Archive for the ‘google’ Category
Oracle, Google and Java – Oh My
A follow-up to this post, now that some additional information is coming out.
James Gosling has made another interesting post with some historical information, including the fact that as a result of an IBM lawsuit some Sun engineers made an unofficial game out of seeing how ridicuouls of a patent they could get approved:
In Sun’s early history, we didn’t think much of patents. While there’s a kernel of good sense in the reasoning for patents, the system itself has gotten goofy. Sun didn’t file many patents initially. But then we got sued by IBM for violating the “RISC patent” – a patent that essentially said “if you make something simpler, it’ll go faster”. Seemed like a blindingly obvious notion that shouldn’t have been patentable, but we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge. Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure. There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. My entry wasn’t nearly the goofiest.
He notes that “Apple’s expected entry into advertising” (now iAds) may have been the initial impetus for Android and adds “Don’t interpret any of my comments as support for Oracle’s suit. There are no guiltless parties with white hats in this little drama. This skirmish isn’t much about patents or principles or programming languages. The suit is far more about ego, money and power.”
Charles Nutter has an extremely detailed post where he breaks down each of the patents one by one. While lengthy, if you’re interested in this topic you should read the entire post (probably twice). Here is part of his conclusion:
So, Does the Suit Have Merit?
I’ll again reiterate that I’m not a lawyer. I’m just a Java developer with a logical mind and a penchant for debunking myths about the Java platform.
The collection of patents specified by the suit seems pretty laughable to me. If I were Google, I wouldn’t be particularly worried about showing prior art for the patents in question or demonstrating how Android/Dalvik don’t actually violate them. Some, like the “mixed mode” patent, don’t actually seem to apply at all. It feels very much like a bunch of Sun engineers got together in a room with a bunch of lawyers and started digging for patents that Google might have violated without actually knowing much about Android or Dalvik to begin with.
But does the suit have merit? It depends if you consider baseless or over-general patents to have merit. The most substantial patent listed here is the “mixed mode” patent, and unless I’m wrong that one doesn’t apply. The others are all variations on prior art, usually specialized for a Java runtime environment (and therefore with some question as to whether they can apply to a non-Java runtime environment that happens to have a translator from Java code). Having read through the suit and scanned the patents, I have to say I’m not particularly worried. But then again, I don’t know what sort of magic David Boies and company might be able to pull off.
He also gives his opinion on the “possible outcomes” as: The Nuclear Option (ie. the death of android, which is *very* unlikely), a Google Licensing Deal, Nothing At All, and the Total Collapse of Software Patents (wouldn’t that be nice).
Matthew Aslett attempts to answer the question of whether Oracle should now be seen as anti-open source:
I want to address is whether Oracle should now be seen as anti-open source.
I believe this theory is flawed. Firstly, because it assumes the open source community is a single, sentient being. As Matt Asay notes: “There is no Santa Claus. No Easter Bunny. And no such thing as an open-source community separate and distinct from the profit-driven free market that drives software development, generally.”
Secondly, because it assumes an emotional relationship between Oracle and open source that is equally non-existent.
As Simon Phipps has explained, corporations are reptiles that react instinctively to survive and thrive. Google’s call-to-arms of the Java open source community can be seen in the same light, especially since Google’s prior relationship with the Java community in relation to Android has been somewhat tenuous (rather than repeat what has been written elsewhere I recommend reading Carlo Daffara for the details).
And let’s not forget that Google’s approach to using open source resulted, at least in part, to the creation of a whole new license, one that the company has actively discouraged.
The statement by Oracle’s chief corporate architect Edward Screven, that “Oracle doesn’t really have an open source-specific strategy” must be understood in the context of this opportunism. The company’s engagement with open source is tactical, and changes on a case-by-case basis. It is wrong, therefore, to expect continuity in Oracle’s approach to different open source projects.
I’m not trying to excuse Oracle’s actions with regards to either Java or OpenSolaris, but I think each must be considered separately. [update - to clarify] Any Oracle related open source project should be approached with caution but… we should all be equally cautious about being encouraged to see the patent claims as a matter of good versus evil or open versus closed.
