The Open Road

Are Microsoft Office and OpenOffice irrelevant?

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Boy Genius Report has posted screenshots of the new Microsoft Office 11 for Mac, suggesting that it looks "absolutely delicious."

Do you care?

I don't mean that in any anti-Microsoft fashion. I'm just asking, "Do you still care about an office productivity suite?" I mean, in the traditional sense of that product category?

I don't, and I'm not exactly sure when my concern for Microsoft Office (or OpenOffice, for that matter) dissipated. At some point in the last few years, e-mail became my office productivity suite, with a sip here and there … Read more

Apple: Simplicity taken too far?

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Innovation gets the headlines, but it's ease-of-use that dominates markets. From Microsoft to Apple to Google, the key to making billions is very simple: the easier technology is to use, the more people will buy it, provided the price is right.

Microsoft became the biggest software company in the world by creating an ecosystem of software that works well together. Google has upped the ante by reducing complex algorithms to a simple box that yields everything from search results to FedEx shipment tracking to...you name it. Just Google it.

Apple, however, takes ease-of-use to an entirely new level, … Read more

Mickos: What's bigger than open source?

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When Marten Mickos resigned from Sun Microsystems after selling MySQL to Sun for $1 billion, I asked him what he was going to do next. He answered with a question, "What's bigger than open source?" and then suggested that his search for an answer would lead him to his next job.

One year later, Mickos has rejoined the open-source world...but not really.

As the new CEO of open-source cloud vendor Eucalyptus, Mickos isn't looking to merely mimic his MySQL success. This isn't Open-Source Start-up Part II.

Rather, Mickos wants to reach for the clouds, … Read more

Should we be having this conversation on Twitter?

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Taking the cue from Tim O'Reilly's classic "architecture of participation" argument, the blogs across the Web have been set up to encourage conversations through comments sections.

Is it working?

Not very well. Much of what happens in the comment section of any blog is hardly worthy of the word "discussion." The only thing more depressing than getting no comments on a post is getting many, because a big percentage of them will include personal invectives and meaningless screeds. (As a blogger, I'm personally familiar with delivering and receiving both. :-)

Some of these … Read more

Bad economy is a gift that keeps giving to Red Hat

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Someone should tell Red Hat that the world has been muddling through a global recession for the past few years. While others' earnings went into a deep freeze throughout the recession, Red Hat has consistently posted strong numbers.

Red Hat's fiscal fourth-quarter 2010 earnings, announced on Wednesday, are no different. Does the company ever get bored of reporting double-digit growth and record billings?

Apparently not.

Red Hat notched its fourth consecutive quarter of exceeding analyst expectations for profits. Highlights from Red Hat's earnings include:

$195.9 million in total revenue, up 18 percent from the year ago quarter. … Read more

Microsoft's mobile strategy should learn from Android

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Microsoft just closed the door on Firefox development for its new Windows Phone 7 Series. It didn't overtly discriminate against Firefox developers. Instead, it did what we increasingly see platform owners like Apple do:

Microsoft set up rigid development parameters that favor its own technology over alternative approaches.

I don't think Microsoft did this because it's evil. I suspect it simply wants to create an Apple-like experience where everything "just works" because the experience is tightly controlled.

But that doesn't make the decision wise. And it's not actually consistent with Microsoft's past, … Read more

Suddenly the native app is cool again

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If the future is cloud-based applications, we still have a long way to go to realize that vision. Ironically, we may actually be getting ever further away from it even as the cloud assumes central importance in the computing landscape.

Running applications in the cloud is an ambitious dream, but one that keeps stumbling against the reality of dedicated, native applications, particularly those running on mobile devices.

This thought struck me while using Facebook. I find the Facebook UI somewhat cluttered and busy on my laptop, but on my iPhone? It's fantastic.

The same is true of other dedicated … Read more

Google rivaled by open source in angel investing?

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Nearly six years ago, Google went public and unleashed over $170 billion in employee wealth--money that is now being actively re-invested in building the next wave of Googles.

Is Google the exception, or is such reinvestment the rule for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs?

A quick scan of the industry suggests that Google is, indeed, exceptional, but perhaps not to the extent that people think.

Googlers aren't alone in spending their wealth on technology investments, of course. Well-known entrepreneurs like Marc Andreessen and other angel investors have gone on to fund new start-ups like Twitter and LinkedIn.

Such angel investors get … Read more

MySQL's new best friend forever? Oracle

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MySQL, once the darling of the database world, is now under attack from all sides. The NoSQL movement questions MySQL's relevance for the Web applications that made it hugely popular. The Drizzle project derides its relevance for the cloud.

MySQL still has one major ally, however, and it's the one that most people thought was its biggest enemy:

Oracle.

The European Commission, among others, worried that Oracle's purchase of Sun, which bought MySQL for $1 billion in 2008, would cripple database competition by stifling MySQL's development. According to Wim Coakaerts, Oracle's Vice President of Linux … Read more