Tag Archives: Microsoft
Microsoft Dominates at Computex
Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
1 Comments
So the first day of the Computex computer trade show has come and gone, and I’ve been confronted with a startling revelation: Microsoft really has command of this conference.
I spent a good amount of time today going from manufacturer to manufacturer asking about Chrome OS. While most of them are open to using it, there really seems to be an “in the future” mentality to using any operating system from Google. That also includes Android as well, with the sheer majority of tablets that I saw sporting a touch-enabled Windows 7.
Here is some of the reasons that Microsoft is such a force at Computex.
The Show is for Procurement
People come to Computex to make purchasing decisions for their companies on products that mostly come from Taiwanese manufacturers. As such, they want to see what they are going to be buying over the balance of 2010 and into 2011. Because of this, purchasers are looking at getting devices that run Windows 7 since it is here and now, ready for deployment and/or selling.
Windows 7
Windows 7 was launched not too long ago, and as such Microsoft is making a big push to sell its new operating system. Despite the software climate these days, Redmond still makes a ton of money on selling operating systems that are shipped on new computers. That would partially explain the reasoning behind so many tablets having a Microsoft OS instead of Android. With that being said, there was an open source booth that had some different commercial versions of Linux. I also got a chance to try MeeGo, and I have to say I was impressed with it.
The Microsoft-Manufacturer Connection
One product manager I talked to for a leading manufacturer told me that there are some financial incentives to help them put a display on at Computex if they follow certain standards for showing off Microsoft products. I was a bit surprised by this fact initially, but it makes sense. The relationship between Microsoft and Taiwan manufacturers is very tight-knit whereby Microsoft offers a platform that works with an array of hardware that the manufacturers design and produce for a good price.
Bottom Line
The most intriguing dynamic to all of this is the fact that it was reported by CNET today that new Google employees can no longer choose a Windows solution for their workstations. Future Microsoft implementations at Google will only be for testing purposes, or specially approved. This report, which was rumored but not confirmed until now, comes at the same time we are seeing a boatload of Microsoft-loaded products at Computex.
It will be interesting to see how this may change over the course of the next year, with Google exerting more dominance in the market. This is a telling sign that IT purchasers do not have Google platforms in their sights as of yet.
Google Knows that Their Growth Requires Outside Developers
Posted on 28. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
The barrage of information that came out of last week’s Google I/O conference is still hard to swallow, but one thing is clear that developer conferences for Google are going to become a focal point for the company going forward. Giving away the new Sprint HTC Evo phone certainly shows where they want folks to concentrate on, but anything that developers not employed by Google create is a win-win situation for both parties.
At one point, Eric Schmidt referred to the developers at the conference as customers, and rightly so. Not only are they customers, but they are part of the Google growth engine. What many naysayers who slam Google for their disruptive efforts don’t seem realize sometimes is that a great deal of wealth has come from what they have been able to do in search, advertising and most recently the mobile phone.
The fantastic business environment from creating new technology platforms that are less like Microsoft and closer to the Apple model is going to pay off for those who plug into them. Therefore, opportunity is beginning to trickle down into outside developers with all of the APIs that are being released by Google to allow for increased innovation, a level at which only those outside the company can foster for added growth beyond the company’s internal efforts to create new services.
That’s because being inside of a big company like Google now requires a lot of scrutiny and approval to get new ideas from within to the mass market. With the legal issues and public criticism the company has faced in 2010, don’t be surprised to see Google spend more time developing platforms and interfaces to develop upon as opposed to working on individual services/features that can now easily be done by those outside of the walls of Mountain View.
thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/26/10
Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Google’s Chrome OS user interface design team developer Glen Murphy talks to Lifehacker Australia in a brief Q&A session.
Early adopters are increasingly making a move from using Firefox to Chrome browser, according to an analysis by ReadWriteWeb.
It seems pretty clear that the Chrome Web Store will have applications that run code using Native Client.
An anonymous CEO from a public company tells Business Insider that Microsoft’s Outlook mail client will never be able to compete with Gmail.
Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra talks to TechCrunch about location based services and Google’s plans in the tablet market.
