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05/24/2013 02:09:40 Daily, December 21Is Google Investing In Obsolete Technology?
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In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: Is Google Investing In Obsolete Technology?
2. Today's Top Story
- Google Adds Trends Feature To Personalized Search
- Google Desktop Apps To Ship With Lexar Flash Drive
3. Breaking News
- Apple's Web Traffic Riding High On iTunes Surge
- Philips Spin-Off Creates An 'IPod' For The Written Word
- Will Mobile Broadband Kill Wi-Fi?
- Automakers Embrace The IPod
- OpenOffice.org Suite Updates
- Yahoo Offers Personal Search Shortcuts
- Sun's Niagara Server: Try Before You Buy
- Salesforce.com Outage Inconveniences Customers
- Bug Bites McAfee Antivirus
- Flurry Of New Deals Could Make CSC A More Attractive
Takeover Target
- IBM's $865 Million Micromuse Acquisition Aims To Take On
Network Complexity
- H-1B Backers Lose Budget Round
- Palm Profits Surge, Four New Treos Coming
- Seagate Set To Acquire Maxtor For $1.9 Billion
- Oracle Ships ID-, Access-Management System
- Ford's Fix Could Send Help Desk Offshore
4. Grab Bag
- Pricey Games: Moms Don't Play (Washington Post)
- Inside The Google-AOL-Microsoft Negotiations (Wall Street
Journal, paid subscription required)
- Texas Files New Spyware Claim Against Sony BMG (Reuters)
5. In Depth
- Microsoft Odd Man Out In AOL-Google Deal
- Microsoft Says Pay Up To Try Live Messenger Beta
- Microsoft Fixes SUS Glitch
- Xbox Photos Fetch Huge Prices On eBay
6. Voice Of Authority
- Blog Confession Leads To Jail Time For Teen
7. White Papers
- Will Your Company Benefit From Enterprise Fax And
E-Document Delivery?
8. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
9. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription
Quote of the day:
"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like
and let the food fight it out inside." -- Mark Twain
I startled myself the other day when I realized I didn't know whether
my laptop computer has a modem. I had to think about it a couple of
minutes. It's been that long since I've used a dial-up connection.
Not long ago, having a laptop computer without a modem was like
having one without a display or keyboard--completely useless. But
these days, everywhere I go, I can count on a high-speed Internet
connection, and in many places I can get a Wi-Fi connection.
That's been true for quite some time.
That's half of America Online's problems right there. AOL built its
business on dial-up access, and dial-up is rapidly becoming obsolete.
But dial-up is only part of the value that AOL offers its
subscribers. It also offers training wheels for the Internet. If
you're a civilian who's heard about this "Internet thing" from a
nerdy friend or relative, you can get online fast, cheap, and
easy through AOL.
Neither of those things is as valuable as they once were.
Consumers are stampeding away from dial-up access, looking for
high-speed and wireless connections instead. And, by now, pretty
much everybody in the developed world who's going to get on the
Internet has done so. Moreover, consumers realized that AOL
offers a commodity service at boutique prices. You can find
services just as good as AOL, or even better, elsewhere.
AOL's subscriber base is fleeing fast: It has only about 20
million subscribers, down from 36 million in December 2002.
Pretty soon, it'll be down to the level it was in fiscal 1999,
before it bought Time Warner, of 17.6 milling members. (Source of
those numbers: AOL's own financial reports, for the
third quarter of 2005, annual 2002,
and 1999.
They're PDF files.)
In the face of that, AOL is scrambling to convert itself from the
world's largest Internet service provider to providing a portal,
competing with Microsoft and Yahoo. But there's lots of competition
in that market and no assurances that AOL will succeed.
So why on Earth would Google invest $1 billion to take a 5% share in a 20th
century company?
Google had lots of reasons to want to do the deal. It gets a
potential advertising audience of 20 million, an opportunity to
stick it to Microsoft, preservation of a substantial existing ad
revenue stream, and an investment in a sizeable, family-friendly
island in an ocean of Internet porn.
What do you think? Will the AOL-Google deal be good for those
customers? What will it mean to users? Let me know on the
InformationWeek Weblog, where you can read the rest of this note and
leave a comment.
Mitch Wagner
Google Adds Trends Feature To Personalized Search
Related Story:
Google Desktop Apps To Ship With Lexar Flash Drive
Apple's Web Traffic Riding High On iTunes Surge
Philips Spin-Off Creates An 'IPod' For The Written Word
Will Mobile Broadband Kill Wi-Fi?
Automakers Embrace The IPod
OpenOffice.org Suite Updates
Yahoo Offers Personal Search Shortcuts
Sun's Niagara Server: Try Before You Buy
Salesforce.com Outage Inconveniences Customers
Bug Bites McAfee Antivirus
Flurry Of New Deals Could Make CSC A More Attractive Takeover Target
IBM's $865 Million Micromuse Acquisition Aims To Take On Network Complexity
H-1B Backers Lose Budget Round
Palm Profits Surge, Four New Treos Coming
Seagate Set To Acquire Maxtor For $1.9 Billion
Oracle Ships ID-, Access-Management System
Ford's Fix Could Send Help Desk Offshore
In the current episode:
John Soat With 'Why?'
Tony Kontzer With 'Pandora's Musical Box'
'What's A Podcast?'
