microsoft

Fantastic news for OpenID:

"This is a historic week for OpenID. Google and Microsoft announced the release of code to support OpenID 2.0 across their most important properties. On Monday, Microsoft, announced OpenID 2.0 support for their 460 million users on the LiveID platform. On Wednesday Google said it will be supporting OpenID 2.0 for any user that has a Google account. Both of these deployments are great news for the OpenID community and the Internet at large. It can be safely said that within the coming months, every single user on the Internet will have an OpenID"

via: openid.net

Microsoft has recently awarded a $300M account to a star ad-agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Bogusky is like a new icon of the Ad industry, having under the belt such successful projects as Mini Cooper campaign, the revival of Burger King brand image and many others.

Of course, the hypocrisy of the story is that Crispin became successful using all-Mac technologies... And now they are trying to help Microsoft battle Apple. But let's not go into that. Let's just think for a second - can even the most edgy, "cool" ad agency help Microsoft's image of the out-of-touch, obnoxious, nerds-run company?

No. And here is one clear example of why. Watch this commercial from 2007 (which was not made by Crispin):

What's wrong with it? Nothing! It's actually really good - moderately self-promoting, supposedly facts-based and re-ensuring... Except it's a lie. A complete lie at that. Yes, the image in the commercial is how Microsoft sees itself, or wants to see itself - long-time innovator and industry enabler, but there are solid facts, experiences of people that prove: the truth is different. When your software sucks, hangs every five seconds and gets on anybody's nerves that has ever used it - well, commercials can't help it.

Microsoft execs, write it down: outright lies do not sell!

Advertising is powerful, but it is not almighty. Microsoft's problems are far serious and deeper than a question of what Ad agency to choose. When are they going to realize it? Ever?

I do usually try to not bash any particular company, in my blog posts. Every so often I may critique somebody and I like to think my criticism is factual and constructive. This time around, though, I will allow myself to go into a full-on ranting and smirking, because the person we are talking about is Mr. Steve Ballmer, the infamous CEO of Microsoft, and the subject is - his ridiculous "predictions" about iPhone.

I mean, we all understand why a Microsoft CEO would not love iPhone. It's also clear why he would try do diminish the importance of this revolutionary device. Still, the job of a CEO, especially a giant like Microsoft, is to be at least close to reality and not blurt random stupidities publicly.

Let's see what Ballmer was saying just a year ago:

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance," said Ballmer. "It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."
--- Source: ArsTechnica, April 2007.

And a year later, according to the report from Net Applications (Feb 2008), Safari on iPhone has 71% market share among mobile web-browsers in the US, leaving only 12% to the next runner-up, the child-product of Microsoft: Pocket IE.

Similarily, Canalys reports that as far as overall US "smart phone" market goes, iPhone, in just over a year, has gained 28% market share, only second to RIM (producer of Blackberry) that has 41%. If you take into account how long have the competitors been on the market (and those are wildly well-known brands like Palm, Nokia and others) and the fact that RIM has been selling its Blackberries to corporate clients in large bulks, for a while now and has tremendous head-start, the results are just amazing.

Back to Ballmer's "2-3% forecast" . Well, what can we say? Except state the obvious and say that we can't help feeling sorry for Microsoft when Bill Gates fully retires and the software giant is left to the mercy of Ballmer.

*smirk* (sorry, could not help it).

Microsoft Silverlight, pet-named "Flash killer" by the Web 2.0 community, replicates many of the features of Macromedia Flash technology. Silverlight was first unveiled at the NAB Show, in early 2006, but it is only recently that it has gotten increasing spotlight from the industry. Somewhat intriguing, yet quite telling was that Microsoft featured Silverlight at the recently held Java One 2007, a major, traditionally M$-unfriendly annual conference of Java developers and vendors. Less surprisingly, it was the center point of the Microsoft's own Mix 2007, annual conference of web developers. Even though Silverlight is still left behind by Paris Hilton, it surely bypassed Britney in making headlines, at least - in the geek world. Judging by the enormous marketing blast, it is obvious that when it comes to Silverlight, Microsoft makes no jokes.

Why is Silverlight so important?

The new web, the so-called Web 2.0, is a two-headed phenomena. On one side it is a culture, a web-philosophy with the notions of the power of social unity, global outreach, two-way communication and extreme personalization at its foundation. On another side, it is a breakthrough in user-experience technology - Ajax being the most famous example. Ajax is great for responsive, ergonomic interfaces, the kinds you find in Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, Meebo and every other Web 2.0 site, but it is not the only important technology driving the web revolution. New web is heavy on rich media and until recently Flash was the dominant technology for multimedia delivery on the web. YouTube would not exist without the Flash Streaming technology and Flash Video format. Many audio podcast websites have flash audio players. Fancy image galleries are driven by Flash technology enabling greater interactivity. And the list goes on...

A colleague at work just sent this to me: http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/

Well, I am glad to see that at least some people in the Linux community take the Redmond company seriously and try to respond to the "powerful" Genuine Windows Advantage program with adequate measures.

J/K :)

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