Some allow limited use of social networks on the job, but most now bar them outright

By Sharon Gaudin

Computerworld - Planning on firing off a short missive on Twitter or posting an update to your friends on Facebook from the office?

Better check your employer’s rules first.

According to a study commissioned by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm, 54% of U.S. companies say that they have banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace while on the job. The study, released today, also found that 19% of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16% allow limited personal use.

Only 10% of the 1,400 CIOs interviewed said that their companies allow employees full access to social networks during work hours.

“Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology and a Computerworldcolumnist, in a statement. “For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, which may be why about one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes.”

A study released last summer concluded that social networking use could hurt the bottom line.

Nucleus Research, an IT research firm, reported in July that employee productivity drops 1.5% at companies that allow full access to Facebook in the workplace. That survey of 237 corporate employees also showed that 77% of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours.

Nucleus said that the survey found that “some” employees use the social networking site for as much as two hours a day at work. It did not say how many workers fit into that category, but it did note that one in 33 workers surveyed said that they use Facebook only while at work. And of those using Facebook at work, 87% said they had no clear business reason for accessing the network.

And in August, the U.S. Marine Corps reaffirmed its ban on the use of social networks by its soldiers.

I stumbled on yet another article examining the exploding growth of business promotion on Twitter and Facebook. Computerworld reports the numbers here and they are significant. The report can be found here. Over the past six months, there has been a 250% increase in promotional Twitter use and a 192% increase in promotional Facebook use.

The Computerworld article focuses less on these staggering numbers and more on the security risks posed by such use of the social networking sites while on the job. I think they miss the point. Instead of focusing on the 1.5% decrease in employee productivity measured in the study, the researchers should consider the percentage increase in business development, marketing results, networking and goodwill generation. If you can’t beat ‘em, consider joining ‘em.

The fuss surrounding the release of the first full report on the use of Recovery Act money last week reminded me of an experience I had in 1980 while working for a congressional oversight committee.  We had received an annual report with program data for FY 1977 that I thought was quite useful.  I then asked the agency for the FY 1978 and 1979 reports since I thought they would be useful as well.  The response was “we just released the 1977 report, the others won’t be available for another two years.”

Shifts at the Federal Level. And now with Recovery.Gov we have program data that are only three months old!  And people complain about some likely inaccuracies!  The whole Recovery.Gov effort is pretty amazing – a data dump from more than 131,000 sources collected (and reviewed quickly) in a three-week period.  The media focused on jobs created, but the real story is the creation of new ways of collecting and reporting large amounts of data and the shift in mind set about how to handle it.

Of course there will be errors (in fact, 21 percent of the reports submitted were revised afterwards).  But the shift in mind-set is remarkable.  Instead of demanding accuracy and spending months cleaning the data, the emphasis is on timeliness and the expectation that the data will be cleaned as a result of public exposure.

Recovery.Gov head Inspector General Earl Devaney is probably causing shock waves through the audit community with his radical approach (well, radical for auditors) of releasing data that likely has errors before investing weeks of time cleaning it up.  In fact, he told Federal News Radio’s Suzanne Kubota, “What we’re all seeing, at least following the first reporting period, is not particularly pretty. This data may cause some embarrassments for some agencies and some recipients, but I believe in the long run the embarrassment will encourage self-correcting behavior and make it better in the future.”

Shifts at the State Level.  This shift in mind set is creating real pressures to do business differently at the state level, as well.  States had to create web-based reporting forms so grant recipients could report their data.  According to Computerworld’s Julia King in her article, “States Scramble to Track Federal Stimulus Bucks,” states had to quickly:

• make data available,
• create business rules and processes to comply with federal reporting requirements, and
• devise ways to collect and aggregate data from multiple systems from across state government (since few have central accounting systems).

These efforts are having broader effects than just Recovery Act reporting.  It is changing mind sets and approaches just as importantly as it has been at the federal level.

