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Most office types use Microsoft office because they have to, not because they want to. A Wired story confirms what I've long suspected. Forget Microsoft's other lines of business. Office alone is enormous. Microsoft "holds more than 90 percent of the business productivity software market." This results in more than $20 billion in annual sales.
20 billion.
That's all fine and dandy, but I'd still argue that the company's success with Windows
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If SharePoint was the bees' knees, then why did Microsoft just drop $1.2 billion on Yammer? Microsoft is all but admitting that its attempt at social software was, in a word, clunky. I've used SharePoint with some clients and, last time I checked, it required a good deal of setup. It's not web-based, begging-to-go-viral like Yammer. Simon Says: This isn't 1998 Look for JIVE Software and other social business platforms to benefit from Read More
Microsoft has launched Socl, a new social network. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, who needs another social network? After much initial fanfare, Google Plus seems to be a ghost town. And Bing isn't the Google-killer that Microsoft folks want it to be, despite the billions that the company has spent marketing it. On the other hand, the Age of the Platform is all about experimentation. What's more, search is going to get Read More
I'm sitting in a local Las Vegas library last night signing copies of the book. The guy who arranged the event has worked in libraries for twenty years and freely admits they haven't fundamentally changed. We start talking about what libraries need to do differently. After all, it's not hard to imagine a world without those vaunted institutions. It's not like you have to go to public libraries to find Read More
I get why they're doing it. Really. Google is integrated its well received Plus product into its general search results. The feature is called: Search, plus Your World (SPYW). Yes, it's easy to disable with a single click, but it just doesn't feel right. I could handle the "real-time search" feature, especially after Google couldn't gobble up Twitter. That made sense to me. On this one, though. I'm just not feeling it. Read More
These days, you can hardly go to a website without seeing integration with Facebook--specifically, that near ubiquitous Like button. But you won't find it on the main Google page (although "sharing" on Facebook via Google Reader is still possible). Interestingly, LinkedIn seems to have forged a partnership with Twitter--or at least seems to think that there's not sufficient overlap between the two services that including a "powered by Twitter" doesn't pose a major threat. Again, Read More
On Google+, Robert Scoble asks if Google has lost the business social war? He writes: I just walked down El Camino and noticed that I haven't seen a Google+ sign yet. This isn't the first time I have noticed this, either. Lots of TV shows talk about Twitter and Facebook but I haven't heard one yet say "circle us on Google+" That could explain why Google is doing TV ads: to get leverage to be Read More
Read my Inc. Magazine column: All About the Platform.
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