Inside Google? Really? Seems More Like Outside
Posted on 22. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit organization whose mission is to fight on the behalf of “American consumers and taxpayers” has launch a blog called Inside Google where they intend to keep in check some of the privacy issues that the search engine giant has been encountering recently. From a few of the articles that I have read on the site, Inside Google clearly believes that the folks at Google need to be more open about the way they do business, and one of the issues highlighted is the way their search algorithm is calculated to bring back query results.
This is especially true when looking at the post fuming about the fact that the term “Inside Google” doesn’t come up on the first few pages of a Google Search, yet does when querying Bing. The opposite end of this is perhaps Microsoft should be asked if they are trumping up the Inside Google site while Google is giving it a representative ranking since the Inside Google site is very new; the domain was only registered three months ago and currently has no PageRank.
Plus, there is no update on this post since it was written to point out that searching the term Inside Google appears in the first page of Google Search, at least when I queried it today. Even when done in Incognito Mode or another browser with cleared history. Looks like the “lack of transparency” tag placed on these posts doesn’t apply to Inside Google.
I know that I have not always written rosy things about Google, and they still rank me well, probably because their engine is based on a specific system to return the best results for a query, not by humans directly manipulating search results. Here are some examples of things I’ve written:
Concerned About Privacy? Scroogle Scrapes Your Searches
Do You Know Why Google Wants to Trade Energy?
Maybe Google Knows Too Much, GoogleSharing Can Help
Google Invests in Recorded Future
Inside Google is based on the foundation that because Google has seventy percent of the United States market of online search it should be investigated because it is a monopoly. But there are other competitors in the search market. In reality if Bing, Yahoo or Ask were actually better search engines than Google, I would use them. But they are not. Hence the reasoning behind the fact that I use Google Search as I’m sure others who read this post would agree.
If serious privacy or security issues arose that Google was not willing to face or to make amends for, I would be all for going after them, as would a great deal of others. In that regard perhaps Inside Google is on the right track with what they are doing but some of these articles posted on the site seem, well, a bit angst driven for some reason. Is there a motive to why Inside Google feels like they’ve been left on the outside? Possibly because its journalists were formally a part of the once dominant print media industry?
Nexus One Availability Shows a Shift for Google to Retail Stores?
Posted on 16. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Well, at least the Nexus One web store experiment was interesting.
The recent announcement from Google’s Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering that the Nexus One will slowly migrate to retail outlets still shows us that they are not afraid to take risks in market disruption. It was a test worth watching: could Google single-handedly upend the traditional mobile phone market by selling phones through their own channels? Initial complaints with the web store were that when problems arose with the Nexus One, there was no real way to get customer support on the phone. This coupled with low sales numbers made it really hard to expect this model to work on a mass-market scale.
But there is a unique twist to all of this and one that bodes well for future hardware that runs on Google’s operating systems. Instead of having an online store, the idea is to replace that with a showcase-type web portal where people can get a handle on the different devices that run Android. In the future, that will also include devices that run Chrome OS whether they may be netbooks, smartbooks or tablets.
But a showcase can only display pictures, videos and specifications. What is really needed are physical stores.
Let’s not forget that a major engine of growth for Apple in the past decade has been their entrance into the retail market with their own stores. Even Microsoft now has their own retail shops in some test markets. The reality is that people who are early adopters in technology (like the Nexus One) don’t need to go to a traditional store to check out gadgets, but a large majority of people want to be able to see, touch and interact with a device before they buy it.
With Google, there are already so many Android smartphones available from a large swath of companies that it makes sense to have a showcase, quite possibly with their own branded locations. Eventually they will also have Chrome OS devices on display as well and at the same time will need to compete with Apple and Microsoft in this space, who are already ahead of them in this regard.
Chrome OS Screenshots Highlight Google’s Apps
Posted on 14. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
When Chrome OS does finally make it to market, it is obvious that it will highlight the vast array of Google’s service offerings.
You can see from the screenshots that the folks over at TechCrunch recently found that not only will Chrome OS feature browser functionality, but perhaps also another type of window that is being called Panels. Many of them will likely house services such as Google Chat, Voice and Gmail among others. There really is no way around it: one of the reasons that Google is doing this is to increase its visibility with all of the applications and services that have been developed.
I can now see why Google also want to have a business version of their operating system as well. The Google Apps Marketplace would fit nicely into this, allowing for more productivity capabilities than Microsoft on its own is able to offer. Plus, nothing has to be downloaded or configured. It just works, which will save corporate IT departments time and money that could be better allocated to other resources.
