Open Sourced Microsoft

I've noticed lately, that I've been commenting Brian Proffitt's posts a lot. Well, I do so because I think he's a great journalist and makes valid points in technology, as a contrast to many others who seem to be completely ignorant on the issues they write about.

This time Brian is trying to explain the Open Source strategy Microsoft has. Here's the main quote I think:

... if you use open source technology and contribute to it for others to use, you potentially could help make your competitors stronger. And if your failed marketing campaign just happens to send more business to our opponent... in this situation, that might not be a clear loss, because it could also change a government's perception of Redmond being unfair.....

I will admit that this may be a reach. But I also think, with Microsoft's ongoing legal woes and the threat of the LAMP space forever closed to them using their traditional business practices, this whole notion of competing with open source on open source terms does not sound so far fetched.

I mainly agree with this notion, but here's the catch: after the long war (in business perspective of course) Microsoft has on Open Source projects in general and Linux in particular, how much trust would potential clients put in this vendor? Isn't the success of the vendor depends on its actions? So in the nearest future, would potential customers be able to trust Microsoft with its own open source projects? Can they?

Can a customer trust Microsoft embracing the enemy and building its own Microsoft AMP stack? That's another issue to think about.

Can Microsoft be open sourced?

Most Hated Company

I just read a post by Mike Elgan, in which he argues that Asus is the most hated company in the computer business right now. And all this just because they made it first to market very cheap laptop with Linux on it (that being Asus eee701 PC).

So here's the breakdown of reasons why it is most hated (mmm, right ):

1. Apple, Dell and HP hate Asus.
That's because they've out a subnotebook earlier than an expected (and, in my opinion, while really possible, still highly speculative) Apple subnotebook, which supposedly will be announced on MacWorld in a week, and will probably cost much more than $400.

2. Microsoft hates Asus.
That's because there's no version of Microsoft Windows is installed in Asus laptop. It's a Xandros Linux (with some Asus' tweaks). And its light and great!

3. Intel is very happy with Asus
Because Asus used their chips in the laptop.

But somehow, I think that industry is just fine with Asus on all this. There are few reasons for that:

1. Asus (or, Asustek) is the manufacturer of many of the laptops in the world. So, vendors are still in good relations with Asus.
2. Cheap subnotebooks market is just emerging, so there's plenty room there still.
3. OLPC was actually earlier to get to that market. Wasn't it?
4. There are many Asus-made products that work on Dells and HPs, and operated with Microsoft.

I don't see any special reason to mad at vendor for selling 200000 machines.

Zoundry Writer in Linux review

For a few days, I've been testing different blog editors and trying to find which one I would prefer to use. My requirements are simple at the moment. You can go over them in my previous post on the matter - BlogJet editor in Linux Review.

I've written 2 articles, in which I told that Linux Editors sucks (and that was my personal feeling after I tried more than 5 different editors and found all of them either not working or sucking big time on features), and also that I've decided to try running a Windows blog editors (yes!) using WINE and I have written another post on that.

So, I've found couple of editors that I succeeded to run in Linux. Here, I will talk about the second one, Zoundry. First, here's the screenshot of using this editor (click on the image to see in full size):

So, as you can see, I'm writing this post in Zoundry

So here's my good feelings about this editor:

• Setting accounts is very easy and very good.
  
• Writing is very easy. All the regular features work (Italic, Bold and Underscore) work as anticipated.
  
• Fetching my previous blog posts is very good and accurate
  
• Font usage is configurable and the default is very pleasant to my eyes.
• Easy switch between WYSIWYG and HTML modes
  
• Easy setup for pinging services after posting
  
• Easy publishing (with one button)
  
• Posting as draft and defining manually the time and date of the post!
  
• Tags with blogger and Technorati work!!
  
• Linking from the editor is very cool and one of the best features in it!!! It allows me to link to my previous posts by letting me choose from the list of posts. Linking to big list of predefined sites is very convenient:
  
• Inserting a merchant links is easy when you sign-up with Zoundry.

