Ramanisblog

Tag: microsoft

  • Forget Microsoft vs. Google. This Decade, It’s an Apple-Google Slugfest.

    Barrett Sheridan
    Google’s new “superphone,” the Nexus One, stole all the headlines yesterday, but there was another bit of tech news worth trumpeting: Apple’s reported $275 million purchase of Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising platform.

    True, mobile advertising isn’t as sexy as a sleek new gadget. But the Quattro purchase highlighted the fact that there are really only two tech companies worth caring about anymore, and the lines between them are growing blurry. It used to be that Apple made the hardware and the gorgeous desktop software, while Google kept its head in the cloud, focusing on Web-based applications and, of course, advertising. But over the past year, Google has stepped on Apple’s toes—hard. The Android operating system, a rival app store, Google Voice, and now the Nexus One are the first volleys against Apple’s dominance in the smart-phone market.

    Now Steve Jobs is lacing up his Doc Martens and getting ready to stomp right back. Apple’s purchase of Quattro is the Cupertino company’s first foray into advertising, and a signal that it’s not going to cede the mobile ad market to the nerds over in Mountain View. Google has a head start—in November it bought AdMob, a larger, better-known mobile advertiser—but Apple has privileged access to the thousands of programmers who have already built apps for the iPhone, which house much of the real estate for AdMob’s and Quattro’s ads.
    It’ll be a slugfest—and Microsoft will be on the sidelines, watching pathetically. Windows is still a cash cow, and Microsoft will probably always dominate the market for desktop operating systems and office productivity suites. But it’s looking likelier that, five years from now, when we connect to the Web, we’ll generally do so from a smart phone, netbook, or tabletlike device. Microsoft does build operating systems and software for some of those markets, but none that anybody is excited about. In other words, forget Bing, and forget the Microsoft-vs.-Google bout. Those are distractions, or at best opening matches to warm up the crowd. The headlining event of the next decade is the bout between Apple and Google.
    http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonicshifts/archive/2010/01/06/forget-microsoft-vs-google-this-decade-it-s-an-apple-google-slugfest.aspx

  • Top 10 tech news stories of the decade

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/31/cnet.top.tech.stories.decade/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent)

  • 2009: A year to remember – or forget

    Microsoft in 2009: It was all about Windows
    Mary Jo Foley: On my blog, there is little question what you wanted to read about: Windows. There were a few other hot buttons. But overall, it was Windows, Windows, Windows

    Oracle buys Sun; Regulatory soap opera ensues
    Larry Dignan: Among all the top stories on Between the Lines in 2009—Windows 7, Google Chrome and Apple’s iPhone and the AT&T reputation hit—Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems gets my pick for the top tech development in 2009.
    So long decade and perhaps good riddance

    AT&T blunders by defending its wireless coverage
    Sam Diaz: The one 2009 story that stuck with me most, largely because it continues to take twists and turns, was the public relations beating that I’ve been giving to AT&T over its wireless service.

    Five Microsoft and Google battlegrounds in 2009
    Garett Rogers: The tension between these two software giants got a bit thicker this year, and it’s certain that it will again in 2010. Here’s a look at who is winning on each front in 2009.

    Steve Jobs was our story of the year for 2009
    Dana Blankenhorn: The Jobs story pressed a whole lot of ethical buttons. What is the obligation of a company to disclose material threats to the life of its CEO? And what of a rich man cutting the queue and getting a liver just in time to save his life?

    The best (and worst) of Tech Broiler 2009
    Jason Perlow: I’d have to rate 2009 fairly high on the annis horriblis scale, for most of everyone I know as well as the rest of the world. But for Year Two of Tech Broiler, I’d have to say it was a pretty good one.

    ZDNet’s The Toybox: Top 15 posts of 2009
    Andrew Nusca: It’s been a heck of a year on The Toybox, ZDNet’s go-to blog for all things gadget. We’ve posted more than 1,000 stories about gadgets in 2009. So here’s a list of The Toybox’s Top 15 posts of 2009

    Top 20 posts of the year from the Apple Core
    Jason D. O’Grady: As 2009 winds down to a close I wanted to take a look back at the 20 most popular posts here on The Apple Core over the past year.
    Top 20 posts of the year – Nos. 11-20

    The battle for your email in 2009
    Phil Wainewright: In 2009, the main battle had Google and Microsoft going head-to-head. But the real carnage has been among the second-tier groupware vendors,

    Fifteen significant social media & security events of 2009
    Jennifer Leggio: New vulnerabilities targeted social network soft spots, while the social engineering of less-than-savvy Internet users reached new heights. The experts say that it won’t get any better next year, either.

    The best and worst Ed Tech of the decade
    Christopher Dawson: Guess what? One single device wins this award in my book. It wins for both best and worst simultaneously. What is it? It’s the OLPC XO.

