever scheme (from dialectal hack, to embarrass, confuse, play a trick on).]
Although these are good – I have one of my own: A person who enjoys exploring the details of something and knows how (or learns how) to tweak and stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
If you look at it from that point of view – I’m definitely a hacker – and you probably are too.
I just happen to be in the software business – but anyone can hack anything. You can hack the freeway system by taking side streets, hack the boarding line by faking an injury, hack the check-in luggage cluster by shipping your bags overnight, etc.
Most of us use a computer most of every working day (some crazy people like me also use it in their off time as well!). Most of us use software – some good and some bad – most of every working day.
Because software was created by man, it is inherently flawed. There is no “perfect” software package. Either it does 80% of what we need 90% of the time, or it just plain “sucks” but we’re forced to use it for reasons outside of our control.
I was talking to a customer that had the same problem. They were using Microsoft Dynamics – which they have used for years and years before Microsoft bought it. The accounting people were happy. The salespeople would rather poke their eyes out than try to price out custom configurations of their products (which is about 90% of their business).
The problem was that in Dynamics, they had room for the specs and a price to charge the customer, but they had all these business rules and pricing and costs that needed to be taken into consideration.
So they did what any other hacker would do – they had created souped up Excel files, flat file databases, and all kinds of other tools that would help them get the configuration – and thus the cost and price correct. But it’s not really hacking the system, because this data wasn’t shared and everyone had their own way of doing it (very successfully, btw).
Then, the true hacker showed up. This person suggested that they write their complicated business logic and configuration rules in some software that everyone could share, then link that to the Dynamics system and read/write the data they needed there – rather than having to hand-code everything. Oh yeah, and each Dynamics seat was $5,000 – so they did “rounds” of data entry to share a named user.
Answer: Servoy. They got hooked up with a consulting group they had a relationship with – and proceeded to write a completely customer configuration editor that would give costs in realtime, and then when the client said “yes” – they literally pushed a button and the invoice came out of Dynamics. They were also able to steer the customer during the configuration and view realtime inventory (coming from Dynamics) and make substitutions or tell the customer what the status of an order was, or get a firm delivery date based on when the materials were coming in.
They learned that the answer isn’t necessarily to throw out what isn’t working – but rather – hack the system to meet the disparate needs of everyone in the organization.
So let your inner-hacker, fire up a copy of Servoy and see what you can hack today…
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04.09.08
Posted in General Rant at 3:44 pm by Administrator
Yahoo and Time Warner are said to be “closing in” on a deal that would merge Yahoo with AOL.
AOL! Really, I’m not making this up.
The word is that Yahoo would get some cash from Time Warner as well as a 20 percent stake in the combined company (minus the crappy dial-up business – it’s worth an estimated $10 billion).
But wait! There’s more!
At the same time ol’ Jerry is reported to be in talks with… wait for it… Google. Apparently Yahoo finally got the idea that maybe – just maybe – Google was better at handling the search advertising – so they are looking to outsource it to the multi-colored-logo 800 pound gorilla.
But wait! There’s still MORE!
The New York Times reported that Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are in negotiations on making a joint bid for Yahoo. That merger would join Yahoo, Microsoft Corp’s MSN and News Corp’s MySpace, the paper said.
Wow.
Of course talking about doing a deal and doing a deal are two different things – but jeez! So… I guess Jerry Wang really, really, really, REALLY doesn’t want to dance with Steve Ballmer!
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