Going to IIW 2008A

May 1, 2008 at 11:45 am · Filed under Web 2.0

I have been wanting to go to the Internet Identity Workshop for some time, but for one reason or another I haven’t been able to.  I am very interested in identity in general — this was at the root of my involvement with the Attention Trust and GestureBank and why I keep writing about user contracts.  I hope to see you there.

The event itself is being held May 12th through 14th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. 

Monday afternoon is free and targets getting everybody up to speed on what is going on in the Identity space.

Go here for more information. 

Tags: Identity, IIW, IIW2008A

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Counting the days till Silverlight announced for iPhone

March 19, 2008 at 8:21 am · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0

Now that we have the Adobe CEO saying, We’re bringing Flash to the iPhone.

How many more days until we hear Microsoft publicly commit to Silverlight on the iPhone?  I bet we hear it within two weeks.

Why do I care?  It validates some of my earlier arguments.  Here and here.

Scott Guthrie?  What do you say?

Update: Adobe clarifies CEO’s iPhone Flash comments.  Maybe Apple will fight to keep their platform closed after all.

[tags]iPhone, Silverlight, Microsoft, Apple, Flash, Adobe[/tags]

Tags: Adobe, Apple, Flash, iPhone, Microsoft, Silverlight

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Schonfeld wrong on why Microsoft adopted Flash Lite

March 17, 2008 at 8:57 am · Filed under Web 2.0

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch reports that Microsoft Adopts Flash Lite For Windows Mobile As a Stopgap Measure.  For those not keeping track of this, Adobe stopped supporting flash on Windows Mobile some time back.  And now it looks like Microsoft has licensed the Flash Lite run time for Windows Mobile directly.

This is good news for Windows Mobile users, but Shonfeld is wrong about Microsoft’s reasons.  He says,

… for Microsoft, this is just a stopgap measure until it can gain more traction for Silverlight, its Flash-competitor. The mobile version of Sliverlight 2.0 does not ship until the second quarter. Making WinMo more capable won’t detract from Silverlight’s appeal. There is a desperate need to get a full Flash-like experience on a mobile device. Flash itself is supposedly too slow on mobile phones. That leaves an opening for Microsoft win over converts to Silverlight by bringing video, animation, and other rich-media experiences to mobile. Nokia is already on board.

Does he really think that Microsoft would get into bed with Adobe Flash just because the Silverlight runtime doesn’t ship for one more quarter?

No way.

Microsoft is licensing Flash because they realize that they are losing to the iPhone.  Simply put, Microsoft wants to make Windows Mobile better.  Only running Silverlight would be a limitation, not an advantage.  So they license Flash.  My guess is that they’ll have a pre-installed Java runtime too.

On a related note, licensing ActiveSync to Apple has been much debated.  Was is a good thing for Microsoft?  Yes, and it is consistent with Microsoft licensing Flash Lite.  Why?

• I think Microsoft has made the decision that Windows Mobile has to compete on its own merits (and not because it is a part of a greater lock-in with Microsoft Office). 
• Microsoft also wants to protect their back-office Exchange licensing; what better way to do that than to make it easier for mobile handsets to support Exchange?

Adopting Flash is a step in the right direction.  And licensing ActiveSync forces this point home.

[tags]Windows Mobile, Microsoft, iPhone, Flash, Adobe, Apple, TechCrunch[/tags]

Tags: Adobe, Apple, Flash, iPhone, Microsoft, techcrunch, Windows Mobile

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Why Apple Won’t Dominate Next Gen Computing

March 12, 2008 at 9:00 am · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0

Alex Iskold of ReadWriteWeb tells us Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing.  He is wrong.

Apple’s success isn’t about the software

Alex Iskold’s premise is that Apple’s software platform is superior, therefore they will dominate.  He says . . .

Apple’s secret sauce has been its software.

First off, this is not Apple’s secret sauce.  Apple’s not-so-secret sauce is their ability to deliver highly-polished total product: hardware + software + services + image.

Controlling the hardware and software is a baseline requirement for a company to do this, but they go beyond that to build beautiful, desirable, and highly functional total products.  A good part of this is observable beauty and another part is pure marketing genius: the creation of desire and belief in the hipness of the product. 

Compare Apple’s total product approach with . . .