Now, the bad stuff

• Its final HTML code is very unclean. It introduces a lots of <p> tags, and Blogger parses them as white spaces.
  
• Interface is not so slick. I did use the editor in Windows XP as well, and it is still not that pretty, albeit functional.
  

Considering that a full version is a free software and it supports all the features I would like to have (except the GUI), here's the scores:

My rating (with 10 as best score):

• GUI and ease of use: 7
  
• Feature set (for my needs): 10
  
• Convenience (for my needs): 9
  

Total score (in my subjective opinion):

• for my needs (blogger): 9.5

So, would I use it? Absolutely :-)

At the moment, this is my editor of choice!

Any comments? Let me know :-)

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Microsoft, Wine, technology, windows

Related posts:

BlogJet in Linux Review
Running Zoundry and BlogJet under Wine
Linux Blogging Sucks

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BlogJet editor in Linux review

For a few days, I've been testing different blog editors and trying to find which one I would prefer to use. My requirements are simple at the moment:

• Being able to publish to a blog platform I use at the moment. That's being Blogger (with a New Blogger [Google] API)
• Being able to publish in draft first. I don't mind to "touch" an entry before publishing, and doing so from Blogger's own web-based editor helps to "preview" the entry how will it really look like.
  
• Adding tags to the post. Labels, categories, tags - I don't care how would you call this, I want it working if my platform supports them (and it does).
  
  • as a subset, pinging to Technorati and/or other services and including their links in the posts is welcome albeit unnecessary requirement.
    
• Convenient linking to other things. For example, suggesting to use what I have at the moment in the clipboard cache is convenient, as it allows me to copy something in the browser, and then directly paste it in the editor. I would also welcome convenient linking to my own posts.
  
• Local storing of the drafts. This is invaluable. I write something, I don't trust the program - I want to save it as either text, html or xml files (or combination of these).
  
• Nice pleasant GUI is very needed. After all, I can use a notepad (gedit, vi, emacs - choose your own), but I don't. I like to work with nice and simple interfaces.
  

I've written 2 articles, in which I told that Linux Editors sucks (and that was my personal feeling after I tried more than 5 different editors and found all of them either not working or sucking big time on features), and also that I've decided to try running a Windows blog editors (yes!) using WINE and I have written another post on that.

So, I've found couple of editors that I succeeded to run in Linux. Here, I will talk about the first one, BlogJet. First, here's the screenshot of using this editor (click on the image to see in full size; I'm using Black Vista theme):

So, as you can see, even that this is not native application in Linux, it looks very slick and nice, simple and gorgeous interface. My Kudos to the Coding Robots team on that! And I'm writing this post in BlogJet.

Writing is very easy. Just start typing - and that's it. All the regular features work (Italic, Bold and Underscore) work as anticipated. The editor setting were very simple - it recognized my blogging platform and correctly fetched my previous blog posts.

Font usage is configurable and the default is very pleasant to my eyes.

More cool features: easy switch between WYSIWYG and HTML modes, easy setup for pinging services after posting, easy publishing (with one button), and word counting (I like this one a lot!!!), and boy its final HTML code is so nice and clean !!!But now to the bad stuff:

1. Tagging (labels, categories, whatever) - it doesn't work with Blogger at the moment. Yes, it is known misfeature, but I find it weird that only one type of platform is supported for the moment (that would be Wordpress if I'm not mistaken).
   
2. Draft posting is not supported with Blogger. Sigh…
3. Although I can get my recent posts list, I don't have convenient option of linking to them. Say, I'd select something, right-click on it and choose "Link to previous post…" and then get a list and select the post I want to link to. That would be great.
   
4. Right-click context menu is weird - it seems like it was not implemented at all and all I see it system-wide menu. Not good.
   

Considering that a full version is a commercial software and it doesn't support many of the features I would like to have, I'd say I would not buy this product at the moment.

