Thinking out loud on a Saturday morning
4 hours ago
November 09, 2005
Visual Studio Express
Microsoft are providing free-as-in-beer development tools.
Is this enough?
And here's the interesting small print :
Translation : we don't have the courage (yet) to turn our back on the principle that software should be a product. This is just a free offer / loss leader.
Translation : yep! This is still absolutely part of our forced upgrade policy. We want you all on .Net 2.0, now!!!
Is this enough?
And here's the interesting small print :
We originally announced pricing of Visual Studio Express at US$49. We are now offering Visual Studio Express for free, as a limited-in-time promotional offer, until November 6, 2006. Note that we are also offering SQL Server 2005 Express Edition as a free download, and that this offer is not limited to the same promotional pricing period as Visual Studio Express.
Translation : we don't have the courage (yet) to turn our back on the principle that software should be a product. This is just a free offer / loss leader.
Can I develop applications using the Visual Studio Express Editions to target the .NET Framework 1.1?
No, each release of Visual Studio is tied to a specific version of the .NET Framework. The Express Editions can only be used to create applications that run on the .NET Framework 2.0.
Translation : yep! This is still absolutely part of our forced upgrade policy. We want you all on .Net 2.0, now!!!
PBS | I, Cringely . November 3, 2005 - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Cringely on Microsoft Live :
PBS | I, Cringely . November 3, 2005 - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Update :
Here's how it goes inside Microsoft:
Bill Gates: "We need web services!"
Jim Allchin: "What are you talking about? We'll just build them into Longhorn, which will ship in 2003, 'er 2007."
Bill Gates: "Off with his head!" (Allchin is carried from room.)
Bill Gates: "We need web services!"
Ray Ozzie: "I'll give you web services. This is Microsoft, home of a million technologies. I'll be right back." (Leaves room.)
Ray Ozzie: (returning) "Sorry, no web services after all. They were perceived as being in conflict with Windows and Office and therefore purged."
Bill Gates: "Bring me the checkbook!"
And so Microsoft business development minions are scurrying everywhere looking for companies to buy that have products to redeem the promises Microsoft has already made.
PBS | I, Cringely . November 3, 2005 - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Update :
Microsoft will spend whatever it takes to retain control, which could mean ANYTHING. Seriously, ANYTHING. Windows for free? Don't be surprised if it happens.
The "Service Wave"
Dave Winer has the Gates and Ozzie memos
Hmmm. No comment on the real content yet (except Gates and Ozzie are pretty bland and self-congratulatory.)
Except here's a first reaction. Ozzie describes the need for a web-platform including advertising, identity etc. Usual web 2.0 stuff. He thinks MS can build it.
But can MS treat it as a "product" and sell it?
Hmm. Maybe everyone should read The Age of Access (get the book from the "Amazon" link), and my my thoughts on Steve Antler's class war between products and services.
The product / service distinction is a deep one for software / knowledge companies. Free software / commons-based peer production is at a saddle-point. Does an economy (or a company) choose a full "service strategy" and thus embrace free-software, commons-based production? Or does it choose a "product strategy" which means embracing intellectual property and the restrictions that implies?
Microsoft is built around championing the product view of software. Even after embracing the web and .NET. If it really plans to reorient itself around services then it has to also embrace peer-production (and free-software is a complement to that).
Or does it? What if MS try to have it both ways? Selling software and content and selling access? I think MS will pull itself apart, as the service and product branches fight each other internally. For example, when MSN Spaces wants to provide more sophisticated free tools and support for developers (to compete with Ning / JotSpot / Rails), but this canibalises "Live Studio"'s customers?
At the same time, a lot of MS's market for tools are for building internal products. These can't be supported by advertising - especially not contextual ads. Are you gonna tell an ad company what you're thinking about internally? (Although that might be kind of interesting in a radical transparency way :-)
So MS will want to rent access to it's development tools. But this creates a strange dynamic : it's cheaper for the open / commons based development communities (who presumably don't mind ad-supported tools that know what's going on with their work) than for secrecy-based companies who have to rent the tools. (Essentially they're renting privacy) How much is privacy worth?