The interface design that we are seeing in these screenshots are different from what the current Chrome OS builds have. So while it needs to be polished up a bit, I suspect that some of these Apple-like design concepts will be added on to the final commercial product. At the same time, Chromium project builds will continue to focus only on make sure that the system works, has the right security elements and is compatible with certain hardware standards.
Will Google Buy ITA Software?
Posted on 13. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 6 Comments
Speculation abounds that Google is thinking about purchasing ITA Software. I first heard about this company when I was flying somewhere, and for good reason: ITA offers a superior way to search for the cheapest flights over anyone else. They give you the gritty details on flights like no one else will. Plus, anyone (for the time being) can use their search engine to find the least expensive routes to wherever one’s destination may be.
And that brings Google into the picture. A quick search for the query “Google travel” brings nothing promising back. This is indeed one area where Google could expand its business. They are trying to get into many different markets, so why not the travel industry? Their main search competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, has tools to help travelers find flights, hotels and cars. Bing even has a unique twist: its Farecast technology gives you insight on when to buy airlines tickets when they are at the lowest prices.
Today, Google managing director for Travel Rob Torres said, “Google is seeing that mobile hotel queries have grown almost 3000% in three short years”.
Could Google do Bing Travel one better? Sure, with all of their innovative technology and data they would be able to offer something that is different in this market, and possibly superior. They could do it on their own, but acquiring ITA Software would be beneficial for flight information. Already ITA is used by many other travel companies to find the best fares. If Google owned ITA’s technology it would most likely open up its API for all sorts of creative things, something that Microsoft likely won’t do.
Google Flatlining in Search Just Means it Needs a New Platform
Posted on 12. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 2 Comments
It would seem problematic to many that Google is unable to sustain growth in the search market. Unfortunately, with the emergence of Microsoft’s Bing, that now is the case. But this is not something that the folks in Mountain View did not see coming: they have been working away for quite some time now on providing more incentives to use the Google platform, and this chart is proof of that now more than ever:
The Silicon Alley Insider has used this chart as the centerpiece for their post, “Big Bad News for Google: Search Share Gains Have Flatlined“. However, looking at this chart it doesn’t appear that Google Search has been on a growth tear in terms of market share for the past couple of years. Therefore, what this chart fails (understandably) to take into account is the growth in the mobile market as well as the ongoing expansion of internet users.
Plus, Google has been working on this issue for years, most likely realizing that there is going to be a limit that they reach in terms of market share. In a free market world, no one is going to have complete control of any business niche since there will always be competition. Plus, I’m not sure anyone really wants to see Google have complete control since once a company has that ability they could use their power to push around other would-be competitors.
The way around this for them is to expand their bevy of applications into their own platform. This has just begun with Android, and as the recent New York Times article out about early adopters who have taken an interest in Chrome OS before any commercial product is available shows that a platform outside of smartphones has some likelihood of being viable.
What It’s Like to be a Successful Google Apps Software Company
Posted on 08. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 2 Comments
MindMeister is a company that provides a special tool for organizations called “mind mapping”. Being a software as a service company, it was logical for them to be included when the Google enterprise Apps Marketplace when it was launched last March. In this interview, I talk with MindMeister COO Michael Hollauf and CTO Till Vollmer about their software, the recent changes Google has made to Apps as well as what it’s like working with the search engine giant.
Can you tell me a little bit about MindMeister?
Michael: We’ve been online for about 3 years now. About a month ago, finally, we launched on Google Apps Marketplace. This came out of a relationship with Google. It started pretty early on, almost three years ago now. We realized the product we have fits nicely with what Google has.
It’s a nice add-on for their Apps. I’m explaining more our relationship with Google. Since our integration, we are doing more things integrated with the Docs. We have a regular relationship with them. It seems they’re really pushing Apps now with the introduction of the Marketplace and the enhancements to Google Docs.
Would you say your product is similar to something you would do in Visio or is it something out on its own?
Michael: Yes, it’s certainly something that’s on its own. Visio is something that can draw everything. You can draw pictures, flow charts. I think we’re a subset. We focus on a subset of what Visio does. We are very good at that. Our software basically gives it all, focuses very quickly and doesn’t worry about the drawings, it just brings in all of your structures.
