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Apple’s Sneakiness Did Not Start Today

Posted on March 21, 2008 ·

The entire blogosphere is up in arms against Apple, for their attempt to sneak the Safari browser onto Windows machines, via Apple Update.   Everybody is shocked, after all we’re more used to such behavior from the (Micro)Borg, but Apple are supposed to be the good guys…

Except they aren’t, and have never been.  The sneakiness hasn’t started today, it just went unnoticed for a good reason.  What’s wrong with the screen image below?

Safari selected as default?  Nope.  Nothing new there, that’s what everybody’s talking about today.  What’s really wrong is the selection of iTunes.  Wait! – you may say, this is the iTunes update program in the first place … Wrong!

I happen to be one of those weirdos who don’t have iTunes on my computer.  This is a Vista PC (no, I am not happy with it, but that’s another story) and I’ve never ever had iTunes installed. In fact I don’t like to have Quicktime either, for its stickiness (close to impossible to kill if off the systray), but I need it as some videos are only available in this format.  

But why is this thing pushing iTunes on my machine, without any config option to unselect it once and for all?  It’s just as much of an aggression as the Safari invasion today.

Now, it’s the top of TechMeme – but where is FSJ? 

 

Update (3/22):  A commenter below warned:

Be careful not to touch the “Thin Skin of Apple Fans”.:-).

Boy, was he right.  Look at otherwise reasonably objective Dennis Howlett come to Apple’s defense, who is turning it into a Mozilla issue, talks about “Badmouthing the competition”.  Dennis, you know Apple is out of line, if this was Microsoft, you and I both would condemn it, like we did in the past. 

 

Related posts: VentureBeat, InfoWorld, Asa Dotzler , MacDailyNews, InformationWeek, ReadWriteWeb, Brandon Live,

Filed Under: Customer Service, Software, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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Launch: Silicon Valley 2008 – Call for Startups

Posted on March 21, 2008 ·

Startup Entrepreneurs who did not make it to the recent Under the Radar event, here’s your second chance: join us at Launch: Silicon Valley 2008, co-presented by SVASE and Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft.

In fact it will be more than a second chance: while the UtR event focused specifically on the business-oriented web applications, Launch 2008 is designed to uncover and showcase products and services from the most exciting of the newest startups in information technology, mobility, security, digital media next generation internet, life sciences and clean energy. The inaugural Launch event was in 2006, combined with Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start conference.

Are these events worth attending? It’s your call … all I can say is 5 of last year’s presenters received venture funding, in aggregate of $30M. smile_shades

So if you are building the Next Great Business in the areas mentioned above, are (almost) ready for launch, meaning that by June 10th, 2008 you will have a product or service available, but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months, then by all means send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to Launchsv@svase.org. Submission deadline: May 9th, 2008. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.)

Last year over 170 companies from all around the country and even overseas applied, so clearly the presentation spots are in high demand. Based on the submissions up to 30 companies will be invited to present at the Launch: Silicon Valley 2008 event on June10th at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, California. Presentations slots are 10 minutes, running in 6 sessions of 5 companies each. Each presenting team will also be assigned a cocktail table in the Networking Room where they can meet with interested audience members one-on-one to answer questions and explore possibilities.

Guy Kawasaki will deliver the opening Keynote, while the closing keynote will be by Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The evening before, on June 9th the presenting companies, registered audience and selected bloggers and media will be invited to a Pre-Event Party at a prestigious location in Palo Alto, providing a further opportunity for networking with Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers.

Here’s a list of companies that launched new products/ services at last year’s Launch Silicon Valley event:
BooRah, Catalog Data Solutions, ClearlyBest.com, Connectance, Datamash Corp., Data Robotics ($10MM venture financing, Q3 ’07), DivinR, d.light design, Eyejot, fix8, Fog Screen,GroupScope, H3.com, Industrial Origami, Jaxtr ($9MM venture financing, Q3 ’07), Kongregate ($5MM venture financing, Q3, ’07), LogSavvy, MyShape (Undisclosed venture financing, Q3, ’07), Nuvora, Ready Solar, Redwood Renewables, Sensl, Shapewriter, Smaato, SnapJot, Spresent, TelId, Truemors, Wrike, and Yodio.

