Que cifra más desastrosa para Microsoft publica The Register

Parece ser que un 35% de PCs equipados con Vista han sido re-equipados por sus propietarios por Windows XP.

Confirmación de la marcha fúnebre para Vista (aunque aún así factura muchísimos millones), Microsoft está intentando empujar su próxima revisión, Windows 7. La verdad es que después de este fracaso tendrá que hacerlo muy bien para quitar el mal sabor de boca y mejor que no se precipite….

A todo esto yo tengo XP en un PC y Vista en otro y la verdad es que tengo pendiente el downgrade porque después de muchos meses sigue sin funcionarme la impresora/scanner de la oficina (problema pendiente de resolución por MS según la web de Lexmark) y aparte no me aporta ninguna ventaja práctica. A ver si me pongo y de paso me instalo la última versión del Ubuntu para probar que tal.

Proceso de transformación muy divertido desde el interfaz limpio y funcional de GMail hasta un imaginario interfaz “marca de la casa” de Microsoft.

Besides their Media Center strategy, Microsoft is betting on the Xbox to control the home entertainment arena.

Their huge installed base (they hope to reach 10 million by end-of-year) will rapidly surpass many major competitors.

This recent press release gives a good preview of what they are up to for Xbox Live:

- a library of 160 high- definition games

- standard and high-definition TV shows and movies to download and to rent

Ergo: Watch out Sony, this new fact just confirms the new Xbox is rolling out fast and executing well on its plans, the days of absolute Playstation dominance are over….

Reconnecting on LinkedIn with old contacts from my time at OcioJoven I found one of them working at Openbravo, a very interesting company, for 2 reasons:

1) ERPs are the next important frontier for opensource

Opensource has revolutionized many segments of IT in the last 10 years, ERP is probably one of the last big profit pools that still waits for its large opensource paladin (like LINUX, MySQL, Apache, php, sugarcrm etc…. in their segments).

Openbravo has achieved the number 1 spot on largest opensource directory SourceForge among 130.000 other projects!!! (although only temporarily)

They were featured in Spain’s largest newspaper this weekend: http://www.elpais.es/articulo/red/Openbravo/alcanza/63/000/descargas/sistema/gestion/empresarial/elpcibred/20061109elpcibenr_3/Tes/

2) Spanish technology projects with global ambitions and opportunities are quite rare

The other day I was discussing this with our old sys admin from OcioJoven. He was telling me how Spain is always the worst in EU in terms of tech adoption and how Spanish start-ups have bad access to capital and difficult exit paths. I was trying to put a positive light on Spanish inventiveness and how the younger generation is taking up mobiles or IM, but I guess he is right, and Spain is not the optimal environment for tech startups.

There are only a few notable exceptions (Panda Antivirus, Anyware, FON, etc.) but Spain needs more initiatives like this to avoid commoditization in the global marketplace.

Good luck to this Spanish technology project!

Mozilla just launched its 2.0 version of Firefox to counter Microsoft’s new Explorer. At first sight it seems more like a tactical release to leverage Microsoft’s PR machine, rather than a new breakthrough edition.

It seems they have killed the memory jam problem and have added a some new features (not too many killer ones really) . I would highlight:

- Session Restore: should be hand for those “rare” system crashes

- Integrated spell checking: always a good addition

So just check it out and decide for yourself whether its Firefox or Explorer!

Microsoft has decided to scrap its current software based approach to mp3 players (Plays for sure) and enter the hardware market directly with its own music device: Zune.

Plays for sure (PFS) is an interesting approach by Microsoft to control the mp3 market through its Windows Media software. The idea was to offer an alternative to Apple’s iPod by offering a seal of quality grouping all non-Mac providers of soft and hardware (a little bit like the Intel inside – but Windows Media inside).

However early compatibility problems (like the early Plug&Pray) and the continuing radical success of Apple have surprisingly caused Microsoft to change gears, launch its own PFS-incompatible Zune and start the mp3 war all over again (they keep PFS, but with who will support this if Microsoft itself is taking a different system).

The new ZUNE clones the closed-standard strategy of Apple. Like with gaming consoles, Microsoft seems to be betting on a few players controlling the music player market with a closed software and hardware solution. Given that Apple makes no significant money from selling songs, but cashes in on the devices, Microsoft is probably also recognizing Apple’s strategy as the best, at least for the early market situation.

Will Microsoft succeed and turn around the market?

I will put my bet on Apple this time – Microsofts golden age is over!

After a long wait, Microsoft has finally launched its new explorer (download here to check it out).

They have basically copied what can be considered the 4 killer features of Firefox:

- Tabbed browsing and bookmarking

- Integrated RSS browsing

- Configurable search box

- Optional add-ons created by users/3rd parties
They added some minor innovations to it like a “printing optimizer” to shrink very wide pages or tab selection using thumbnails. They also promised increased security protection against phishing etc…

It’s worth taking a look, it certainly catches up with innovations and adds some new stuff, but I will not switch until I have compared it to Firefox 2.0, which is coming out as a final release before the end of this month, although a pre-release version is already available for the impatient.

Happy browsing!

Yesterday I came accross a very interesting video speech by Bill Gates (you can find versions for higher bandwidth here) talking about future trends and upcoming MS product launches (for a shorter version look at this Engadget summary in pictures)

To summarize the main contents:

* In the initial part of the keynote Gates demonstrates how he sees the digital lifestyle becoming real in the next four years, up to 2010. In Gate’s vision user files will be stored on the Internet (what they call “live services”) and will be accessible from all sorts of net-connected devices he demonstrates as examples:

- a huge vertical screen that could well fit on a refrigerator that he uses to check news and emails and see the current location of geopositioned family members
- a huge horizontal screen (1,5m to cover full viewing angle) on his working desk where he runs teleconferences while in parallel working on documents on other parts of the screen (see picture)

- a projected screen in the airport VIP lounge that uses his phone as connection and his fingerprint as user-authentification

All these services will support a fully connected lifestyle, where you have full seamless access to all your data and the Internet at any point in time

* After this first demo there are several product teasers on MS Vista, the new Urge music project and XBOX360 among others
Very recommended video if you are into digital lifestyle and want to check Microsoft’s vision on 2010.