Yahoo was right to turn down Microsoft offer

It hasn't been a banner year for Yahoo. It started off with an unsolicited acquisition bid for billions of dollars by the Internet's biggest villain, Microsoft, then was followed by some of the company's smartest talent abandoning ship en masse.

Despite what the market may suggest, Yahoo was wise to reject the Microsoft offer. Microsoft's interest in Yahoo was, for the most part, to acquire its market share in search and online advertising — a segment currently dominated by Google.

Microsoft, unfortunately, still sees Yahoo for what it was during its adolescence: a search company. Through acquisitions and internal development, Yahoo has outgrown its roots and is becoming more a content company than a competitor to Google.

Unlike Google, Yahoo's sports and news sites are full of original content from a host of writers. The sports site in particular has been nipping at the heels of ESPN.com in recent months with key writer acquisitions and breaking news stories.

Beyond the homegrown sports site, Yahoo has excelled at acquiring popular, name-brand content services. One of the early acquisitions of the Web 2.0 era was of delicious.com. Delicious is a social bookmarking site that is used around the world to share interesting sites with friends and colleagues.

In 2005, Yahoo acquired photo sharing site Flickr — a groundbreaking photography site with sharing and interactivity features. Beyond just putting photos you snapped online for others to see, Flickr allowed users to comment, annotate and share the photos via their personal weblogs. This integration helped solidify Flickr's place as the dominant photography site for amateurs and professionals alike.

There is little doubt that Yahoo is great at building communities. With such a far-reaching set of content sites under its umbrella, it is unimaginable how Microsoft or any other suitor would be able to embrace these established communities in the same way Yahoo has in the past.

Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo is akin to taking the drumstick, your favorite piece of the chicken, and then throwing out the rest because it's not really tasty to you. You're interested only in ensuring that your archrival doesn't get the drumstick before you do.

Companies evolve over time. If they don't, they become the next Altavista: irrelevant.

Rather than trying to stay relevant in a market where you've been outdone (search and advertising), focus on where you are excelling above and beyond your competition, and smile each month as you deposit Google's advertising check.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. Readers may send him e-mail at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press.

Vista is the future; time to just let XP go

Microsoft plans to discontinue sales of Windows XP on new computers on June 30, completing the company's transition to Windows Vista. The end of the XP era was originally planned for late 2007, but Microsoft gave its old operating system a stay of execution after listening to feedback from consumers and industry partners.

InfoWorld, a technology industry publication, is hosting a petition that allows consumers to pledge their support for Windows XP being sold beyond June. At press, more than 111,000 people have signed it.

Microsoft will continue providing tech support for XP through April 2009 and security updates through 2014. The significance of the June 30 deadline is that anyone purchasing a machine from Dell, HP or any other major manufacturer will be forced to adopt Windows Vista as the operating system.

I assure you, it won't hurt.

It's frustrating to read other technology columnists and magazines recommending that consumers keep installing XP on their new machines. XP was released in October 2001. As a point of reference, the original iPod was released in the same month.

The first generation iPod had 5 gigabytes of storage, a black-and-white video screen and was as thick as a pack of cigarettes. Today, it's much thinner and has 160GB of storage. Or, you can buy the more advanced iPhone.

The amount of innovation between Vista and XP is no less. Vista introduced improved search and browsing support in the Windows shell, improved stability and sidebar Gadgets. More important than the superficial updates, Vista is a more secure system than XP, which can help reduce malware and viruses.

Vista is the foundation for the future of Windows-based computing. Recommending to someone purchasing a new computer, one that he plans to use for the next three to five years, to install XP is irresponsible.

One of the main arguments against Vista is its speed compared with XP. Most PCs shipping today are built with a minimum of 1GB of memory and a graphics card capable of running all the bells and whistles offered by Vista. XP will run faster on these machines, but only because it was designed for machines running on 2001 hardware. Pentium 4, anyone?

Others argue that Vista isn't compatible with all printers and third-party accessories purchased in the past decade. Look at it as an opportunity to upgrade your antiquated hardware with the latest offerings.

If you're still using a peripheral that doesn't connect via USB, it's time to send it to the recycling center.

For those who remember, the jump from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was just as substantial. We all survived then, and I promise we will get through Vista together.

Vista is not without its flaws, but it's not the worst operating system Microsoft has ever released (I'm looking at you, Windows Millennium).

If you are purchasing a new machine, stop fretting over Vista and start embracing it.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in The Evansville Courier & Press

Price cut is just a start in repairing Vista image

Microsoft has announced price cuts for versions of its Windows Vista operating system. They are planned to go into effect with the release of Service Pack 1 later this month and will be applied to Vista Premium ($129 instead of $159) and Vista Ultimate ($219 instead of $299).