So, I think someone that uses our mind mapping product wouldn’t be very happy with Visio. More similar to drawing in a PowerPoint presentation, something like that. It’s a similar space though. We often get requests for things like flow charts and so on. It’s all graphical, visual presentation. They have something in Docs which is now called Google Drawings with a separate bar.
Is this just something that is part of the Apps marketplace? I assume that your pricing model is set up so it’s a monthly user fee or something? Anything of that nature?
Michael: Yes, it’s a monthly user fee. It’s a monthly fee per user or teams of users so you can have two people up to however many you want. You can pay by the month or can pay by the year. The way it works in Google Apps is they don’t have a billing infrastructure. So the way we do it, we let users sign up for free without even entering their credit cards. They just go to MindMeister in Apps and get a 30 day free trial.
If you want to upgrade, you can pay and purchase. That’s going to be the way it works until we launch billing. According to Google, it should be in a couple of months when the users will only use their credit card once – when they sign up to Google Apps. Then they will be able to do everything at the Apps Marketplace: just add the app.
Better for us and better for users. They don’t want to enter their credit cards more than they have to.
I think that’s a fantastic idea. What are they getting out of setting up all of this entire infrastructure? Is it just that they’re getting the value of added features to Apps?
Michael: Yes, now that’s the only thing they are getting, but with the billing, they are going to take twenty percent I think it is.
Twenty percent of everything then?
Michael: Yes.
I ask these things because Eric Schmidt keeps talking about how a lot of revenue is going to start to come from this. There really hasn’t been an explanation, but that right there, when you’re dealing with percentage of fees per month that really adds up. What they’re trying to do is get away from just advertising because you really have to diversify when you’re a company that large.
Michael: They still do 97% (something like that) or 95% just with advertising. So, they are searching for other ways for (revenue).
A few weeks ago there was an announcement that went out relating to some changes they’re doing (which included no longer supporting Gears).Is it just Docs? Maybe you guys could talk a little about that.
Michael: It was just Docs with their announcement. We’ve had to find all sorts of explanations and guidelines for our users (about Gears). It works fine for older ones; it’s just not supporting the new ones. Now I think of all of the programs and suppliers will have to do the same thing. A lot of people use it and I think if everyone is persistent, it will send out messages that it (will not be) working anymore.
It seems a little strange to me because you’d think they’d have a solution ready to go.
Michael: Our users I think, it used to work better (same with all browsers, even Firefox). It doesn’t support it anymore and you can’t even install it anymore. There are other features as well.
Till: Obviously the drawing is one of the things that are new. There are a couple of changes to things, and the API as well. The big thing was the drawing actually.
Michael: I think there is one thing talked about that real time is not being liberated enough. With this EtherPad, a document could be worked on (with others) at the same time. You could do things in real time. Like when you typed in the character, it would show up on the other person’s screen like in the same second. The real time collaboration, I think that’s what’s built into Docs now.
Well, that’s great. Could you tell me the name of that company again? I’ve never heard of this before.
Michael: Etherpad. I think it was two or three Google employees a year ago when they started that company.
It sounds like they’re trying to make collaboration better but at the same time, the offline access (via Gears) thing is a little distressing especially when you’re thinking about moving everything to the cloud, it seems there’s going to be some sort of solution through HTML5, right?
Michael: There’s an issue, yeah. I mean real time, I didn’t see anything about that in HTML5. Is it http or something? Or some offline mode supported in HTML5?
So, they’re going to use HTML5 for that? I don’t think they have a choice, if you lose that functionality it just seems like a really bad idea. I think the cloud is a great thing but, what happens when you make these kind of changes? And I just don’t know what kind of solution it’s going to be that all these companies now have to make all of these changes?
Michael: That’s because all of us use these, really out of necessity. This is something that could happen with Flash, I don’t know. Now we have to wait. It’s not a great situation but the market shows it’s a young market and technology is new. Otherwise, this is “growing pains”, I would say.
It’s just to be so disruptive in so many areas that they’re starting to do these types of things, to be honest with you. It’s just I hear a lot about all of the benefits but I think what most people are concerned about where this is going. The idea I think, when they started this was to compete with Microsoft but now it doesn’t seem like that what they want to do. Instead, it’s to be a compliment to that. Although I do think their solution is better.