• Microsoft licenses Windows Mobile for a variety of devices, not being a handset manufacture, it doesn’t control the total product.  For example, Samsung Blackjack.  Popular phone?  Yes.  Windows Mobile a flop?  No, but for user experience it compares very poorly against the iPhone.
• Microsoft licenses Windows Vista to a wide range of OEMs.  Same story.  A little worse because when they did have influence over the total product, they botched it.  Example? The Vista Ready campaign and surrounding lawsuits.
• Palm?  They had the slickest PDAs for quite some time.  They controlled the total product but forgot the services part so Blackberry beat them handily.  There death nell was selling of the software and licensing WM5.
• The XBox 360.  Microsoft builds the hardware + software + service.  Runaway success.  Home run. 

My point? 

It isn’t the software, it isn’t the hardware, it is the total product. When a company controls the total product they can achieve Apple-level success.

Why Apple won’t dominate

To dominate, Apple has to penetrate into the greater computing space (and stop being a high-priced niche brand).  Either

• their hardware becomes ubiquitous; or
• they broadly license their platform to other hardware manufactures.

The first one is ludicrous:  user preferences are too varied for a single hardware vendor to be the one solution.  Apple has mostly done it with the iPod, but that is a piece of consumer electronics and pales in comparison to the complexity of computer systems in general.  If they believe this to be a good strategy, they would likely have to greatly broaden their product mix and lower their prices.

The second one, while certainly possible, would greatly complicate the Apple story, Apple software quality, messaging, etc.  And still, broadly licensing technology will not result in domination.

Only if Apple chooses one of these approaches can they possibly dominate next-generation computing.  And then they have to execute brilliantly.  And then several years have to pass for people to be in a position to replace hardware.  And then a huge migration has to occur.  And then, Cocoa what?

Anyone think this is Steve Jobs plan?  No way. 

And if it is?  Short Apple.  There is too much choice out there in terms of hardware, developer platforms, better licensing models, nascent cloud platforms, etc., for Apple to dominate.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Palm, Platforms, ReadWriteWeb, Windows Mobile, XBOX

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Google Reader or TypePad getting confused?

March 7, 2008 at 2:56 pm · Filed under Web 2.0

Today while using Google Reader, the feeds for Recognizing Deven (http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/index.rdf) and flow|state (http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/index.rdf) have both been serving the London Blog (which I have no interested in reading).

Is this a bug in Google Reader or TypePad?  Anyone else experiencing this?

And congratulations to Mr. Farrell for giving up the drink.

Tags: Bug, Google, GReader, Reader, TypePad

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Dynamic IP and OpenDNS? Watch out.

February 27, 2008 at 12:31 pm · Filed under Web 2.0

OpenDNS is a cool service.  I use it.  It basically provides two kinds of services:

• Better DNS Servers: to get this service, you just switch your DNS settings to their servers.
• Extended services:  various typo-correction features, domain shortcuts, domain blocking and anti-phishing, and domain usage tracking.  To get these services, you create an OpenDNS account.

I use their servers, and while I do have an OpenDNS account, I don’t use any of the extended services. 

At least, I don’t intentionally use them.

The problem is that the services are applied based on the IP source address used in DNS queries.  IP addresses change.  IP addresses are not secure.  For most people they are dynamic.

This impacts the reliability of the service . . . 

• For example, User A defines OpenDNS extended services associated with their IP address.
• IP address changes.
• User A either doesn’t have the services they are relying on, or gets services they never signed up for. 

. . . and has privacy implications . . .

• User A changes their DNS settings, signs up for the additional services, and starts tracking domain queries.
• User B never signs up, but just changes their DNS settings to the OpenDNS servers.
• At some point (before or after A signs up), B gets A’s old IP address.
• A is tracking B’s queries.

Unlikely?  Maybe.  Possible to exploit?  Definitely.  Expected by users?  I doubt it.  In fact, User B probably didn’t think this was possible. 

This is such an obvious issue that I went looking on the OpenDNS site for answers.  I expected a big warning like this:

Warning: Using OpenDNS with dynamic IPs is an advanced use case.  To use OpenDNS with dynamic IPs, you must sign up for an OpenDNS account and reliably update us with your IP address when it changes.  If you do not, other users may track your DNS queries and extended services may get applied even though you did not sign up for them. 

Expecting I must just be missing something, I posted on the community, and got an unconvincing . . .

not a major issue…and we won’t let it become one

Sounds like stonewalling to me.

So, why do I care?  User contracts 101 says if you don’t like the service, don’t use it.  OK.  I might just quit the sevice.  That is fine.