• For example, Massachusetts Recovery and Reinvestment Office’s deputy director Ramesh Advani compared the first reporting cycle to the environment of a fast-paced startup company, according to King.  A long-term improvement going forward, though, is that the creation of this program office creates a reporting focal point for grant reporting in the state for the first time.
• Maine is also using the Recovery Act reporting experience to permanently improve its information transparency statewide, as well.
• Utah is using existing systems to report Recovery Act funds, rather than creating a new system.  According to King, because the state had a centralized IT and accounting system and had already undertaken a financial transparency project already, the  Recovery Act reporting requirements were relatively straightforward.  The biggest challenge was collecting and reporting sub-recipient data, which it had not collected before.
• The top-ranked state Recovery Act website is Maryland’s according to Computerworld’s Robert Mitchell, developed a sophisticated geographic information system to display where Recovery Act dollars were going.  In fact, a Washington-based research center has rated the Maryland Recovery Act site the best in the country for its efforts.  Visitors can view spending in specific areas, such as highway or housing, and drill down to see exact locations and other details.

So as mindsets begin to shift in terms of reporting data quickly and publicly in ways that can be readily understood, it will be interesting to see how long it takes before this becomes the governmentwide norm at all levels of government.  It looks like it didn’t take long in Maine and Utah!

Apple seems to have bought some keywords on Google including, most interestingly, “download windows 7.” That’s right: every hax0r out to download Win7 will see a little ad from Apple saying “Upgrading to Windows 7? There’s never been a better time to switch to a Mac. Find out why.”

Computerworld tested a few other keywords, including “buy Windows 7″ and “Windows 7″ itself and the ads didn’t appear. Clearly they are looking for a “different” type of customer.

Why are the targeting pirates? It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it does make sense for Apple to target folks who are on the fence about Windows 7 and could be looking to download the OS for free rather than making the total jump. Those same swing-users could be swayed to roll over to OS X given enough prodding.

via CrunchGear

As you *may* have noticed, I took a hiatus from blogging over the summer.  Now, it’s time to get back to work!  “But Douglas”, you say, “It’s November.  Summer was over long ago.”  To that, I will remind you that I live in Phoenix.  The high temperature is 94 degrees today.  So in that sense, summer isn’t *entirely* over for me, but I’ll start back with blogging anyway…

Yesterday, I wrote a post for Computerworld titled: “It’s Not About ‘Full Bars’, Stupid”.  It actually combines two of my passions: NFL football and wireless.  The wireless portion discusses wireless’ hidden weakness: network congestion.

I don’t want to put any “spolier” information here, so you’ll just have to head over to Computerworld Blogs and check it out for yourself.

The praise from Computerworld.  Read the review here.

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I posted Part 1, a little Q&A about the common issues surrounding a transition from the Windows desktop environment to Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux. I tried to cover the basic Linux alternatives to commonly used software and ease some of the confusion about what exactly is available to someone using a Linux-based computer. The post got unwieldy, so I separated it into two parts, and here is the second.

Today, I continue to geek out, but this time I look more closely at the bigger-picture issues underlying Ubuntu’s active courtship of the average desktop user. If your eyes have already glazed over with boredom, I’ll understand. But if you’re still interested, please offer your thoughts, responses, and criticism in the comments.

The Tired “Windows Versus…” Conversation

While I’m not smart enough to wax nerdirifically on kernels and processes and other bits and pieces of the OS, I can tell you anecdotally that even the safest web surfers will eventually be crushed by an onslaught of malware and viruses on a Windows machine. I can’t speak to Windows 7, but Vista’s bloated security measures provided pretty much the same user experience that persistent malware does: constant pop-ups, confusing error messages, and a steady hum of foreboding.

But, then again, it has never been particularly difficult to find people who agree that Windows is on top more by virtue of its steadily-acquired and very real ubiquity than its everyday reliability and utility. Don’t get me wrong—Windows is usable. It’s just not secure, stable or reliable enough for me. Mac is more secure, stable, and reliable, but demands a lot from hardware (and wallets) and has enough market share to warrant attention from code-demons.

Linux, on the other hand, lacks the market share to justify intense development of malicious intrusion and destruction tools by hackers. That is not to say that Linux machines are immune—nothing connected to the internet is immune—they are just less prone to the rampant infection more common systems are known to suffer.

