Cannibalizing Office sales??Inevitable...

News about ad supported online version of MS Works has been making rounds on net today,though no official confirmation from Microsoft yet.Why MS Works??Why not Office itself??If it is ad supported,then MS should plan to roll out Word,Excel,Powerpoint online versions with basic functionalities.MS Works basically about home productivity that supports Word,Excel and first released for Mac as desktop application software back in 1985.I use Zoho,Google Docs actively.I use Ubuntu Linux and some times i depend on these online applications,though i use open office on desktop.

Microsoft's Office live service for SMBs doesn't provide online MS office service and the name is very much misleading.Recently MS management reaffirmed their support to Software plus service during company's annual financial analyst day.Ballmer promised click to run server based windows applications.Don't forget, MS earns $250M per week on MS office.So,i don't expect them to cannibalize it with online office suit soonly.

But the time has come now, 'coz Google docs adding 3500 SMB customers per day and the threat is growing for desktop based office.Zoho also adding customers left and right.I am sure that MS will jump into this online productivity market before its too late and recent initiative of online CRM to host business apps is a clear indication.If they roll out, it will be probably included as a part in live services pack.Its 250M windows live hot mail users can use those applications.MS also getting pressure from mainstream corporates to bring a click to run office service,which can be cost saving for corporates.I guess it takes at least one good year for MS before it settles down with its web strategy.Till then tweaks and betas.May be some acquisitions too.

Which company spending more on R&D

Today i was reading an article published by EDN about High-Tech R&D spenders Rankings.Here is the list compiled by Reed Business information (PDF).250 companies covered in the list which covers Semiconductors and Software fields.

Top 5 spenders

• Microsoft-$6.6B

• Siemens-$6.4B

• IBM-$6.1B

• Samsung Electronics-$6B

• Intel-$5.8B

Looks like of so much of money flowing to bring the next killer application to consumers.

They ignored,they laughed and then they followed

Well,I am talking about Microsoft.Six months back when iPhone was announced, Steve Ballmer laughed at its high price point and lack of physical key board.Can anybody remind the price of Office 2007 and Vista.Huh...

Ironically,Ballmer now promotes $900 iPhone clone from HTC.What a drastic change in six months!!Its not unusual in High-Technology industry to ignore,threaten and laugh at competition.Enjoy these two videos which are popular on YouTube.They ignored,they laughed and then they followed.

How to share internet connection

CNET has a video which shows how to share internet between laptops with XP,Vista and Mac.It's simple.It doesn't tell how to do the same in Linux.If you want to do it in Ubuntu, you can install firestarter by using which you can easily configure.Of course, it works for other Linux distributions too.

sudo apt-get install firestarter

Democracy Player rebranded as Miro

Democracy Player,the internet TV platform rebranded as Miro and you can upgrade to the new Miro 0.9.8 version.Though content support is not great,Miro(aka Democracy Player) can be best used as RSS video aggregator and downloader. These days video became a big thing on web and the 5-10 min video snacks became so popular.According to a Google manager, every day 95% of the YouTube library is watched at least once.That speaks the demand for online video.Mashable have a compiled list of online video sources.Don't forget to read the comments there,'coz readers also contributed good links.

Weekend Ubuntu download:democracy player

Here is your cool weekend download.The internet TV on desktop application.Watch near HD quality videos in full screen from lots of sources like National Geographic and other 1000 free channels.You can subscribe to any RSS video feeds,download and save videos from wide variety of sources like You tube,Google Videos etc..On top of that you can download any bit torrent file using the same application.Another cool thing is it can play virtually every format.The earlier version for Ubuntu used to crash and not worked well for me.But the new 0.9.6 beta is stable and working quite good.Don't worry,it is available for Windows and Mac users also.

Microsoft and Apple,the Friendly rivals

I always doubted whether Microsoft and Apple are the fiercest rivals??To me,the answer is no.I feel the rivalry is all about innovation Vs plagiarism and nothing more.The press and blogosphere adds fuel to the actual facts.For example,Apple recently released safari browser for windows and many people started hype around it.Look at browser market, both IE7,Firefox doing excellent job already.I don't know what safari can do??I would like to give brief analysis why Microsoft and Apple are different companies.

• Both are software companies but Apple have serious hardware business too.Microsoft markets Xbox,Zune etc. but its primary bread and butter is software.
  
• Second thing is Microsoft is majorly an Enterprise company and Apple is a Consumer company.Apple is not much trying to be an Enterprise company.Both companies almost shed PC company image.
• Both are platform companies but Microsoft is a serious player in application market too.Apple doesn't have much presence in application market except creative market.Apple neither competes with MS Office nor with Google apps.
• Microsoft competes in many markets like Enterprise(Oracle,SAP,IBM),Online(Yahoo,Google,Salesforce etc.),Entertainment (Sony,Nintendo, etc.) and of course Linux.Apple never had to fight in multiple markets like Microsoft.It picks up its battles carefully.But Microsoft enters wherever it sees money with its give it three times approach.Apple also doesn't have data centers like Microsoft,Google.
• What if Microsoft's Zune a flop?Microsoft doesn't care much.But for Apple, iPod is a serious business.For Microsoft,Gaming is a serious business and Apple doesn't have clue in gaming market.Coincidentally back in 2001,both started with different visions in consumer market .Apple started with Music and Microsoft started with Gaming.But at the end of the day Microsoft depends heavily on platform(Windows plus Server) and application(Office and Enterprise) market.
• Microsoft's Eco-system is far bigger than Apple's.Microsoft depends heavily on Partners but Apple is kind of vertical company and competes in niche market.
• Many people thinking that iPhone would take out market share from windows mobile devices.But if you look at closely, Windows mobile devices competing in Enterprise mobility and iPhone is a music phone.MS office won't run on iPhone.
  

Well,i can conclude both are far different companies in many senses and both are good for industry for many reasons.After all Microsoft is the biggest Mac software developer out side Apple.They are rivals but certainly not the fiercest as most of us think.They are friendly rivals.

Skype 1.4 beta for linux

The new update by Skype for linux simply not good.No webcam support yet and call quality still don't match windows version.In this version there is no menu bar.I think Skype following Microsoft footsteps.When you want to call ordinary phones and choosing country you need to identify country by 2 letter code.Very annoying and confusing for ordinary users.If you want to download Linux Skype 1.4 beta you can get here.There you can choose your linux distribution accordingly.