Michael: I think in our discussions they never admit Microsoft is an issue for them. They’re more like “we’re trying to offer the best experiences and solutions to our users and if that hurts our competition, so be it”. I think it’s more not having to really talk about their competitors and so on. At least I think with Google Apps, that they’re trying to be the “next generation Office Suite”.
I think they’ll have a lot more to offer than Microsoft because of what they’re doing with you guys and all the other developers out there, that they have good ideas to make products better.
Michael: Great people are on it and (there is) a lot of enthusiasm. I haven’t really looked into Microsoft recently and what the rumors are about an online version of this. And because, sooner or later, they’ll have to go this way. All I’ve seen so far is some online office thing that allows you to share some uploaded documents with others but that’s all there is, right?
What about the people who are concerned about making the jump to the cloud?
Till: There are certain levels of security of course in (our) product. One thing is the channel hosting of the solutions in the computer to the data center and everything has access controls, cameras, access cards and all these kinds of things. Everything is redundant, their internet access of course, and the server part and all these kinds of things. So that’s the secure environment.
On the other hand of course, we offer for our premium customers encryption, so that the communication that is between the server and client is encrypted because a lot of people are working are just going there and connecting to their services and are often transmitting their plain passwords and this is not clear to all of them. That’s why we use SSL for the premium customers to not show their passwords somewhere or their passwords don’t get sniffed.
And on the application level, we have certain guard mechanisms where we protect certain actions people can do like password resetting, map access and personal data access. Just two hours ago a customer called me up and said, “I want to use your product, I was thinking about an in-house destination.” I said, “we have a service solution, there is no in-house solution”. They asked, “what about security?”
I think that it’s a good point that they ask this question. The answer is very simple. I say, “Do you have a laptop?” They usually say, ” Yes I have a laptop.” I ask, “Do you have all of your personal data and all that stuff on your laptop?” They say, “Yes.” So I ask, “What happens if someone just grabs it and runs?” They say, “Yes you’re right.” This isn’t going to happen with software as a solution because it’s much harder to hack into a T3 data center or get physical access into a data center than just grabbing your laptop.
Could give me an idea of who are your demographics when you’re talking about customers and who are the people that come to talk to you about these types of things? If you could just give me an idea of what type of people we’re talking about – who are becoming your customers?
Till: When we started off, we were a European company and we had just implemented the English language and we always wanted to address the whole world market. It was always our goal when we started. We had about 30% US customers and, actually it’s the same number I think today and maybe even more.
Actually, now we support nine languages, including Japanese and Russian and with customers from about 140 countries working on MindMiester now, about a half million or so of them. We have five hundred thousand users and we have individuals and freelancers as well as a very large base of real business customers like SAP for example or Symantec. We even have Microsoft as a customer. Microsoft China, actually at an innovation center there.
It’s basically around the world from individuals to businesses. We have a lot of universities and schools. This is in a lot of countries in terms of schools and universities in Shanghai or in Hong Kong or (even) in the US. So, that’s also the interesting thing. If you’re starting a business on the Internet there really is no real border anymore. It’s all about localizing the content and the user interface.
MindMeister is a software as a service. So we’re talking about something that runs in the browser. What tools have you used to create this, what technology are you running this on?
Till: So, basically we are using Ruby on Rails. We are using MySQL right now. We are using Apache for example, Linux as our platform. I think that’s it from the technology web we are using.
So do you recommend that your users have Chrome or Firefox? Or what is it about the browser that’s changing that? That’s going to help you guys? We touched on HTML5 and how you guys are working on it. Could talk a little bit about that?
Till: We made recommendations, we put out these for our users only. If they have to, we’ll continue to support IE6 for a little longer. Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, these are all great and open really fast.
How many people are you in total?
Michael: Ten to twelve right now, with a couple of freelancers, not a huge company.
Is the plan then to just focus on this is another thing. Other companies I’ve talked with are working on several different apps. Are you just going to focus on this?
Michael: For the time being, yes. We have discussions all the time. To the extent that they could go further? No concrete plans as of yet. The market is good for that. We’re in a really good position. I have so many ideas for this. I do want to start something else with that small group of people.
I have just one more question. Since the Marketplace has gone live, has it been a good tool in getting new customers? Has it been a marketing vehicle for you guys? Have you seen a good influx of customers who’ve come through Google to connect with you guys?
