Print - WinInfo Short Takes: Week of February 7

An often irreverent look at some of the week's other news...

Gates Touts Interoperability
In a letter to customers this week, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates promised that his company will work to make its software more interoperable with other technologies. The email message, which might caustically be regarded as an example of pointless ivory tower pontificating, should be viewed in a different light, however. After all, Gates has used such email messages to move his company to the Internet and then to Microsoft .NET. Could Microsoft be signaling that it's finally ready to work politely with non-Microsoft technologies? My goodness; it might be. "Interoperability is a proven approach for dealing with the diversity and heterogeneity of the marketplace," Gates wrote as he outlined Microsoft's interoperability plans. "First, we continue to support customers' needs for software that works well with what they have today. Second, we are working with the industry to define a new generation of software and Web services based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which enables software to efficiently share information." You can read the entire message at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail or visit the new Microsoft Interoperability Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/interop for more information.

Microsoft to Release 13 Security Fixes Next Week
On February 8, Microsoft will ship fixes for a whopping 13 security flaws. The software giant rates three of the flaws as critical, the company's highest rating (the lowest rating is good and the highest rating is bad). The company made the revelation through the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification service, which preannounces the number of upcoming patches that the company will release during its regularly scheduled monthly patches. Nine of this month's flaws are in various Windows versions, and the remaining four flaws involve Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), Microsoft Office, the Windows .NET Framework, Visual Studio .NET, Windows Media Player (WMP), and MSN Messenger. I hope you IT administrator types weren't planning to take it easy next week.

Ironically, CAN-SPAM Law Leads to Rise in Spam
It's been a year since the US government instituted its vaunted but paradoxically named CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which was designed to stem the flow of junk email (i.e., spam). So you might expect that junk mail volume has fallen. After all, our vigorous and well-run government has proven especially effective over the years at legislating and enforcing technology. I get goose bumps just thinking about legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which is most often used to limit our legal rights to Fair Use copying, and the wonderful Carnivore program over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). But I digress. Oddly enough, since the CAN-SPAM Act went into effect in January 2004, spam traffic in the United States has risen dramatically and now represents about 80 percent of all email traffic, up from 50 percent to 60 percent in pre-CAN-SPAM days. I guess that's why they called it CAN-SPAM, eh? Eh? Anyone? CAN-SPAM actually legalized spamming as long as spammers follow certain rules. So even though Microsoft and other companies have used the act to sue spamming companies and individuals, spam continues to rise. Here's a thought: Rather than let the federal government try to tackle what's essentially a technological problem, why don't we just fix email once and for all? Seriously.

Sony Separates Vaio, MP3 Players from Other Electronics
After having Apple Computer kick it unmercifully around the consumer electronic market as if it were an inexperienced newcomer, Walkman maker Sony has finally had enough abuse. This week, Sony announced that it will split its electronics division in half; one half will form a new division that will handle only the company's VAIO computers and Walkman portable digital audio devices, and the other half will handle everything else (including legacy Walkman devices based on CDs and cassettes). Sony says it's making the move so that it can concentrate on changing the fortunes of its Walkman line, which suffered greatly as the Apple iPod roared to market dominance. I find it amazing that Sony once owned this market. The company owns a major record label and has the Walkman brand and the consumer know-how. Instead, Sony's digital audio products have been a sad joke. I have to go back to Commodore's bungling of Amiga to find such a gross example of incompetence. It's unbelievable.

Mozilla Foundation Delays Firefox 1.1
As has routinely been the case, The Mozilla Foundation revealed this week that it won't meet its most recent product deadline, this time for Firefox 1.1, which was originally due in March. Several million people now use Firefox, and maybe it's time for the good folks at The Mozilla Foundation to start taking schedules a little more realistically. Firefox 1.1 is now scheduled for a June release, which is a Microsoft-style rescheduling, especially when you consider that the release is essentially a minor one. This kind of behavior doesn't reflect maturity.

MIT Guru Pushes $100 PC
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, wants to create a $100 PC that will help developing countries bridge the digital divide. Key to the system's cost is its screen, which you might presume uses some sort of quill and parchment system. But, no, Negroponte has solved the problem of expensive LCD screens, stating that his system could use an innovative and cheap projection system that features a 14" color display. Crazy talk, you say? Perhaps, but if Negroponte's system--which uses AMD chips and Linux--takes off, we might see an amazing shift in the demographics of PC users. It's worth watching.

