Category: Uncategorized

There has been a lot of commentary on the departure of Lenn Pryor from Microsoft.
This is sort of an unusual topic for me, as for years, people have heard me preach that I would never work for Microsoft. But I am now saddened to see some of the signs of decay and inertia that have affected other large technology giants.
It was an innovative company. Parts of it still are. Microsoft dominates large portions of the server market, as well as having a complete control of the desktop ecosystem. All other desktops are “me toos”, although the Apple crowd will dispute this. But Apple develops many things because they know that Microsoft will, not because they are being innovative.
So, what now? A new OS? New Apps? What is Microsoft going to do to define the next 20 years of computing?
Or will they? Or have they run their course? Are they a foundation, not a spire?
Microsoft will be re-born. As what, I don’t know. But in 10 years, it will not be the same company we have known for the last 20 years.
Or it will be gone.

Adrants links to a DoubleClick Report on the Decade in Online Advertising. [here]
A wealth of statistics on the advertising we love to hate. As well, the report has the coolest graph tracing the history of the Internet Boom I have seen.
Follow this story on Technorati.

Bendict XVI, in his first act as Pope, has promoted Cardinal Law…
…Cardinal Law is the first Cardinal to represent the new Arch-Church of Antarctica. A well-deserved move.

Ummm…Ratzinger? [here]
Roman Catholic Church: Now serving 1 Billion 900 Million 500 million 115 Souls
Very bad strategic move for the church.
BL Ochman ties the new pope to Nostrodamus. [here]

All:
The browser doesn’t matter anymore. So get on with it, and develop something interesting.
M. David’s rant.
I use browsers in this order:

• Firefox: 60%
• FeedDemon: 25%
• MSIE: 10%
• Opera: 5%

I am likely not alone. FeedDemon is my RSS reader and it is built on MSIE. Firefox is used for browsing, and I don’t do much of that anymore. Opera is for random Web development and other weirdness.
But in five years, browsers will be used infrequently, as desktop information integration over HTTP becomes the norm.

Jeff Nolan sums it up nicely:

gee, ya think?

He is referring to the C|Net Article here.
Siebel is a company that just epitomizes the arrogance and greed that ran the valley for those fleeting years, and that has been punished so mightily since 2000.
I do not hold a warm place in my heart for Siebel.

Kottke has a great summary of the links for the Adobomedia/Macrodobe story here.

In my opinion, this quote sums up what is wrong with this merger.

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia strengthens our mission of helping people and organizations communicate better. Through the combination of our powerful development, authoring and collaboration tools – and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash – we have the opportunity to drive an industry-defining technology platform that delivers compelling, rich content and applications across a wide range of devices and operating systems. [here]

The Adobe and Macromedia Marketing/Press Relations teams need the help of the Bullfighter software.
Flash makes web products that are great for online games…and useless for anything else. Adobe makes a PDF reader, which I can replace with any number of free readers.
I can feel gravity dragging this merger into the pit of despair.
I agree with Om Malik and Russell Beattie — I vote “-1” on this merger.
More here and here and here and here
Richard Koman says this is a good deal…Flash on Mobile devices merged with a lighter version of Acrobat.
Sramana Mitra says that Apple should buy Adobe now. [here]
Strategize says Adobe everywhere, all the time. [here]
Roland Tanglao quotes Marc Canter, who is happy to see Macromedia disappear.
More from Roland here.

Spent Saturday prepping for a yard sale, and today we executed on the plan. Lot’s of geek books went cheap to deserving homes: a former full-time Linux admin who has been downgraded to working in a liquor store by the economy, and a grad student who nearly cried when he saw what I was selling cheap.
Also sold the 1970 iPod (Pioneer S-3500 Receiver/Turntable), and a bunch of records.
It’s amazing what people will buy.
Off to bed…

First Gupta was removed from Gupta.
Then Siebel was removed from Siebel.
Just a thought…

Scott Jones posits a possible relationship (M&A?) between Accenture and Siebel. [here]
I find this connection completely plausible and may be one way for Siebel to claw it’s way out of the hole it’s in.