The cuts are the latest attempt by Microsoft to improve sales of the much-maligned OS. After many delays, Vista shipped in January 2007 to subpar reviews and a plague of compatibility problems.

One user uploaded a video to YouTube showing him putting Vista into a paper shredder after he was unable to install it on his new PC.

"It is the only machine I can successfully load it into," he said.

A year later, local computer shops are offering to downgrade new computers from Vista to Microsoft's previous offering, Windows XP. While downgrading a new machine from Vista to XP is unwise, I can understand the sentiment.

If Microsoft wants to repair Vista's image, a price cut is only the start. The entire Vista product line is confusing. Microsoft needs to consolidate to a single version. Currently, there are four versions of Vista with varying features and prices.

Computers are complicated enough without having to approach purchasing an operating system as if selecting an options package on a car. A single version of Vista with every feature enabled would cut down on the confusion and put all users on a level playing field.

Microsoft also needs to ensure that Service Pack 1 is a solid release, resolving many of the major complaints users have had with Vista's poor networking support, confusing user account management and slow performance.

More important than trying to repair the relationship users have with Vista, Microsoft needs to ensure that Windows 7, the next version of Windows, is a home run.

Hiring an all-star team to focus on improving the user experience of Windows going forward should be the priority. Ensuring that anyone can use the new operating system out of the box without having to consult a manual is key.

Microsoft also should remove all traces of legacy support in Windows 7. Vista has the ability to run software that was developed for Windows 95 and DOS.

There's no reason someone should expect software they purchased 13 years ago to work on a new machine. Rather than trying to embrace the past, put those resources toward improving the user's experience going forward.

If the next version of Windows is as big of a dud out of the gate as Vista, you can guarantee that Apple's market share will continue to rise and Microsoft will have something other than Google to worry about.

Justin Williams, a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press

Yahoo bid is Microsoft effort to stay relevant

A $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo is Microsoft's latest attempt to keep itself relevant in the new Internet economy and puts to bed any speculation on whether it is scared of Google's success. It is terrified.

The 1990s were good to Microsoft. It spent the decade being the darling of the tech industry and revolutionized how we used computers with Windows and Microsoft Office. The delays and lack of success of Windows Vista were some of the first signs that Microsoft isn't what it used to be.

The Internet has defined this decade, and Google has dominated. The dominance began when Google took over as the de facto search destination over Yahoo and AltaVista and has been followed up with its successes in the online advertising space.

Online advertising is a $20 billion-a-year business, and where Google has amassed most of its fortune. Beyond just offering advertising in its search results and on other properties, such as Gmail, it allows third-party publishers to embed Google Ads on their sites and share the revenue.

With more software becoming Web-based instead of desktop-based, Microsoft has tried tried to for years to gain a piece of the online advertising pie. It has sunk billions of dollars into various incarnations of MSN Search and its own online advertising solutions, but it has little market share to show for it.

Rather than innovate, it seems the new mantra in Redmond is to just throw money at successful properties and hope to piggyback on their success. Microsoft recently made a $240 million investment in Facebook, the popular online social network that makes them an exclusive advertising partner on the site. While the deal was a win for Facebook, it's done little to improve Microsoft's stature.

By purchasing Yahoo and its search and advertising market share, Microsoft would become an instant No. 2 behind Google and gain instant credibility where it has previously just grasped at straws.

I have little doubt that Microsoft will pursue the deal whether Yahoo comes on board willingly or not. Sources inside Yahoo told Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal that Microsoft made its offer after Yahoo's dismal quarterly earnings report.

The offer came with a note that the company had 48 hours to respond or Microsoft would go public with it. When Yahoo balked at the heavy-handed tactic, Microsoft went public.

Yahoo does have some recourse if Microsoft were to attempt a hostile takeover. Sources claim that Yahoo's main rival, Google, has stepped forward and offered to form an alliance between the two companies as a way to rebuff Microsoft's acquisition attempts.

Microsoft's attempts at claiming a piece of the search and advertising space through innovation have seemingly failed. So, $44.6 billion is the only way it can think of to gain ground in a market now dominated by their biggest competitor, Google.

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press

iWork introduces easy-to-use, worthwhile updates

Last week Apple released its latest update to its iWork personal productivity suite, featuring new versions of its Pages and Keynote word processing and presentation applications, as well as introducing a new spreadsheet application called Numbers.

Pages is Apple's word processing and publishing application that meshes the best of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher into a single application. Pages comes with more than 140 templates to quickly create things such as a resume, garage-sale flier or course syllabus. Pages also includes native support for Word's change tracking, which is key for anyone who has ever collaborated on a Word document.

