Whew! Take a week off and all hell breaks loose.
First the rumored Google Secure WiFi service looks to be a reality. Danny Sullivan does the rundown of motives but still wonders why Google would go to such extremes to maintain an infrastructure so far outside of their core expertise when they already have so much information coming in from the millions of installed Google Toolbars out in the wild phoning home. Like the Web Accelerator before it, as an infrastructure improvement coming from a services company, it seems oddly out of place.
Next, Microsoft announces a major reorg that puts the main Windows architect, Jim Allchin, out to pasture following the release of Vista and marries the Windows group with their more nimble MSN brethren. This is the strongest signal yet that MSFT is taking the "software as a hosted service" mantra seriously and is looking to better enable it’s client software to play nicely with internet standards.
Google, the services company is shipping software.
Microsoft, the software company is enabling software as a service.
We live in interesting times.
Leave a comment