This is a legal matter between two corporations both of which are opportunistic in their approaches to open source engagement (unless it suits them to be otherwise).
In other words, as Matt Asay explains: “This isn’t about open source for Oracle, really. Nor is it about open source for Google, however much it may want to publicly posture as such.”
Stephen O’Grady attempts to answer a question that has been on many people minds with this post: WHY?
The latter point is perhaps the most important. It’s the only real clue we have to answer the only real question here: what does Oracle want?
Because the answer to that is: not what they’ve asked for in the complaint. Oracle may indeed request recompense for “the damages sustained and will sustain” as well as “any gains, profits, and advantages obtained by Google as a result of Google’s acts of infringement and Google’s use and publication of the copied materials.” But you can be sure that that’s not all they want.
As Andy Updegrove covers, the obvious motivation is financial. Specifically, maximizing the return on the six and a half billion capital expense that bought Sun’s assets, the patents in question included. If Oracle realized the same return as Sun from the Microsoft settlement concerning Java, for example, the cost of Sun becomes four billion. Remaking what was arguably a bargain into a steal.
Purely financial justifications for this suit are less than satisfying, however.
To begin with, Oracle would effectively be trading long term ecosystem health for a short term cash windfall. Unless the settlement is historically immense – a difficult outcome to rely on from a planning perspective – it’s not clear that this would be a net win. For all of its sustained success in the application and database markets, Oracle remains as fundamentally dependent on the Java ecosystem as Sun was before it. Even for a company that’s sought and found growth through stack ownership and category dominance, the health of the ecosystem is and must remain a concern. While the original technology was technically groundbreaking and differentiated, the key to Java’s success lay outside its featurelist. What drove its ascension within enterprises was the reality that Java offered at least the potential for independence from vendors. That will not be surrendered lightly, whatever Oracle may believe. A Java ecosystem dominated by Oracle is a doomed ecosystem. While it’s far from clear that this action by itself would create that perception amongst current Java ecosystem participants, it, coupled with Oracle’s own aggressive history, would be unlikely to be beneficial from a participation standpoint. As Andy put it, “it’s less clear to me what the strategic value would be to Oracle to prevent Google for incorporating Java into Android, or to impede the marketplace generally from relying on Java.”
It can be argued, then, that this is a high risk exercise for Oracle. The only satisfactory return for high risk exercise is high reward. Based on past software settlements, it’s difficult to project this being material to Oracle financially over a multi-year timeframe. Which is why I suspect there’s more at stake here than royalties.
What that is is non-obvious. All that we know about what Oracle wants, realistically, is what they are prepared to surrender. Aside from bearing the hard costs of litigation, Oracle is willing to absorb soft costs in risk to reputation and participation rates in the Java ecosystem. We must expect then that Oracle’s expected return will be commensurate with these costs. Oracle is many things, but stupid generally isn’t one of them.
Perhaps, as Forbes speculates, this is a prelude to a cross-licensing arrangement. Though if that’s the case, I’m far less certain that this suit actually has anything to do with Android; might patents like this “Large-scale data processing in a distributed and parallel processing enviornment” or this “Information extraction from a database” be relevant to Oracle’s core businesses? Perhaps Google is already or plans to compete directly with Oracle in ways we are not aware of yet. Or maybe Oracle just wants Google to buy a bunch of database licenses.
Whatever the real reason, this is a surprising decision even for a firm as aggressive as Oracle. The only thing more surprising is how quickly it turned Google – excoriated around the web for their questionable net neutrality proposal with Verizon – back into the good guys. Even if you speculate about differences in Oracle’s evaluations of its own assets – that Oracle believes that Java has peaked in popularity, for example, and that this is a one time opportunity to cash in on an asset that must, inevitably, decline – the calculus of this move fails. Nothing in Oracle’s product roadmaps hint at such a realization. Nor would a one time windfall, however large, be sufficient to offset the costs of a significant decline in Oracle’s Java related products.
