Go figure. Nearly five years into writing RCPU, and probably my most popular entry ever is a raging rant about Twitter. Well, if all I have to do here is moan about things I don't like and then rake in the hits, you haven't seen anything yet.
First, though, let's get to a couple of e-mails from fellow Twitter-haters, who, along with many of the good folks who have commented on the blog entry, have made your editor feel a lot less alone in the world on this topic. More
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/24/20112 comments
I'm going first-person in this entry because this is a personal rant that I don't want ascribed to any of my RCPU colleagues. So, there will be none of the obnoxious royal "we" I so love to use in this space. Just so you know.
Twitter, the infernal social networking site, apparently turns 5 years old this week, an age that seems to match the emotional maturity of many of its frequent users. Now, recently, Twitter and Facebook, its far more tolerable cousin, have gotten a lot of credit for enabling protesters in places like Libya to, well, protest. If folks are using Twitter to advance the will of the people in a climate of repression, then good for them and good for Twitter. More power to them. I still wish they would find some other way to do it, though.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 03/21/201143 comments
Oh, wow, this is awkward. Yeah, Microsoft, about that deal to run Windows Phone 7 on Nokia phones? You know -- the one between two companies going absolutely nowhere in the mobile space? Well, we kind of hope that you didn't think that deal was for Nokia tablets, too. Because it's probably not, if the sources who talk to Reuters are correct in their assessment. So, yeah...apparently, pretty much nobody wants to have anything to do with you when it comes to tablets, Microsoft.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 03/20/20115 comments
Somebody out there has been doing math. We've heard about how the complete lack of a tablet has hurt Microsoft's mind share and maybe even its market share, but now some pundit out there says that it's hurting Microsoft's bottom line, too.
To the tune of $1 billion, no less. At least that's what one columnist over in the United Kingdom figures, old bean, based on some number crunching and analysts' estimates. And maybe it's accurate. Regardless, it only serves to further illustrate how badly Microsoft has screwed up this tablet thing. More
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/09/20115 comments
Microsoft really, really, really doesn't want you to use Internet Explorer 6 anymore. Unlike Windows Phone 7, IE 6 actually has double-digit market share, but Microsoft wants to get that number down to zero. Standing in the way of that happening is the fact that lots of applications both internal and external at organizations run only on IE 6. We have a suggestion, though: Just kill IE altogether. Really. In our experience, it's the slowest, clunkiest browser around. Firefox and Chrome have both been better for us. Not sayin'...just sayin'.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/07/20116 comments
We couldn't make this stuff up. Nobody could. Despite the savior of Microsoft's mobile "strategy" appearing not to be a complete disaster (as we thought it would be), Windows Phone 7 actually lost market share for Microsoft at the end of last year.
Yes, that's right. The knight in shining armor that rode in on its mighty steed and relegated the old Windows Mobile platform to the scrap heap of history turned out to be more of a peasant tottering around on a mule. The latest numbers from comScore, the organization of the atrociously capitalized name that tracks these sorts of things, indicate that Microsoft's market share has fallen since Windows Phone 7 hit devices last fall. More
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/07/201113 comments
It took Windows 7 to make Microsoft users forget about Vista, but it's taking Microsoft's mobile offerings to make Vista actually look pretty good.
This week, T-Mobile -- oh, and Microsoft, of course -- killed off the Sidekick, the forlorn phone running on Microsoft's Danger data service that suffered a famous crash a couple of years ago. Somebody at Microsoft is obviously trying to make the Sidekick's euthanasia look like some sort of mutual T-Mobile-Microsoft decision, but we're guessing that T-Mobile coldly pulled the trigger while Microsoft looked away and flinched, a tear of regret running down its ashen cheek. More
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/03/20111 comments
Evidently somebody in Redmond didn't "Like" Facebook's recent poaching of a Microsoft advertising executive, Carolyn Everson. Microsoft is now considering taking legal action to keep Everson in Redmond -- or, at least, away from Mark Zuckerberg (who was born in 1984; remind me again how that's even possible).
We always wonder what the endgame is in situations like this. Obviously, Microsoft wants to protect whatever institutional knowledge Everson has about the company's advertising strategy (if there is one), but, really, what's the point of tying all of this up in court? Facebook is a Microsoft partner; Microsoft has invested in Facebook. Isn't there a friendlier way to settle all this? Then again, if this leads to Pirates of Silicon Valley meets The Social Network, maybe we should all just sit back and enjoy the show.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/03/20110 comments
Finally! This is the kind of news we'd been expecting from Microsoft's forlorn mobile division. Things had been going entirely too well for Windows Phone 7, relatively speaking...until this week.
This week, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 updates turned some Samsung phones into even more useless hunks of plastic than they already were. Apparently, that's called "bricking" phones, which means that Microsoft should probably hire Troy Aikman as its next spokesperson. (If you don't get that mild scintilla of humor, check this out.) More
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/25/20117 comments
Why have just one point when you can have multi? The evaluation copy of Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is ready for download.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/24/20110 comments