News and analysis to 21st August 2007
Google stalks Microsoft
Search engine specialist Google is looking to hit Microsoft
where it hurts, right in the applications. What’s more it is doing it on
Microsoft’s home turf in Seattle. It already has both an engineering office and
sales office and plans to add three more offices in Microsoft’s backyard.
Google recently announced that it has signed up five universities to its
Internet-based personal productivity tools, comprising email, calendar,
messaging, word processing and spread sheeting. Microsoft has a problem; Google
is giving this stuff away.
Hanging on the telephone
Internet phone calls player Skype may well consider becoming
the official sponsor to the Blondie tour given that recently many callers were unable
to use the service. Though ‘Call Me’ may elicit booing from the crowd.
Apparently users in South America, the US, Germany and Finland were without
access for as long as 14 hours during a recent service outage. Skype has circa
22 million users globally and is now owned by eBay.
VMware defies the market
Despite the world’s stock markets discovering gravity, the
launch of software vendor VMware on Wall Street was a roaring success, where on
the opening day its shares rocketed by 76%, giving it a value of $20bn. VMware
is an infrastructure specialist and seems to have made the concept of
virtualisation its own. Given the
nature of its products, it is not clear whether it is actually quoted on one
stock market, or whether it is actually quoted on multiple exchanges.
Microsoft pursues Apache
Apache is considered the serious choice when deciding upon
web server software. However Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) is
grabbing market share from the open source offering. According to Netcraft, which
polled 128 million domains (that’s a lot of surveys to process!), IIS has a
34.3% share (1.4% increase) as opposed to 50.9% for Apache (a 2% drop). Project ‘Geronimo’ appears to
be going to plan.
PC Shutdown
Peterborough Council in the UK claims it will save £50,000
per year and reduce its carbon emissions by one ton by simply investing in
software that closes down all its PCs at night and at weekends. This was
presumably cheaper than asking the staff to do this manually. This is a sign of
the times. Those that provide technologies that enable IT functions to
demonstrate their green credentials will be very much in demand.
Ubuntu comes to Europe
Not long after launching its Linux-based desktops in the US,
hardware vendor Dell is starting to shift Ubuntu Linux PCs and laptops in
Europe. Initial support for European users will be by their user forum (sounds
like DIY support). Oddly the price of the products do not seem to reflect the
reduction one would expect from not having to pay MS Windows licence fees.
Obviously Dell is looking to target fashion victims in the first phase of the
product lifecycle. How soon before Linux creeps onto the corporate desktop?
Right-on Apple
Apple has just announced a new range of iMacs made of glass
and aluminium. This should appeal to both eco-warriers and post-modern
industrialist arty types.
