market

Firefox reaches 18 percent of corporate desktops

Mozilla Firefox's share of the enterprise desktop market has reached 18 percent, according to a new Forrester report noted by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.

This number will seem low to those who have seen higher numbers elsewhere (for example, as high as 30 percent in Europe). This simply reflects the bias of the report toward formal enterprise adoption, a route that Mozilla has explicitly not taken. Basically, Firefox is not an alternate universe into which you will be banished.

Forrester's report states:

Mozilla's share of the browser market rose steadily throughout 2007, only slowing for the quarter directly following the release of Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) in late 2006. Adoption in the enterprise nearly doubled to 18 percent by the end of 2007, but large-scale, companywide deployments are not yet typical. Mozilla continues to expend little energy on wooing IT managers to formally adopt Firefox....

And yet it's getting them, all the same.

Why?… Read more

Recession: The best thing for SEO

So here we are, one quarter down and recession to go. Recession has become an unfortunate but popular topic in 2008. Some people follow strict definitions of what qualifies technically as a recession while others speak purely from opinion--or maybe they are speaking from the pinch they are feeling in their wallets. For most, they could care less what you call it; labels don't make the impact they are feeling any better or any less painful.

In most industries, when things slow, something has to go. Will that be cutting back on seemingly frivolous expenses, going to fewer industry shows, reducing ad spending, or worse, cutting jobs? Like many industries, search marketing firms are considering these choices as well, and rather hoping that this slowing, downturn, recession, or whatever you want to call it, actually presents more opportunities than hard choices.

Only time will tell, but I like to think the feeling that search marketing firms may be able to find opportunities during these trying economic times are spot on. But don't think this will just be a slam dunk--every opportunity also presents challenges.… Read more

Is Vista prettier in pink?

Sometimes, internationalizing Microsoft's products just means translating the same, boring packaging into another language.

Every now and then, though, one of Microsoft's subsidiaries goes out on a limb. Such is the case with a new bundle Microsoft has in Japan that combines Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Live OneCare in one eye-popping hot pink box. (Kudos to Long Zheng for spotting this one.)

I'm not sure how much adding hot pink will add to the software's appeal (though it has made Hello Kitty's career), but it is interesting to see Microsoft thinking of new … Read more

Dell adds another retail partner, this time in India

Dell notebooks will be available in retail stores in India for the first time, the company said Tuesday.

The company hinted that it would make this move last week, saying it planned to increase its presence in China and India, two of the world's biggest emerging markets for computers. Dell already has a relationship with one of China's largest retail chains, Gome.

In the announcement, Dell said it plans to offer Inspiron desktops and notebooks, and XPS notebooks through Indian electronics outlet Croma. Dell has a presence in India, but prior to this announcement, only via direct sales … Read more

Open-source software as guerrilla marketing strategy

SAN FRANCISCO--Chances are if you're running a commercial open-source company, Google is one of your best friends.

That's because a search on Google for "open source and (whatever company X sells)" can yield the largest volume of referrals to an upstart in that business.

"Two-thirds of our leads come from Google, and more than half come from the search term 'open source'," said Ismael Ghalimi, CEO and founder of Intalio, which develops software for business process applications. Ghalimi spoke here Monday on an entrepreneurs' panel at SDForum's Global Open Source Conference.

Daniel Chalef, … Read more

Dell taking more risks

Much has been made of Dell's retail makeover, but it's actually part of a larger trend toward experimentalism.

The company that has largely avoided unproven product categories is jumping all over them suddenly. Case in point: several years ago, when Microsoft was pushing tablet computing, Dell was fairly adamant that, no thanks, tablet PCs weren't something the company was interested in making.

"I think it is really unknown at this point how big the market is," CEO Michael Dell said in a 2002 interview about tablet PCs. "Dell, of course, likes to participate in … Read more

LinkedIn goes corporate

So, the other day I posted about how you can fit LinkedIn into your SEO and Web marketing mix through optimizing the links within your profile as well as linking back to your public LinkedIn profile, participating on LinkedIn Answers, and optimizing member profiles. Of course LinkedIn is built around individual members, so business interaction is very individual to individual ... there's something kind of nice about this, more personal feel.… Read more

Google leaves Microsoft's search in the dust

Microsoft continues to dominate the old world of desktop computing, but the future clearly belongs to Google. As reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Google's share of the search market now tops 59 percent, with Microsoft at 9.6 percent (and Yahoo! at 21.6 percent).

A combination of Yahoo! and Microsoft would give the two a more respectable market presence, but with both Yahoo! and Microsoft trending down, it's not a panacea.

Unfortunately for Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google isn't winning by closing out competitors. It's actually winning by opening up. Microsoft, to compete, must follow suit, … Read more

Fantastic voyage or why the miniaturization of matter matters to marketing

The miniaturization of matter has long been a human desire, and viewing the world from a smaller perspective is the core of many novels and movies. The idea of shrinking people for the purpose of traveling inside another human's body, in particular, has been frequently used in animated cartoons, including The Simpsons, Futurama, Beetlejuice, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

One of the most entertaining pieces in this genre is Fantastic Voyage, a science-fiction movie from 1966, which -- albeit not free of some severe logical flaws -- has lost none of its original appeal. Fantastic Voyage tells the story of a … Read more