Is Microsoft f(l)ailing?

John Dvorak asks an interesting question: Is the party over for Microsoft? While people have been predicting the demise of Microsoft for many years, I think it may be about time to call the game. The end may in fact be nearer than we think. Of course, having something like US$30 Billion in the bank means MS won’t simply go away. They can play the losing game for years to come.

As Dvorak says in his column, Microsoft has a long history of chasing after markets created by other people. What I think he really misses is the fact that Microsoft has never had any other marketing plan. They “borrowed” the DOS model from Digital Research’s CP/M operating system. They then “borrowed” the Windows operating system from Apple. Dvorak’s list is just the continuation of the Microsoft modus operandi from the start.

The problem is, Microsoft is running out of ideas they can take from other companies. Microsoft has been bleeding money in several of these ventures. In addition, they have been caught “borrowing” so many times that competitors and government regulators are now far more likely to call them on it.

Microsoft is set for a big fall, which is odd because I think Windows 7 will be a big seller for them. I just think they have too many irons in the fire pulling them under (plenty of mixed metaphor’s there.) But they don’t understand that selling a good product and simply making it better is a valid business plan. Especially in a recession.

The Gloved One

I must admit I rediscovered Michael Jackson over the last couple of weeks. It wasn’t like I had forgotten him, his music is on my iPod and I listen to it fairly frequently. Not in front of the kids however, they’d just stare when I try to moonwalk and stumble across the floor.

Obviously, there have been a lot of us closet fans, secretly admiring the King of Pops great music while not quite being able to admit it. Crowds at his home, his memorial and around the world have proven that. I’m hear to tell you I loved Michaels music, but the Video’s that have been all over the web (and now on my iPod) are the thing I’ve rediscovered.

When asked what I thought of Michael I told someone “He was a perfectly tuned instrument for turning music into motion.” His dancing mesmerized audiences mainly because they couldn’t figure out how a human being could do those things. But he did them, and he made it look Natural.

There were a lot of things about Michael we’ll never understand how he did, but he was the soundtrack for our lives for over forty years. He was my generations Elvis, but so much bigger than Elvis his seemingly inevitable young death has impacted the entire world. That’s not to downplay Elvis’s influence, but the world moved to instant communication on a global scale as Michael grew up, and he rode the wave.

As others have said, the man in the mirror has passed through. I sincerely hope he found his peace on the other side.

Windows 7 is (not) Vista

Microsoft recently posted the final release candidate (RC) of Windows 7. This is expected to be the code that will go to manufacturers for new PC’s being sold after the October 22nd General Release.

I installed the Vista final RC back in 2006. Sadly I only used it for maybe a week. At that point I realized that “Release” was not the right term for Vista.

By now the history of Vista’s release is well documented on the web. A major change to the Hardware Driver architecture for Vista left most manufacturers scrambling at the last minute. Vista released at the end of 2006 with the final GA release in early 2007. Almost everyone who upgraded were deluged with bugs for the first half of that year. People compared Vista to Windows Me, which was not a fair comparison. The core architecture of Vista, based on the XP kernel, was very stable. As driver manufacturers caught up the news started to get out that Vista was actually a pretty good upgrade to the Windows platform.

But the damage had been done. Too many people knew someone with a bad experience. Microsoft was actually running ads that basically said “Vista isn’t as bad as you’ve heard.” Not a great way to sell a product.

Fast forward to 2009. With the bad taste of the original Vista release starting to fade, Microsoft was already promising a new Windows version which would make good on their promises for a better OS experience. Even more astounding, Windows 7 would release at the end of 2009, less than three years after Vista. Compared to the five plus years of development for Vista, Windows 7 seems to almost appear out of thin air.

And the good news is, it is a much better OS than Vista. Which is weird, because it is Vista, with a bunch of new features and fixes. Many people are calling it Vista Service Pack 3, and I would find it very difficult to argue with that view point. Windows 7 is a much better OS, but it is also Vista at it’s core which is why it is so much more stable. Rather than starting everything from scratch, Microsoft used the existing kernel and drivers and just reworked the user experience.

The key to the stability for Windows 7 is that the primary goal of the design was to make sure that “if it ran on Vista, it runs on Windows 7.” Hardware drivers that work with Vista work with Windows 7. Applications that run well on Vista run well on Windows 7.

By using the things from Vista that worked, Microsoft made sure that the new OS would have a firm foundation. By making simple but well thought out changes, they have created a product I think they can be proud to put the Windows name on.

This year you won’t see ads saying “Windows 7 isn’t as bad as you have heard.” With the release of the Release Candidate that you can use well into 2010 they have basically said, “Windows 7 is as great as people say it is, but don’t believe what you hear try it for yourself. We’ll even waive the price for the remainder of the year.”

