Dennis Byron

Can Google Reach Its Pie in the Sky?

Good overview of the issues. I have a couple of nits but I'm not sure if they affect your conclusion:

1. Google's legacy/core business is an advertiser/publisher application delivered as a service, not "search/directory." The facts that the service uses sophisticated patented search technology and is monetized by selling ads are secondary (although the former has helped it succeed in delivering a "packaged" advertiser/publisher application where others failed).

2. Although Google builds "key technology in house," it supposedly (I have never personally researched its claim) does it with commodity and/or open source components, basically providing the "off the shelf" advantage you're concerned about.

I don't think this changes Google's chances competing head-on with Microsoft's SaaS strategy (which it will insist on calling Software Plus Service until Ballmer retires) however. Microsoft is most likely adopting the same commodity and/or open source technologies in its data farms (and even if it is using its own proprietary stuff, it doesn't pay list price). And Microsoft should be able to maintain application functionality superiority for 10 years simply based on momentum (barring some execution mistake which I think it unlikely Ozzie would make).

Neither company should try to deliver the network infrastructure itself. Going back to the utility metaphor, they shouldn't try to be GE circa 1940, delivering both dynamos and light bulbs (but not sure it does either anymore).

Google's Chrome Sounds Like 1970s Pressure Cooker

RickRusselTX and Captainccs -

Thanks for your comments and I'll take your word for it vis a vis the technical descriptions (skipping over the "disconnected" and "weakly connected" problem your descriptions don't address; for example, Gmail recently).

But this is an investment site, not slashdot. The idea is what will people buy/how will consumers use Chrome. Hence my comments about applications that would need to be ported to the net. Or how else will Google make money (that nice clean Chrome UI will look pretty messy with ads all over it) to make Google a better investment. Tim Armstrong, Google President, Advertising & Commerce, North America (recently picked up responsibility for Latin America as well), spoke Sept 2 at the Citi Technology Conference, and said basically
the idea behind Chrome is to get users to use more Google services but there is no particular business model tied to the browser (or anyone’s browser).
-- Dennis Byron

Google's Chrome Sounds Like 1970s Pressure Cooker

Bob F --
Honestly I tried to read the Google Chrome comic book but because even my cataract-covered, torn-retina eyes can handle more than 17 words at a time, I gave up. I at least expected a few laughs (hence the term, "comic book").
-- Dennis

We Need a Digital Bill of Rights

Eric

Re: your digital bill of rights idea, the current one does the job just fine, thanks.

When you say "We need..." and then talk about the U.S. election, I assume you are talking about the US and not some "oneworld" idea you have blogged about previously. I'm sorry to see such European Union communalism (seekingalpha.com/artic...) infecting SV. So much for starting a company in your garage and waking up one morning with a 12-meter ocean racer in the Bay.

Specifically you say,

"When the economics of scarcity no longer apply, consumers start to behave differently. They copy and reuse content in unforeseen ways. The pendulum has swung so far that normal consumer behavior has now been criminalized."

That's typical EU blogobull. Taking some one else's digitized intellectual property is no different than sneaking into the movie theater through the fire escape or shoplifting in the video store. I agree it's no big deal. But it's wrong.

As for what Amazon and Apple can do with/to content you purchased and put on their service-delivery device is their prerogative. You affirmatively chose to abide by the Ts&Cs of their service. You didn't buy a product from them; drop their service if you object. You can't screw up regular utilities either with some appliance you purchase.

As for net neutrality, I never heard that anyone was proposing to take away the free flow of information. I thought they just want to offer services that make the flow faster if I want to pay for it. I may be wrong on my understanding of the issue but the current laws would protect me given anything I can think of Verizon or Comcast doing. In fact, the bigger risk is the one that you're proposing: letting the government get too involved.

In your last paragraph, it sounds like you want a "do not email" list. Why do we need to change the bill of rights to do that?

Finally nothing is better protected by the current Bill of Rights than privacy. Got an issue; make a federal case out of it. You don't need a new law to do that. By the way, I assume you are not proposing to go through that awkward constitutional protocol of getting your rights enshrined through an amendment.

Google vs. Microsoft: Software as a Service Battle Heats Up

Good summary Jason of both the Microsoft services and the issue.

Live Meeting is not like Skype 2001, it's really is Placeware 1999. And I think you are leaving out Microsoft's live CRM services and all the services based around what it calls Office Live Small Business (competing with NetSuite, SAP BBD, etc.)

As for the issue, I think there may be a generational thing going on here. Guys my age (62), who remember when their applications and data were locked away in a "cloud" (we called it the computer room), want both our apps and our data in our control. (I'm old-fashioned. When I'm forced to sit in an airport lounge, I read Ludlum.) Although not as old as I am, Mundie and Ozzie are of my generation.

You young guys have more confidence in "the cloud" because you don't remember the panic PID messages telling you to close everything down quickly because "the mainframe" is crashing. Hours later when it came back up, there was a pleasant message from IT that said they were happy to inform us that all our work "as of 24 hours ago" was restored to the system.

I haven't researched this generational difference but I sense it might be the defining point in the upcoming battle between MSFT and GOOG.

-- Dennis Byron

Google Is King, But for How Long?

Good point about the foreverness of Google domination, Kevin, but to the extent it is based on your historical summary, I take issue.

Microsoft, its CEO at the time admitted, missed the significance of the browser in the early 90s but it hardly "missed the Internet" since by the end of the decade it had the dominant browser and more importantly for investors, makes money on its web server software. And has grown (without looking it up) maybe five times since then.

And IBM did not invent the PC but it certainly made the PC industry what it became. And IBM made a few dollars over the subseqent 25 years as well.

Similarly, Google didn't invent search; it just perfected how to monetize search technology, unlike Alta Vista, etc.

"Missing" technology changes has never been a problem for good companies. Not figuring out what business you're in is typically the thing that holds down share value. In Google's case, it says it's a technology company but some investors want to look at it as media company like Disney or McGraw Hill and others as a marketing company like eBay or Amazon. If you take Google management at its word, GOOG is more like SAP in 1990, about to see if it can move from being a one-industry-focused application to a broad multiple industry solution set. Whether that functionality getys delivered in a cloud or is built with open source software or uses the kids' college-homework page ranking algorithm is just noise level.

Microsoft and Competitors Continue to Waste Resources on OOXML

Just to be clear (see my previous posts on this subject), I believe Microsoft is wasting resources on this issue as well. The headline implies I was only criticizing IBM, Sun and so forth.

-- Dennis Byron