As for predictions, I’ll make only one: whoever wins will also lose. This suit is going to negatively impact – probably substantially – Java adoption. The enterprise technology landscape is more fragmented by the day, as it transitions from .NET or Java othodoxy to multi-language heterogeneity. Oracle’s suit will accelerate this process as it introduces for the first time legal uncertainty around the Java platform. Apple and Microsoft will be thrilled by this development, and scores of competitive languages and platforms are likely to see improved traction as a result of Java defections.
Add up these costs, and the only supportable conclusion is that Oracle’s ambitions here are big.
As Stephen notes, it’s exceedingly difficult to ascertain what Oracle is *really* after here. As more information comes out, their motivation may become more clear and I’ll guess this won’t be nearly my last post on the topic.
In tangentially related news, it’s now confirmed that Oracle is killing OpenSolaris although it remains committed to Solaris itself and will be bringing Solaris Express back from the grave. It also appears that Oracle will continue to commit resources to MySQL, at least for the time being.
–jeremy
Additional Reading:
Techdirt
SAI
Matt Asay
Groklaw
Bradley M. Kuhn
VAR Guy
Related posts:
- Oracle Sues Google For Patent And Copyright Infringement
- Oracle questions GPL open sourced Java
- Google Android outsells Apple iPhone in Q1 of 2010
Oracle Sues Google For Patent And Copyright Infringement
In one of its first big moves with the assets it’s acquired as part of the Sun acquisition, Oracle has just announce that it’s Suing Google for patent and copyright infringement. From the press release:
“In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement,” said Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman.
The patents in question are:
* Protection domains to provide security in a computer system
* Controlling access to a resource
* Method and apparatus for pre-processing and packaging class files
* System and method for dynamic preloading of classes through memory space cloning of a master runtime system process
* Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code
* Interpreting functions utilizing a hybrid of virtual and native machine
* Method and system for performing static initialization
As Techdirt points out, it’s rare for large Silicon valley tech companies to sue each other like this, so it’s possible there’s more to the story here (and it seems likely the companies may have been negotiating in private for some amount of time):
Over the past few years, Sun has been one of the more outspoken companies against abusing the patent system, with former CEO Jonathan Schwartz explaining that real companies innovate, not litigate. However, Sun and its patents are now owned by Oracle, and apparently Larry Ellison feels otherwise. Oracle is now suing Google for patent infringement, using a bunch of patents that Sun owns around Java, claiming that Google’s Android implementation of Java is done without a license. This is a bit surprising, really, as big Silicon Valley tech companies don’t often get into patent battles with each other — and, historically, when they do launch such patent attacks, it’s usually a sign of something bigger being wrong with the company.
It should be noted that both Oracle and Google are Open Invention Network (OIN) licensees.
A little history on the situation from Ars:
Google makes heavy use of Java in the Android software development kit (SDK). Third-party developers code Android apps in Java, which is then translated into bytecode that runs in Dalvik, Google’s own custom VM. Google subsequently released the Android Native Development Kit, which allows developers to build Android components with C and C++. It is not intended to replace the Java development model, though, which remains the strongly preferred means of Android development.
Aside from its use of Java syntax, Google’s Android SDK implementation is largely independent from Oracle’s. It uses its own compiler and runtime tailored specifically for Android.
Originally developed by Sun Microsystems as a “write-once, run anywhere” language, Java became the property of Oracle when it purchased Sun in April 2009. Java was a significant part of the deal for Oracle, as it has been a major player in the world of Java middleware.
Prior to its acquisition by Oracle, Sun proved hostile to the Harmony Project, the Apache Software Foundation’s attempt to build an Apache-licensed Java SE implementation. In addition to Dalvik, Google also uses Harmony’s class libraries in Android, which has apparently aroused the ire of Oracle.
Carlo Daffara has posted a good analysis:
Let’s clear the table from the actual patent claims: the patent themselves are quite broad, and quite generic; a good example of what should not be patented (the security domain one is a good example; look at the sheet 5 and you will find the illuminating flowchart with the representation of: do you have the rights to do it? if yes, do it, if no, do nothing. How brilliant). Also, Dalvik implementation is quite different from the old JRE one, and I have strong suspicions that the actual Dalvik method is substantially different. But, that is not important. I believe that there are two main points that Oracle should have checked before filing the complaint (but, given the use of Schiller&Boies, I believe that they have still to learn from the SCO debacle): first of all, Dalvik is not Java and Google never claimed any form of Java compatibility. Second, there is a protection for patents as well, just hidden in recent history.
