Connecting the dots ...
<rant>
I’ve had it. I’m tired of Microsoft programs taking over my computer without permission. This time it’s IE7 – yes, I know, IE8 is out, but I could not care less. In fact I have not launched IE7 for a long time. Sticking with Firefox, and if I was not so dependent on several Ffox add-ons, the browser I’d switch to would be Google’s Chrome, not Internet Explorer.
So what happened? Read on …
The proliferation of affordable netbooks is good for everyone – consumers, that is. Computer manufacturers loath it (high volume, low margin business) and so does Microsoft: they can’t exactly sell $100+ worth of software on a $200 machine. So they come up with all sorts of evil plans. 
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 2009, co-presented by SVASE, Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft.
In fact it will be more than a second chance: while the UtR event focused specifically on Cloud Computing, Launch 2009 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 since 2006 presenting startups received a combined $80+ million in venture funding.
So if you are building the Next Great Business in the areas mentioned above, are (almost) ready for launch, meaning that by June 9th, 2009 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 8th, 2009 – yes, just a few days left. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.)
Last year over 300 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 2009 event on June 9th 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.
The evening before, on June 8th 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.
So if you are a qualifying startup Founder, remember the deadline: May 8th. For additional details and later for updates check http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/ and you may also want to follow the event (actually the President of SVASE) on Twitter.
Guy Kawasaki called Launch: Silicon Valley “the poor man’s Demo”. SVASE proudly wears that badge, since this is an event with a price tag that won’t keep any startups away. It’s your turn now: send in the Executive Summary and launch with SVASE in June.
(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay abreast of news, analysis and just plain opinion on Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business grab the CloudAve Feed here.)
It does so much, while using zero resources:
Of course that’s not the typical picture, more often than not CPU usage is in the upper 80-90% range, while the Resource Monitor can only account for about 40%. Just another crappy program from Microsoft… but no worries: Windows 7: Cutting corners in the rush to market? How reassuring…
Two seemingly unrelated items:
Today Hitwise reported on how Google Maps is catching up on Mapquest, which once was the king of online mapping.
Perhaps more important than just the numbers is the source of traffic: 61% of Google Maps traffic comes from links placed in organic Google Search results. Contrast that to Mapquest, where 8 out of 10 hits come from searches on the Mapquest brand itself. Translation: Mapquest is only used by its already dwindling user base, while Google Maps gains steadily, since Google owns Search. The writing is clearly on the wall.
The second story: Google Gmail Within Striking Distance Of Hotmail – reported Information Week a few days ago. Wait, wasn’t Gmail supposed to be email for the geeks only, lagging behind the masses of Yahoo and Hotmail users?
Between September 2007 and September 2008, Gmail’s visitor total grew 39%, from 18.8 million to 26 million, ComScore figures indicate. Windows Live Hotmail during this period saw its visitor share decline 4%, from 46.2 million to 44.6 million.
If Google’s Gmail growth rate rises to, say, 46% over 2009, it could reach approximately 43 million unique U.S. visitors by the end of the year. And if Windows Live Hotmail continues to bleed visitors at a rate of, say, 3%, it will finish the year with around 42 million unique visitors per month.
So Gmail may overtake Hotmail by the end of this year, and if the trend continues, it might overtake Yahoo by the end of 2011, concludes Information Week. Note, these are site visits, not account numbers, but account numbers include all the throw-away, long forgotten dormant accounts that both Yahoo and Hotmail has in abundance. All these email systems being web-based, visitor stats are a better representation of actual usage.
The third story (yes, I promised two, but can’t stop now): The Google Power Meter., currently being tested by Google employees. These are smart devices you plug in all around the house, they will report back to the mothership and you get a nice dashboard aimed at helping you making the right energy choices.
I would certainly like to know just how “smart” they can be – any chance of bi-directional communication? I can’t help but remember the mail campaign from PG&E, my utility company. They are handing out $25 to anyone who allows them to install a smart thermostat free of charge. The catch? At times when consumption reaches peak levels, the utility company can remotely throttle back your air conditioner. So now you see why I’m hesitant about these Google electricity meters. Could they be switched from passive reporting to regulating one day?
The fourth story (gee, I really have to stop soon): An opinion piece on Bloomberg discusses how the health provisions slipped into the stimulus bill will effect every one of us in the US:
Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors. But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).
Ouch. I’m all for electronic medical records, but I don’t want them to be turned into a Big Brother function. And I don’t want a computer program to decide on my medical treatment. But I’ve just complained about the Sorry State of Health 2.0: neither Google Health nor Microsoft HealthVault are up to the job yet. I want them to get there, and I trust they will (at least one of them). I don’t want them to run my health care, just help me and my providers manage it – but fear of potential misuse won’t stop my desire for progrees.
Do you see the trend here? Google is unstoppable. They want to manage all data, but our life is increasingly all about data and what we do with it. The former Borg in Redmond is now a toothless veteran, slowly dwindling away – Google is the New Borg. Resistance is futile. We’re being assimilated. And we like it. Enjoy the video: (better quality if you click through)
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(This post originally appeared @ CloudAve. To stay abreast of Clod Computing, SaaS news and analysis, grab the CloudAve feed here.)
Today’s joint IBM – Google announcement about enabling personal health monitoring devices to send data directly to Google Health gave me the grand opportunity for a (not-so) quick rant that’s been boiling in me for a while.