But the question isn’t whether or not Linux can beat Windows or Mac—I don’t think it can. And I don’t think it should want to.

Linux For “Everypeople”

Instead, the real question is whether Linux will ever be ready for the big leagues: the desktops of the average everyman and everywoman.

“Everypeople” as we shall call them, are not interested in the fact that Linux and its many iterations are open source software. They are also not too keen on command line interfaces and installation paradigms that don’t rely on files ending in .EXE or .APP. In short, everypeople want their OS to act like a great advertisement.

Although I’m not an expert on the subject, I think (and please disagree in the comments if you aren’t with me on this) that a great advertisement is invisible. You shouldn’t walk away from an advertisement saying “Wow, that was a really good commercial.” A great ad steps off to the side and blends into the background, while the product it’s selling sings and dances its way across the stage and into our hearts.

[  I realize that this may be a bad analogy, since Windows has never been guilty of such applause-earning theatrics, but I shall proceed as if I didn't notice the weakness in the OS-ad comparison, since I'm fairly confident that the point I'm trying to make is sound.  ]

The most oft-discussed iteration of Linux is Ubuntu. And, as CNET reports, IBM recently made a deal with Canonical, Ubuntu’s mother organization, to include the OS in “netbooks and low-end PCs.” (full story at CNET) Prior to that, Ubuntu announced a deal with Intel and Dell to include a “remixed” version of Ubuntu in Dell’s Inspiron Mini 10v netbook. (more info at Dell)

Proselytizing, Byte By Byte

But the truth is that Linux isn’t a great ad yet. It’s a good one, in my opinion, in that it makes itself and its creators known. It’s colorful and safe and useful and doesn’t take very long to get used to. It’s someone you meet at a party and realize you have a lot in common with. But it’s not great.

ComputerWorld’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote a great article called “Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot.” His post does a good job of explaining the underlying reasons for my hearing things like “What is ooobooontooo? Is that one of those fake computers?” It still requires some occasional coddling, some searching of forums for help, and a willingness to be patient while you get to know a new system.

But, despite its continuing struggle for mass appeal, Ubuntu is still a nerd’s dream. Slick, secure, and faster than the competition, especially on less-than-spectacular hardware, what it lacks in exhaustive software availability it gains in stability and doing the things it can do very well. Sure, there are open source alternatives to the well-known office programs, music management and playback applications, chat, email, and on and on and on. But Linux does have limitations, and the extent to which those limitations matter depends on who you ask and what they need from their computer use.

How Linux Will Find Its Way To You…Eventually

But that’s not really the point. Because, at least for now, and even if they don’t really know it yet, Ubuntu isn’t aiming itself at everypeople. It’s positioning itself for easy introduction by its legion of fans to the sayers of nay and the just plain techless folks among us. It’s shaping and molding itself into something just a little bit tastier and prettier and more exhaustively compatible with the myriad hardware options and combination available to the modern computer consumer.

And, to ruin the otherwise philanthropic tone I’ve tried to maintain thus far, Linux in general (and Ubuntu in particular, since it really does want to be on a big portion of desktops in the near-ish future) has to dumb itself down. That doesn’t mean a reduction in functionality or a simplification of the overall product. In my experience, the one thing everyone prides themselves on knowing to look at when something goes wrong on a Windows box, or they want to add or remove something from their installation, is the control panel. Ubuntu Software Center aims to help ease that transition. (screenshot) This and similar moves aim to reproduce the most useful and familiar aspects of mainstream operating systems and give users new to Ubuntu that warm, fuzzy “I’ve been here before” feeling.

For now, though, I’ll just keep on deflecting the snark and looking for informed people with which to debate the pros and cons of OS transience. After all, Ubuntu, issuing release updates every 6 months, is not prone to the laggard development schedule of larger beasts. So I’ll keep on backing up all my important data to SpiderOak, which I will review properly soon.

