Wired’s Michael Calore says that Adobe might be working on an office application suite to combat Microsoft Office. Over the last few years, Adobe has cemented itself as an application powerhouse, with creative works applications (Photoshop, Creative Suite, Production Studio) and online creative apps (Flash, Dreamweaver), and the time might be right to challenge the big dog in the application space: Office.
No one has mounted a formidable attack on Microsoft in many years. Currently, the only real competition Microsoft faces are from web-based and open source office applications, while former desktop competitors wilt away. The article says Adobe could use its Adobe Integrated Runtime to create web-based apps that also run when the user is offline, leaping past Google’s limited suite to take on Microsoft.
Right now, Google has the most attention in the online office space, but Google’s applications are limited, don’t look very good, and don’t work offline. Even though Google has a framework for running online applications offline, it hasn’t implemented it in Google Docs yet, so the market is open for Adobe to make a big splash. There’s room for a more mature package in this market, and Adobe could fill it.
Don’t forget something: Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure is coming, and when it does, it may fill that online office void in a unique and innovative. I fully expect it to.
(via Slashdot)
August 16th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Live, Adobe, Office, Google, Windows, Applications |
one comment
Ask anyone who regularly downloads movies, software and music without paying for any of it. Ask them what they find to be cheaper, Microsoft Windows or Linux. If they really think about it, they’ll tell you that Windows is cheaper, because both of them are free, and free Windows is coming in at a huge discount.
The fact of the matter is that, in the home, software piracy is rampant. It’s why software that sells to businesses continues to grow (Office, Adobe Creative Suite) while games sales keep dropping and Microsoft Works is given away for free. So many people use file sharing networks, get copies from a friend, or even buy $400 computers pre-loaded with thousands of dollars of software. They view it as a way of life.
Dave Gutteridge has a great article titled Windows is Free explaining how Linux has a practically impossible time competing with Windows because anyone who’d switch on price can just pirate Windows. For many home users, Windows is as free as Linux, and from a cost/benefit position, Windows is cheaper.
Does Microsoft condone piracy? Not in a public way, of course, but supposedly it’s really easy to pirate even Windows Vista (haven’t tried yet, I got a copy through official channels), and that should tell you enough. There has to be an impenetrable means of protecting Windows, but Microsoft, the biggest software company on the planet, hasn’t found it yet? Not only isn’t it a priority, but if Windows piracy were too difficult or impossible, Microsoft would be handing users to Linux.
Look at Microsoft literature on Windows Geniune Advantage. It isn’t about watching your kids, not using CD-Rs, avoiding file sharing networks, and stopping personal piracy. No, Microsoft warns against retailers that pre-load PCs with counterfeit copies of Windows, investigates and raids warehouses filled with thousands of pirated Vista CDs, and pretty much focuses on piracy cartels, not users.
Honestly, if you didn’t have the money, would you pirate Windows? If you did have the money, would you pirate it anyway, either for political reasons, out of laziness, or just because you never buy software? My current laptop came with Windows XP Media Center, and the first thing I did when I got it was download Office 2003. Earlier this year, I received a copy of Windows Vista and Office 2007, paid for at a reduced rate but bought legally from Microsoft for review purposes.
I didn’t pirate my current software, but I can’t say I wouldn’t have if I had to buy it full price. If I felt truly guilty (get some friends at Microsoft, then try pirating; it’s not so easy), I’d buy the OEM version of Vista off Newegg, but I’d certainly download Office, considering that the version I needed cost as much as four electric bills, and I need to pay my damn electric bill.
I can’t say I like piracy. I know how hard people work to make the software, and I’d hate to see them suffer in poverty (even though that’s a gross over-dramatization, it’s how I feel, not what I know). I am so grateful that I can give away my content for free, supported by advertising, but that option isn’t available to everyone.
Thankfully for everyone, piracy makes sense from a competitive standpoint. If Microsoft wants to keep its lead as an operating system maker, it needs piracy to discourage use of Linux, and increase the enormous gulf between the cost of Windows and the cost of Mac OS. In a perfect world for Microsoft, Microsoft has its operating system installed on every single computer, and Microsoft gets paid for it as much as the market will bear. Thanks to piracy, that is actually possible.
(via Slashdot)
Images from Flickr under Creative Commons by PixEmonkey, robotson, c3o, Irman Fauzi and Interrobang
August 16th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Linux, Windows, General |
3 comments
Three Xbox Live stories today:
Some great stats released on Xbox Live Arcade, showing the top titles under different criteria, including the top earners, the growth of the Arcade over time, and the long tail of the typical game, as sales drop off but continue consistently almost forever. Check out the article for all the charts, or click the image above.
Microsoft is starting to open up Xbox Live to third parties, creating the Xbox Live Server Platform so other companies can host and deliver content to Xbox Live. Those companies would be able to do literally anything and everything, subject to those companies getting approved and accepting full responsibility for their content.
The server would allow companies to deliver user-generated maps and mods for games, host their own software and communications platforms, deliver massive multiplayer games under their own terms, pretty much anything. Just get access to the server platform from Microsoft, and companies can begin delivering their own Live platforms.
Interestingly, in order to make massive multiplayer games possible for the Xbox 360, Microsoft announced Monday it will allow publishers to release games with a label that says those games require a console with a hard drive. 20% of 360 owners don’t have a hard drive, so it’d be limiting the potential audience while expanding the type of game the 360 can support.
Finally, Microsoft is working towards opening a PC version of the Live Arcade, code-named Vega. This is something that’s been confirmed by the company and is projected to launch in November with 10-20 games. Game developers will get the increased promotion from Microsoft on places like MSN and Xbox.com, and Microsoft will get to keep 40% of all game sales.
Games will cost similar to what they cost on Xbox Live, $5-30, and will be limited to 150 megabytes, so they may have actually found a way to port Xbox Live games to Windows. We’ll have to see what this one looks like in the end, and if the deal is good enough to be worth it for publishers. 40% seems like a lot, but I’m pretty sure that 60% is more than most developers usually get to keep.
August 16th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Xbox Live, Xbox 360, Xbox, Windows |
no comments
Office 2007 Service Pack 1 has been released to a select group of testers. There’s no word on the fixes and possible features in the pack, but it’s great to see they’re far enough along for an SP. While Office programs don’t have the stability problems of Windows Vista, any improvement is a good thing, and it looks like we might be getting a perfect storm of service packs at the end of the year.
August 16th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Office, Applications |
one comment
Here’s another nice touch in Windows Vista. I was trying to install some updates to Outlook through Windows Update, which I think failed because I was running two installers at once. I didn’t know that, and I wondered how I was going to copy the error code from the Windows Update software in Windows Vista to Google the solution. I knew there was a trick for copying the text in dialog boxes, but this wasn’t a dialog, so I didn’t know what to do.
While it wasn’t obvious, I loved it when it worked. I just right-clicked, and damn if someone didn’t program Vista to know exactly what I needed. That’s a wonderful little help right there.
On a side note, I found out what was causing the popups some of you guys have been seeing. A line including an external stats counter, one I didn’t use, was included in some code for the bstats plugin I use to show the incoming search terms (among other things). The code was occasionally forcing through popups, but I caught it and killed it.
If the maker of this plugin is monetizing it by selling code to spammers, then color me disgusted and incensed. If it was a security violation, then I’ve got a whole other problem to deal with.
August 16th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Vista, Windows, Blogs |
3 comments
