August 2005

Google vs Microsoft

August 26, 2005

Over on Om Malik’s blog this morning he has a guest post from Robert Young titled Google, the Ultimate Deflator.  It’s Google vs Microsoft, with Google as the "free" Microsoft killer.   Legions of others have died on that hill. Let’s start out with the assertion that Google’s business plan is to replace Microsoft.  Young says that [...]

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Forrester sez Forget About the Price!

August 25, 2005

According to the latest Forrester Research from analyst Marybel Lopez, 70% of consumers have no interest in switching to a VoIP service.  "Providers still haven’t made a compelling case for their services".  Ouch! "Offerings focus on price, not compelling applications," Lopez writes. "Today, providers lead with cheap unlimited calling packages that mirror circuit-switch offerings. Consumers [...]

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Microsoft Releases Presence Controls for Communicator

August 25, 2005

Another little noticed piece of news today was that Microsoft released Presence Controls for Microsoft Communicator.  These are programmers widgets that can be used to embed presence awareness into any application.  They allow other applications to get presence information from Communicator using Communicator’s scripting interface.  The example cited was being able to see the availability of [...]

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Hot Stuff

August 25, 2005

Hot Stuff, originally uploaded by Alec Saunders. This year we tried an experiment — growing hot peppers. Jalapeno, serrano, and poblano peppers will all grow in Ontario. We had massive success. Here are a few of the peppers we canned to eat later.

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Windows 95′s 10th Anniversary

August 25, 2005

With all the noise about Google and Skype yesterday, the 10th anniversary of the Windows 95 launch passed un-noticed.  Not even Microsoft remembered it!  Windows 95 popularized so many of the things we take for granted today — ubiquitous networking, the web, media, and the start button UI to name a few.  Effective distribution leads [...]

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The GIPS back-story

August 24, 2005

Here’s one of the interesting back-stories of the Google Talk announcement. It’s the Global IP Sound (GIPS) stock prices.   Global IP Sound is the company behind the amazing sound that Skype has been able to achieve.  Others have been trying to duplicate this for some time, and so far few have achieved it. DiamondWare, [...]

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Google Talk Commentary

August 24, 2005

Commentary from Andy Abramson and Jeff Pulver on Google Talk.

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Google Talk: What is the strategy?

August 24, 2005

Google Talk is out.  You can read about the details of what it is on Stuart Henshall’s Skype Journal.  He has a detailed post describing his first impressions. To me, the interesting points are: 1) It’s not SIP.  It’s based on Jabber, and the Jabber XMPP protocol.  What does this mean for SIP? 2) It’s [...]

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VC looking for VoIP Innovators in Customer Service

August 23, 2005

Business 2.0 has a nifty page of VC’s looking for teams to build products.  This one caught my eye.  Shanda Bahles of El Dorado Ventures is looking for a team to build customer service applications with VoIP.  The application she describes is a perfect one for relevance enabled communication.  Thanks to Andy on VoIPWatch for [...]

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Being Geeky

August 23, 2005

People have accused me in the past of being geeky.  It’s just happened again, in fact! I am currently cruising down highway 401 in the passenger seat of my business partner Howard’s VW Beetle.  We’re travelling 125 KPH on a heading of 43.9N 78.6W about 50K from Pickering.  How do I know this, and how [...]

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