Keynote, Apple's answer to Microsoft PowerPoint, outshines its competition in every category. Keynote was initially built because of Apple CEO Steve Jobs's disdain for having to use PowerPoint during his presentations. Keynote's text handling is second to none, and its fluid slide transitions will make your PowerPoint-using brethren beyond jealous.

Keynote is the finest Mac application ever created. It has a beautiful, intuitive interface that is easy for the most novice Mac user to get started with, but also powerful enough to cater to more advanced presentation creators.

This year's revision of iWork introduced Apple's Excel challenger, Numbers. Numbers makes working with spreadsheets more accessible to regular people.

Numbers is compatible with Excel and its classic workflows, but more interesting than that is how Numbers breaks the paradigm of a spreadsheet being nothing but a matrix of rows and columns.

Numbers lets you create multiple resizable spreadsheet tables on a flexible canvas. Like the other iWork applications, Apple includes dozens of useful and attractive templates to quickly accomplish common tasks such as tracking expenses, generating invoices or building an A-plus science lab report.

With its latest update to the entire iWork suite, Apple has beaten Microsoft to the punch in having support for the new Microsoft Office 2007 file format.

Microsoft doesn't plan to fully support the new file formats until they release Office 2008 for the Mac in January. They have released a file converter to help open Office 2007 documents on your Mac, but if you're working with documents all day, it's tedious.

The speed improvement iWork offers over Office 2004 for Intel Mac users is astounding.

Microsoft Office 2004 is the last remaining major application to not release an Intel-compatible version of their software, which means that it is still running in the painfully slow Rosetta emulation layer that let's Intel users run PowerPC (G4 & G5) versions of their software.

Competitively, iWork undercuts Office for anyone that is looking for an office suite to edit their personal documents, but isn't interested in shelling out $400 for a full version of Office 2004. Apple offers the full iWork 08 suite for just $79.

With each revision of Apple's office suite, it has come closer to being a direct competitor and alternative to Microsoft Office. Mac users have always been paranoid that Microsoft could wake up one day and decide to stop releasing new versions of Office for Mac OS X. With iWork 08, Apple has released a suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office, but more importantly matches the personal productivity needs for 95 percent of the Mac user base.

With iWork 08, Apple's message to Microsoft is loud and clear: Bring it on.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press

Caution is never watchword of fake CEOs

CEOs of multibillion-dollar companies are by their nature reserved with their comments.

Everything they say in public is analyzed and could have an effect on the company's stock price. A recent Internet trend is giving these CEOs a voice — even if they aren't the ones behind it. Anonymous writers have set up fake blogs for CEOs, musicians and even other writers to give readers a look into what the subject might be thinking but doesn't want to say.

One of the most popular (and entertaining) of these fake blogs is Fake Steve Jobs. While the real Steve Jobs is usually reserved in his public comments when being interviewed by the press over any of Apple's products, Fake Steve makes no qualms in declaring war on "Frigtard" journalists, discussing his personal meetings with Al Gore or U2 lead singer Bono, or using his platform to make fun of the first guy waiting in line for an iPhone last week.

He mocks the appearance of Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg by referring to him as Goatsberg and uses several posts to "hypnotize" the Apple faithful into believing everything coming from Apple is glorious and without fault.

Fake Steve Jobs isn't the only CEO with an anonymous alter-ego. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has also become the target of the Fake Steve Ballmer blog. Ballmer's weblog discusses his relationship with Bill Gates, attacks the anti-Microsoft media and pan Apple's iPhone. Fake Ballmer's blog doesn't have nearly the popularity and traction of the Fake Jobs blog, however.

Fake Steve's diatribes have become water cooler talk in the offices of many technology firms in Silicon Valley and among other bloggers. In a recent poll conducted by Business 2.0 magazine, Fake Steve Jobs ranked No. 1 in a poll of the most inspiring, informative and infuriating tech media stars. Real Steve Jobs came in at No. 3.

More impressive than the comments of other bloggers and pundits is the discussion about Fake Steve's site between the real Steve Jobs and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at last month's D Conference in New York. Jobs announced that he was a reader of his false counterpart's writings and found them funny. Gates also made a public announcement that he was not the writer of Fake Steve's blog.

Fake Steve Jobs recently signed a deal with De Capo Press to publish his book, "Options," in October. The title is a nod toward the stock options scandal Apple and real Steve Jobs were involved in during the first half of 2007. In his book, Fake Steve plans to have his cross hairs on Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the U.S. government that made his real-life counterpart's life hell for so many months.These fake weblogs are the high-tech equivalent of a George Bush parody on "Saturday Night Live."

Part of the allure of these types of blogs is the mystery and intrigue behind not knowing who is actually penning the material. Whether Fake Steve Jobs will have the same traction when he is eventually unmasked remains to be seen.

Until then, namaste, Fake Steve. Namaste.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in Evansville Courier & Press