google - no longer a one trick pony

0. search - no competitor
1. youtube - no competitor
2. android / nexus phone,tablet - competitors: iphone, lumia, ipad, surface tab    beware
3. g-tv/Q for living room - competitors: xbox, ps3    beware
4. g-mail
5. g-cloud - competitors: amazon, azure    beware
6. g+/orkut  - competitors: facebook     beware 
7. g-maps - competitors: apple maps, bing maps     beware
8. g-apis
9. chrome/firefox - competitors: IE     beware
10. g-glasses [ a new market segment ! ] - borg [human+machine]
all successful and all make up a wonderful ecosystem, complementing each other

- beautiful and oozing cool

I am so happy to see Google, Microsoft and Apple
out-innovating each other [actually entering each other surfs] ,
and consumers benefitting.

Windows Phone 8: Do you think Nokia is doomed ? Do you think Microsoft just backstab it ? 20 reasons the answer is NO

[In no particular order]

1. do you know that Facetime and Siri DO NOT WORK on IPhone 3,3G,3GS, and 4 ?

2. do you expect a phone without a camera to take photos after an OS upgrade ?

3. did you hear of wp7.8 - 3rd upgrade for wp7 ?

4. do you know that except Samsung, the other android phones makers earn in cents ?

5. did you ever hear about commodity devices and downward price spiral ?

6. do you know that a painted rock with a sony or apple written on it would sell, but that a nokia written on a gold tablet cannot sell in US ?

7. do you know that android 2.3.x share is 65% and android 4.x is 7% ?

8. do you know that wp8 has 18months guaranteed upgrades period ?

9. do you know that a phone lifetime is <6months and not 10years like a gaming console ?

10. do you know that a phone is no longer a phone but is a computer ?

11. did you hear about 'smoked by windows phone ?'

12. did you understand that a single core wp7 beat dual core android, iphone and others

13. did you hear that wp8 is dual core qualcomm snapdragon, not to mention the ecosystem benefits of w8 surface tablet, w8 pcs, xbox.

14. did you hear about asha line of nokia basic phones

15. dont you think/speculate the prospects of being the sole-licencee/exclusive maker of surface tablet will be good

16. do you pick RIM or NOKIA as having more prospects for the coming 2 years.

17. do you see any differentiators in nokia like those of RIM [enterprise friendly, secure backbone]

18. do you realize that if RIM jumps on the Android bandwagon, it can win because of its differentiating factors; but nokia cannot and will have a single thread to hang on like htc one

19. do you realize that nokia[2008] is no comparison to samsung [a conglomerate]

20. do you know that Android guys have to pay licensing fee; and running/battling in courts with Apple/Microsoft?

Is a Ubuntu's Windows moment coming up ?

Its a level playing field out there !

1. With Microsoft entering the PC H/W fray, its possible that the HP's and DELL's will align with Ubuntu more than ever to be relevant.

2. Lets see if HP/DELL+MS can regroup and deliver good punches instead of pointing fingers at each other over the post-pc debacle.

3. Metro makes windows a new operating system [perception] and hence chances are people give a try at ubuntu or mac[cost factors nullify mac for majority]

4. Already ubuntu's making waves as the most popular cloud-os choice

5. Free as in Free beer,  and Free as in Freedom. Competing against free is really tough.
Android takes over the mobile space, Ubuntu the desktop space, Redhat the server space. [hopefully]
Which leaves us with tablet space [for now, there's no stopping the ipad juggernaut]

Microsoft Surface Tablet - just enjoy the marvel !

Just enjoy the cool tech ! Dont be a biz analyst !

Those new covers don’t just include a keyboard—they’ve been engineered so that they can distinguish between typing and inadvertent movements.

There’s a slim vent that runs around the entire outer edge of the Surface for Windows 8 Pro. That vent allows heat to dissipate (quietly, one hopes, with little or no fan noise) no matter where you’re holding the device.

Watching the magnetic catch on the cover as it makes its mechanical connection to the Surface is nothing short of miraculous. It’s the feature that early adopters will show their friends when they ask, “Why is this thing special?”