So if you are a qualifying startup Founder, remember the deadline: May 9th. Registration fee (incl. Networking Table + 2 tix) for the invited finalists is $695 if SVASE members, $850 otherwise. For audience members, Early Bird registration is available at $145 / $195 until May 19th, after which only full price registration will be possible. For additional details and later for updates check http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/.

Guy Kawasaki called Launch: Silicon Valley “the poor man’s Demo”. SVASE proudly wears that badge, since we’re bringing this event at a price that won’t keep any startups away. It’s your turn now: send in the Executive Summary and launch with us in June.

Update (3/21):  I was just informed that the SVASE site as well as launchsiliconvalley.org is down, and will likely be so for the next 48 hours. Bummer, apologies for the inconvenience.   In the meantime, Executive Summaries can still be sent to Launchsv@svase.org, and the , Early Bird registration works, too.

Filed Under: Bay Area, Social Networking, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The Microsoft Vista Fiasco: Who is Evil Now?

Posted on March 9, 2008 ·

Yes, it’s a harsh title. Yes, I’ve long been critical of Vista. But so far I thought it was just incompetence, the Behemoth having lost their edge. Naive me… this piece in The New York Times is a true eye-opener.

It starts with what appears to be average users’ stories (bare with me, it gets better):

  • Jon upgrades two XP machines to Vista, only to find none of his peripherals work anymore
  • Steven confirms drivers are missing in the entire ecosystem
  • Mike buys a “Windows Vista Capable” laptop which turns out to be a $2,100 email machine, as it doesn’t run his favorite programs, and only can handled the castrated version of Vista that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

If these users didn’t know better, I wonder who should. They are all senior Microsoft Execs:

  • Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member.
  • Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft senior vice president responsible for Windows.
  • Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management.

They and several other Microsofties warned about the consequences of reducing the original strict hardware requirements and labeling underrated computers as Vista Capable:

The decision to drop the original hardware requirements is accompanied by considerable internal protest. The minimum hardware configuration was set so low that “even a piece of junk will qualify,” Anantha Kancherla, a Microsoft program manager, said in an internal e-mail message among those recently unsealed, adding, “It will be a complete tragedy if we allowed it.”

That this would result in disaster was foreseeable:

“It would be a lot less costly to do the right thing for the customer now,” said Robin Leonard, a Microsoft sales manager, in an e-mail message sent to her superiors, “than to spend dollars on the back end trying to fix the problem.”

He and others were not listened to. Now Microsoft is facing a class action lawsuit: nothing new to the Redmond giant, just a calculated risk. “Where does Microsoft go to buy back its lost credibility?” asks The New York Times.

Nowhere. They stopped caring a long time ago. The Monopolist does not have customers: they have loyal subjects used to pay their taxes to Microsoft. Except that they are not that loyal anymore, and there are visible cracks on the walls of the empire. There is Linux, Mac OS, Web Applications – customers are slowly realizing they actually have a choice. Choice is the end of all monopolies, it’s just a matter of time. The Borg could slow the process by trying to be user-friendly, at least pretend to care about customers. Deceptive behavior like this shows they don’t care. They are digging their own grave.

(Please, don’t get me started on how profitable Microsoft is doing – I am talking about a trend, and it takes time….)

Filed Under: Business, Software · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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Zoho Expands Group Collaboration

Posted on February 27, 2008 ·

Today’s Zoho Writer update is not what it looks like. Yes, I get the story about:

  • DocX Support
  • Thesaurus (in 10 languages)
  • Enhanced Endnotes/Footnotes
  • Enhanced Headers/Footers

..etc, but that’s not what I find exciting. DocX support? Personally, I don’t care, MS Office 2003 was the last version I bought, people much smarter than me call it a completely insane format … but hey, the Borg is the market leader, so why not support it… Layout improvements? I’m already in a paperless world, barely ever print, so I don’t really care about these features. But Microsoft Office was created at a time when the purpose of document creation was to eventually print it, and in our legacy world the challenger is measured against the standards of the incumbent, so, yes, I can accept these are important features for Writer. Besides, the academic / student community has been dying for endnotes / footnotes, so now they can have it. smile_shades

But the hidden bomb here isn’t just a Writer improvement: it’s a feature that shows Zoho’s hands regarding collaboration in the entire Zoho Business Suite. Yes, I am talking about Group Sharing. After all, one of the key drivers behind moving to web-based Office applications is to enable easier collaboration.