For now I agree it is better than Vista, mainly because it isn’t trying to be something entirely different. I think that was the big mistake that Microsoft made when they tried to make a big break from XP. They forgot that XP was the most stable, and most successful Windows OS around and all the customers wanted was “a better XP.”

In a couple of days I will share my experiences with Windows 7. I’ll talk about features I like, features I am still trying to figure out, and give my predictions for the future of Windows 7.

Twitter as EWS

Recently we've seen a major change in the way people are getting the news. Twenty-four hour News has become the dinosaur of the information age. Two major events, one of politics, the other of the entertainment world has really made an impression on me, and apparently a lot of other people.

When the news broke that there was going to be protests in Iran over the recent national elections, most of the major news outlets had been kicked out of the country. The information got delivered to us via Twitter and YouTube. The #iranelection topic in Twitter quickly rose to the number one trending topic and remained so for days as people outside of Iran wanted to know what was going on, and people in Iran tried to communicate with each other.

Out of curiosity I turned on CNN to see what they were reporting and was astonished to see CNN reporters literally reading Twitter posts directly on the air. What value are they bringing if we can read the Twitter accounts directly? What is the place of a news service like AP if they are reporting everything hours after it is already being posted on Twitter?

The second event of course was the shocking news of the passing of King of Pop, Michael Jackson. I admit this was one that I first read on Twitter myself. I was so astonished, I was one of the people who retweeted the story before it was confirmed. For awhile I thought perhaps it was a big mistake. Then as the news was confirmed I realized that the social media network had scooped the big News channels again. And on a story that would typically have had millions of viewers glued to their TV. However, nobody was watching TV. They were reading Twitter, posting blogs and watching MJ's old video's on YouTube. I think these are the events that moved Social Media to the forefront of how most of us get our news.

And the big corporations and celebrities have noticed. Today if Shaq O'neal wants to say something to his fans he doesn't hold a press conference, he tweets. Pop celebs have found that they can avoid the big media filter by speaking directly with their fans. It's a PR agents nightmare, but a fans dream. I get the news directly from my favorite stars, and I can pass it along to my friends almost as if I had been told personally to pass it on.

Interaction at the most personal level, made global. Big corporations can spend a few cents tweeting about a new product, or a special offer. They reach thousands and perhaps millions of followers for a tiny fraction of what they would have to pay for a major media outlet. Even better, their followers are asking for the information. They don't have to wonder how many people were going to the bathroom during their multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercial.

And the communication isn't one way. A cola maker can watch the Twitter-verse trending topics and see how people are reacting to their latest marketing offer. If people are complaining about a cable company's customer service, the company can find out about it much faster than waiting for the next customer satisfaction survey results from their marketing firm. Global results, instantaneously.

Twitter sells itself as a "way to inform your friends of what you are doing at any time." However, that isn't what people are using Twitter for. It's the news media of tomorrow. Instead of hearing what happened today on the 11o'clock News, you find out what is happening right now on Twitter.

Twitter is the new Early Warning System. Instantaneous, global information that effects you, without waiting.

All the twenty four hour news channels can do now is sit and read Twitter over the air. About like reading news from a Teletype but instead of a few news services, it is from millions of citizen reporters.

There is a downside of course. Rumors travel just as fast as news. The problem facing us in the future will be knowing what is truth, and what is snake oil. Perhaps that is the only real value the major news outlets will hold for us.

Smartphone choices

My wife and I recently decided it was time to get into the digital wireless revolution with our own smartphones. We've been pretty much voice only users for the past decade. A fact which has sometimes frustrated the daughter who prefers text messages to phone conversations when she is on the go. Also, our contract with Sprint was expiring, and it seemed like a good time to take a look at our options.

Both of us have been iPod users for several years, and we both have second generation iPod Touches. I love the numerous apps and the ability to watch video on the iPod's screen. So naturally we considered switching to AT&T and the iPhone. Except for several problems we were foresaw:

1. I don't like typing on the iPod's touch screen. If we were honest that we'd be doing more text messaging, then this was going to be a big concern. I have big fingers, and I'm constantly hitting the wrong key on the iPod.
2. At the time there wasn't a choice for 32GB iPhone, and we both have much more than 16GB on our iPods. If we were going to make the switch, it wouldn't make sense to carry both the iPod and the iPhone.
3. AT&T. What more do I have to say? Sprint may have a reputation for bad customer service, but we've been happy with them. AT&T still doesn't provide many features on their network that we knew we could get on Sprint or Verizon. MMS anyone?