But, the user contract of “just use our DNS servers and everything is better” does not include these major caveats.  I think it is misleading.

What do I think they should do about this?  I dunno, but here is an idea:

1. Split their DNS servers into 2 (Primary / Secondary) pairs.  This eliminates the problem for the users who use the OpenDNS servers without signing up for an account.
• First pair doesn’t enable any extended services (except for the OpenDNS Guide).
• Second pair is required for the extended services.  This pair is provided to users only after sign-up. 
2. Promote a warning like the one I give above. 

These solutions don’t make the problem go away, but they make sure users are informed about what is actually going on.  And they make for a sensible user contract.

 trackback

Tags: DNS, Dynamic IPs, Exploits, OpenDNS, User Contracts

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The S+S Kool-Aid

February 8, 2008 at 2:16 pm · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0

Had a good talk on the Gang today.  Mostly we talked about Microsoft / Yahoo, if Microsoft can beat Google at openness.  A small part of the discussion was whether or not Microsoft can credibly move into an open Services space with their S+S strategy. 

Perception is that the Software in the S+S strategy is the Windows desktop & Office.  Of course, there is truth in that, but I maintain that Microsoft is also driving to enable their developer ecosystem to build rich S+S applications outside of the Windows desktop and Office.

But maybe Gianpaolo Carraro, Director of SaaS Architecture at Microsoft, disagrees with me.  In his post, S+S- Real or have I drunk too much Kool-Aid- -), he shows a feature of Office that can open and save Office Live files.  He asks if this example shows that S+S is real or if he has “drunk too much (of the Microsoft) Kool-Aid”.

Short answer, yes.

I seem to have stepped into the middle of an argument between Gianpaolo and Phil Waineright of ZDNet.  What are they arguing about?  Not that software is required on the front-end — I think we can all just get past that one.  Not that deployment isn’t an issue.  It seems they are arguing about whether Office + the Cloud is better than free on-demand office productivity “in the cloud”.  Fair enough, but I think the root of the issue is the term “S+S”.

Gianpaolo, is essentially saying,

Look at this nifty integration between Windows desktop & Office + Office Live.  This proves S+S is real.

Real?  Maybe.  But it that is S+S, then it just isn’t a useful term.

If it is about more than that, then let’s stop talking about little integration features between Office and Office Live.  Instead, let’s see some good examples of what it means outside of the Windows desktop, outside of Office / Office Live, even outside of Microsoft.

And this is what S+S being real and, more importantly, being relevant is going to come down to.  Regardless of how much Kool-Aid you consume.

[tags]Microsoft, SaaS, S+S, Gang[/tags]

Tags: Gang, Microsoft, S+S, SaaS

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Google Reader Misappropriated Our Shared Items

December 19, 2007 at 4:50 pm · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0

Earlier in the week I stopped using Google Reader for a few days.  Every time I started it, I would be reminded of their new sharing features (see the dialog on the left).  Then I would close the browser tab. Why?

Google changed the Reader user-contract with no notice.  This rankles me.  I’ve lost control of my shared items.  This is a dramatic change with only the weakest of opt-outs.  What’s more, any opt-out is too late.  My items have already been shared.  What kind of opt-out is that?

Oh, but there are more options.  They give us the ability to manage who gets to see our shared items.  But only after others have a chance to read them.  For example, I can hide my items from my “friends” who are on Google Reader.  Other “friends” that start using Google Reader will get to read my shared items immediately.  The onus is on me to make sure I actively manage the list. 

And the icing on the cake?  “Friends” wasn’t a word in use by Google Reader before.  Now it has been defined to mean my Google Talk contacts.  No fair.  This is not analogous to Facebook “friends”.  In Facebook, I accepted people as “friends” based on the Facebook definition.  Now my Google Talk contacts are my “friends” based on Google’s new definition.  This is clearly backwards. 

Is Google breaking their terms of service?  Almost definitely not, but they are changing a basic part of the user-contract: that user data won’t become more public without user consent. This is a perfect example of the “User-Beware contract“, summed up as: “we’ll change the user contract whenever we feel like it.”

What’s next? 

Your email contacts have been shared with your friends

Your emails have been shared with our advertisers

You calendar entries have been shared with your . . .

You get the idea.  This may seem like a joke, but frankly I don’t know what is in store for the user contract.