Most of the collaborative apps, including Zoho or mighty Google typically allow either public sharing, or inviting users individually, but until now there has been no way to share your documents with a predefined set of users, i.e. members of a group. A year and a half ago I praised Google Groups for stepping out of being just a group email mechanism, becoming a mini community/collaborative platform – but the definition of a “group”, i.e.it’s members does not exist outside the Groups application, I can’t share Google Docs or Spreadsheets with my Group. (And make no mistake it’s been the same with Zoho until now.)

With today’s update you can now create a Group in the ‘My Account‘ section of Zoho, and that Group is recognizable in any other Zoho Application, including Writer, Sheet or even Zoho Mail. Eventually there will be multiple privacy / sharing levels within the Zoho Universe:

  • private
  • shared with individual email id’s
  • shared with Groups (defined once, recognized in all apps)
  • shared by Domain (i.e. share info within your business)

The last one will be a feature of Zoho Business, currently in private Beta, but the other two are available. Thesaurus in 10 languages, format and layout improvements are all nice, but the real news of the day is the improved cross-application collaboration.

Related posts: TechCrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Wired, Digital Inspiration, Zoho Blogs.

Filed Under: Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS, SMB / SME · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Windows "Live" (Now Dead) Foldershare Has an Architectural Weakness

Posted on February 12, 2008 ·

Foldershare is a handy tool that keeps several PC’s in sync – most of the time, when it works.  Of course sometimes it goes down, defying it’s new Windows Live moniker. smile_embaressed

Unlike the previous, week-long outage, this one was just a few hours, but even now as it recovers, users can’t log in:

Outages are inevitable, but the repeated incidents made me realize that Foldershare has a design glitch: it’s dependence on logging in to a web server for no good reason.

  • Yes, I understand setup, customization is all through the Web.
  • However, once set up, the need to change configuration is rare, the whole idea in Foldershare is that it just runs in the background with the users barely noticing it even exists.  It does NOT sync / upload actual data to the Web server, all synchronization is strictly P2P.  In fact one of the setup options is to define whether you allow remote P2P sync to occur through the Net, or strictly on your LAN, behind the firewall.

Why on earth my Foldershare clients on 3 computers have to sign in to the Web to be able to carry out behind-the-firewall synchronization is beyond me.  Could the not cache the latest config locally, and use it whenever log-in fails?

Of course I have previously speculated that Microsoft should tie Foldershare and Skydrive, offering both PC sync and Web backup, in which case logging in becomes a reasonable requirement.  But even then, local sync should be available as a fall-back option for outages.

Update (2/13):  A day later Foldershare clients still can’t log in.  Perhaps it’s time to change “the next couple of hours” to “the next couple of days“. smile_angry

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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How to Hire Bill Gates to Demo your Startup’s Product

Posted on February 12, 2008 ·

Actually, I don’t know how, but Xobni apparently does: Bill Gates presented Xobni for Outlook as “the next generation of social networking” (is that why he quit Facebook?) at the Microsoft Office Developers Conference yesterday (video here).

Now, let’s think for a minute. What does it mean when Bill Gates presents your product, a super-cool Outlook plugin to his crowd of developers?

  1. Gates’s message: now go back and copy this fast. That would be the classic Microsoft style, as many software startups can attest to. It would also put the market introduction to somewhere … around 2015? Unlikely.
  2. Microsoft will acquire Xobni in no time. Sweet and fast deal. Congratulations to the Xobni team and investors! martini

Update (2/15): Xobni has a new CEO: Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo’s vice president of social search until now. Did he just escape from one Microsoft acquisition and get into another one? 😉

Update (3/2): TechCrunch has sources confirming the Microsoft negotiations.

Update (3/20): Bob Warfield believes Microsoft is about to close the deal with Xobni.

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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YahoOL?