To be honest, with the WiFi built in to the iPod Touch, we get many of the advantages of full network access already. Especially since I work from home and have WiFi access most of the time anyway. This also meant I wasn't looking for a phone with WiFi as anything I would do on my network I could already do with the iPod. And we already get all of the same Apps the iPhone users have access to.

The Palm Pre wasn't out when we were looking, and to be honest despite our previous reliance on Palm devices for all of our schedule and contact information I wouldn't have chosen the Pre for several reasons:

1. It's too new. There are not very many apps available for it yet. The new OS will need time to fix and it isn't clear that it will stay viable in a very tough marketplace.
2. It really isn't that much like our old Palm devices. If the big advantage was going to be familiarity with PalmOS, then this wasn't really on option anyway.

I really didn't see the point in going with unproven technology for our first real smartphone. I knew it would be frustrating enough for both of us getting used to a new phone. Why complicate that with the frustration of a new device that is still getting the kinks worked out?

While we might have been overwhelmed with the rest of the smart phone choices, it really came down to one brand name that has been around long enough to be a proven choice: RIM's BlackBerry. I looked over the specs on the various BlackBerry devices, but we had several requirements we both agreed we wanted to see in a new smartphone:

1. Full qwerty keyboard. We really hate having to press keys multiple times to get a single character. This would rule out the Pearl.
2. A camera. We'd read enough articles recommending having a phone with a camera for various reasons so this was a must have.
3. No touch screen. Although the Storm has enough reported problems it wasn't going to be on the list anyway.

In the end we chose BlackBerry Curve 8330 phones. They had everything we wanted, have been around long enough to be a stable platform, and they are pretty cool. In fact I was very happy to find a large and extremely active BlackBerry user community. It seems that to own a BlackBerry is a bit of a badge in some circles.

So we're pretty happy with the decision. There are some web pundits who predict that the iPhone and Palm Pre will knock BlackBerry out of the market. I frankly don't see that happening. BlackBerry has too big a market to disappear anytime soon. And I suspect they will be matching features with new devices in the not too distant future.

And lets be honest, strong competition really is good for the consumers. I can't wait to see what my choices will be the next time we are ready to renew our wireless contract.

My View: Kindle DX

As many people are aware Amazon shipped the first Kindle DX ebook readers this week. I received mine on June 12th having pre-ordered in early May.

I've been reading a large number of posts and previews on the DX from people who I figure either have only had a Kindle for 24 hours, or are basing their opinions on what they have read about the new device. As an owner of the original Kindle for over a year, I wanted to weigh in with my view of what the DX means to someone who uses a Kindle every day.

I will tell you right up front that I am an avid reader in a family of avid readers. My wife and daughter both own Kindles. They both read much more than I do, and the Kindles have almost become members of the family, being taken everywhere they go.

The DX had two features that I wanted in my ebook reader since I first got the original Kindle last year. The first is a screen that comes closer to a full sized magazine or hard back book. I read a lot of technical and scientific books, including texts on software engineering which is my profession. A limitation of the original Kindle was it's ability to show long source code listings or mathematical equations on the smaller screen. The DX resolves this problem with a 9.7" diagonal screen compared to the 6" diagonal screen of the Kindle 1 and 2.

The second feature was the ability to read PDF natively. The original Kindle was much maligned by reviewers for the lack of PDF support. To a certain extent this was an unfair complaint against the Kindle because it was and still is actualy possible to convert PDF documents to a format that can be read on the Kindle. The problem is that the conversion process often lead to badly formatted material. Unless you wanted to take the time yourself to learn how to convert a PDF text to the Kindle format and edit the results to look better the results weren't always ideal.

The DX is capable of displaying PDF documents directly. Simply copy any PDF document you have to the Kindle's memory and the document appears on the Kindle's home screen. Click on it and you see the full PDF formatted file just like reading on the computer screen. There are some limitations, but most of those have to do with limitations of PDF and not necessarily the Kindle.

One of the very nice new features of the DX is the Auto rotating screen. With this you can turn the Kindle on it's side or even upside down and the text is rotated to the screen. Thus you can read in Portrait or Landscape format which makes reading some alrger PDF files even easier. This feature works with all text being read on the Kindle DX.

One of the new features of both the Kindle 2 and DX which often receives complaints is the Text-to-Speech feature. This allows you to listen to (almost) any document while it is read to you with either a male or female automated voice. I tried this out for the first time and was actually surprised with the realistic voice. It doesn't match a real human readers emotive voice. However, this feature is primarily aimed at people who either cannot see well enough to read text, or people who need to review a document when they cannot see the screen. While driving for instance. And for that the Text-to-Speech feature does the job very well. This feature would make the Kindle a great choice for people with limited eye-sight.

