Open Web

If the evidence supports the allegations, this is a plausible antitrust theory, a company with a dominant market position leveraging that position into new markets via integration. In essence this is the same theory as that applied against Microsoft's bundling and integration of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player.  

Very detailed and well organized discussion comparing HTML5, Flash and Silverlight. excerpt intro: Over the past week, I had a slew of press inquiries about the future of Flash, driven largely by the Apple iPad announcement - an event in which Flash was conspicuously absent. Of the top of my head, I put together some key points in the conversation, presented below. As I mull these talking points over and discuss them with colleagues, some of these will likely end up in a research note, along with actionable advice. For now, here are some aspects of a multi-faceted situation.

Excellent but light weight and breezy review of the Flash-Silverlight-Open Web HTML5 battle for the future of the Web. excerpt: At the top of the org chart, Apple's deprecation of Flash technology is all about politics. Apple doesn't want its mainstream video delivery system controlled by a third party. So Mr. Jobs backs up his politics with tidbits of technical truths. However, discovering the real truths about HTML5 and Flash is a bit harder, as this survey shows. On February 11th, I wrote an editorial, "What Should Apple Do About Adobe?" Part of the discussion related to Adobe's Flash Player on the Mac, updates and security. Inevitably, the comments escalated to a discussion of Steve Job's distaste for and blocking of Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The question is: is Apple's stance against Flash justified? Of course, any political argument needs only the barest of idealogical arguments to sustain itself. More to the point is, can Apple fight this war and win based on the state-of-the-art with HTML5? Again, Apple's CEO must believe he can win this war. There has to be some technical basis for that, or the war wouldn't be waged.

I left a lengthy comment on this very good article. excerpt: According to the latest study from Juniper Research, the market for cloud-based mobile applications will grow 88% from 2009 to 2014. The market was just over $400 million this past year, says Juniper, but by 2014 it will reach $9.5 billion. Driving this growth will be the adoption of the new web standard HTML5, increased mobile broadband coverage and the need for always-on collaborative services for the enterprise. Cloud Apps in your Pocket Mobile cloud computing is a term that refers to an infrastructure where both the data storage and the data processing happen outside of the mobile device from which an application is launched. To the typical consumer, a cloud-based mobile application looks and feels just like any app purchased or downloaded from a mobile application store like iTunes. However, the app is driven from the "cloud," not from the handheld device itself. There are already a few well-known mobile cloud apps out there including Google's Gmail and Google Voice for iPhone. When launched via iPhone homescreen shortcuts, these apps perform just like any other app on the iPhone, but all of their processing power comes from the cloud. In the future, there will be even more applications like these available, but they won't necessarily be mobilized web sites like those in Google's line-up. Cloud-based mobile apps are perfectly capable of being packaged in a way that allows them to be sold alongside traditional mobile apps in mobile application stores, with no one but the developers any wiser. HTML5 Paves the Way for Mobile Web's Future

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.

The Barcelona World Mobility Conference is under way, and Microsoft is making a show of force.  They are hitting with features that support both "Social Network Hubs" (People Hub) and "Productivity Hubs" (Office Hub).  The key to Microsoft's Windows 7 Smartphone success is not that of new and exciting features competitive with Apple and Google smartphones.  No, the key feature that Microsoft owns is that of integration into legacy desktop productivity business systems based on the MSOffice productivity platform, and, more importantly, integration into the emerging Web centered but proprietary Microsoft Business Productivity Platform.  Stay tuned. excerpt on the new Windows 7 feature set:  The Office Hub lets you easily sync your documents between your phone and your PC. Office Hub comes with OneNote, for notetaking, Documents and Sharepoint for presentation collaboration. Users will also have access to an Outlook Mail application which gives similar features, like flagging important e-mails, that you'd find on the desktop version.

Despite initial comments in support of HTML5 as an option standard, Adobe has taken action to sabotage the open specification in an effort to support its existing position with Flash. Ian Hixie, a member of the HTML5 working group and an employee of Google, reported this week that "the latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public (despite yesterday's promise to make it so)."

Product announcements have raised questions Oracle and OpenOffice.org don't want to answer. Here's what we know. By Eric Lai Eric has provided us with a comprehensive set of questions surrounding the Oracle aquisition of Sun.  The key issues he focuses on concern the future of OpenOffice, MYSQL and something called Oracle Cloud Office.  Unfortunately his efforts resulted in only a handful of tentative answers.  Which leads me to believe that over a year of negotiations and planning at Oracle has left them up in the air and undecided. Time to go through the questions.  I'm going to use the Diigo highlight and comments overlay of Eric's article to do this.

"Apparently confirming last year's report, Screven said that Sun had been working on Oracle Cloud Office 'for some time.'" Sun reorganized internally in February of 2008, transferring the StarOffice/OOo resources under a newly-minted Cloud Computing division.That seems likely to be the point when Sun got serious about the cloud-based rewrite of OOo. So around two years into the effort?

Dick Brass, former VP at Microsoft (1997-2004) unloads.  He describes how legacy product groups, like the Windows OS and MSOffice groups, conspire to defeat smaller groups focused on emerging and innovative solutions.  Excellent read. excerpt:  Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It's not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft's music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left. As a result, while the company has had a truly amazing past and an enviably prosperous present, unless it regains its creative spark, it's an open question whether it has much of a future.

