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Gary Edwards

How Google's Ecosystem Changes Everything | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - 0 views

industry.bnet.com/...s-ecosystem-changes-everything

Web-Productivity-Environment Open-Web MS-Web MSOffice-ecosystem Open-Web-Ecosystem Open-Web-Productivity

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 09
     
    Michael Hickins separates the platform forest from the application trees, putting the focus of the future where it belongs - the movement of the legacy MSOffice Productivity Environment to the Web.  The only question will be which Web?  The Open Web?  Or the MS-Web? excerpt:  Microsoft and Apple have leveraged a particular dominant proprietary platform (Windows/Office in one case, the iPhone/iTunes duopoly in the other) to turn every other vendor into a bit player; and by allowing other vendors to sell products or services that integrate with theirs, they offer just enough incentives for the others to play along. Google is also leveraging a dominant platform (in this case, the Web, the largest platform there is) just as relentlessly as Microsoft and Apple have done, but with an open source philosophy that encourages others to compete. The ecosystem includes everything from a development platform to application suites, but its strength emanates from a basic understanding of what it takes to dominate technology: you have to control what former Open Document Foundation director Gary Edwards calls the "point of assembly" - that crucial spot where end users have to come in order to save, share and retrieve their documents - the final work product that all this technology is meant to help create. What Google is in the process of doing is moving that point of assembly from the desktop, where Microsoft and Apple rule, to the Web, where Google is king.
Gary Edwards

Outlook 2011 uses Webkit to render HTML | 9 to 5 Mac Outlook 2011 uses Webkit to render... - 0 views

www.9to5mac.com/...011-uses-webkit-to-render-html

webkit outlook MS HTML5

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Oct 10
     
    A little tidbit from the Microsoft gathering this evening.  While demonstrating Outlook for Mac and the HTML rendering engine, Microsoft employees revealed that instead of using the Word HTML rendering that previous versions of Mac Office used (and the PC version as well), Microsoft has moved over to Apple's Webkit rendering engine to render HTML mails.  Outlook 2011 also uses WebKit to create HTML mail. For those of you who didn't like Entourage's HTML mail, Outlook's WebKit mail, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Why is this a big deal?  This is the first time that Microsoft has used Apple's Open Source Webkit framework in their products.  It will be interesting to see if Webkit spreads to other areas. Office 2011 ships tomorrow and starts at $110 for a 2 license student edition.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft's Answer to the Web Platform Threat? CHEAT!!!! - Microsoft Web Apps are actu... - 0 views

www.informationweek.com/...JSORXIUMXLBQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN

web-apps microsoft msoffice silverlight Openweb

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Aug 09
     
    For most of this decade, web developers have been suffering the shortcomings of Internet Explorer. Like 1998 limited HTML-CSS support.  And nothing for the language of the Web - HTML+ :: HTML5, CSS3, SVG/Canvas and advanced JavaScript.  That hasn't bothered Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) too much, because the company has historically focused on developing "real" applications that run only on Windows and don't use the browser as a platform. With the new Office web apps, many thought that Microsoft might actually have to experience the living nightmare that web app development can be. Yet the company has figured out a way to make things easier: cheat.   MIcrosof thas figured out how to provide MSOffice as Web Apps, without having to use the language of the Web: HTML+.  Instead, they use protpietary formats, protocols and interfaces to create an interesting dichotomy - a rich MS-Web, and a poor, 1998 Open-Web.
Gary Edwards

Two Microsofts: Mulling an alternate reality | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/n-alternate-reality-7000016916