I will mention that they encrypt your data during transfer and on the storage disks (so not even their employees can access it), they store multiple copies of your data across different storage locations, they are totally cross-platform, they support synchronization across several machines, and their rates are exactly half their best and closest competitor. Backup has become a way of life for me. This way, as new features are added to my favorite OS, I can install updates without fear for losing my data.

I would tell everyone to wait for the prophecy to unfold, but the good news for open source advocates, tired victims of the Apple/Microsoft duopoly, and the just-plain-curious is that the prophecy is already here, and happening and accelerating. Let’s just hope it maintains that momentum.

The Pitch

Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” will be released on October 29, 2009 and boasts some new features that aim to make it a more palatable full-time desktop OS for everypeople. You’ll be able to download the file (an .ISO image) and burn it to a CD. Boot from the CD to try Ubuntu without making any changes to your system. It will be slow because it takes time to read data from a CD, but it will give you a good feel for how the OS works. So give it a try. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Except maybe a few viruses.

Image via Wikipedia

This is the first of two posts I’m doing this week on the (slow) dawn of the user-friendly Linux desktop environment. I’m fairly new to the world of Linux, and the Linux desktop has been brewing for years. But it has never been closer to the average consumer.

The plethora of cross-platform software solutions, new deals with hardware manufacturers, and improvements in interface design are all converging to make the Linux desktop a very real possibility. This first post will explore how a transition from Windows to Ubuntu happens.

We’re going to start off with a brief overview of the most commonly asked questions and tomorrow we’ll follow up with some more in-depth analysis.

Some Questions, And Some Answers

I use Linux on my laptop, which is my main computer. I’ve been doing that for over a year now and haven’t had any need to switch back. I still get  a lot of questions, though. Admittedly, it is never a seamless transition, but most of the popular software solutions from bigger-name operating systems have their Linux equivalent.

Some examples:

What about iTunes?

I love Songbird. There are more stable and less-fiercly-developed music management applications available for Linux operating systems, but Songbird is at the forefront of a lot of great innovations in the way web browsing and music management interact.

What about office applications like word processors, spreadsheets, and presentations?

I love Open Office. All the tried and true office solutions are included in a free, open source package that offers full compatibility with Microsoft’s Office suite. Little perks include USB portability, integrated PDF export, and a vibrant user community.

I’m at college. I miss my mom girlfriend. I need to Skype and IM or I’ll deteriorate into an emo mess.

Ubuntu comes, out-of-the-box, with the open source video-conferencing and VoIP client Ekiga Softphone. If you’re in love with Skype, there is a version for Ubuntu and you can find more information about it here.

As for instant messaging, the current stable release of Ubuntu comes with Pidgin. It supports multiple chat providers and has a rich environment of plugins. The newest version of Ubuntu, 9.10 “Karmic Koala”, replaces Pidgin with Empathy, but the functionality remains the same. Buddies across all instant messaging networks will be able to chat with you.

Enough with all this serious stuff, I want GAMES!

Well, the usual kiddie games like checkers, solitaire, mines, and other low-res, high-fun classics have their Linux equivalents. But this is one place where Ubuntu fails. There are some games available for the veteran gamer, but nothing terribly impressive. They want to be on your desktop, not in your Mountain Dew-and-Cheetos den (I used to have one, too). Your Ubuntu computer will not be your gaming box. For now, anyway.

How do I access Windows if I absolutely need to, now that I have this Ubuntu stuff?

Virtualization software like Sun’s Virtual Box allows you to install that old Windows disk on a program running in Ubuntu without restarting. It runs full-screen and is a totally immersive experience. Looking at the computer form across the room while it’s running Windows in a virtual machine, you can’t tell it isn’t a native Windows installation.

In other words, your Windows can live inside your Linux, ready for use if you ever, for some reason, absolutely need to use Windows. Setting up a virtual machine is a little more complicated than the other applications I mentioned above, but the menus do a pretty good job of walking you through it.

I keep a virtual Windows system on hand for use with obscure Windows-only software that I occasionally need, for testing and tinkering with new operating systems without endangering my own system, and for offering friends and family a familiar computing experience on my laptop when they visit.

This is a simpler alternative to dual-booting, which you can read about on Wikipedia, but that’s a post for another day.

