It would appear quite a few of you took offense at me uninstalling the “open” browser being developed by Google. The revolutionary new thinking, announced in a comic, apparently deserves far more praise than “It’s fast, now, how do I uninstall this?” according to some.

So, here is where I stand on all this, but I think this picture really sums it up:

Which is all fair and cool Brian, who hasn’t taken a shot at Microsoft to advance their agenda, but with all due respect as of late Google is more of a Microsoft than Microsoft seems to be. Not only does Google not seem to have the followthrough to seriously challenge Microsoft on anything, it’s solutions tend to be second rate ad collecting meme’s that hardly gather the attention beyond the Web 2.0 fanboy segment that signs up for a service the day it’s announced and never comes back again.

I know that “being open” is supposed to appeal to me as a consumer, in contrast to the evil closed deals of Microsoft, but if we are being open about all this can you take a moment and explain to me how a browser being built by an advertising company is going to help me bypass the more annoying and intrusive ads all over the place?

Google appears to have done in ten years what took Microsoft 30 years to do: gain irrelevance through series of meme’s and wars on the fronts it has no resources to fight. Pretty soon people will stop paying attention to these stunts. We do like to cheer for gladiators to kill one another, but if all they do is dance around and only protect their turf there is not much entertainment value to it all.

How many years has it been since Google opened the IM world with Google Talk? You can find dozens of examples of the same - if they can’t serve ads with it, it dies. So how earth-shattering is the Google Chrome? What revolutionary new features does it bring to the table that matter to people significantly? New Javascript engine? Process isolation for tabs? I’d love to know.

What do I love about Chrome? The same thing I love about Microsoft Online:

The more time these big guys waste in a pissing match of dominance, trying to be left alone on the stage to render the soliloquy even Shakespeare would be proud of, it seems like lately it’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

These missteps by the large software powerhouses are making it possible for the tiny fish like my little software company to grow and be profitable by listening to what the customers want. The more time the giants waste fighting each other in a fruitless jealousy over who is going to be #1, the more time people like me have to take the money off the table and to the bank.

So it’s not that I have anything against Google. It’s just that I already have Firefox and that’s good enough for me.

Most of my community work and freebie stuff runs off of Google and I don’t think I’m cutting it short when I say that Google has by far the best calendar/scheduling app on the market today. So this release has definitely brightened up my day, Google announces Google Calendar Sync that does one way or two way sync with Microsoft Outlook, but this also opens up a synchronization from Google Calendar to Windows Mobile.

Leech it today..

For the past decade IT shops and IT departments have had to fight the “it’s good enough” mantra of cheap CPAs that were in charge of the company budgets. Going even smaller, “it’s good enough” brought you the world of NT4 and $4,000 DST patch, Windows 98 used in production in 2005 and beyond, etc. In the past few years as other options became available (more affordable and powerful computers, less expensive/financed licensing) customers became somewhat more strategic in their IT spending because they finally had someone that was shelling advice without per-hour pricing. We were in a renaissance, for about a year, and then Apple & Google came back and fucked it all up. If there is anything  you do, I hope you read the following article by my friend and one time SBS Show cohost Sarah Perez:

Google Sites the Next SharePoint? Maybe Not.. Why Google Apps Could Lose the Enterprise Market.

Let me give you a quick summary of the IT market in SMB over the past ten years: ‘98: It’s too expensive, it keeps on crashing, fix it. ‘00: It’s too expensive, it keeps on crashing, fix it. ‘04: It’s getting cheaper, It seems to work. ‘05: No surprise bills, eh? Ok. Sign me up. ‘07: We want a Blackberry, Google Gmail and a Mac. ‘08: Why are we paying for all this when we can get it for free?

Not a day passes by that I don’t talk to someone that lost a deal because their customer went the path of “It just works and its cheaper” and ended up with a Mac, no server, file server and a Blackberry. And for what its worth, you don’t meet a lot of people that hate any of the above - those that use them, love them. Sarah’s points out that users love it because they do not have to interact with the bureaucracy of the IT departments, they can just do their work.

Suddenly, good enough is back. Yes, Google retains the right to open up your files, do whatever it wants with them, offers zip in terms of SLA and no support beyond a FAQ and an email they may or may not respond to. But the premise is that you’ll never need to use those. Customer buys a Mac because its cool and because the premise is that the Mac will never crash, that it has no viruses or malware, and that the 50% - 100% premium is not that big compared to all the cost related to what you’d pay for a PC with similar applications.

So here, in 2008, we have a comeback of “it’s good enough” in that people are again comfortable not taking their IT as a strategic asset and instead focus on their core business and little else.