My rating (with 10 as best score):

• GUI and ease of use: 10
• Feature set (for my needs): 5
  
• Convenience (for my needs): 7
  

Total score (in my subjective opinion):

• for my needs (blogger): 6.5
  
• for Wordpress users: 8.5
  

So, would I use it? Maybe, I haven't decided yet.

In next post I will review running Zoundry blog editor on Linux.

Comments are welcome.

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Microsoft, Wine, technology, windows

Killing the FUD of your own

I've just read the post by Brian Proffitt, regarding Microsoft's tactics in Africa.

I have something to say to Brian:

Not everything a big corporation does is illegal. Yes, even Microsoft does most of its business in completely legitimate way. Now, you argue, that Microsoft has to "help" people choose its products?

Well, that is called competition. When you are a vendor, and your product is being considered for purchasing by a customer (not when a customer comes to you and starting to choose which one of your products to buy - no, when the same customer comes to 5 vendors with similar products) you fight for his attention. It means you're trying to undermine your opponents, undermine their products, and give your product the best spotlight you can. Because all vendors do, and if you won't - you don't get a deal.

So when a customer decides upon a vendor, there are factors to consider: price, functionality, longevity and support.

Price lately is not the primer concern to customers. Of course, they want to buy the same thing for a half of the price, but they still buy it anyway; functionality is the main thing. I would not buy things I don't need. Ever. Unless they're bundled with what I really need, and then I'll ask for a bargain. But if your product does not provide functionality I need, I will not buy it even if you give me huge discounts; longevity is also very important - I don't want to know that the product I just bought will be out of service in couple of months. I need a vendor who's pledged to support me for a long time support is an important tool to gain more customers. If your support sucks, I will try and avoid you next time.

In case you're talking about, Microsoft suggested a subjectively better deal. They gave it with some money presents.

Is their product much worse? No
Is their product much more insecure? Not really
Is it important for kids to use Linux over Windows? Not technically, no. Subjectively, in my opinion though - yes.
Is the price important? Yes.

So the decision was made based on price.

Microsoft doesn't have to pay people to use their software, they just offer it as a business proposition.

And you know what? I like it. Let them pay.

Just a matter of opinion

-A

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Touch screen technology

So, we've moved from Dumb text terminals, to Apple II (like, normal graphics), and then to some sort of touch screens, and now we have jewels in the crown - the Apple's iPhone and MS Surface and all sort of other applications.

So does it mean that touchscreen technology is going to rule everything? Get on every platform? Get to control our computers?

Or there's some other technology on the horizon? Something we don't even dream about (like thought-controlling interface)?

I just remember how in "Star Trek: Voyager" they had both tactile (read touchscreen) interfaces and voice-controlling interfaces (well, they had a highly evolved AI with that, but who counts?).....

Just a simple thought....

-A

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The Google Product That Could Kill Microsoft

Office isn't the only Microsoft hegemony that Google Gears could help destroy. One of the defining differences between Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux is the application lineup. That's given the crew in Redmond, Wash., tremendous power. But technologies like Gears render the operating system irrelevant.

While I've tried and used Gears for Google Reader, I am not yet convinced. Yes, it allows you to enjoy the service offline. But why would this "kill" Microsoft?It seems that many have an odd idea about how things work. Microsoft has its major revenue from business venues, such as major installations of Windows and Office, but also servers, development environments, etc. There's no way a business like Microsoft will "die". It would take much more time and effort than simple Gears platform.

How about XBOX? How about mobile? There are many issues that lie around the issue.

Besides, in couple of years, we all will be online at all times. So what is this "offline" feature good for?

-A.

Update: more details in this post of mine

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Microsoft, Mozilla execs respond to Safari on Windows announcement

Executives from Microsoft and Mozilla have responded to Apple's announcement that Safari will now be available to Windows users.

As expected, Mozilla pats Apple's back, welcomes them in the game and wishes propagation of open standards.
Microsoft doesn't even mention Apple's browser name and sustains IE7 is better.

Go figure.

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