Alex Wolfe With 'Rock Stars And Royalty'
A Week's Worth Of Dailies--All In One Place
Subscribe To Your Favorite Authors
-----------------------------------------
Pricey Games: Moms Don't Play (Washington Post)
Inside The Google-AOL-Microsoft Negotiations (Wall Street Journal, paid subscription required)
Texas Files New Spyware Claim Against Sony BMG (Reuters)
Microsoft Odd Man Out In AOL-Google Deal
Microsoft Says Pay Up To Try Live Messenger Beta
Microsoft Fixes SUS Glitch
Xbox Photos Fetch Huge Prices On eBay
Blog Confession Leads To Jail Time For Teen
Will Your Company Benefit From Enterprise Fax And E-Document Delivery?
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InformationWeek Daily Newsletter
1. Editor's Note: Is Google Investing In Obsolete Technology?
mwagner@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com
It provides registered users with a list of their top searches
and other history-related information.
Preinstalled applications on the minidrive, which can hold up to
2 Gbytes of data, will include Google's Picasa, Toolbar, and
Desktop Search.
Apple Computer's Web traffic grew 57% year-over-year for
November, Nielsen/NetRatings reported. However, the biggest
traffic surges went to sites catering to 12- to 24-year-olds.
A spin-off company from Royal Philips Electronics has developed a
wirelessly connected "electronic reader" tablet based on a
high-contrast "electronic paper" display from E Ink Corp. The
E-reader will be available in April.
With technologies like mobile WiMax starting to emerge, some
people are starting to ask whether there's a long-term future for
public Wi-Fi.
Automakers are expected to ride the popularity of the iPod and
add support for Apple Computer's portable music player in
millions of cars over the next six years.
OpenOffice.org updated its open-source suite Tuesday to 2.01, two
months after the long-awaited 2.0 version was released.
People can access a Yahoo page that lets them attach a name to a
URL that would take them to a frequently visited page or Web service.
Sun Microsystems president Jonathan Schwartz reveals a 60-day
free trial of the company's new Sun Fire T2000 server on his
company blog.
Database glitch a reminder that users of on-demand systems should
make backup plans.
A security research firm says McAfee's antivirus line is
vulnerable to attack, the second such warning issued about
antivirus software in two days.
Contractor strikes IT services deals with the IRS and DuPont and
closes in on contract with aerospace giant BAE Systems.
Micromuse's technology will be integrated into IBM's Tivoli platform.
The Senate had earlier approved a measure that would have
increased the number of H-1B visas available next year but
yesterday dropped the provision from a bill.
The company reported quarterly revenue that's 18% higher than the
same period a year ago, marking its eighth consecutive quarter of
double-digit growth.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2006; the
combined company will continue under the Seagate name.
The new suite spans a number of Oracle's homegrown and acquired
technologies, including Web access control, identity
administration, user provisioning, federated identity management,
and directory services.
General Motors isn't the only troubled automaker looking to run a
more-efficient IT shop. Under a new outsourcing deal, Ford is
driving toward a more-simplified IT operation by centralizing key
technology operations and aggressively adopting standards. And
"anything you can centralize becomes a candidate for offshore
savings," says Irene White, Ford's manager for support services.
Learn why Apple's Web-site traffic is up, PC sales will rise,
spam law is ineffective, and more.
Musical site Pandora creates customized radio stations based on
your musical tastes.
The News Show team hits the streets to find out if people can
define the word of the year, "podcast."
A look back at Carly Fiorina's reign at HP.
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4. Grab Bag: News You Need From Around The Web
With just days before Game Day, also known as Christmas, there's
many a mom such as CaShawn Thompson trapped inside a video game
store. A mom speaking in a pointed, resolute,
it-ain't-gonna-happen tone. A mom drawing the line.
Two weeks ago, when Time Warner was on the cusp of signing a
sweeping online deal with Microsoft, a team of executives from
the media company's AOL unit traveled to Microsoft's headquarters
in Redmond, Wash., to make sure everything was in order. When the
executives returned, they reported back to Time Warner's top deal
negotiator, Olaf Olafsson, with some less-than-satisfactory
findings. They had found some of Microsoft's technology to be
clunky, while the contemplated joint venture with the software
king contained what they thought were financial pitfalls.
The Texas attorney general said Wednesday he added a new claim to
a lawsuit against Sony BMG Music Entertainment accusing it of
violating the state's laws on deceptive trade practices by hiding
"spyware" on its compact discs.
The situation highlights the uphill battle Microsoft faces as it
tries to gain traction in the lucrative business of selling
online ads.
People who want a look at the beta of Microsoft's Windows Live
Messenger should pony up, one of the instant messenger's
developers said Wednesday.
The initial problem with Software Update Services turned updates
that had been set as "unapproved" by the administrator into
"approved" updates that could be mistakenly sent out to
workstations and servers.
An eBay shopper from New York paid more than $600 for a
photograph of an Xbox, thinking it was the real thing.
Eric Chabrow asks: How dumb can some bloggers be? That's a
question 18-year-old Blake Ranking is pondering as he faces five
years in prison and 10 years on probation for causing an accident
that killed one friend and severely injured another. "It was me
who caused it," Ranking confessed in a blog three days after the
October 2004 accident.
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Enterprise faxing and network electronic document delivery enable
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This guide demystifies fax server software, exposes critical
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