Actually, open development platforms remind me of source-code search like Koders and CodeFetch which allows massively parallel code-sharing. Where does that fit in here? If search is the heart of internet services (as proved by Google), is code-search the heart of a peer-based community software production platform?
This matters to MS because in their souls MS are a geek company. From their first product Basic through QuickBasic to VisualBasic and VisualStudio, MS dominance has been based on giving their system developers some great tools, and their application programmers both the tools and sneak-previews of their platforms.
It's hard to imagine an MS managing to maintain control over their ecosystem without also owning their own development tools and using those to drive their agenda. It's the energy that powers their fire and motion.
MS couldn't let their application developers use Java and become dependent on Sun's timetable and agenda. Nor will they let themselves become dependent on Ning or Rails for their Live offerings.
OK, coming back to the memo. Ozzie's "seamless" checklist is a bit vague and all encompassing. His moving forward doesn't mention tools. (Except "lightweight development" which is necessary but not sufficient.) There are sensible foci : reducing complexity - given that the explosion of this is what makes life so difficult for MS and that extreme simplicity (worse is better) is what makes the web so succesful; agile development (faster release cycle, one user story at a time); standards.
Ozzie is smart. Microsoft are too. And Microsoft are on the Cluetrain
But the web-as-platform is disruptive to Microsoft, not just because it's new, innovative and different but because it breaks their "software as product" business model. And they need to find an alternative way to get paid. If they can't, it won't be the web-as-platform which loses.
If MS want to dominate the web-as-platform they also need to find a way to own enough of the developers' tools that they set the agenda. And that's going to be tricky without embracing free software. An experiment with genuinely freeing the source of something would send a very interesting signal that they were really serious here. But it would also be very controversial. It would be an admission of "failure" on their part.
But MS can't have it both ways. They can't acknowledge the service model without also acknowledging the product model is broken. And that will be the real test of their mettle.
Hmmm. No comment on the real content yet (except Gates and Ozzie are pretty bland and self-congratulatory.)
Except here's a first reaction. Ozzie describes the need for a web-platform including advertising, identity etc. Usual web 2.0 stuff. He thinks MS can build it.
But can MS treat it as a "product" and sell it?
Hmm. Maybe everyone should read The Age of Access (get the book from the "Amazon" link), and my my thoughts on Steve Antler's class war between products and services.
The product / service distinction is a deep one for software / knowledge companies. Free software / commons-based peer production is at a saddle-point. Does an economy (or a company) choose a full "service strategy" and thus embrace free-software, commons-based production? Or does it choose a "product strategy" which means embracing intellectual property and the restrictions that implies?
Microsoft is built around championing the product view of software. Even after embracing the web and .NET. If it really plans to reorient itself around services then it has to also embrace peer-production (and free-software is a complement to that).
Or does it? What if MS try to have it both ways? Selling software and content and selling access? I think MS will pull itself apart, as the service and product branches fight each other internally. For example, when MSN Spaces wants to provide more sophisticated free tools and support for developers (to compete with Ning / JotSpot / Rails), but this canibalises "Live Studio"'s customers?
At the same time, a lot of MS's market for tools are for building internal products. These can't be supported by advertising - especially not contextual ads. Are you gonna tell an ad company what you're thinking about internally? (Although that might be kind of interesting in a radical transparency way :-)
So MS will want to rent access to it's development tools. But this creates a strange dynamic : it's cheaper for the open / commons based development communities (who presumably don't mind ad-supported tools that know what's going on with their work) than for secrecy-based companies who have to rent the tools. (Essentially they're renting privacy) How much is privacy worth?
Actually, open development platforms remind me of source-code search like Koders and CodeFetch which allows massively parallel code-sharing. Where does that fit in here? If search is the heart of internet services (as proved by Google), is code-search the heart of a peer-based community software production platform?
This matters to MS because in their souls MS are a geek company. From their first product Basic through QuickBasic to VisualBasic and VisualStudio, MS dominance has been based on giving their system developers some great tools, and their application programmers both the tools and sneak-previews of their platforms.
It's hard to imagine an MS managing to maintain control over their ecosystem without also owning their own development tools and using those to drive their agenda. It's the energy that powers their fire and motion.
MS couldn't let their application developers use Java and become dependent on Sun's timetable and agenda. Nor will they let themselves become dependent on Ning or Rails for their Live offerings.