Microsoft microsoft-monopoly Judge-Thomas-Penfield-Jackson

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Judge Jackson had it right. And the Court of Appeals? Not so much
  • Judge Jackson is an American hero and news of his passing thumped me hard. His ruling against Microsoft and the subsequent overturn of that ruling resulted, IMHO, in two extraordinary directions that changed the world. Sure the what-if game is interesting, but the reality itself is stunning enough. Of course, Judge Jackson sought to break the monopoly. The US Court of Appeals overturn resulted in the monopoly remaining intact, but the Internet remaining free and open. Judge Jackson's breakup plan had a good shot at achieving both a breakup of the monopoly and, a free and open Internet. I admit though that at the time I did not favor the Judge's plan. And i actually did submit a proposal based on Microsoft having to both support the WiNE project, and, provide a complete port to WiNE to any software provider requesting a port. I wanted to break the monopolist's hold on the Windows Productivity Environment and the hundreds of millions of investment dollars and time that had been spent on application development forever trapped on that platform. For me, it was the productivity platform that had to be broken.
  • I assume the good Judge thought that separating the Windows OS from Microsoft Office / Applications would force the OS to open up the secret API's even as the OS continued to evolve. Maybe. But a full disclosure of the API's coupled with the community service "port to WiNE" requirement might have sped up the process. Incredibly, the "Undocumented Windows Secrets" industry continues to thrive, and the legendary Andrew Schulman's number is still at the top of Silicon Valley legal profession speed dials. http://goo.gl/0UGe8 Oh well. The Court of Appeals stopped the breakup, leaving the Windows Productivity Platform intact. Microsoft continues to own the "client" in "Client/Server" computing. Although Microsoft was temporarily stopped from leveraging their desktop monopoly to an iron fisted control and dominance of the Internet, I think what were watching today with the Cloud is Judge Jackson's worst nightmare. And mine too. A great transition is now underway, as businesses and enterprises begin the move from legacy client/server business systems and processes to a newly emerging Cloud Productivity Platform. In this great transition, Microsoft holds an inside straight. They have all the aces because they own the legacy desktop productivity platform, and can control the transition to the Cloud. No doubt this transition is going to happen. And it will severely disrupt and change Microsoft's profit formula. But if the Redmond reprobate can provide a "value added" transition of legacy business systems and processes, and direct these new systems to the Microsoft Cloud, the profits will be immense.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Judge Jackson sought to break the ability of Microsoft to "leverage" their existing monopoly into the Internet and his plan was overturned and replaced by one based on judicial oversight. Microsoft got a slap on the wrist from the Court of Appeals, but were wailed on with lawsuits from the hundreds of parties injured by their rampant criminality. Some put the price of that criminality as high as $14 Billion in settlements. Plus, the shareholders forced Chairman Bill to resign. At the end of the day though, Chairman Bill was right. Keeping the monopoly intact was worth whatever penalty Microsoft was forced to pay. He knew that even the judicial over-site would end one day. Which it did. And now his company is ready to go for it all by leveraging and controlling the great productivity transition. No business wants to be hostage to a cold heart'd monopolist. But there is huge difference between a non-disruptive and cost effective, process-by-process value-added transition to a Cloud Productivity Platform, and, the very disruptive and costly "rip-out-and-replace" transition offered by Google, ZOHO, Box, SalesForce and other Cloud Productivity contenders. Microsoft, and only Microsoft, can offer the value-added transition path. If they get the Cloud even halfway right, they will own business productivity far into the future. Rest in Peace Judge Jackson. Your efforts were heroic and will be remembered as such. ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13
     
    Comments on the latest SVN article mulling the effects of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's anti trust ruling and proposed break up of Microsoft. comment: "Chinese Wall" Ummm, there was a Chinese Wall between Microsoft Os and the MS Applciations layer. At least that's what Chairman Bill promised developers at a 1990 OS/2-Windows Conference I attended. It was a developers luncheon, hosted by Microsoft, with Chairman Bill speaking to about 40 developers with applications designed to run on the then soon to be released Windows 3.0. In his remarks, the Chairman described his vision of commoditizing the personal computer market through an open hardware-reference platform on the one side of the Windows OS, and provisioning an open application developers layer on the other using open and totally transparent API's. Of course the question came up concerning the obvious advantage Microsoft applications would have. Chairman Bill answered the question by describing the Chinese Wall that existed between Microsoft's OS and Apps develop departments. He promised that OS API's would be developed privately and separate from the Apps department, and publicly disclosed to ALL developers at the same time. Oh yeah. There was lots of anti IBM - evil empire stuff too :) Of course we now know this was a line of crap. Microsoft Apps was discovered to have been using undocumented and secret Window API's. http://goo.gl/0UGe8. Microsoft Apps had a distinct advantage over the competition, and eventually the entire Windows Productivity Platform became dependent on the MSOffice core. The company I worked for back then, Pyramid Data, had the first Contact Management application for Windows; PowerLeads. Every Friday night we would release bug fixes and improvements using Wildcat BBS. By Monday morning we would be slammed with calls from users complaining that they had downloaded the Friday night patch, and now some other application would not load or function properly. Eventually we tracked th
Gary Edwards

It's Microsoft's Game to Lose with Windows Mobile 7 - PCWorld Business Center - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...ose_with_windows_mobile_7.html

