Tag Archives: microsoft

Will Microsoft buy RIM or Nokia?

January 15, 2012 – 8:15 pm

TweetWe continue along the lines of last week’s Monday Note kriegsspiel with the latest speculation Will Microsoft, at long last, buy RIM? The idea has been kicked around for at least five years: Days after the iPhone’s introduction in January 2007, Seeking Alpha suggested that the Xbox maker ought to buy RIM in order to [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, mobile internet | Also tagged , , | Comments (13)

2011: Shift Happens

December 18, 2011 – 10:59 pm

TweetWhatever 2011 was, it wasn’t The Year Of The Incumbent. The high-tech world has never seen the ground shift under so many established companies. This causes afflicted CEOs to exhibit the usual symptoms of disorientation: reorg spams, mindless muttering of old mantras and, in more severe cases, speaking in tongues, using secret language known only [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments (10)

Ballmer’s latest acquisition

May 15, 2011 – 8:49 pm

TweetIn a bold move, Microsoft acquires Nokia and catapults itself to the top of the smartphone world. The full integration of Windows Phone 7 software into Nokia hardware will result in a better user experience for customers, a zero-fragmentation platform for developers, easier deployment of a smaller number of SKUs for retailers, and more reliable [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in software | Also tagged , | Comments (34)

Mobile World Clusterf#^k — 2011 Edition

February 20, 2011 – 2:50 pm

TweetPlus ça change…et plus. We are at this year’s Mobile World Congress, held last week in Barcelona. One of the usual suspects, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, stands and delivers the new and improved party line: App Stores are bad. Stephenson wants cross-platform apps delivered through the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), whose “commercial launch’’ takes place [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in software | Also tagged | Comments (5)

Turning Points

November 8, 2010 – 12:34 am

TweetOnce upon a time, Microsoft reigned supreme, they were IBM 2.0, having wrestled control of the PC from Big Blue. According to some critics, Microsoft took over the office application market through a combination of embrace, extend, and extinguish and tied sales. The MS M.O. followed this trajectory: First, Bill Gates and his troops would [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in software | Comments (5)

The Apple Licensing Myth

January 17, 2010 – 7:46 pm

TweetLegends die hard. In the pre-Web days, they got printed and reprinted, told and retold and so became official, like spinach being good for you because it held the iron your red cells needed. After decades of the disgusting veggie inflicted upon young kids – I remember, a scientist went back to the bench and [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, software | Also tagged , | Comments (21)

The Trojan Horse: Web Apps

July 18, 2009 – 1:03 pm

TweetWeb Apps are the future: modern, light, run and updated in the Cloud, they will progressively replace the antiquated, bloated, expensive to buy and manage desktop “client” applications. So says Google. And walking the talk, they put their Google Apps against the reigning champion of desktop applications: Microsoft Office. Microsoft never gives up and, as [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, software | Also tagged , | Comments (6)

Google OS: Chrome-Plated Linux or Microsoft 2.0?

July 12, 2009 – 7:39 pm

TweetHere’s what I think its taking place: Microsoft executives and Board members are no dummies: they know Cloud Computing threatens the Windows + Office + Exchange gold mine, the biggest in our industry’s history. They know the future is Office + Exchange running in dual-mode. From the Cloud when a Net connection is available; locally [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, software | Also tagged , , , | Comments (16)

Web video: Microsoft, Adobe or HTML 5?

June 28, 2009 – 8:59 pm

TweetWe have yet another standards battle on our hands — you might say screens, as it concerns Web video. Or we might watch our wallets, as the fight is about who gets the biggest share of the money spent delivering multimedia on our computers, smartphones and, soon, TVs. My money is on HTML 5, co-opted [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in software | Also tagged , , | Comments (15)

The New Papyrus

May 10, 2009 – 12:36 pm

TweetOnce upon a time, in 1986, Bill Gates commissioned a book, The New Papyrus, subtitled: The Current and Future State of the Art. I recall an animated conversation with Bill as we were having dinner on top of Seattle’s Space Needle. He was hard at work promoting the CDI, the interactive CD and pushing Japanese [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in online publishing | Comments (5)