OK, coming back to the memo. Ozzie's "seamless" checklist is a bit vague and all encompassing. His moving forward doesn't mention tools. (Except "lightweight development" which is necessary but not sufficient.) There are sensible foci : reducing complexity - given that the explosion of this is what makes life so difficult for MS and that extreme simplicity (worse is better) is what makes the web so succesful; agile development (faster release cycle, one user story at a time); standards.
Ozzie is smart. Microsoft are too. And Microsoft are on the Cluetrain
But the web-as-platform is disruptive to Microsoft, not just because it's new, innovative and different but because it breaks their "software as product" business model. And they need to find an alternative way to get paid. If they can't, it won't be the web-as-platform which loses.
If MS want to dominate the web-as-platform they also need to find a way to own enough of the developers' tools that they set the agenda. And that's going to be tricky without embracing free software. An experiment with genuinely freeing the source of something would send a very interesting signal that they were really serious here. But it would also be very controversial. It would be an admission of "failure" on their part.
But MS can't have it both ways. They can't acknowledge the service model without also acknowledging the product model is broken. And that will be the real test of their mettle.
November 08, 2005
Amazon Mechanical Turk
A new war. The Amazon Mechanical Turk vs. Skypal (as another platform to sell human services)
November 07, 2005
Google Print's network effects?
Mahashunyam is wrong here
There's no network FX for advertisers here.
Sure, the value to advertisers scales as the audience scales. But this differs from oldskool broadcast media how, exactly?
Advertisers don't benefit in the slightest from other advertisers using the ad-platform. Contrariwise, it just drives up the cost-per-eyeball - exactly the way it does in traditional media.
Yes, the connections between different Google "components" (as Scoble calls them) are valuable. But this has nothing to do with network effects.
I guess someone could argue that Google's readers benefit from there being more advertisers (more choice of informational links) and advertisers benefit from extra readers so there's a positive feedback going on there. But this is a kind of feedback that could exist in any media situation. It's not exclusive to Google and not what we normally mean by network effect.
Therefore, the network FX are indirect because the utility of the network increases to advertisers through the increase in the number of common users.
There's no network FX for advertisers here.
Sure, the value to advertisers scales as the audience scales. But this differs from oldskool broadcast media how, exactly?
Advertisers don't benefit in the slightest from other advertisers using the ad-platform. Contrariwise, it just drives up the cost-per-eyeball - exactly the way it does in traditional media.
Yes, the connections between different Google "components" (as Scoble calls them) are valuable. But this has nothing to do with network effects.
I guess someone could argue that Google's readers benefit from there being more advertisers (more choice of informational links) and advertisers benefit from extra readers so there's a positive feedback going on there. But this is a kind of feedback that could exist in any media situation. It's not exclusive to Google and not what we normally mean by network effect.
November 04, 2005
Threats to Ning
So what are the threats to Ning?
Ruby on Rails : very trendy with influential developers. Imagine 37signals trying to do a Rails-based rival?
JotSpot : although here, the Microsoft connection is a wild-card. Will this help or hinder them getting developer mindshare?
Ruby on Rails : very trendy with influential developers. Imagine 37signals trying to do a Rails-based rival?
JotSpot : although here, the Microsoft connection is a wild-card. Will this help or hinder them getting developer mindshare?
November 03, 2005
Sun's new "Web 2.0" services -- Sun Live?
Using the new Sun Grid service, virtually any consumer with a Web browser will be able to upload proprietary documents, and have them automatically converted to Open Document Format (ODF).
Good idea. I wonder if anyone's doing this for Excel files?
Sun's new "Web 2.0" services -- Sun Live?
The audio generation thing is good too. Wonder if they'll support all those obscure audio HTML attributes like <azimuth>
I'm also waiting for someone to come out with a service to mash-up audio ie. cut sections of audio out of existing podcasts, stick them together, reverse them, add effects, overdubs etc.
Web Developers Moving Past Java -- part 1
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!
Web Developers Moving Past Java -- part 1
(Oh, you can tell I'm biased ;-)
Keep in mind that I'm suggesting Java will be dead like COBOL, not dead like Elvis. For the hardest enterprise problems, Java is safe for at least three to five years--things like sophisticated and scalable object relational mapping, two phased commit, and the like. Java is being threatened in a much more common, and I think important space: how do you build a simple web application that fronts a relational database? Especially a database schema that you control? This industry solves this particular problem over and over, and Java's not very good at it.