Microsoft seems to to agree. They are rumored to be building dozens of data centers with half a million sq ft, to build their consumer-business targeted empire of online applications…

… more on this a bit later.

This question came up during the geek lunch here in Orlando, far far away from the neverland of the Silicon Valley. Who cares about Yahoo and Google and Microsoft, I am tired of that drama said one of our local leaders.

So really, what is at stake on this Yahoo-Google-Microsoft love triangle? On one hand, it is the future of the Internet as we know it. On the other, it is the future of how we will be developing systems and distributing information. Let me offer you some background here.

The Ugly Truth

First, I need you to accept one fundamental truth that may not be very easy to swallow. Microsoft is an evil corporation. Not because they are closed, but because Microsoft still has not changed a lot since the times that they were spanked by DOJ and continue to be spanked by EU. Microsoft continues to try to dominate the open environment and continues to fail. For example, you can’t land at a single Microsoft.com page without them trying to force Silverlight down your throat. Around the Vista launch, everything they distributed was XPS so you wouldn’t dream use a competitive product. Microsoft has over years shown its desire to be the owner of all protocols, jack of all trades, so it can collect licensing revenue from anyone that dream play on their turf. That is why the DOJ and EU scrutiny has been great for the Internet and allowed so many of the things you rely on to be available for free. Just imagine the Microsoft world, in which you would have to pay a royalty to send a message to MSN IM or only use Microsoft IE to browse any page developed by Visual Studio?

The Quagmire

Now while the Microsoft corporation is evil, Microsoft employees are not. Absolutely everyone I’ve met there has been just phenomenal, down to earth, looking to help and looking to solve big problems with software. Everyone except Dave Overton, who kills kittens in his spare time and is trying to destroy SBSC (footnote needed).

So how does such a great group of people, with such noble cause, such an incredible amount of resources, so many young people looking to solve problems turn into such a monopolistic asshole of a corporation?

The answer lies in the psychology of the Microsoft machine, somewhat similar to The Milgram Experiment, in which the subject will completely defer judgement to the leader regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I love you Steve, but this is squarely your fault.

You see, a Microsoft job is full of promises. First promise is that you will be working for the biggest software publisher on the planet which will give you prestige over everyone else in the industry. The second promise is the Microsoft share options that you’re given (or it used to be back in the 90’s before the .com bust) so you win the more Microsoft wins. Finally, it is the promise that it is a large company where sky is the limit and there is no ceiling so long as you don’t ask questions and play by the company rules.

And then Steve Ballmer, like he just finished a porn scene, jumps out in front of the lemmings at MGX (or MDX?) or any other internal event and proclaims - we will compete, we will compete with everyone, anywhere, and we will win!

So they do! And the few guys up top that decide how Microsoft competes have far different goals than the 99.9% of the base below them, but the 99.9% of the base below them has a goal of being in the top level management. The management goals are driven by the major shareholder goals, so the inner goal of being the biggest and best gets skewed by the shareholder goal of being the most profitable. So, how do you get to be the biggest and best and also the most profitable?

You screw the customer.

So much like the rest of the world looks at Americans as angry, ignorant people bent on world domination, people look at Microsoft as the big dominant bunch of proprietary mud slingers. While the majority does not approve of what is going on, they have to feed their families.

Why is it so hard to sell this in California?

There is much discussion about being open in Silicon Valley. But for all the talk, they are not all that much more open, they just play a lot more open, talk, share and you see relationships form and people go from one company to another all the time.

Silicon Valley is open to investment, open to change, open to new solutions and they all want to integrate with one another if it means more money. Meanwhile, they all follow their own dogma. Be it that they are “not to be evil” or “worlds start page” or “what is how” or “dog food cheap”

Microsoft’s influence over Silicon Valley would be detrimental to that spirit of innovation and integration and would lead to the same old constricted environment of ignoring the world for the promotion.

So while the best possible thing for Yahoo would be to take the Microsoft check and some corporate sales knowhow in the world of designing business applications, it could be the worst possible thing for the rest of us if Microsoft were allowed to become dominant again with the heavy hand on the open Internet.

I’ve been watching the outrage over the Microsoft-4-Yahoo! bid with mild interest and surprise at the angle that the general blogging public has taken against Microsoft! If I didn’t know any better it would seem like Microsoft is this giant evil behemoth just one secret ingredient away from conquering the world of technology. Cranking out billions and billions of dollars in profit, the Yahoo! takeover would catapult the company…. <Reality Mode: On>

The company whose major invention over the past three years has been a fucking table! The company that is facing a going concern on every major front: desktop, office, entertainment, online and mobility. The company that is struggling to limp under the weight of its own enormity, led by men defeated more than a decade ago bringing back the same concepts they lost with and ended up under Microsoft’s umbrella in the first place - the decades in which Microsoft won by pulling dirty tricks, abusing monopoly powers and competing in an environment in which everyone operated under the exact same principle - cash for product.