Good quotes.  The Wired article is also worth reading.  The important take away being that Apple is fully committed to native browser HTML5.  So is Google.  But, i found out at the Web 2.0 - WebKit party in 2009, there is quite a bit of tension between Apple WebKit and Google.  The problem being that Apple is doing all the work while Google is pumping up HTML5, Web Sockets and Native Client; all of which are essential to WebKit, but also to Chrome OS, Chrome, Android and the Google Apps push. excerpt:  According to Wired, at an Apple "town hall" meeting after the introduction of the Flashless iPad, Steve Jobs unloaded on Google, calling the search giant's "don't be evil" motto "bullshit," before rounding on Adobe. "They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things, but they just refuse to do it," he said. "Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy... Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash...The world is moving to HTML5."

Very cool!  Enables you to build a custom "real time" search "feed" widget that can then be embedded in blogs, wiki's or other web page documents.

Matthew Papakipos, the engineering director for the Chrome OS project, and Eitan Bencuya, from Google PR. Over the course of the interview, Papakipos and Bencuya go into considerable detail about topics that range from big-picture perspectives on how Google develops software and where it sees the Web going with HTML5, to the nuts and bolts of what Chrome OS is slated to offer in specific areas. In short, we cover the following ground: ... How and when the Chrome OS project was conceived... The relationship between Chrome OS and Android... How Google is trying to tackle the same "file handler" problem as Windows OLE and the registry, but in the cloud.... Who Google sees as the target audience for Chrome OS, how did they decide which projects and features to pursue... The convergence of the phone and the computer... Nuts and bolts details, like native client execution, security, and UI issues... The significance of Chrome's built-in media player

PALO ALTO, Calif., January 12, 2010 - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zimbra, a leading vendor of email and collaboration software, from Yahoo! Inc. Zimbra is a leading open source email and collaboration solution with over 55 million mailboxes.  As an independent Yahoo! product division, Zimbra achieved 2009 mailbox growth of 86% overall and 165% among small and medium business customers.

List of 2010 predictions from Mark Anderson.  Interestingly he points out that Microsoft's loss in the mobility market is the leading factor in their loss as a consumer facing provider.  No mention of the Web being split between a Google dominated and consumer facing Open Web, and a Microsoft owned enterprise facing proprietary Web. excerpt: Microsoft started out its life as a consumer/developer-focused company. The company subsequently switched strategies and became a largely enterprise-focused vendor. These days, consumer is king for Microsoft - at least as far as corporate strategy and where its ad dollars go. But what if Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and other leaders at Microsoft are wrong and integrating the consumer and business worlds doesn't really matter? One very influential market watcher, Mark Anderson, author of the Strategic News Service newsletter, is betting that instead of a melding, there will be an increasing chasm between the consumer and business market.

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area. The IESG has not made any determination as yet. The following draft charter was submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only. Please send your comments to the IESG mailing list (iesg at ietf.org) by January 20, 2010. ... According to reports from developers of Internet audio applications and operators of Internet audio services, there are no standardized, high-quality audio codecs that meet all of the following three conditions: 1. Are optimized for use in interactive Internet applications. 2. Are published by a recognized standards development organization (SDO) and therefore subject to clear change control. 3. Can be widely implemented and easily distributed among application developers, service operators, and end users. ... The goal of this working group is to develop a single high-quality audio codec that is optimized for use over the Internet and that can be widely implemented and easily distributed among application developers, service operators, and end users. Core technical considerations include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following: 1. Designing for use in interactive applications (examples include, but are not limited to, point-to-point voice calls, multi-party voice conferencing, telepresence, teleoperation, in-game voice chat, and live music performance) 2. Addressing the real transport conditions of the Internet as identified and prioritized by the working group 3. Ensuring interoperability with the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), including secure transport via SRTP 4. Ensuring interoperability with Internet signaling technologies such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Session Description Protocol (SDP), and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP); however, the result should not depend on the details of any particular signaling technology.

wow.  Six years and all they have migrated are 2,500 out of 14,0000 desktops!  The curse of the Microsoft Productivity Environment strikes again as legacy workgroups, workflows and the mesh of compound documents that drive them prove to be very stubborn.  The funny thing is that, as Munich struggles with this 1995 level desktop transition, Microsoft is preparing to move those very same legacy productivity environments to a proprietary Web Productivity Platform.  I wonder what Munich's Web plans are? excerpt: Schießl says the transition required enormous background effort which involved eliminating many IT dependencies created by individual vendors over the years. More than 20,000 templates had to be consolidated and converted into new templates, macros or web applications. Most templates and text blocks are now managed via the WollMux program, which was released in 2008. Schießl said that the developers also had to adapt a number of corporate applications such as SAP for use with ODF. According to the review, another achievement in 2009 was the establishment of Linux client pilot areas as a step towards the final aim of migrating all twelve of the city administration's departments to Linux. Schießl says this was the last fundamental step required to enable general client migration in the coming years. Although only 2,500 of around 14,000 workstations have been converted to the custom-built basic LiMux client, the hardest part was to get them all up and running, which required going over inconsistent IT infrastructures that had developed over the years and training the IT staff for the technical switch. As Robert Pogson observes in his blog, six and a half years after the decision was made to switch to free software, the Munich Linux pioneers have completed about 80 per cent of the project's total workload.