Still Not Sure?

Well, you’re not alone. There are broader issues facing the transition from common operating systems and proprietary software suites to the smaller players in the open source world. Tomorrow, I’ll continue ranting about the topic, focusing more on Ubuntu’s overall struggle for mindshare and less on the individual user.

I get a lot of industry articles and reports emailed to me… a lot… I think it is a reflection of the interest that is being generated around the discussions that we have on how to apply social media to business. Some of this has been documented in this blog, but much has happened so fast and furious over the last few weeks that we haven’t been able to catch up. A couple of reports that are worthy of your review as stand-alone pieces of research, but taken together validate the conversations that we are having…

1. Deloitte’s Tribalization of Business Study on Online Communities – Really good metrics on community usage. Worth noting that many of their communities are smaller which also reflects their sampling business size. Additionally, very skewed to business-to-business which also is reflective of the state of the market. An analysis of the report finds that” 60% of communities are less than 1 year old & greater than 2/3’s of the communities have less than 1,000 members.”

2. 8 ways the American information worker remains a Luddite in ComputerWorld – October 10, Eric Lai – Quotes a Forrester Research Study around corporate technology usage. “Less than 20% of information workers said they visit social networking sites for work”

Take that into context around the amount of education that we have been doing with all size organizations on how to build effective social marketing programs, you can see that the market is just really beginning. We have been doing Social Marketing Assessments for companies to give a snapshot of how they are doing comparative to the market in terms of their social media presence. Really easy to play “gotcha” with most companies as they haven’t developed formalized blogger outreach and social media participation programs. As more companies realize that this will be a critical requirement for either maintaining market share and/or finding opportunities to reach potential buyers in a low cost way, you will see more companies do outreach on social media.

From there, the next logical step will be to build their own communities into their website to continue the conversation and begin the sales process within the confines of their websites. This gives more analytics, better influence over the conversation, and the ability to drive search engine optimization. Dynamic social media content is optimized better than static content pages.

Good news/bad news is that we have a long way to go & it may be a shorter process than many people expect….

Cloud computing is moving beyond buzzword status and entering the realm of the wide-release meme. You’re going to hear “cloud” all over the place, and get hit with cloud computing opinions from people who effectively have no clue what they’re talking about.

Projects like these should help quantify and define this tech movement.

From the link:

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced today the formation of the Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) in order to establish a lexicon of cloud-computing terminology, publish use cases, white papers and technical specifications, and to create reference implementation models for grid-storage architectures.

The CSI will coordinate and deliver educational materials for cloud storage vendors and user communities. The organization also plans to perform market outreach highlighting the virtues of cloud storage. The group is developing a single specification as part of its efforts. The Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) will be an application programming interface to which vendors can write management software that will allow interoperability between heterogeneous cloud storage offerings, according to Wayne Adams, SNIA’s chairman emeritus. The SNIA made the announcement at the Storage Networking World conference, which is co-sponsored by Computerworld .

DNA

Hi All,

Mais notícias sobre as investidas da IBM rumo à liderança em projetos de inovação.

Acompanhem, atualizem-se, comentem !

Enjoy!

——————————————–

A IBM pretende desenvolver um microchip que terá a capacidade de ler o DNA humano. O objetivo do projeto é desenvolver o tal leitor pessoal de DNA por um custo entre US$100 e US$1.000 cada (algo entre R$175 e R$1.750, no câmbio de hoje). Como parâmetro de comparação, o primeiro seqüenciador de DNA, o do Projeto Genoma Humano, custou pelo menos 3 bilhões de dólares.

As tecnologias que possibilitam a leitura rápida, barata e amplamente disponível do DNA têm o potencial de revolucionar a pesquisa bio-médica e ser o prenúncio de uma era de medicina personalizada”, declarou hoje Gustavo Stolovitzky, pesquisador da IBM.

A tecnologia utilizada baseia-se nos chamados nanoporos, orifícios nanométricos feitos no chip, através dos quais passariam moléculas do tecido a ser analisado pelos sensores que seqüenciariam o DNA.