Ever since I started actively managing my parents’ health care I’ve been a heavy user of electronic health records and communication systems, and I am immensely frustrated. Frustrated at the paper-based world we’re facing in the 21st century, but also at the current attempts to change all that. Grand ideas, alliances, announcements, but they all feel like IT-talk, losing sight of the very people these systems supposed to serve: patients. That’s you and me and our relatives who have health issues.
Image by jdlasica via Flickr
Disturbing news this morning: TechCrunch Founder Mike Arrington was about to leave the DLD Conference (hey, Eran, where’s your review?) when a stranger approached him, deliberately spat in his face and disappeared in the crowd.
This is as lowly as it gets. It’s also very cowardly. TechCrunch covers a lot of companies and people, some positively, some negatively, others not at all, which can hurt… and Mike does get occasionally abrasive, but does not go into personal attacks.
Anyone who has issues with Mike him can bring it up publicly, in a civilized manner. With zero barrier of entry to blogging, Twitter..etc there is no excuse not to do so.
Mike Arrington is now taking some time off, not only because of the spit-attack, but also to reflect on earlier threats on his and his family’s life and security.
What happened today is a despicable act, not to be taken lightly. I am not making fun of it either … but perhaps to cheer Mike up, I must point out that he is now in a Very Elite Club, where his fellow members are none other but Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
We probably all remember how Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer received the egg treatment in Budapest last year:
But I suspect some of my readers are too young to recall that ten years before the Ballmer-incident, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates received a full cream-pie in his face on a visit to Belgium:
(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay on top of Cloud Computing news, analysis and just our opinion, grab the CloudAve Feed here.)
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Put the last nail in the Vista coffin. Windows 7 is on the fast track.
– good summary of the Windows situation by Signal to Noise. Yes, Win 7 Beta will be available for download starting tomorrow, and it promises to be less of a resource hog than Vista. Microsoft also talks about providing free upgrades to Windows 7 for Vista users – at least those who buy Vista after July 1st.
Good start, but not enough. The upgrade assurance is vital for both Microsoft and more importantly its OEM partners, the computer manufacturers to avoid a slump in computer purchases while waiting for the next OS.
But let’s not forget what Win 7 really is: it’s Vista Final. As it has been widely discussed, Win 7 does not have a new kernel, it’s all about lots of incremental improvements to Vista. In other words, it’s a Vista that works – using the Microsoft lingo perhaps it should 
be called Vista SP3.
Make no mistake, the accelerated move to Windows 7 is a marketing decision, not a technical one. Vista became such a disaster that Microsoft finally realized no amount of marketing can save it: it was better the abandon the shipwreck and start with a clean slate, a “new” Windows product.
But that leaves millions of Vista victims behind, who did not want to by this junk, but had no other choice when they bought their computers. I’ve repeatedly said that Windows 7 should:
OK, I know … fat chances for the letter of apology. But I am serious about the upgrade: customers who paid for Vista deserve a working (SP3-level) OS. Abandoning those millions would be akin to a hit-and-run on a mass scale.
Update: Finally, I don’t feel alone anymore: Jason Perlow @ ZDNet agrees: Windows 7 Should be a Fixta Free For All:
…since Windows 7 is essentially a performance and usability fix for a defective product, I’m of the increasing opinion that a Windows 7 upgrade should be free to anyone who was conned into buying Windows Vista.
(This post originally appeared on CloudAve. – to stay on top of Cloud Computing news, analysis and just our opinion, grab the CloudAve Feed here.)
If you love Windows XP, you’ll hate Windows 7 – says Ed Bott on ZDnet. Windows 7: Mojave My Ass –complains Jason Perlow. Dwight Silverman confirms: Sorry, but Windows 7 isn’t a return to Windows XP, while others don’t refrain from some name-calling.
Sorry guys, you’re all wrong.
You’re debating the merits of an operating system based on it’s UI. Sure, if you migrate from XP to Win7, some of the changes can be confusing – but it’s an initial change, the learning curve is not that steep. I actually side with Ed Bott here, the search box to launch programs is a more user-friendly approach than having to remember the names of all *.exe files a’la XP.
But it does not really matter. Mojave my ass? Mojave was a bogus experiment (in fact a PR blitz dressed up as an experiment) showing happy “users” who liked the Vista UI – but hey had no chance to assess what fails in a short demo, and that’s what doomed Vista, not appearances.
Windows in all flavors, be it XP, Vista or 7 is not an application. It’s a friggin’ operating system whose job is to get us into applications and get out of the way. In today’s flurry of blog posts Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has the right approach, presenting performance tests – yes, performance is key to judging how good an operating system is.
The other key criteria is how invisible it stays. Think about it: any time you have to get down to OS level typically means something does not work right. It’s the stupid unexplainable little things like:
The list could go on, but I think you get my drift: Windows 7 (and any other OS) will be judged on how well computers will run, let users interact with real application without having to touch the OS itself.
Finally, to address the speculation about Windows 7 upgrade paths, let me just reiterate this:
OK, I know we have fat chances for the apology – but I really mean the free upgrade part.
(Cross-posted from CloudAve – to stay on top of Cloud Computing news, analysis and just our opinion, grab the CloudAve Feed here.)
So you’re doing the right thing, backing up everything on CDs or DVDs. Too bad they may not be readable in a few years… and even if they are, you still have to worry about data formats.
Data sitting on your hard disk may not be much better: in fact files you created with the very apps you’ve just upgraded to the most recent version my no longer be readable by the current version anymore.
Read the details here…
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