I think you could probably fold and unfold that kickstand 10,000 times without affecting its latch. That’s how firm and solid it is in action.

In your hands, the feel of this device is nothing short of astonishing. It’s light, but it doesn’t torque in the slightest.

 USB Port

 16:9 wide screen

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/what-oems-desperately-need-to-learn-from-microsofts-surface/5149

Google's Envy - Microsoft's Pride

Microsoft is befriending Open [all is fair in love and war]

1. Outercurve is the torch bearer of the new open MS
2. Play fair and square with competing/upcoming tech on Azure - Hadoop , Linux , Java , PHP , NodeJS...
3. Advocate of DNT and other pro-consumer privacy policies
4. Contribute to and get leverage from FOSS [linux, webmatrix, mvc, razor, jquery, orchard...]
5. Participate in Google Summer of Code
6. OData

Microsoft is Kool

1. XBox
2. Kinect
3. Smart Glass
4. Kinect Glasses
5. Metro
6. Surface
7. Bing
8. Geeky stuff: Nuget , Powershell , MVC , Razor
9. Strong vibrant socialized community in MSDN, Stackoverflow, Codeplex
10. on{X}
11. Creates apps for Android and IOS
12. Mayhem

Microsoft is on par with respect to Web stuff

1. Html and Web standards are no longer foster children or an after thought. They have equal status to biological children such as Silverlight
2. IE 10 is on par [99.999%] to chrome, firefox, etc with respect to web standards
3. ASP.net has native support for; and encourages trendy kool kids of javascript world such as modernizr, jquery, etc
4. ASP.net now sees its RESTful architectures [web-api] as first class citizens

Samsung : Torch bearer of InfoTech and Consumer Electronics

You cant help but wonder at the journey of Samsung !

1. World's-largest IT producer, surpassing the previous leader, HP in 2009
2. Dominates the world TV market since 2006
3. Maintains the leading sales position for eight years in a row in LCD panels
4. With Galaxy Sxx , the company's SMARTPHONE lineup was first place in global sales figures since 2011
5. Top supplier in the HOME APPLIANCES market.
6. Among top 20 brands respected and recognized world over.
7. LEDs + Mem Chips [dram,sram] + Basic Phones + PCs
8. Sponsor of 2012 Olympics
9. Has "Admiration, Trust, Good Feeling and Overall Esteem" world over
10. Consumer Electronics - dvd, mp3, air conditioners
11. Supplies key components to all major mobile hardware companies.
12. Employees: 160,000   [ MS - 92,000    Apple - 60,400    Google - 33,000 ]
13. Friends of Google and whatever it takes to succeed; market driven partnerships with MS and Apple.


Silly people think google or microsoft will take over the home.

Microsoft owns living room because of XBox ! naaah

1. PC/Console Video game sales FALL ! 
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-game-sales-20120615,0,1688901.story

2. Mobile/Social games are IN
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-12-16-zynga-makes-USD1-billion-with-USD10-share-price
http://www.intomobile.com/2012/04/18/bloomberg-rovio-turned-down-2-billion-zynga/

3. We DO NOT need a Hardware/Console to play future AAA games.
XBox and PS3 are gonna get punched just like PC was knocked out by Web.
https://www.onlive.com/games/featuredgames#&tab=top_games

4. In a RECESSION [sorry for calling out the  Thing-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named], obviously versatility matters.

5. Samsung, Apple and Google are not fools sitting idly. [samsung is smart, google+sony , apple+jobs_nailed_tv , ... ]

The game is about what you catch, not what you spill

"When you have a bunch of smart people with a broad enough charter, you will always get something good out of it," Nathan Myhrvold, formerly a senior executive at Microsoft, argues. "It's one of the best investments you could possibly make—but only if you chose to value it in terms of successes. If you chose to evaluate it in terms of how many times you failed, or times you could have succeeded and didn't, then you are bound to be unhappy. Innovation is an unruly thing. There will be some ideas that don't get caught in your cup. But that's not what the game is about. The game is what you catch, not what you spill."