On the first point: in the complaint, Oracle claims that “The Android operating system software “stack” consists of Java applications running on a Java-based object-oriented application framework, and core libraries running on a “Dalvik” virtual machine (VM) that features just-in-time (JIT) compilation”. On copyrights, Oracle claims that “Without consent, authorization, approval, or license, Google knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully copied, prepared, published, and distributed Oracle America’s copyrighted work, portions thereof, or derivative works and continues to do so. Google’s Android infringes Oracle America’s copyrights in Java and Google is not licensed to do so … users of Android, including device manufacturers, must obtain and use copyrightable portions of the Java platform or works derived therefrom to manufacture and use functioning Android devices. Such use is not licensed. Google has thus induced, caused, and materially contributed to the infringing acts of others by encouraging, inducing, allowing and assisting others to use, copy, and distribute Oracle America’s copyrightable works, and works derived therefrom.”
Well, it is wrong. Wrong because Google did not copied Java – and actually never mention Java anywhere. In fact, the Android SDK produced Dalvik (not Java) bytecodes, and the decoding and execution pattern is quite different (and one of the reasons why older implementations of Dalvik were so slow – they were made to conserve memory bandwidth, that is quite limited in cell phone chipsets). The thing that Google did was to “copy” (or – for a better word – inspire) the Java language; but as the recent SPSS-vs-WPS lawsuit found, “copyright in computer programs does not protect programming languages from being copied”. So, unless Oracle can find pieces of documentation that were verbatim lifted from the Sun one, I believe that the copyright part is quite weak.
I have to wonder if the timing of this suit has anything to do with the negative publicity Google is getting over the recent Net Neutrality issue (and also note that the press release occurred right *after* Linuxcon ended, where Linux in the mobile space was an extremely hot topic.). The recent killing of OpenSolaris made some in the Open Source community even more leery of Oracle’s intention than they already were. This suit should serve to destroy any and all credibility Sun had built up in the FOSS world. It may also be the death knell for Java in mobile. It will be interesting to see how Google responds to this, and it’s certainly a topic I’ll be following closely and likely posting more about as details emerge. It will also be interesting to watch how this impacts other Open Source projects that were acquired by Oracle as part of the Sun portfolio.
Finally, James Gosling (the father of the Java) notes:
Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer’s eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun’s genetic code.
–jeremy
Additional Reading:
GigaOM
Business Insider
cnet
Joel West
Miguel de Icaza
Related posts:
- Oracle, Google and Java – Oh My
- Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell II
- Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell III
goosh.org – unofficial google shell
Front-end old-style terminal interface, for web services like those provided by Google and Yahoo.
| command | aliases | parameters | function |
| web | (search,s,w) | [keywords] | google web search |
| news | (n) | [keywords] | google news search |
| more | (m) | get more results | |
| blogs | (blog,b) | [keywords] | google blog search |
| read | (rss,r) | <url> | read feed of url |
| feeds | (feed,f) | [keywords] | google feed search |
| place | (places,map,p) | [address] | google maps search |
| translate | (trans,t) | [lang1] [lang2] <words> | google translation |
| images | (image,i) | [keywords] | google image search |
| video | (videos,v) | [keywords] | google video search |
| clear | (c) | clear the screen | |
| wiki | (wikipedia) | [keywords] | wikipedia search |
| help | (man,h,?) | [command] | displays help text |
| cd | <command> | change mode | |
| site | (in) | <url> <keywords> | search in a specific website |
| open | (o) | <url> | open url in new window |
| go | (g) | <url> | open url |
| lucky | (l) | [keywords] | go directly to first result |
| ls | [command] | lists commands | |
| addengine | add goosh to firefox search box | ||
| load | <extension_url> | load an extension | |
| calculate | (calc) | [mathematical expression] | evaluate a mathematical expression |
| settings | (set) | [name] [value] | edit settings |
| gmail | (mail) | [compose] | read & write mail in gmail * |
| login | login with your google account * | ||
| logout | log out of goosh * |
- Enter green commands without parameters to change default mode.
