I have been enjoying my first iPad for the last year and a few weeks ago I got a new one, iPad 2. I knew I should not expect too many new features on it except for better speed and camera support. Indeed it felt very fast. Very fast in comparison to my first old iPad. And then I got a weird feeling about the improvement as if someone cheated me. Actually, it was not faster at all in comparison to my first iPad If I were to compare it with the speed of the first iPad on the day I bought it and unwrapped it from the box before installing stuff and working with it. Indeed my first iPad

I have been reading about the whereabouts of News Corp., Google, and Microsoft in recent two weeks and I noticed something weird happening here about but could not put my finger on it. To those who do not know the storyline here is a short description posted on Hitwise today: Two weeks ago we posted on Rupert Murdoch’s threat to block Google from Indexing News Corp. content. While at first it seemed as though Murdoch was merely posturing with hypotheticals, reports continue to indicate that News Corp. is seriously considering choosing Bing as the exclusive “indexer” of their news content. via weblogs.hitwise.com At first, I thought Mr. Murdoch was playing tricks on Google but when Microsoft entered the picture with

I get to see here and there the term ‘3.0’ used in reference to the next internet/technology revolution and somehow it does not feel right to me. I am not sure about this but for me, the coined term ‘2.0’ was a metaphor belonging to the concept of software versioning. If the first internet era where infrastructure was established is called ‘1.0’ implying the first version of a product then what we had recently was a ‘2.0’ where the product, hence the internet, has become more streamlined towards users in terms of services, ease of use and diversity. As in software, there are always other versions such as 3.0 and 4.0 etc… but none of these compares to the unique

Google having their own browser is a move I did not anticipate and is actually a brilliant idea in terms of os replacement for other proprietary operating systems, hence Microsoft. I think it will actually be very successful for two reasons: – being open source – is powered by a web state of mind (and no one is such as google is) The fact it is open source I think means a killer for IE since having one proprietary browser and one open-source (Mozilla) is one thing. Having two major players with an open-source browser and one proprietary means the proprietary is bad. As for myself, I think it means a big change in terms of web-based application and their

All the big guys are rushing these days to launch as many web applications as possible to “captivate” web surfers in their “club”. Google in a dramatic and maybe a little bit panicked response to Microsoft‘s threats and Yahoo‘s renovated website started launching an application a day. It doesn’t matter anymore what it is, as long it is new and it does something at all then it should be launched – that seems to be their higher strategic guideline. Google is becoming a one central computing center that does everything in a very similar fashion to the 60’s – 70’s mainframe state of mind. Of course, we don’t see the MF green characters anymore but still, one web address, one

After writing yesterday about the launch of Google Pages Beta at Should Google Lead the Web Development Tools Market? I realized that Google has changed profoundly from what they were at first. At the beginning, Google was an enabling technology by really making the world wide web “matter” accessible to everyone. They have contributed immensely in making the web a useful and enjoyable place to be. Ever since Google raised their head towards direct competition with Microsoft (the notoriously centralistic company) they have become more and more like what they have taught us to hate – their opponent. Google with their ever-growing spree of applications launched almost every week in recent years are becoming a kind of a large web

Microsoft completed the acquisition of Sybari Software, their new anti-virus and anti-spyware line of business – The Windows Observer–Antivirus, Anti-Spyware Strategy Moves Forward for Microsoft. One line from the news caught my eye as something that makes immediate common sense but may not be right strategically after all “Not surprisingly, Microsoft will discontinue new sales of Sybari’s products for the Unix (Solaris and AIX) and Linux operating systems. It will, however, continue to sell and support Sybari software running on IBM‘s Lotus Notes platform; the Notes installed base is predominantly Windows-based.“. The reporter’s common sense as well as Microsoft’s led to the almost automatic decision for Microsoft to discontinue the Linux product line and just keep Windows-based products alive. Common

Many news sites require a username and a password, which is understandable in terms of specific business model requirements. Still, the burden for newsreaders, who are required to register and maintain account information for each individual site becomes a real problem. Especially considering the huge cross-linking the blogosphere offers for online news sites. I think that a central identity management service, which will provide a single sign-on service for these sites will be very popular. At least for me:) and a few colleagues of mine as well. A different approach can be to integrate this capability into news aggregators who serve the links to those news sites. Anyone who cares to do something about this I will love to assist

It seems that web-based applications can accomplish today the most extensive and complex tasks that were possible before only by locally installed software. One aspect that has not been addressed by either Microsoft IE or Firefox, the leading web browsing software, is working offline. Although Microsoft has mentioned it in the past under the hat of Smart Client architecture still current products do not show any sign of support. Offline capability is something not trivial for browsers to implement due to the unique needs each application has and the inability of applying a generic approach to support these different needs. Once implemented it will remove many barriers to network computing and will enable full productivity over the web. R&D and

Yesterday I wrote about the news that Microsoft opened their tech support knowledgebase via RSS feeds Structured Corporate Feeds? with a new concept of structured RSS and I thought to elaborate on it further to make the idea more useful. RSS feeds in the perspective of infrastructure tools enable today an efficient mechanism for detecting changes in distributed content and it mainly serves for personal publishing via blogging tools serving publishers and news reading tools serving readers on the other end (And of course other aggregation and indexing services to better serve information identification and classification purposes). Exposing corporate systems such as the corporate tech support knowledgebase via RSS creates a new pattern of information transfer that has several unique

My perspectives on the important subject of software as a service presented on Venture Chronicles by Jeff Nolan: Software as a Service – Part 1. Evolving Relationships – Technology is nowadays an integral part of businesses in all sectors and the general trend of evolving and de-coupling the dependencies enterprise customers has on technology vendors shows its signs also on the evolution of the way technology is delivered. In the customer’s perspective, the financial alignment of paying on software as a service and consuming it in a less intrusive method of delivery (ASP, Web Hosting, and more Vs. Hardcore deployment) presents a step forward in the relationship with vendors. Different methods of delivering software as a service present different advancements