Times have changed, Microsoft has more enemies than it has friends, and even its friends are there solely for the economic benefit of an astonishing install base - all while investing in the areas where the future is going - away from Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop and infrastructure server.

That, dear friends, makes Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo! and admission of inability to compete in the new world, not it’s one magic puzzle piece to the top.

Microsoft is on the defense from Google, Apple, Linux, Apple, IBM, Sun and Oracle in all major businesses. Microsoft’s product and innovation pipeline is not market building, it is market sustaining - at best - more of the same old debt driven infrastructure simply because it fits with the rest of the indebted infrastructure in the workplace.

Microsoft is the same company today that it was 10 years ago, only the version numbers have changed. Except today we have true alternatives.

These aren’t the words of some laid off English major, turned half baked blogger. These are words of someone that has built a business by betting on Microsoft. We continue to do so, in the Microsoft realm, but I would be a liar if I told you we’d bet one red penny on Microsoft’s online strategies.

That said, any market with a single dominant player and the competitors in the dust is bad. So you know what, let Microsoft dump some money into Yahoo! and give Google a run for its money. Last time I checked, Google was not a non-profit charity, they just haven’t had the chance to be as evil as Microsoft, yet. Let’s not give them, or anyone else for that matter, that chance.

Ok, I was with Google when it came out with the Google Pack. Sure, it was a fantastic disappointment of a shareware garbage bag dumped out on your doorstep when you were expecting an operating system. Then came Google Talk, winning Google an award for the “Halfass Attempt of the Century” in the area of computer software.

And we were still sitting around talking about Google, enjoying the freebie services, liking the competition it was giving to Microsoft to keep them on their toes, looking forward to the next big thing. Many of us naysayers claimed Google would never do something so pointless again.

Wrong again. Gphone got announced today! Except, its not a phone. Oh, and there is no SDK. Umm, no real screenshots or demo. All in all, nothing.

So here is the $700/share question…

Google appears to have become a company that is in business of selling dreams and possibilities to shareholders, not really delivering technology solutions, especially not past the beta stage at which over half of its projects sit in limbo of perpetual lack of business sense and plan.

There are two Googles. There is the Google the advertiser and Google the dreamer. Google advertiser is making $$$ off the adsense. Google the dreamer is building frameworks, crappy Web 2.0 applications, laying down fiber under the Pacific, flying to the moon, buying landing rights to the NASA airfields and is the neverending warchest for those who have been disaffected by Microsoft but could not adjust to the alternative lifestyle that comes with a Mac..

In the long long ago, Jim Cramer said that he was paying the press release to earnings ratio – this seems to be back, much as it was back during the dotcom boom. We seem to be completely ignorant of anyone who is truly presenting a solution to a problem that is here and now and are simply betting these vapor companies will exist solely on their advertising to a consumer that will be doing what? Writing Web 2.0 apps and buying iPhones?

Maybe in San Francisco… Maybe three years ago… But not today, what will Google do to prove that its more than a one trick pony?

Although this was to be expected eventually, Google seems to have jumped off their Application plank a little too prematurely in announcing that they are going after the enterprise market which what is arguably the feature set of an entry level web hosting provider. Mary Jo Foley offers an excellent “top 10 questions” any enterprise customer should ask before switching to Google Applications and they are literally shaming Google in a way that is just spectacular:

“1.      Google touts having enterprise level customers but how many “USERS” of their applications truly exist within the enterprise?

“2.      Google has a history of releasing incomplete products, calling them beta software, and issuing updates on a “known only to Google” schedule – this flies in the face of what enterprises want and need in their technology partners – what is Google doing that indicates they are in lock step with customer needs?

“3.      Google touts the low cost of their apps –not only price but the absence of need for hardware, storage or maintenance for Google Apps.  BUT if GAPE is indeed a complement to MSFT Office, the costs actually become greater for a company as they now have two IT systems to run and manage and maintain.  Doesn’t this result in increased complexity and increased costs?

“4.      Google’s primary focus is on ad funded search.  Their enterprise focus and now apps exist on the very fringe and in combination with other fringe services only account for 1% of the company’s revenue.  What happens if Google executes poorly? Do they shut down given it will them in a minimal and short term way?  Should customers trust that this won’t happen?

“5.      Google’s apps only work if an enterprise has no power users, employees are always online, enterprises haven’t built custom Office apps – doesn’t this equal a very small % of global information workers today? –On a feature comparison basis, it’s not surprising that Microsoft has a huge lead.

