If you attended Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, you can be excused for thinking you showed up at the partner event for Red Hat, Google, or Salesforce.
After all, Microsoft’s new partner initiatives rely heavily on concepts devised and delivered by these companies:
Tech watchers will see lots of familiar concepts in software behemoth Microsoft’s revamped go-to-market strategy….[Microsoft] proclaimed its newfound focus on delivering software and services to customers via “the cloud,” using a subscription-based model popularized by companies like Red Hat, Websense and Salesforce.com.
Microsoft is smart: Why reinvent the business model wheel when others have pioneered successful ways to deliver software value? Of course, Microsoft has never been the most innovative of companies - it has become the market behemoth that it is by out-executing its competitors, not by out-thinking them.
But this might be one area in which Microsoft needs to think a bit more. As The Motley Fool notes,
… Source:The Open Road
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Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
Karelia Software announced the availability of Sandvox 1.2.8 this week. If you’re unfamiliar, Sandvox is a very nice and lightweight WYSIWYG web editor for Mac OS X (we’ve written about Sandvox before) that makes publishing easy. With iLife integration, attractive themes and more, you’ll be happy to use it for that swift and simple site you want to publish with a minimum of fuss.
Karelia has always offered .Mac integration, and version 1.2.8 offers compatibility with MobileMe. Other changes include an updated iMedia Browser which supports iPhoto Events and multiple Aperture libraries.
Sandvox requires Mac OS 10.4 or later, is universal and comes in both pro ($79US) and standard ($49US) versions. Version 1.2.8 is a free upgrade for registered users.
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Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
The Iconfactory’s Anthony Piraino has just released the latest version of his domain management tool, DomainBrain. If you aren’t familiar with DomainBrain, it is a really, really slick way to keep track of all of your domain information, like various logins, directories, passwords, in one nice and tidy place.
We’ve covered DomainBrain in the past and even though I initially rebuked the idea of a program for domain management, I have the ability to honestly state it has turned out to be incredibly useful. Instead of sifting through e-mails or keychain files to find the specific login for something that has a common username, I have a nice looking repository for all my information.
The newest version of the software introduces the capability to make duplicate domains, which is really helpful if you’re anything like me and have 12 domains associated with the same account. DomainBrain makes it easier to just change the necessary details and not have to recreate the whole template.
My favorite new feature is the integrated WHOIS information, which will show you what nameservers your domain is on and when the domain expires. This makes it super simple to check when all of your domains are up for renewal, without having to manually do a WHOIS search for each address.
I better make sure my domain is on auto-renew!
DomainBrain is free for up to four domains. If you need to store the information for more than four domains, it’s $14.99. DomainBrain is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and up.
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Nine days after Apple released its iPhone 2.0 software, the code has been cracked. PwnageTool 2.0 will successfully unlock your iPhone.
This is great, but what I’m waiting for is a tool that will let me downgrade to the older iPhone 1.1.4 software.
Why? Because iPhone 2.0 remains very buggy.
Last night, I was reading my Arsenal news in the Safari browser, and the browser dumped me back to the home screen repeatedly, something that never happened in the iPhone 1.0 world. E-mail routinely dies on me, and those App Store applications? It’s rare that I can get through a Sketches session without the application dying.
Steve Jobs once ridiculed Microsoft for cloning its software (”Redmond, begin your photocopiers“), but this feels like Apple desperately trying to come up with a suitable rendition of the so-called blue screen of death.
As a hard-core Apple fan, I’m starting to wonder if there’s more to this fiasco than meets the eye. It’s very unlike Apple to have a sloppy upgrade (iPhone 2.0), terrible customer experience (activation problems at the launch of the 3G iPhone), and a crummy product launch (Mobile Me). Rumors have been swirling that Steve Jobs’ health is in significant decline.
Could the recent foibles have something to do with Jobs’ lack of oversight due to encroaching health problems?
… Source:The Open Road
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I think there’s a lot of truth in Linus Torvald’s derisive comment about innovation, and the software industry’s fetish with it.
I think that “innovation” is a four-letter word in the industry. It should never be used in polite company. It’s become a PR thing to sell new versions with.
It was Edison who said “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. That might have been true a hundred years ago. These days it’s “0.01% inspiration, 99.99% perspiration”, and the inspiration is the easy part. As a project manager, I have never had trouble finding people with crazy ideas. I have trouble finding people who can execute. IOW, “innovation” is way oversold. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be applied to products like MS Word or Open office.
Amen. Looking around the industry, there’s very tiny “innovation” going on. The iPhone’s interface? Sure. Vista (or, for that matter, Apple’s Leopard)? Nah.
These are incremental technology advances backed by good execution. Microsoft isn’t Microsoft because it makes “innovative” technology. It’s Microsoft because it tends to keep the trains running on time.
… Source:The Open Road
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What’s a fairly dull service yet manages to pull in $20,000 each day by serving up ads? No, it’s not Google, but it’s one of those services that make me state, “Dang! I wish I would have thought of that!”
It’s OpenDNS. It’s a …
Source:The Open Road
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If you want to know which side of the Linux versus Windows world VMware is on, just ask Paul Harapin, managing director for Australia and New Zealand at VMware, who has sounded the death knell for Windows. His take? That virtual machines will shortly make Windows obsolete:
What that means …
Source:The Open Road
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