Google Voice Disconnected
I was using Grand Central long before Google bought them. Grand Central was an exciting concept as it brought advanced telephony features to existing phone services. You could not use Grand Central unless you already had a phone. Ater Google re-launched Grand Central post acquisition as Google Voice, the world was prepared for Google to [...]
The Corrosive Downside of Acquihires
For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. And to keep up with the Jones’s it seems that Yahoo! has now employed the same strategy. And who cares, right? A couple of tech giants throw millions [...]
Does the Internet really need a Delete Tool?
Does the Internet really need a Delete Tool? Every once in a while someone comes along with an idea that makes sense, but given the value of the data we put out there for governments, employers, and marketing folks, I don’t think a delete tool for the internet is going to happen. I am sure [...]
The Googrilla Grows
I recently published the Googrilla in the Midst which posits that the influence and impact of Google Apps is largely underappreciated and untapped by the UC community. We are reasonably confident that the cloud in general, and Google Apps specifically, will continue to grow. We also are sure that UC and VoIP have a bright future and [...]
Don’t Count Microsoft Out of the Public Cloud Race Just Yet
Microsoft this week announced the general availability of Azure Infrastructure Services. This marks a notable course correction for Microsoft, which initially provided Azure solely through a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model. While many market observers assume that public cloud IaaS in the enterprise is now a three horse race between Amazon AWS, Rackspace and Google, they may [...]
Not quite ready to live in the cloud
Google’s impressive Chromebook Pixel is just the latest in a series of devices which are trying to entice users to compute in a different way. With (almost) ubiquitous connectivity, and an increasing reliance upon web-based services for mail, calendars, document creation and more, might we be reaching a point at which the browser really can [...]
When Big Companies Can Kill You. And When They Can’t.
I remember every day, every moment, of both my start-ups with hyper-lucidity. But a few moments especially stand out. Those times when BigCo calls you up to their fancy office, and tells you they are going to enter your space and kill you. It happened to me twice at EchoSign. I’m not going to share [...]
Facebook needs to learn to manage scruffy neighborhoods to stay relevant
Facebook needs to learn to manage scruffy neighborhoods to stay relevant Not all of us live in or want to live in a PG-13 world. But the recent rash of shutdowns over perfectly normal behavior has me wondering how Facebook’s going to set a global standard for what the social media neighborhood looks like. Failbook, [...]
The Cloud Dissipation Problem
Google has decided to kill Reader. This is not the first time a product I use and value has been discontinued. I continue to use lots of products that were discontinued, such as my TV and car. The difference is my TV and car continue to work just fine. I can still get service, and [...]
Google Hacking Critical Infrastructure
This is where things on the internet get interesting. Google hacking critical infrastructure based on data from sites like ShodanHQ and others opens the door to further penetration of support systems. The more interesting part on this is that as these hacks were tested, the systems would only work well in Internet Explorer or relied [...]
What do you mean customers don’t know what they want?
If I’d asked customers what they want, they’d have said more convenience and relevance. Look familiar? I’ve riffed on that Henry Ford quote about faster horses, yada, yada. It’s not too far off from what customers would theoretically have been seeking in faster horses. I altered that quote to fit a modern day phenomenon: 3D [...]
Chartio Supporting Salesforce–Pretty for the Enterprise
Two themes I often talk about are specific functionality from specialist vendors and delivering enterprise solutions in new and friendly ways. A good example of this I came across recently was from small company Chartio. Chartio, a Y Combinator company, touts itself as the best interface for data. Essentially it allows organizations to take data [...]
Celebrity Engineers–Software’s Equivalent of Arts Patronage
Back in the days gone by, if you were part of the landed gentry, lording over your landholdings and the common folk who lived on said land, you’d look to becoming a patron of the arts as a way to ensure your name would live on after your death. While perhaps not a particularly sound [...]
Does it matter if you are popular on LinkedIn?
I am sure that some of us have gotten these really cool e-mails from Linkedin lately helping us put some kind of context around our relative popularity on the internet, or at least on the LinkedIn system. The problem is that being popular on LinkedIn does not matter to me at all. Sure the infographic [...]
New HP Printer Google Hack via Port3000
New HP Printer Google Hack via Port3000 Blogger Adam Howard over at Port3000 has found a very cool new Google Hack for finding unsecured HP Printers. A lot of these time out, but for those that work, the day gets interesting. You do need Java to make the admin screen work, and these seem to [...]