Steve Gillmor suggests this is arrogance on Google’s part, and he’s probably right.  Yet mostly people are ignoring this or don’t get it (e.g., Scoble doesn’t seem to get why anyone would care). 

Why is the blogosphere giving Google a free pass on this one? 

Tags: Attention, Facebook, Gillmor, Google, GTalk, Scoble, User Contracts

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SSE to FeedSync; Spec released

December 7, 2007 at 2:36 pm · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0

Many of us our still waiting to see the positive impact from Ray Ozzie in his role at Microsoft.  Word is that is still coming, but last year we did get something: Microsoft’s Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE).  I wrote about it back then.  Well, SSE has been renamed FeedSync and a spec has been released.  Also, the Microsoft Synchronization framework supports it.

Cool extensions to RSS/Atom, though I wish they hadn’t chosen the “FeedSync” name.  That sounds like a product, not a specification.  I preferred SSE, and would have thought RSS-SE (RSS Sync Extensions) or to be more agnostic, FSE (Feed synchronization extensions) to be even better.

Jon Udell has more details here and links to Channel 9 videos, etc. 

So, who is going to support it?  For blogging applications, I’d like to see . . .

• FeedBurner (Google)  support the history and tombstone feature right away.  Also, the ability to aggregate feeds with full synchronization would also be cool.
• How about WordPress?   Support FeedSync directly?

Presumably Microsoft will be using this too in some new Live services.  Other applications?

Tags: Atom, feedburner, FeedSync, Microsoft, Ozzie, rss, SSE, Wordpress

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A Microsoft pawn? Me?

November 17, 2007 at 6:33 pm · Filed under .NET, Grid Computing, Web 2.0

John has an excellent post wrapping up his trip to SC ‘07 — the bashers’ ball. He is tired of all the Microsoft bashing:

It is amazing to me the level of religious fervor that Microsoft still inspires. The bashers out there can be perfectly calm and reasonable about a wide range of topics – but say the word “Microsoft,” and they turn bright red and irrational. I have watched this phenomenon for years, and still find it inexplicable. Microsoft is a company. That company makes software. Some of their software is very, very good. Some of it is remarkably bad. I don’t understand why some people find it so hard to remain objective (or even civil) when discussing their products and market presence.

Statement of fact.  Nothing new exactly, but then he goes on how this relates to our company (emphasis mine) . . .

Many Microsoft bashers think that all of us at Digipede are mouthpieces for the Evil Empire, and that we are just pawns of the Microsoft machine. On the other hand, while we have plenty of fans within Microsoft, there are also some Microsoft employees who think we are difficult annoying troublemakers . . .

Pawns of Microsoft? Please. But maybe we are misunderstood. The other day I found myself convincing Steve Gillmor that I’m not a Microsoft fanboy (I don’t think I succeeded). But John says it well,

In fact, none of us at Digipede love or hate Microsoft – we work with Microsoft. We do so for real-world business reasons that help us change the world for the better while building a great company. We work with other companies too, but Microsoft occupies a special place in the technology landscape, and we work very, very hard to understand how to work with them to our mutual benefit. There are some great people there doing great things, and the bashers only hurt themselves by blinding themselves to these very real contributions.

Yeah, I don’t love or hate Microsoft; however, I do really like Microsoft .NET.  Does that make me a pawn of Microsoft?  .NET isn’t my religion.  I’m not a zealot about it.  It doesn’t mean that I think everyone should be using .NET / Windows nor does it require that I go around bashing Apple / Sun / IBM / Google / Linux / Java / PHP / Rails / whatever. 

I don’t think Microsoft bashing is a requirement for entry to the HPC and Apple fan clubs either, is it?

As long as I can remember, I have detested the religion of the OS (or programming language, or platform, etc.). Passion for technology is great — it’s a requirement for success in this field.  But I’m tired of people using their passion to bash, bash, bash. 

Maybe I just don’t get it, but if you’re a basher, please just move along.  And if you still think I’m a Microsoft pawn, well, I’m not going to convince you, now am I?

Note to Robert Scoble: you had the temerity to criticize Apple and the zealots came out in force — even called you a Microsoft shill. Welcome back to our club, Robert — though I’m not sure you ever really left.

[tags]Digipede, Microsoft, HPC, Apple, Gillmor, Scoble, .NET, SC07[/tags]

Tags: .NET, Apple, Digipede, Gillmor, HPC, Microsoft, SC07, Scoble

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