“6.      Google apps don’t have essential document creation features like support for headers, footers, tables of content, footnotes, etc. Additionally, while customers can collaborate on basic docs without the above noted features, to collaborate on detailed docs, a company must implement a two part process – work together on the basic doc, save it to Word or Excel and then send via email for final edits.  Yes they have a $50 price tag, but with the inefficiencies created by just this one cycle, how much do GAPE really cost – and can you afford the fidelity loss?

“7.      Enterprise companies have to constantly think about government regulations and standards – while Google can store a lot of data for enterprises on Google servers, there is no easy to use, automated way for enterprises to regularly delete data, issue a legal hold for specific docs or bring copies into the corp.  What happens if a company needs to respond to government regulations bodies?  Google touts 99.9% uptime for their apps but what few people realize that promise is for Gmail only.  Equally alarming is the definition Google has for “downtime” – ten consecutive minutes of downtime.  What happens if throughout the day Google is down 7 minutes each hour?  What does 7 minutes each hour for a full work day that cost an enterprise?

“8.      In the world of business, it is always on and always connected.  As such, having access to technical support 24/7 is essential.  If a company deploys Google Apps and there is a technical issue at 8pm PST, Sorry.  Google’s tech support is open M-F 1AM-6PM PST – are these the new hours of global business? And if a customer’s “designated administrator” is not available (a requirement) does business just stop?

“9.      Google says that enterprise customers use only 10% of the features in today’s productivity applications which implies that EVERYONE needs the SAME 10% of the feature when in fact it is very clear that in each company there are specific roles people play that demands access to specific information – how does Google’s generic strategy address role specific needs?

“10.     With Google apps in perpetual beta and Google controlling when and if they rollout specific features and functionality,  customers have minimal if any control over the timing of product rollouts and features – how do 1) I know how to strategically plan and train and 2) get the features and functionality I have specifically requested?  How much money does not knowing cost?

“I invite you to speak with customers, partners and analysts who can validate Office’s business model.”

I must admit that I’ve been on the receiving end of Microsoft muscle at times, but my hat is off to whoever put the top ten questions above, they are head and shoulders above the tired FUD Microsoft uses against free and open source software and are just dead on attacks on the way businesses rely on software.

Will “GAPE” be another “Google Pack” or will it be a “Google Search”; Judging by whats on sale Microsoft and Microsoft Partners that relish on the complexity of these systems to provide value-add it’s good times ahead if this is the type of competition Google was thinking about bringing. A webmail & pop3 account. Yah, right.

Ok, I’ll say it. Google Reader’s recent update sucks. Big time.

Google Reader team decided to get cute and give me more real restate on my screen – at an expense of the nagivation and efficiency. Instead of having a bar at the left side of the screen so I can quickly scroll through my blogs and categories, Google decided to remove it completely and make it a slide-in <div>.

Congratulations. So now instead of being able to click on different feeds and quicky catch up I have to click once on My Subscriptions link and look at the shrunken list of my blogs. Then I have to scroll up and down the list, add a click or two, and then click again on the feed I want to read – just to have my feed subscription list disappear.

And nobody at Google figured to say.. “Hey, this might piss off a lot of users, how about we add 2 lines of Javascript code for a “dock” function? What good is revert to previous version when it reverts to the same crap?

But Google shouldn’t be too down on itself, I am still using Google to find myself a new RSS reader.

One of the search features I would really appreciate would be to search for the results available in the database on a particular date. For example, what if you searched for “Bush nucular evidence” in 2001 vs. 2007, you’d get some wildly different result sets.

My particular problem, and the reason I am writing this blog post at 5 am, is that for the past few hours I have been trying to locate a mailing list response from the author of dovecot from the long, long ago. I cannot figure out how to do static maildir mappings without involving uid/gid in auth_userdb database.

Google does have a search that limits how old of a result you wish to see (show only pages that were first seen over the last 6 months) but nothing to say show only results available prior to date m/d/y. Oh well, there is always hope for live.com search, lol.

I think its a fair question to ponder: is Google still around?

Last year around this time Google was really in the eye of many techies wishful for a free, on-demand collaborative suite that was readilly available. Google was rolling, first with mail then calendar but a year has passed since and um.. what have you been up to Google? Acquisitions have brought word processing and spreadsheets which raised about as much excitement and adoption as Microsot Zule. Nearly everything is still by invite only, no clear roadmap or direction or really much going.

The clock is ticking.Google sure killed MSN.com & Live.com search efforts but just how far will it be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft when that Office 2007 marketing budget hits the street?