- Anything that’s not a command will search in current default mode.
- Aliases will expand to commands. Numbers will expand to corresponding search results.
- Use cursor up and down for command history.
- Enter keyword and hit the tab-key for tab-completion.
- Commands marked with * are experimental, use them with care and please report any bugs.
Site: http://goosh.org
Project site: http://code.google.com/p/goosh/
FFmpeg now has the fastest VP8 decoder – ffvp8
The whole story began after the VP8 codec was opened by Google. Soon after its release, Jason Garrett-Glaser, a x264 and ffmpeg developer, came up with a highly extensive review of the codec. And in his technical review, he mentioned that the VP8 decoder is slow as compared to H.264, pointed out some of its weaknesses and also said that VP8 copies too much from H.264 for ease and because of this, the codec could be susceptible to patent issues.
That's when he teamed up with Ronald Bultje and David Conrad to come up with a community-developed and completely free decoder for FFmpeg, ffvp8.
Don't you just love OpenSouce devlopers 
.
In a blog post, Jason told that after a few weeks of work the new FFmpeg decoder, ffvp8 is "bit exact" with the official VP8 decoder, libvpx. And surprisingly, after only the first round of optimizations, it shows dramatic performance improvements over libvpx.
They used two 1080p video clips to test the two decoders along with the latest revision of FFmpeg from SVN. Even the developers are suprised to see it performing better than libvpx on all different systems, especially on ATOM processors, for which they haven't even started optimizing 
.
A number of optimizations are still to come and based upon its performance, once released, ffvp8 is definitely going to be used by a number of multimedia applications and probably the browsers too.
Open Letter from a Microsoft Share Holder
Dear Microsoft,
I am a shareholder of your company. The world is still waiting for your Q4 FY2010 report so that we will know how much money you made as of June 30, 2010. We are all on Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein’s schedule. Mr. Klein, you rival Red Hat posted their FY 2010 report, what is the hold up?
Since I have yet to receive a personal invitation to your shareholders meeting on July 29, 2010. I have several more questions for Microsoft which I will ask from here. I welcome any answers from leadership or the floor.
What is your mobile strategy in a post-PC world? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may try to deny it. The fact is that PC desktop sales have been on a decline, 23% down as of last year. Bill Gates has nothing to do with the day-to-day anymore and it shows.
Your attempt to reach the youth via smart phones was an epic failure. KIN has been pulled by Verizon in a matter of weeks. Anonymous purported employees claimed that the IP you bought acquiring Danger are now wasted and call it as embarrassing as Microsoft Bob. Joe Wilcox correctly predicted Kin’s failure as you fired the leadership of the Entertainment and Devices division just before the Kin product launch. I too predicted in November 2009 that Kin, then code-named “Pink,” would not live up to Mr. Ballmer’s nor Mr. Gates’ vision. How could releasing the Kin under the circumstances be profitable? Why would anybody buy a Kin? Android and the iPhone have cameras, Facebook, Twitter, and more… how could you proceed into the market with less?!? Sure you can say I don’t get it because I am not a teenager but still how can you make a social phone without a calendar? Sorry, the Microsoft brand does not equal cool with whatever crowd you expected to buy Kin.
You bought the wrong smartphone IP. Last year bloggers advised you to buy Palm for their Linux-based WebOS, but you let that HP beat you to it. Now HP plans to ditch Microsoft for WebOS on tablets netting a double loss for you. There goes Mr. Ballmer’s iPad killer. Your excuses come from Mr. Klein who complains that tech mergers are hard to do. Is this fiscal leadership?
With all of the Kin ads you bought, did you once stop to notice that Windows Mobile lost market share to Google Android Linux? Developers are not chomping at the bit to write apps for Windows 7 Mobile but they were so eager to do so for Apple that WWDC2010 sold out. Developers favor Android over Apple’s iPhone OS which makes any platform you put together a third class even before product launch.
