YAOU (Yet another Office update)
Last week I bought and installed Office 2008 on our new iMac … and immediately had a 400+ MB download to update it. Tonight I started up PowerPoint … and am immediately confronted with a 158 MB to update it again.
I can only assume that Microsoft screwed up something in the initial update horribly, and needs to rectify its error with yet another massive update.
Not cool!
To date I have spent more time updating Office 2008 than actually using it.
Microsoft Mesh and Architecture Astronauts
Joel Spolsky’s latest Joel on Software post is a must read, if only for the entertainment value.
An excerpt:
It’s Groove, rewritten from scratch, one more time. Ray Ozzie just can’t stop rewriting this damn app, again and again and again, and taking 5-7 years each time.
Microsoft!
From Reuters via Information Week:
Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)’s second-biggest investor urged Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to raise its $42 billion bid for the Web pioneer and warned Yahoo it has few options left, raising the pressure on them to seal a deal.
Isn’t it somewhat hard to argue both of those positions at the same time? Wouldn’t that almost be like talking out of both sides of your mouth?
You would think, huh …
iPhone and greed
Ken Ollin is wondering if the biggest innovation in the iPhone is greed. At least, that’s the catchy title of his blog post.
What he’s really questioning is why the iPhone is a closed garden instead of an open software development ecosystem.
In response, of course, eager Mac users have responded with the usual flood of comments to anyone who questions Apple - mostly making good points about the software development kit that will be coming out in February or so.
But Ken’s post is still valuable, as I commented on his post:
A lot of people have made good points in the comments. The SDK, etc.
But … let’s not lose sight of the point (even if we are Mac fans - and I’m one too.)
The point is that the ecosystem is more important than an individual piece of software or hardware - and any individual company. This is the key insight that initially won Microsoft the operating system war, and losing this insight is what is costing Microsoft today.
The point for Apple: cultivate the ecosystem. The returns are huge multiples of what the closed garden generates. Apple is likely moving in this direction with the SDK.
But here’s why commentary like this is valuable: the ecosystem approach is not in Apple’s DNA. Apple *is* learning it, but true-blue Apple SOP is to go it alone.
An occasional reminder is a good thing for Apple - and a good thing for all of us who love Apple products and software and ethos.
Umm … which one?
In a discussion on the burning question of “who Bill Gates really is,” we get the following brilliant insight:
“Bill Gates is the proxy for how Microsoft will be remembered. First and foremost, he’s a businessman. He’s not an inventor or technologist, per se, and I don’t think he would claim to be. He’s fundamentally a geek.”
Greg Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems
Count me confused.
eWeek and iPhone: fear and loathing?
Is 3 negative articles in one day a coincidence?
- Analysts: iPhone Has Neither Security nor Relevance
- Enterprise Hurdles Await iPhone
- Fear and Loathing in IT: iPhone and Macintosh
Holy mother, what on earth is going on here?
Could it be an extremely Windows-centric empire of analysts and business media is absolutely terrified that their comfortable bread-and-butter Windows hegemony is dissolving in front of their eyes?
I guess Linux was bad enough - it wasn’t in the MSCE textbook but at least it was technical, and needed user handholding, and ensuring lots of expensive tech support and high-end analysis was required.
But Macintosh! Is iPhone at last the trojan horse that will take Apple into the enterprise, just like iPod has in the home? The very prospect has Windows weenies running scared:
After all, the horde carrying the forthcoming Apple phone won’t be barbarians; rather, the very folks doing the work, and worse, some may well be the boss.
IT departments like devices like Blackberry’s with centralized command and control. They hate things they don’t bring in, that they haven’t first subdued with strong corporate chains. And they fear Apples’ recent success.
Their fear is both justified and unjustified. On the one hand, corporations don’t change their systems and applications overnight. On the other hand, a real alternative is slowly taking shape.
However things go, this outpour of vitriol and epidemic of trembling knees is pathetic.
Word and the web: incompatible
It’s hard to believe that people at major weblogs and web content companies don’t know this yet, but Microsoft Word and the web don’t really see eye to eye:
(At least for people on non-Microsoft browsers and platforms.)
Apple on speed?
Since when is speed the most important factor in a browser’s performance?
Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, based on the industry standard iBench tests.
Like others, I was a little underwhelmed by Apple’s WWDC conference. Safari for Windows was a surprise, but not the kind of wow I was hoping for. The big thing that is bugging me, though, is selling a browser on speed. Maybe that’s just because I’m a Mac user, but is IE or Firefox slow for most PC users? Do they feel slow?
I haven’t heard that from any of my friends who use PCs.
My only guess is that the average non-technical PC users junks up his PC (and his browser) with all kinds of plug-ins and toolbars - which could make IE feel slow. Safari will win that comparison simply by virtue of not being compatible with anyone’s toolbar.
But I doubt anyone on a reasonably modern PC with a fairly clean IE install is terribly worried about browser speed. I just don’t see it.
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Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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