Unfortunately the feature does not work with all documents on the Kindle. Worse, this is not a technical issue, but rather an political/ecnomic issue. It seems that a number of publishers and authors were concerned with the loss of revenue for their audio books. If a person could purchase a best seller for $9.99 on the Kindle, and use the Text-to-Speech feature, why would they spend $30 for the Audio book version. For this reason Amazon was forced to include a feature which allowed Publishers to decide if a book could be converted to speech. So much for assisting those who are physically challenged. The message seems to be that if you need an audio book, you must pay more for the privlege.

Hopefully this issue will cause sufficient uproar that the publishers will be forced to reverse their decision and open up ebooks to those who need to listen to a book to enjoy it.

As a piece of technology the DX has some limitations. It is much larger and heavier than the original Kindle and Kindle 2. None the less, it still weighs less than many large books which it is designed to replace. For myself, I wish I had gotten the Kindle last year before reading David McCullough's excellent but boat anchor like John Adams. Often when we are out together and I want to put the Kindle away, it fits easily into my wife's purse next to her own Kindle. The DX won't fit in there, and she won't be willing to carry its extra weight in any event.

The Kindle DX supports 16 shades of gray as opposed to the orignal Kindle's 4 shades display. This is a big improvement in the eInk and I must say I find the few illustrations I have in my eboks are easier on the eye in 16 shades. Color, of course, isnt' coming to the Kindle anytime soon. Colored eInk technology is still several years away provided the manufacturers can produce color displays that do anything more vibrant than light pastels. For now I don't mind this bit as all of the books I read are printed in black and white anyway.

Many people still don't understand the pricing of he Kindles. At $489 for the DX it does at first seem to be very expensive. However, what most people miss is the built in Whispernet. The Kindle's price includes lifetime (life of the Kindle) use of the 3G network which can be used to browse for books on Amazon's website, download books and browse the Internet from anywhere the service is at. Right now this includes the United States only. Whispernets backbone is the Sprint wireless network which is the same network you would use for text, email and browsing on a Sprint Blackberry device. The important thing to understand is that there is no monthly charge for this usage. The Kindle price includes this usage with one exception.

If you want to send a non-Amazon created book to your Kindle via the wireless network, you will pay at a rate of approximately US$0.15 per megabyte. Notice, you can avoid this charge by simply copying any electronic document from your Desktop or Laptop PC to the Kindle via the USB interface. There are numerous other ways to get books and articles onto your Kindle without paying this fee. So this really isn't an issue for Kindle owners.

It is also important to recongize that there are numerous ebook outlets on the Internet. If your taste runs to classical literature, you can probably find any book you want free of charge via Feedbooks.com or Project Gutenberg.

The truth is, the Kindle isn't intended for casual readers who read only a handful of books every year. Where the Kindle really makes sense is for heavy readers, and travelers. Where the ability to search for, find and purchase a book directly on your Kindle anywhere you happen to be (within the U.S.) I know that for myself and my wife, the Kindle's pay for themselves in the lower priced ebooks versus paper books.

Remember also that paperless books are better for the environment. We cut down fewer trees now. I suspect my wife's reading habits alone probably saved an entire forest in the last year. I know of both medical and legal professionals who have converted to the Kindle to save money and space. It has also made them more productive as they have their entire library immediately available.

Like any technology, the Kindle isn't for everyone. If you are an avid reader, read a lot of textbooks, PDF documents or larger formatted journals, the DX is definitely worth your attention. For people like my wife and I, the Kindle is must have technology. The space we've saved in our home is all the justification we need. When my wife first heard about the Kindle back in early 2007 she told me it looked like a way to avoid putting up more bookshelves in our house. My initial reaction was that the Kindle would have to provide a much better reading experience than reading on my Laptop. It has exceeded that requirement and has been a constant traveling companion for both of us for the past year, and hopefully for many years to come.

Ok, so I don't post more often. At this point I am probably going to change my blog to focus more on my favorite sport: NASCAR. Yep, I've been a race fan since I was a kid in the 60's when I fell in love with both the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours at Le Mans. The concept of racing a car for an entire day was so intriquing to me. I still stay up late ot watch 24 hour races, like the 24 hours of Daytona.

But for the past dozen years it has mostly been about NASCAR, and while I love F1 and the endurance races, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is my favorite.

So Let me kick it off by saying congratulations to Tony Stewart and the first victory for the Stewart-Haas Racing. Even if it was the All-Star race, and not for points. I suspect that the $1+million dollar winnings will make up for a lot of money Tony has put in to his new race team so far this year.