What is next, Microsoft, yet another round of layoffs? No wonder Business Insider is saying “Microsoft’s Business Could Collapse in 2010.” First Google ditches Windows on security concerns. Next, IBM names Firefox its web browser standard. Microsoft apologist, Ina Fried reports that Microsoft is now forced to offer no-cost Office options in order to compete with OpenOffice.Org and Google Docs. How does firing people now help you make products that actually sell?
Microsoft, I can not say I did not warn you as I have been warning you of your demise here at whatwillweuse.com. I do not stand alone as Computer World is ready to admit: Linux could become the world’s most popular operating system. Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft, you will lack majority market share. What are you going to do about it?
Sincerely,
Beth Lynn Eicher
Apple’s Safari on iOS4 is miles behind Android 2.2′s web browser in Javascript Race
Based on pure Javascript tests conducted by ArsTechnica to compare the recently released Android 2.2 and iOS4, results show some great performance by the Android browser. The credit goes to the new JIT engine in Froyo which has heavily optimized the browser.
The test were conducted on Android 2.2 running on Nexus one and Apple's Safari running on iPhone4, powered by iOS4. Two benchmarks were used to compare the results - Sunspider, where Javascript execution on Android proved to be twice as fast as iPhone4 and V8 where Android was three times faster.
As we can see, Google has done some sensational job with Android 2.2. Chrome has always been a good peformer at browser benchmarks and Google has maintained its reputation with the mobile browser too.
(via Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks)
UPDATE: In another similar test, Meego was found to be ahead of Android.
Google another step closer to Chrome OS with Device Orientation Plumbing
So, the Developers are working on this device orientation technology, using which the browser will understand how the device is behind held. This technology, Device Orientation Plumbing, is being built in the webkit engine which powers Chrome and Safari. I don't think the primary aim of inclusion is to make sure if you are able to read properly while your tablet/laptop/mobile is tilted, but this will give a boon to online gaming.
Imagine driving a car by using your mobile phone/tablet as a stearing or playing some kind of game involving rolling marbles on your browser. Note carefully, I am talking about the browser here. Although Firefox 3.6 supports the orientation technology, it has hardly been used(Please let me know if anyone has utilitized this capability).
An interesting thing to note is that this brings Google's dream of making a complete browser based operating system another step closer. Hardware acceleration is now available for the Browsers(Remember the quake II for browsers using WebGL and HTML5?). So, when you think about it, if bandwidth is not an issue, online gaming could reach a whole new level using these technologies.
Google already has an excellent cloud computing infrastructure, a lot of native APIs are being made available to browsers and with web technologies improving at a good pace - HTML5, CSS3 etc. Google placing its bet on cloud orientation looks like a good move now.
What will I buy?
Regardless of what Darryl the Microsoft fanbody VMS developer from Australia does, I bought stocks celebrate the wonderful success of What Will We Use.
What Did I Buy
20 shares of ARMH- the low-power microprocessor behind Apple iPhone 4 and most Google Android phones. Since they are positioning to bring netbooks and thin-clients running Ubuntu and/or Google’s ChromeOS/Android, ARM processors will kill the PC. Microsoft will regret their decision not to support ARM on Windows 7.
7 shares of RHT- the Linux distributor Red Hat already has impressive enterprise server market share. As applications shift to the “software as a service” model, Red Hat will profit as green penny pinching IT managers look to the cloud. With their entrance to the virtualization market, they will capitalize on customers who want a single finger to point. Virtualization competitors Citrix and VMware do not make a guest-level OS, putting Red Hat at the cloud market advantage.
1 share MFST- the software giant is imploding yet I bought a single share. I welcome Microsoft’s glossy pamphlets which deny the epic failure that is afoot.
What we will buy affects what we will use.
A year from today Microsoft will lack a majority market share.
One year ago at the South East LinuxFest, I, Beth Lynn Eicher indulged in a friendly bet with my friend Nick. “Ubuntu’s Bug One will be resolved in 24 months,” I said. “I’ll bet you $20 that bug one is not resolved in 24 months… but I hope I use.” I said, “You are on!” For those just joining us, “bug one” is “Microsoft will lose majority market share” which was first issue reported by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical – the company behind the GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu.