Web Developers Moving Past Java -- part 1
(Oh, you can tell I'm biased ;-)
Meta question on Blogger comments.
This is very strange. Someone posted a comment here, which looks like it came from me. It's got my name on it, and links to my profile.
But I didn't write it. Is this a bug in Blogger? Or some kind of trick by the commenter. Seems a perfectly good comment, so I don't see what the motive is. Anyone else noticed this phenomenon?
If this is a bug in Blogger, it would be nice you'd explicitly sign your comments to get the recognition you deserve. :-)
But I didn't write it. Is this a bug in Blogger? Or some kind of trick by the commenter. Seems a perfectly good comment, so I don't see what the motive is. Anyone else noticed this phenomenon?
If this is a bug in Blogger, it would be nice you'd explicitly sign your comments to get the recognition you deserve. :-)
XFN vs. FOAF
Ryan vs. Danny
FOAFers complain XFN is half-baked. And that it confuses pages with people. A URL is apparently insufficient to be a UID for someone. Though Ryan appropriately responds that
Danny disagrees :
The first of these would certainly create confusion, and there's no type-system in XFN to stop it. The second point I'm not sure I get so I'll reserve judgement.
Ryan's other big point : Microformats are designed for "humans first, machines second".
That seems important. Any format with two (potential) user constituencies is probably in better shape than a format with only.
Danny is being a bit disingenuous about this by saying
FOAFers complain XFN is half-baked. And that it confuses pages with people. A URL is apparently insufficient to be a UID for someone. Though Ryan appropriately responds that
Second, why can’t URLs be used to identify people? Homepage URLs are as meaningful as email addresses (or hashes of email addresses, as I believe FOAF uses), so why can’t they be used to identify people?
Danny disagrees :
What happens if someone made a statement about the URL, say providing its dc:creator?
The use of a URI is questionable for the purpose in any case, see Identifying things in FOAF.
The first of these would certainly create confusion, and there's no type-system in XFN to stop it. The second point I'm not sure I get so I'll reserve judgement.
Ryan's other big point : Microformats are designed for "humans first, machines second".
That seems important. Any format with two (potential) user constituencies is probably in better shape than a format with only.
Danny is being a bit disingenuous about this by saying
XFN markup isn’t really any more human-friendly than FOAF’s RDF/XML, and what’s more without a machine to interpret the stuff there’s not much for the human either way.
Scobleizer - Yahoo’s new pretty maps are doomed (and so are Microsoft’s)
Scobleizer : Yahoo’s new pretty maps are doomed (and so are Microsoft’s)
Good points. The Google eco-system has lock-ins due to the synergy between it's various components. For Yahoo or Microsoft to break that they need to explicitly address those barriers to switching.
Read it all.
Good points. The Google eco-system has lock-ins due to the synergy between it's various components. For Yahoo or Microsoft to break that they need to explicitly address those barriers to switching.
Read it all.
More platforms ...
Might the recently announced, though somewhat vaporous, "Office Live" actually be a platform rather like my suggestion for Ning?
Is Microsoft Gadgets a platform?
Should I just go get some sleep?
Is Microsoft Gadgets a platform?
Should I just go get some sleep?
Scoble on Microsoft's two diseases
1) We look at the world only through a businessperson’s eyes.
2) We have no clue about the power of influentials.
Scobleizer : The new Robert Scoble Services agenda
Microsoft mash-ups
Phil Wainewright :
Let the great Microsoft mash-up begin
Can Microsoft be seriously suggesting that partners and customers will be able to connect to these services from any platform, and mash them up however they like (subject to paying the required subscription fees or accepting the obligatory advertising, whichever applies)? I'm not sure that Microsoft really does have the nerve to carry this through, but it should: its consummate expertise at fostering developer ecosystems could really light a fire under its on-demand platform if it gets the API offering right. That would make today's announcement one of those landmark dawn-of-a-new-era moments: the day the great Microsoft mash-up began.
Let the great Microsoft mash-up begin
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