From a business perspective it's indicative of how Google puts it
right out there iteratively and has mastered the appearance of not
making everybody wait around with their head stuck up their @ss
waiting for a yearly announcement from an old fat bald man.
Let's compare apples to apples. Google announced an OS and has not just
"put it out there". It is still vapor ware. At least some of MS's stuff
is out in beta. So, you can play the "my dad is bigger than yours" game
from both directions.
If you compare apples to apples, you also see a lot of new features in a
variety of MS web initiatives. The cloud stuff is finally cemented and
gaining better adoption than many other cloud initiatives.
I am not fully disagreeing with you, as I think MS has quite a few
problems of its own, but I would focus on true weak points rather than
comparing unlike substances.
AFIC Google just signed the death warrant for IE Accellerators and is
now positioned to reinforce their dominion of the page enabling the
use of Web Services to implement what we call PIP when talking about
the analog which has been implemented on TV.
It may get rid of some accelerators, but I routinely use "map in
Google" as my map accelerator and "twitter search" is not going to
change that.
I really think Google is a good search engine (although Bing is growing
on me in some types of searches). I love Google maps (have an
accelerator to map in Google maps, as mentioned ;->). And I am pretty
fond of Google earth.
Conversely, I think Chrome is a dog. I doubt I would have a Android
phone. And, the new Windows search is good enough I am not going to
download Google desktop.
Sounds like a pretty mixed bag when you look at it objectively.
And what do you say to somebody when you need SharePoint functionality
that Google is now beginning to provide free but Microsoft still
apparently wants a $30,000 down payment to get started?
There is a lot of functionality you CAN get for free with SharePoint
Services. MOSS is just easier for Enterprises and Google is not giving
away Enterprise level stuff. So, what you are getting into is a holy war
comparing unlike products.
Its evidence of something all right. And I have customers asking these
questions I do not know how to answer.
This is the crux of your issue, but the solution is asking questions
rather than coming across like a rabid dog. The best return is not
always towards the initial free hit from the crack dealer.
You can't win everyone. What I sell on is ROI and if I calculate open
source saves a company money, I use it. I don't always go the MS route,
if there are better options. In Nashville, MS wins more than not,
although I use open source .NET bits. And if someone does not like my
ROI calculations and wants free, I often get a call back to fix things
when the "cheaper" route fails for them. And when they succeed, I am
happy for them. Plenty of work to go around.
My business is not hurting from Google adding free bits (in fact, I
would say I am having one of the best years of my career). And, I
sometimes use Google bits in the web apps I build (although you do have
to take in account Google maps are not free once you reach a certain
level).
Peace and Grace,
--
Gregory A. Beamer (MVP)
Twitter: @gbworld
Blog:
http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com
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| Think outside the box! |
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up North here is not.