Windows-7 windows-mobile MS-Productivity

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Feb 10
     
    Good title.  Nice to see that some of the tech media are starting to figure this out.  It's about time. excerpt: While Microsoft has struggled with its mobile operating system, it still occupies a dominant stake of the server operating system, desktop operating system, business productivity software, messaging, and Web browser markets. Bells and whistles aside, it's hard to argue with the potential of a smartphone platform that can seamlessly tie in with the platforms and tools that businesses rely on. RIM, Apple, Palm, and now Google, all recognize and respect Microsoft's presence in the enterprise. These other mobile platforms realize that integration with Microsoft backend tools--particularly Exchange Server--is imperative to success in the enterprise. No matter how hard they try, though, the solutions are often clumsy or cumbersome, and have a sort of "square peg in the round hole" feel to them. The core appeal of a Microsoft mobile operating system is the inclusion of native tools that naturally integrate with the existing server, desktop, and office productivity environment. Windows Mobile is uniquely suited to deliver a seamless and familiar experience for business professionals. Expecting Microsoft to introduce unique innovations or raise the bar in any way for mobile operating systems is probably a recipe for disappointment. Assuming that Microsoft can at least improve Windows Mobile to the point that Windows Phones are more or less on par with next-generation smartphones like the iPhone or Droid will be enough, though, for Microsoft to get the ship pointed in the right direction and begin to reclaim some of its lost mobile platform market share. Microsoft has a built-in audience and the game is Microsoft's to lose.
Gary Edwards

Is the Apps Marketplace just playing catchup to Microsoft? | Googling Google | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/Google

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Take the basic communication, calendaring, and documentation enabled for free by Apps Standard Edition, add a few slick applications from the Marketplace and the sky was the limit. Or at least the clouds were.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Mar 10
       
      Google Apps have all the basic elements of a productivity environment, but lack the internal application messaging, data connectivity and exchange that made the Windows desktop productivity platform so powerful.   gAPPS are great.  They even have copy/paste! But they lack the basics needed for simple "merge" of client and contact data into a wordprocessor letter/report/form/research paper. Things like DDE, OLE, ODBC, MAPI, COM, and DCOM have to be reinvented for the Open Web.   gAPPS is a good place to start.  But the focus has got to shift to Wave technologies like OT, XMPP and JSON.  Then there are the lower level innovations such as Web Sockets, Native Client, HTML5, and the Cairo-Skia graphics layer (thanks Florian).
  • Whether you (or your business) choose a Microsoft-centered solution that now has well-implemented cloud integration and tightly coupled productivity and collaboration software (think Office Live Web Apps, Office 2010, and Sharepoint 2010) or you build a business around the web-based collaboration inherent in Google Apps and extend its core functions with cool and useful applications, you win.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Mar 10
       
      Not true!!! The Microsoft Cloud is based on proprietary technologies, with the Silverlight-OOXML runtime/plug-in at the core of a WPF-.NET driven "Business Productivity Platform. The Google Cloud is based on the Open Web, and not the "Open Web" that's tied up in corporate "standards" consortia like the W3C, OASIS and Ecma. One of the reasons i really like WebKit is that they push HTML5 technologies to the edge, submitting new enhancements back into the knuckle dragging W3C HTML5 workgroups as "proposals".  They don't however wait for the entangled corporate politics of the W3C to "approve and include" these proposals.  Google and Apple submit and go live simultaneously.   This of course negates the heavy influence platform rivals like Microsoft have over the activities of corporate standards orgs.  Which has to be done if WebKit-HTML5-JavaScript-XMPP-OT-Web Sockets-Native Client family of technologies is ever to challenge the interactive and graphical richness of proprietary Microsoft technologies (Silverlight, OOXML, DrawingML, C#). The important hedge here is that Google is Open Sourcing their enhancements and innovations.  Without that Open Sourcing, i think there would be reasons to fear any platform player pushing beyond the corporate standards consortia approval process.  For me, OSS balances out the incredible influence of Google, and the ownership they have over core Open Web productivity application components. Which is to say; i don't want to find myself tomorrow in the same position with a Google Open Web Productivity Platform, that i found myself in with the 1994 Windows desktop productivity environment - where Microsoft owned every opportunity, and could take the marketshare of any Windows developed application with simple announcements that they to will enter that application category.  (ex. the entire independent contact/project management category was wiped out by mere announcement of MS Outlook).
Paul Merrell

Microsoft Is Said to Be in Talks to Settle EU Cases (Update2) - Bloomberg.com - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...news

Microsoft DG Competition antitrust MSIE MS Office

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Microsoft Corp., which has been fined 1.68 billion euros ($2.34 billion) in European Union antitrust cases, is in preliminary talks to settle two additional probes before EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes leaves office, four people familiar with the negotiations said. Any agreement would have to resolve a case over Microsoft’s Internet browser as well as a separate investigation into word processing and spreadsheet software, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential.
  • The commission has said it is considering forcing the Redmond, Washington-based company to offer consumers a choice of browsers when setting up a new personal computer on a so-called ballot screen. Microsoft responded by saying it would ship Windows 7 operating-system software without Internet Explorer to avoid breaking EU law.
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