    2009: It’s been all about the iGeneration
    Zack Whittaker: Suffice to say, it’s been a mixed year for technology, the industry and the people who use it. Let’s have a look at what’s been popular and what simply hasn’t.

    ZDNet’s Enterprise Web 2.0: The top 10 posts of 2009
    Dion Hinchcliffe: 2009 was full of notable developments that will have a lasting impact to way we using technology in business. Here are the stories that you read the most.

    Open source browsers put pressure on IE in 2009
    Paula Rooney: Even as its proprietary browser market share is dropping hard, execs agreed to offer support for competitive browsers with its Windows operating system in exchange for an end to its legal nightmares in Europe.

    Top 10 posts of 2009 focused primarily on ebook readers
    Matthew Miller: In my top 10 most popular posts written in 2009, five of ten were on the subject of ebook readers, two were on MP3 players, and the others on various topics.

    Worldwide cost of IT failure: $6.2 trillion
    Michael Krigsman: Most IT professionals know that project failure is a common and serious problem in organizations of all kinds. New research attempts to quantify the extent of IT failure in the worldwide economy.

    Open source still lacked love for Windows in 2009
    Dana Blankenhorn: Whenever I feel a need for traffic, and talkbacks, I just write something with Microsoft or Windows in the title and y’all come running.

    Most read posts of 2009
    Dan Kusnetzky: I would have expected that posts examining technology, announcements, suppliers’ go to market strategies or consideration of major trends would lead the pack. That’s not what happened. The leading posts were largely off topic rants, complaints, moans and the like!

    Top 10 SOA posts for 2009
    Joe McKendrick: If there’s any way to describe the year just past, it was a battle for the soul of service-oriented architecture.

    Cars, crooks, money and hackers – 2009 was a rich year indeed
    Harry Fuller: Looking back on some of the bigger stories of 2009, I found several topics that ran through blog after blog. Cars and motorcycles are a relevant topic when considering personal energy use.

    Year in Review: 10 most popular camera and camcorder posts of 2009
    Rachel King: A lot has gone on and been covered in the digital camera and camcorder world in the last 12 months. From product releases to reviews to photography tips, here are my 10 most popular posts of the year, according to you.

    Year in Review: DSLRs and compact megazooms popular in 2009
    Janice Chen: As 2009 draws to a close, it’s time once again to take a moment and reflect over the year’s highlights. Here are my most popular posts of the year.

    Creme de la GreenTech: My 10 most-read green IT posts this year
    Heather Clancy: I was gratified and humbled to see that a fair number of you think I actually write about useful things. And my top posts of the year were actually a mix of the above topics PLUS a perennial green topic: the paperless office.

    Enterprise 2.0: The 2009 year in review
    Dion Hinchcliffe: 2009 was an exciting year across the board for all things Web 2.0 in the enterprise and related topics. I often find that it’s when we take time to look back at the big picture that we get the best sense for what’s actually happening in the marketplace today.

    The year in review in Software & Services
    Brian Sommer: 2009 had some interesting twists to it as far as the software and services industries go. Here are the top-5 services stories and the top-5 software trends.

    The decade in tech: Top 5 stories of the ’00s
    Larry Dignan: From the Google IPO, to the rise of social networking, it’s been an important decade for tech innovation, CBSNews.com Executive Editor Charles Cooper and I talk about the five most important tech events of the decade and what they mean for the technology industry going forward.

    Top posts, devices, and smartphone awards for 2009
    Matthew Miller: I wanted to put together another one of my reference posts that looks at the devices I have reviewed over the past year, along with some fun awards for the devices I had the chance to try out.
    http://news.zdnet.com/2463-9595_22-374943.html?tag=nl.e539

  • Court: Microsoft violated patent; can’t sell Word

    WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a $290 million judgement against Microsoft Corp. and issued an injunction that will prevent the sale of its popular Word software.

    The court injunction is set to go into effect Jan. 11. Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ) has said such a bar would prohibit the sale of all currently available versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office.

    Microsoft had appealed a Texas jury verdict in favor of i4i Inc., a Toronto company. The jury found recent versions of Microsoft Word infringed on a software patent.

    Microsoft has said that it and the public will both suffer if Word goes off the market while the company devises a workaround. The court said the decision does not affect copies of the programs sold before the injunction goes into effect.
    http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/12/22/general-technology-hardware-amp-equipment-us-microsoft-patent_7232307.html?partner=alerts

  • A Review of the Pirated Copy of Windows 7 I Bought On eBay

    The official release of Windows 7 is only a few weeks away, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking yourself what effect this will have on your lives. Will the gates of Heaven open up and a consort of large breasted angels descend to guide you into computing heaven? Or will it be more of a low key affair, maybe involving the cast of Friends and a degrading video?