Google Dominates the News, Not the Search Market
Everyone seems to know that Google is the search market leader, but is Google really that dominant? According to a Web traffic survey by comScore Networks, Google's market share isn't even close to, say, Microsoft's share of the PC OS market. Google does lead in Web search volume, with 34.7 percent of all searches made in December 2004. But that's not a heck of a lot more volume than Yahoo!'s 31.9 percent. With 16.3 percent, MSN Search came in a distant third. Microsoft released a dramatically improved MSN Search this week, but how well it will fare in the market remains to be seen. In the meantime, these figures make me wonder why Google gets such a disproportionate amount of news coverage.

AMD, Microsoft Push x64 for Businesses
Processor maker AMD and Microsoft are partnering to move corporate customers over to x64-based 64-bit servers. Microsoft is hosting x64 servers running AMD Opteron processors at its worldwide Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs) so customers can test applications and services on the new platform. The x64 platform was derived from AMD's AMD-64 work, which basically added 64-bit capabilities to the aging x86 processor line. Now expected to be the dominant PC platform of the future, thanks in part to an endorsement from Intel, which is adding x64 capabilities to its own processors, x64 is becoming an increasingly interesting alternative for customers who want higher amounts of memory and other resources. I've been running an x64 desktop machine since September, and I'll never go back. Have no doubt; x64 is the platform of the future.

Sony to Ship PSP in North America on March 24
Sony will launch its eagerly awaited PlayStation Portable (PSP) in North America on March 24 and will have one million units available for sale in the first week alone. Unlike the Japanese versions, North American versions of the PSP will be sold only as part of a $250 Value Pack that includes a game (Spider-Man 2) and various accessories. The PSP, which vaguely resembles a PlayStation 2 hand controller with a vibrant widescreen color display, is compatible with the Memory Stick and 1.8GB Universal Media Disk (UMD) formats. Although PSP is primarily a game machine, it also plays music and videos and performs other multimedia functions. Sony says that when the PSP ships in North America, 24 game titles will be available, each selling for about $40.

"Google does lead in Web search volume, with 34.7 percent of all searches made in December 2004". All searches? You mean US searches. It has a much higher search share outside the USA. Get your facts straight.

You made a mistake in the PSP section. The first million value packs sold do not come with a game, they come with a copy of Spider-man 2 the movie on UMD.

Whos' counting how many searches I make? Do we rely on the statistics of the search engine companies, or someone else doing market research? How many of those MSN searches are done when the browser picks up a mistake made by the user, as opposed to voluntary searches? Do the MSN searches include searches made at microsoft.com and the Microsoft support centre?

To the first poster who says Google has a higher share outside the US, where's the link that hows that?

"Do the MSN searches include searches made at microsoft.com and the Microsoft support centre?" Yeah, because Microsoft must be cheating or inflating their numbers somehow, right? Putz.

I wonder if movies on UMD are going to be any good. 1.8GB is not a lot of space for a 2.5 hour movie like Spidey 2, but the screen is fairly low rez compared to a computer monitor anyway, so maybe it won't matter.

I'm still waiting for Mozilla to release a patch for for all the acknowledged bugs from v0.8 and onward, I wish they'd do that before going to v1.1

I think Google gets a disproportionate amount of press for the same reason that Apple does; they don't focus on simple technology, but products that really serve their user's needs. I rarely use a search tool other than Google, since they provide everything I need. Plus, they offer a whole bunch of neat and intersting experiments that people can play with. Check http://labs.google.com/ when you get a chance.

Google's International Use figures can be found by searching Businessweek. I'd post the URL here but this site doesn't all posting of "Continuous long strings". THE BW figures come from Media Metrix. If you search around there are Media Metrix figures that indicate that Google has a 70% to 80% share of searches in Europe (France, UK) and Canada. Asia is tougher market for them at the moment. In some ways the % share of searches misses the point. Yes, that's very important but a search company has to turn that into ad share or other types of revenue streams, maintain existing markets and expand into new markets. Google seems to be doing an okay job on those fronts at the moment. From what I can tell there US ad share is more like 50%. The fact that MS has lots of money to burn so we can find out how many calories there are in spinach is interesting but so what? Where's the beef?