For W8 not to flop, Microsoft must talk openly and crowd source Metro-UI-Changes

Microsoft is doing a good job recently being open [participating/befriending in FOSS, announcing VS 2012 express for desktop apps ]

Now its time for that to come good and save itself from the windows 8 party crash.

I wish microsoft would listen to feedback not only from huge army of testers [wonder how many do usability testing ?]
but also from bloggers, media and general public all over the web and building-windows-8-blog in particular.

1. Clarify use-case scenarios for desktop use & metro use for different people in the society.

2. Make a wish-list / survey of expected changes as soon as possible.

3. Crowd source or invite suggestions from community. [remember 'I am a PC' and 'Smoked by WP7'] - wheres Ben - The PC guy when all major tech reviewers are blasting usability of upcoming W8 PC's.

4. Ofcourse we understand there are no qualms from a tablet perspective, only from desktop perspective.

5. why not 3 versions of win8: 1. only metro 2. only desktop 3. both.
   [sorry ! but I am desperate]

6. consult scott guthrie of asp and azure fame
Hope somebody at MS is listening

7. may be we can start by adding a start button of some kind ???

8. where are the howto videos / help and assistants like clippy ?

Google made the right moves but missed the Social boat

Google identified where people are flocking to on the internet - BlogSpot, Youtube, Mail, etc

and took them over ! They failed to link the people and data through relations and interests and are now

getting it right with Google+ as the fabric.

Silly people continuosly predict dooms day for Microsoft

a. ofcourse it cannot survive being just an OS vendor;

b. being just an os vendor changed around the year 1991, when linus torvalds said
sw dev should be philanthropy and not biz. nobody can beat free as in "free beer".

c. our dear redhat entered the billion dollar club this year[took 20 years]

d. selling an OS is just a side biz for MS - but which is fortunately making 20
billion/quarter revenue

e. apple sells hw and experience with free ios;
google sells ads thru search with free android/linux.
MS RELIED ON PARTNERS TO BUILD GREAT PC'S and INNOVATE WHICH BOMBED.

f. its core biz is "BUSINESS SOFTWARE" - office, sharepoint, dynamics/crm,
exchange, etc. [ofcourse all of them have good competition which is good]

g. it missed the boat with mobi, but there are atleast 5 future trendz where it is
in: cloud[azure], tablets[win8/nook], livingroom[xbox], apps[skype/office(not on
ipad yet for strategic reasons)]

h. MS good @ 3E

i. it already has a war chest of patents and is constantly
increasing it @ $10Billion/Year; [12000patents] which are sufficient to just live
happily ever after [licensing the stuff]

Microsoft needs to Capitalize not just Invent !

Microsoft is doing a great job enabling devs to imagineer relevant scenarios where their tech can take off; But it isnt sufficient - a final beautiful useful product should come out of this ; so I believe they should work in unison with devs until that end.
The following techs should have been more successful than they are:

1. on{x}
2. surface
3. cloud [2001 - .net web services]
4. smart-glass
5. kinect
6. lightswitch
7. wp7

MS @ E3

1. i wish ms can get a bit of google dna and give us a few high quality games for free and monetize thru in-game-ads[banners on buildings,etc without distracting the gamer].

2. to capitalize an innovation is more important : though smartglass is a great platform and some usage scenarios are demoed - there should have been more compelling and realistic.

3. remember that core games are wat maketh a console first - more focus on that aspect shud hav been better

4. we all know that social-mobile-casual gaming is eating the lunch of gr8 game making companies - but its an irreversible trend; and also that gaming franchises and console are loss leading - and they make up in volumes thru sales for years.

5. less graphic violence and a more appealing story is better appreciated

6. where are the at-home-realistic-kinect-shopping-experiences

heres yusuf mehdi has to say:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/07/microsofts-yusuf-mehdi-says-xbox-smartglass-takes-an-open-view-of-mobile-console-integration-interview/