Posted on February 10, 2008 ·

Yahoo running  to AOL to avoid  assimilation by the (Micro-)Borg?  Hm… I don’t know which one is worse. (Actually, I do.)   The funny (actually, sad) thing is, most of my Best MicroHoo quotes apply to a Yahoo/AOL situation, you just have to replace Microsoft with AOLsmile_sad

Stowe Boyd:

Personally, I think the Microsoft and Yahoo matchup is like two tired swimmers who bump into each other and then wind up drowning each other in their scramble to survive. But Yahoo will be the first to go under in this embrace.

Fake Steve Jobs:

It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster.

Imagine a circus act in which two enormous, clumsy, awkward elephants that don’t really like each other are supposed to mate while riding on skateboards.

Oh, well… a sad soap opera.  smile_omg

Filed Under: Business, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , ,
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The Best MicroHoo Quotes

Posted on February 3, 2008 ·

There’s hardly anything new to add to the MSFT/YHOO story, except two great quotes.

Stowe Boyd:

Personally, I think the Microsoft and Yahoo matchup is like two tired swimmers who bump into each other and then wind up drowning each other in their scramble to survive. But Yahoo will be the first to go under in this embrace.

Fake Steve Jobs:

It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster.

Now, for the best part: this last one isn’t from FSJ, after all.. it’s from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer himself. (that is if you can believe anything a blog with Fake in the title sayssmile_omg)

Ballmer said he loved when his rivals merged, because whenever the also-rans in any market start teaming up they might as well be waving a white flag. Because it’s over. You’ve beaten them. You’ve driven them to despair. They haven’t been able to beat you on their own; there’s no way they’ll do it together. Then he told me that line about the hundred-yard dash.

Btw, this Fake Steve post is not exactly short of great metaphors. Here’s one describing the post-merger integration (you know, the stage where all mergers fail):

Imagine a circus act in which two enormous, clumsy, awkward elephants that don’t really like each other are supposed to mate while riding on skateboards.

and this one:

That giant buzzing sound you hear is the whirring of photocopiers in Redmond revving up and spitting out resumes.

It’s worth reading in full.

Update (2/4): Robert Scoble’s version: Put two turkeys together and you don’t get an eagle.

Filed Under: Business, Software · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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Breaking: MicroHoo!

Posted on February 1, 2008 ·

After all the speculation, it finally happened: there’s a Microsoft (MSFT) offer on the table to acquire Yahoo (YHOO) for a mix of cash and stock valued at $44.6 Billion, which is about a 62%  premium to Yahoo’s current market valuation.  Well.. current as of yesterday, when it closed at $19.18 – right now, pre-market it trades at $30.80, almost at the offer price of $31. (I suspect some early buyers will regret that…)

Update: Here’s the “you’ve failed” part from Steven Ballmer’s letter to the Yahoo Board, fully quoted on ZDNet:

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

A few early posts, before the world wakes upsmile_yawn: Between the Lines, Irregular Enterprise, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch. Parislemon’s title (and pic) is telling: Join us – or die!.

Filed Under: Business, Software · Tagged: , ,
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Israel Web Tour in the Silicon Valley

Posted on January 29, 2008 ·

Israel is a hotbed of technology startups – in 2007 alone they raised $1.76 billion of Venture Funding2007, the highest amount in six years. The California Israel Chamber of Commerce is organizing an event, where 90 companies applied to take part in the Israel Web Tour, 4 days of intense meetings with investors, strategic partners, customers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders.

The 15 winning startups, whose Founders/CEO’s will participate are: 5min.com, PLYmedia.com , AllofMe, NuConomy , ClickTale, blogTV.com , Sportingo, PicScout , Qoof, 8hands, Velingo , Innovid, Semingo, PageOnce, and Journeys – the event site has a short synopsis on all of them.

The highlight of the tour will be a public showcase on February 6th, 8:00AM – 2:00PM 2008 @ the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View. Tickets are available here. Ticket holders are also invited free to the closing night party in San Francisco at Slide on February 7th.

The Tour is sponsored by Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Lehman Brothers, USVP, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosatti, Elron and Gemini Israel Funds and the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.

Filed Under: Bay Area, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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