I think that Firefox just absolutely sucks ***. Anyone who says that it loads faster that IE is nothing more than a fvcking liar. Provide me with a link that shows side-by-side timing comparisons with Firefox loading faster otherwise **** off.

- Interoperability: Nothing new to Windows. Text files have worked across every command-line and GUI OS for decades. - 13 bug fixes: Now might be a good time to buy a Mac mini. - Spam: Will always be around. Look at snail mail. Now subtract the cost of trees, paper, and postage. - Sony: They better hope the PSP become the iPod of jobless teens and tweens, otherwise, they've lost to Apple. - Firefox 1.1: When the two main coders get real paying jobs, you can expect their freebie project to suffer. Nothing new. - $100 PC: with a $299 Windows XP Pro license. Please. - MSN Search: Microsoft Google 1998. Yawn.

"$100 PC: with a $299 Windows XP Pro license. Please. " Did you even read the item? The $100 box will use Linux. (Besides which, it's probably not even x86-based given the price point.) Please yourself.

"$100 PC: with a $299 Windows XP Pro license. Please." Forget the fact that the article clearly states that they're using a free OS. $299 is the retail price, not what computer makers pay. -- That Guy

"Forget the fact that the article clearly states that they're using a free OS. $299 is the retail price, not what computer makers pay." Any PC capable of running Windows will eventually have Windows loaded on it. Usually a pirated version.

"As has routinely been the case, The Mozilla Foundation revealed this week that it won't meet its most recent product deadline, this time for Firefox 1.1, which was originally due in March." Mozilla doesn't *have* deadlines. The dates in their roadmaps are just tentative guideposts to give people some idea of when releases might be ready. However, you do have a point. Half a year is a long time to wait for a purportedly minor upgrade.

They don't need to rush now, since firefox is getting so much press and , what, 10% of the market at this point? hmmm sounds like an mini-IE thing to me, since MS isn't going to do anything with IE until 2006, hell whats the rush guys? That's basically what they're probably thinking.

when it comes to the video game industry Paul knows a much as a cavemen... :P go learn something before reporting or making any comment related to this market...

"I think that Firefox just absolutely sucks ***. Anyone who says that it loads faster that IE is nothing more than a fvcking liar. Provide me with a link that shows side-by-side timing comparisons with Firefox loading faster otherwise **** off." I use Firefox both at home and work and find that browsing with it is much more efficient and pleasant thanks to tabbed browsing, pop up blocking and integrated search bar (instead of search popup dialog). I agree that it takes longer to load than IE, but that's never bothered me as I load at start up and it is constantly open both at work and home, but if that is the only problem that you have with it you may like to visit http://minimizetotray.mozdev.org/ which, among other things, provides a "turbo" option so Firefox can start almost instantly.

"MSN Search: Microsoft Google 1998. Yawn." What planet are you on? Seriously? Where do you pull this stuff out of? You must be absolutely ******* nuts if you think Search engines in 1998 had the stuff MSN and Google do now. Go home, you sad little pig.

"indicate that Google has a 70% to 80% share of searches in Europe (France, UK) " Rubbish. Google's share in the UK is 60%. If you have any link for your funny 80% share that you keep screaming out, be good enough to let us see it., will you?

" use Firefox both at home and work and find that browsing with it is much more efficient and pleasant thanks to tabbed browsing, pop up blocking and integrated search bar (instead of search popup dialog). " I don't care about tabbed browsing and I find browing with IE a very pleasant and efficient business. Pleasantness is in the eye of the beholder. Plus my IE with msn messenger already HAS a very solid pop up blocker and included search bar. Same thing if you have Yahoo messaenger too. Pop up blocker and serach bars are everywhere. Nothing spacial about that. Why waste my time using Firefox?

"Mozilla doesn't *have* deadlines. The dates in their roadmaps are just tentative guideposts to give people some idea of when releases might be ready." Umm.. that is called a "deadline"

"All searches? You mean US searches. It has a much higher search share outside the USA. Get your facts straight" The US accounts for over 60% of Google's revnues. So US searches is what matters, and Yahoo is nearly tied with Gogle in market share, and Yahoo's and MSN's shares are rising while Google's is falling.