I started this blog to keep personal notes of what exactly is Microsoft’s market share. Never did I ever expect a crowd of 28,460 unique visitors to care about what will we use when Microsoft has a minority market share. Thank you all for making me the tribal user of What Will We Use where we watch Microsoft’s market share until FY 2011 close.
First I defined where Microsoft claimed to have a majority market share.Then Nick and I agreed to watch w3counter’s market share reports.
There were only 3 which held any merit as of June 2009: Desktops, Browsers, and Office Suites.
How are we doing one year into it?
1. Desktop Operating Systems
In the past twelve months Windows market share went from 88.09% to 83.11%. The Windows XP product, which continues to hold the largest market share went from 69.74% to 49.95% of the total desktop operating system market share. The trend is showing as people divest from older Microsoft technologies, they do not “upgrade” to Windows Vista or Windows 7.
The next 12 months will bring a new breed of tablets and notebooks which will run Ubuntu on ARM. These will sell like hot cakes so that people can watch Google’s youtube and play games of Facebook. The desktop is over, even in the corporate sector.
Here’s the dirty secret behind this mind-boggling growth — and the two words that will put an end to the party
IT consulting firm IDC reports that every dollar a company spends on a Microsoft product results in an additional $8 of IT expenses.
And one IT expert admits, “Trillions of dollars that companies have invested into information technology have gone to waste.”
Yet, companies have had no choice but to run these obscenely expensive and highly inefficient networks.
But that’s all about to change…
And that’s precisely why the two words “cloud computing” scare the hell out of Bill Gates.
…
And Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, has even written an entire book on the subject, entitled The Big Switch. In it, he asserts: “The PC age is giving way to a new era: the utility age.”
He goes on to make this prediction: “Rendered obsolete, the traditional PC is replaced by a simple terminal — a ‘thin client’ that’s little more than a monitor hooked up to the Internet.”
While that may sound far-fetched, in the corporate market, sales of these “thin clients” have been growing at over 20 percent per year — far outpacing the sales of PCs.
According to market-research firm IDC, the U.S. is now home to more than 7,000 data centers just like the one constructed on the banks of the Columbia River in 2005.
And the number of servers operating within these massive data centers is expected to grow to nearly 16 million by 2010 — that’s three times as many as a decade ago.
quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called
The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…
Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world
“
2. Web Browsers
In the past twelve months Internet Explorer went from 57.6% to 45.7%. As far as Nick and I are concerned, this one is won in my favor. It is still fun to watch low low can Microsoft go? Google’s decision to turn off youtube.com support for older browsers was a fatal blow for IE6. All market share browser counters show Microsoft hemorrhaging market share. In June 30, 2011. IE9 will not save Microsoft since they have decided to not support it on Windows XP. Since Microsoft’s key operating system user demographic is XP, turning their back on their legacy customers will be the last straw. Seriously, how many people are going to buy a new PC just to run a proprietary web browser when Firefox and Chrome are free?
3. Office Suites
It is very possible I have this one won too. Last month I proposed to Nick that we use Oracle’s OpenOffice.Org download figures to count as missed profit opportunity. As of the time of this post OpenOffice.Org 3.x has 159,894,085 downloads which represents $55,962,929,750 loss. That’s Almost 56 MILLION dollars that Microsoft coulda-shoulda-woulda had. Will Microsoft make that level of profits in their business software division come FY2011 market share reports?
Meanwhile, Google Apps continues to pick up market share with their Microsoft Exchange migration tool…
Over 500,000 companies — including GE [NYSE: GE] and Procter & Gamble [NYSE: PG] — have already signed up for Google Apps.
This grab bag of business applications can be purchased and run over the Web for just $50 per year and is just one of many Google products now giving Microsoft a run for its money.
Considering that Google Apps costs just one-tenth of what a traditional business software suite does, it’s no surprise that more than 2,000 businesses are signing up per day.
quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called
The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…
Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world
Microsoft’s Sharepoint product which is heavily tied to Microsoft Office 2007 is not for long either. Customers seeking to use free software to manage their intra-net content can do so with Alfresco. They’ll even help you migrate.
I am as confident as ever in my assertion.
Yes indeed Bug One will be RESOLVED.