    So I decided to apply my powerful brain to the problem, and find out what Windows 7 would mean for you, the average user. With only pre-release versions and betas available for download, to get a copy of the actual release version, I had to turn to eBay, where leaked copies have shown up recently. $150 and two days later, a package of bubble wrapped, technological delights arrived on my doorstep. I giddily tore open the packaging to reveal the contents.

    Son. Of. A. Bitch.

    Also included, but not pictured, was a small note from the seller, making some pretty inflammatory claims about my mental capacity. I took the matter up with eBay Fraud Protection, but they had similarly unkind things to say about my Internet savvy, only they used longer words. So, my attempts to get my money back from UR_a_Ediot67 were at a standstill. Unfortunately, I still had a column to produce, and as “23 Reasons Punching a Wall Really Hurts” didn’t have the sort of broad appeal I normally like to include in my articles, I decided to plow ahead with my original plan. So below I present my review of “Windows 7.”

    Installation
    Very difficult. The install for Windows 7 comes on four floppy disks, and as my laptop doesn’t have a floppy drive, I was worried I’d have to travel 10 years into the past to find a computer that did. Fortunately, my local Best Buy was offering a USB floppy drive for $80, which, not withstanding certain recent software purchases, struck me as the greatest ripoff the world has ever seen. I’d advise anyone wanting to install Windows 7 on their own machine should make sure their hardware can support it.

    After that rocky start, the rest of the installation went relatively smooth, although I had to fiddle with the BIOS settings to get the floppy to boot. I chose to install all the options, including something called Microsoft Fax, simply because it sounded fucking amazing. After the install, the computer rebooted without incident, and I was up and running.

    Hardware Support
    Terrible. I don’t have any particular exotic hardware on my system, but Windows 7 still struggled to find drivers for basically everything. Screen resolution was limited to 640 x 480, and my external mouse didn’t work because apparently Windows 7 doesn’t have USB support. Bizarre. I’ll spare you the details of what I had to do to get the wireless working, but let’s just say it involved 27 hours of crying.

    Finally got the Internet working!

    Included Software
    Windows 7 comes packaged with Internet Explorer 2.0, which I will admit to being a little disappointed with. It can render text and images however, which if you think about it, is probably the most important 40 percent of the Internet anyways.

    The flying Window icon lets you know the Internet is working.

    Set Up The Microsoft Network
    Right in the desktop was a link to something called “The Microsoft Network” which the instruction manual promised would provide the unheard of ability to use chat rooms or check the weather. Unfortunately, the set up didn’t seem to work–it evidently requires a phone line to work, and I don’t actually have one of those. So be advised that to fully utilize Windows 7, and experience all of its weather checking glory, you’ll require some pretty specialized telecom equipment.

    Long File Names
    While checking the manual, I noticed that it also promised that Windows 7 would be able to handle long file names. I honestly didn’t know we were limited before, but I guess this isn’t a bad thing.

    Long file name

    My Briefcase
    This is a little synchronization tool that lets you keep files in sync across multiple computers when transferring files by floppy. I don’t have any other computers with a floppy drive, so couldn’t test it out, but I guess this would be a useful tool for the Amish.

    Start Button
    The classic Windows Start button is back, and it works pretty much the same as you’re used to. You click it, and a list of programs comes up in a branching menu. If you can’t figure that out, no amount of Matthew Perry videos will help you.

    Taskbar
    The venerable old taskbar is back in Windows 7, looking a little retro, but otherwise in good shape. Definitely a “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” situation here. Curiously, the useful Quick Launch bar seems to have disappeared. I guess with limited room on the floppies, space had to be made for the popular Microsoft Fax.

    Windows Explorer
    I was very disappointed with this. The improvements made to the most recent version of Explorer were one of the bright points of the whole Vista debacle. The version on display here in Windows 7 is remarkably spartan, lacking many features users look for, like thumbnail previews or frequently used shortcuts. I think Microsoft definitely crapped the bed on this one.

    Multitasking
    I was very impressed here. To test performance, I ran a stress test consisting of a word document, two Internet Explorer windows and Minesweeper. Everything worked pretty smoothly.

    Stability
    Terrible. Possibly related to the previously mentioned hardware difficulties, I found stability to be a real issue with Windows 7. Crashes were frequent, including Blue Screens of Death. Error messages were cryptic and meaningless to me – see below.

    Overall
    In general I was highly disappointed with Windows 7. Although performance has improved since Vista, major features appear to have been lopped off the OS to meet these performance marks. Additionally, the hardware incompatibility and stability issues that have long plagued Microsoft OS releases appear to back in full force. Unless you’re one of those deviants who always has to have the latest OS, or have very specialized faxing needs, I’d strongly recommend avoiding Windows 7 until at least the first Service Pack is released.

    http://digg.com/d31C5bp