In related news, Rush Limbaugh says that Democrats are better than Republicans. Paul Thurrott is always objective, and never been bias.

"I don't care about tabbed browsing and I find browing with IE a very pleasant and efficient business. Pleasantness is in the eye of the beholder. Plus my IE with msn messenger already HAS a very solid pop up blocker and included search bar. Same thing if you have Yahoo messaenger too. Pop up blocker and serach bars are everywhere. Nothing spacial about that. Why waste my time using Firefox?" I was simply suggesting a solution to the problem that you mentioned. The search bar I was talking about isn't the internet search that you mentioned, but 'find as you type' page search that displays in a bar at the bottom of the Firefox window, which is much more useful than IE's way of doing it, in my opinion. If you feel that Firefox isn't for you, then I encourage you to stick with IE, but making comments like "Firefox sucks ****" is not helpful or accurate as there are obviously a good number of people that feel differently and its standards compliance is way ahead of IE's (at least until 2006/7, and perhaps even then).

>>"Instead, Sony's digital audio products have been a sad joke." Oh come on Paul! Go grab a Sony NW-HD3 and give it a try! It's good! Honest! A battery life of thirty hours, twenty Gigs in a unit the size of a Mini/Micro which you can throw in your jeans pocket, and a proper remote control with three line display and jog wheel. I wouldn't call that a sad joke, in fact I'd say that makes the iPod seem a little sad. The problem with the Sony's is not the hardware but the software, something far easier to correct down the line. C'mon Sony! :) As always though, a good read on my Monday morning.

The only reason I use firefox is because for some reason ie crashes my laptop. Firefox does not load faster or look more pleasant. The only advantage with it that I like (besides not crashing) is the tabbed web browsing, which is easily accessabile by pressing the middle mouse button on a link. You can easily get search toolbars for ie, so the google searchbar in firefox isn't a reason to move over.

Sadly too many people seem to think 64-bit means their desktops will be faster. ALL IT MEANS IS YOU CAN ACCESS MORE THAN 4GB OF MEMORY!!! Intel should instead concentrate on making better designed chips (ie. less heat and power). Maybe they should take a clue from Motorola.

"The only reason I use firefox is because for some reason ie crashes my laptop. Firefox does not load faster or look more pleasant. The only advantage with it that I like (besides not crashing) is the tabbed web browsing, which is easily accessabile by pressing the middle mouse button on a link. You can easily get search toolbars for ie, so the google searchbar in firefox isn't a reason to move over." Themes are available (I like Qute 3) and, as somebody mentioned above, http://minimizetotray.mozdev.org/ provides a quick launch "turbo" option to allow for faster startup.

Has anyone using firefox went to to the "Add Engines" link in the google search bar? That resource alone makes Firefox better than an. Coupled with the fact that IE is woefully behind in standards compliance (I mean IE is supposedly for browsing the internet...), IE is a sub par product that is badly in need of an overhaul.

"IE is a sub par product that is badly in need of an overhaul." Yeah, but that doesn't matter to the IE fanboys. When Firefox renders a page wrongly they don't complain to the webmaster that they've coded the page badly and only tested it on IE, they just assume Firefox sucks. And when a page that uses modern standards doesn't render on IE, that's when they'll complain to the webmaster, not to Billy. I really don't care if Firefox takes over the world or not. But if it wakes Microsoft up into updating their browser (just fixing PNG support and their broken box model would be cool) then that's 'job done' for Mozilla.

Gates also said recently that open source solutions weren't good for interoperability as there's too many of them. That's kind of what XML is there to avoid, no? The Beast's own record of closed format in-operability isn't very hot is it, so I suspect he's smoking crack as usual.

Haven't used Sony's hardware recently. From reviews, it's pretty darned good and should be competitive. They'll have to tank pretty hard to mis-market it worse than Commodore did with the Amiga, which was a sales and tech leader that just stood still in tech AND was poorly marketed. (I toss further curses at the souls of those who rode it into the ground!) Sony sounds like it's keeping up with the tech side, but I don't hear the buzz for them.