Nick will pay me $20.
We will win the war. We are at war with Microsoft. We have always been at war with Microsoft. Come June 30, 2011 Microsoft will lose majority market share.
Gift of a desktop Part 2
I happen to live in a pretty nice part of the world. Food and clean water are ample. Most households have electricity and broadband Internet. A child’s exposure to technology should never be predicated on an ability to pay for it. Most Americans would agree with that but have no idea how to help. We get too rapped up in taking care of “me and mine” and “out Jonesing the Joneses.” We buy too much stuff and when our homes fill up with clutter we just put things out on the curb. I went to a yard sale this weekend were they attempted to sell a television for $5. Heck, you can not get a value meal at McDonnald’s for that much anymore. Nobody bought the television so it just went out to the curb where it was rained on before anybody could claim it as free goods.
wasted
Just next door to the yard sale lived a friend of mine. She is a single mom and she was desperate. Her desktop would keep hanging and she was convinced she had a virus. She was using Windows after all. My friend had called the company who made the computer and the broadband provider. The company who made the computer would not talk to her because the computer was out of warranty. The broadband provider sent a tech to her home who fuddled around with her system but did not fix it. Instead the tech advised that she keep the computer off their network since it may have a virus. A mutual friend gave her a Ubuntu CD but she feared that the computer was too far gone. Her desktop, despite not having the cash to buy another one, was about to sit right next to that television.
She was hopeless because not only will her home be suddenly desktop-less, she was about to lose her documents and pictures. These bits were far beyond sentiment to her; they were her livelihood as a freelancer. Mother and daughter were asking themselves the question, “If we junk this computer, what will we use?” I told them, do not fear, this can be fixed by Linux.
I booted the system with the Ubuntu live CD. There was about 6 GB of original work to backup. Moreover, we were up against a dying hard drive. As I traversed the hard drive looking for good bits, the computer was trying i/o errors. I had to leave her home, go to the store to pick up a USB key and new hard drive. Out of pocket cost, minus the gas, was $65.
After backing up the hard drive, I asked my friend if she would like to replace the hard drive herself. Never seeing inside a computer, she was reluctant but I told her that I would be there the entire time. Once we cracked the case, she was more bold. Now knowing this computer was all-but-a-goner like the television hours previous, she slid the new hard drive in its place. While we were in there, I put in some spare memory I bought in a lot on ebay. As a reward, I gave her a t-shirt I bought at the Zareason booth at the SouthEast LinuxFest. Indeed, friends help friends use Linux. Out of pocket cost now up to $85.
Fixed by Linux
Now my friend uses a desktop with a newer disk, double the memory, and absolutely no viruses. She could not be happier. Was she asking for “Internet Explorer” or “Microsoft Office?” Nope. She was already using Firefox and OpenOffice.Org on her desktop before the disk failures and viruses showed up. There was absolutely no panicked questions like “If I can not use Microsoft software on Ubuntu, what will we use?”
Skeptics of my story and the premise for this blog “Microsoft will lose majority market share come June 30, 2011″ may say, “Beth Lynn, you are just one idealistic geek, you can not free the world with open source software.” To the contrary, I say, the Linux community steps up against poverty, not just proprietary software.
Maddog and Me at SouthEast LinuxFest 2010
Take Maddog for example. This man was a system administrator, like me. When he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a too-big-to-fail mega corporation, he told everyone that UNIX was dying and “Linux is inevitable!” They laughed at him but since he did a lot of favors for people he had enough gift-economy credits to convince folks to gift a computer to some college kid in Finland. Who was this boy genius who promised to replace the UNIX operating system this DEC computer ran with free software he helped write himself? Linus Tourvalds.
Maddog could retired with the gift of that one desktop as the feather in his cap. Instead he has dedicated his career to spreading the word about free software since then. Indeed, Linux is International.
Today he is in Brazil, and promises to deliver 70 MILLION systems with a business plan centered around Linux Terminal Server Project consoles.
Don’t believe it because you did not see it on television? Well, nobody watches television anymore. Instead we watch Google’s youtube.
Come June 30, 2011 Microsoft will be like television.