Michael: Definitely, yes. So, I think it’s worth the effort to integrate to get a lot of exposure. Of course, you get new customers out of it, for us I think it’s a good thing. And, so, Google hasn’t really started to promote the whole thing. I had a call yesterday with them and they told us they would start promoting apps more aggressively.
Even so, they haven’t really started marketing. We already see the results. We’ll see what happens if they really start pushing (Apps) through their distribution channels and through the marketing, etc.
Thanks to Michael and Till for taking the time to talk to me. You can sign up for a free basic membership of MindMeister to check out their mind mapping product.
thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/7/10
Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Chrome 6 is coming, a revision posted by Anthony Laforge at the Chromium site says “Update VERSION Major to 6″.
The dev version of Chrome browser has had a stream of updates since yesterday, including many user interface changes.
University of California – Davis has decided to scrap its Gmail system that was being used by employees out of privacy concerns with the system.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 will not support Windows XP – and that makes some at Google a bit angry.
There is an extension now available called ChromeTouch that allows users to have touch functionality in Chrome browser.
Chrome 5 – Bigger, Badder and Faster
Posted on 05. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 2 Comments
No doubt that it has been big news about all of the new features included in the new release of Chrome 5, which is a beta yet should be going stable quite soon. Some of the biggest features include integrated Flash, a revamped V8 JavaScript engine and geolocation. Also: an overhauled HTML based bookmarks manager, an extension-capable Incognito Mode and the ability (finally) to organize your extensions the way you want them.
Let’s also not forget the fact that although Chrome has been known for its speed, this element has been amped up even more for the newest realease. Look at how much faster Chrome has gotten since its inception in 2008.
With all of the new elements in Chrome browser, one has to start to wonder what Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple will do with their respective browsers. Quite frankly, I’m not sure that these other companies are going to be able to keep up with all that Google is doing to build the best browser available, especially since it is available for all of the major operating systems. This coupled with the fact that Chrome also has its own open source community, Chromium, certainly lends itself even more credit.
Let’s also not forget slick marketing. The ads that have been released touting Chrome are thoughtful and very original. Who else is trying to sell you their browser technology this way, or even at all?
A Letter to Adobe Flash: At Least Consider Open Source
Posted on 01. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 8 Comments
Dear Adobe Flash:
We’ve had some great times together. Awesome videos, time-wasting games and websites with a ton of bright colors, which I have fully enjoyed. I’ve even spent some time learning how to program you. It’s been a great relationship. But something has changed, dearest Flash. The problem is not really you, it’s more me. And perhaps the rest of the web. You see, I really don’t know how to break this to you, but things change. People change. More importantly, technology changes.
Since you’re already offered up for free and huge amounts of people readily enjoy your technology, I just no longer understand why you are not open source. Sure, you can offer up mega-expensive tools to create for yourself if you want, but if you really desire to be a part of the new rules of internet architecture you’re going to need to do yourself a favor and open yourself up to the world.
This doesn’t really have to do with Apple’s relationship with you, because once you make Steve Jobs angry, it’s over. It more has to do with the odd juxtaposition of you paired with Google’s applications in Chrome browser and Chrome OS. The idea that Google has for these platforms is to be an open source alternative to what Apple and Microsoft offer in terms of architecture, but in their battle with these two, they have decide to include you as a closed-source participant in this rivalry. Even Android is expected to enter into the fray sometime in 2010.
Your biggest competition in this regard, HTML5, is available for anyone to use. Even Microsoft’s Silverlight is working towards having their technology as an open source platform, a baffling revelation to me since you should be trying to improve yourself before its too late and you have faded into something that we think of as once relevant.
Sure, maybe you don’t care what people think about you. But there are really no drawbacks to taking the plunge. Do you really feel that you have the resources to consistently protect yourself from malicious security attacks? We know you’ve had some problems with this in the past, and it’s only a matter of time before another “issue” comes up again. The only way Google feels comfortable going forward with you is if they integrate your technology into theirs so that the vulnerabilities you have can be patched as soon as they arise.
Well, at least with all the news coming out about you, I’m sure you’re at least thinking about it.
UPDATE: Please take the time to sign an online petition to open source Flash. It will take you thirty seconds. Thanks.