Estima-se que a tecnologia esteja disponível em 5 a 10 anos. A medicina personalizada permitiria um tratamento mais adequado a pacientes, possibilitando que o médico baseie o tratamento em peculiaridades que só um exame genético poderia assegurar. Considerando o baixo custo do aparelho e o curto tempo para analisar o DNA (estima-se que cerca de 1 minuto), os pesquisadores da Big Blue esperam que a tecnologia acabe sendo amplamente utilizada e traga grandes benefícios à área de saúde.

Fonte: [ComputerWorld]

“O artigo” …

Recentemente, li um artigo da Computerworld que faz comparações entre 2 sistemas operacionais, buscando fazer uma disputa do tipo “qual seria o melhor”. Algo que, inicialmente, parece bastante complexo, pessoal e subjetivo. Eu achei interessante o artigo e resolvi comentar ele aqui. Os critérios usados na avaliação são bastante interessantes. Sendo uma comparação direta entre 2 SOs, fica fácil entender as diferenças argumentadas ( comparação entre mais de 2 SOs seria uma dor de cabeça ). Apesar de achar que esse tipo de comparação não tem grande utilidade ( acho que cada sistema operacional, por suas caracteristicas, já ocupa determinado espaço onde se faz util ), achei bacana comentar diversos aspectos sobre o artigo publicado. Apresento também um resumo dos critérios usados na avaliação ( sim, tinha muita encheção de linguiça no conteúdo original ). Baseado no artigo “OS deathmatch: Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7” de “Preston Gralla” da Computerworld.

Snow Leopard vs Windows 7: Resumo

Ao final do artigo, o autor complementa ( enchendo muita linguiça ) que o empate técnico ( 5 x 5 ) não tem grande significado: porque os itens têm diferentes pesos e que não seria um parâmetro correto ( algo do tipo ). Concordo com ele. Assim como concordei com todos os itens que ele avaliou ( um pouco injusto, conheço pouco o Felino da Neve ). Então nosso amigo da Computerworld, como muito político safado faz, sem personalidade, resolveu ficar em cima do muro, dizendo que realmente é empate, e que recomenda a todos que usem ambos os sistemas operacionais. Lamentável: se resolve escrever sobre algo assim, que seja homem e assuma um partido, diga sua opinião, tome uma decisão. É facil ficar em cima do muro e agradar a todos. Como não sou o Preston, e tenho personalidade,  vou dizer minha opinião . Mas antes é importante dizer que itens bastante relevantes, como performance ( velocidade / consumo de memória e demais recursos ), estabilidade e segurança, ficaram de fora, e que esses, acredito eu, beneficiariam bastante o Snow Leopard. Mas me baseando apenas nos ítens avaliados no artigo, para mim os itens 4, 5 e 7 ( na ordem que foram listados ) são os mais importantes. Talvez isso mude de usuário para usuário. Imagino que muitos gostem de “Facilidade de uso e elegância”, e eu não dou a mínima importância. O item 1 então, é patético, não faz sentido algum para mim colocar isso em uma avaliação dessa natureza. Então, só me resta dizer, que para mim o Windows 7 leva a melhor nessa disputa, em cima dos itens apresentados. “Windows 7 winner” by NeniX   Fácil não? Não, não é. Como diria o Molder: A verdade está lá fora. Acredito que se fosse adicionado na avaliação os itens que eu comentei antes ( o que eu acharia justo e coerente, realmente são ítens essenciais hoje em dia ), o Snow Leopard levaria a melhor. Não, eu não subi em cima do muro   Apenas estou tentando dizer que não tenho um artigo bacana, com dados levantados, comparando SOs para apresentar… Apenas estou comentando o do Preston. Minha conclusão é que parece uma bela de uma farsa. Ele ( autor ) não está mentindo em momento algum, mas ai que está o truque: ele está “ocultando”. Os itens avaliados, fazem parecer que o Snow empatou porque o autor ajudou ele, e que o Windows é melhor ( pode até ser proposital ). Basta observar os ítens de maior importância. Perceba que ele “escolheu” os itens a serem avaliados de uma forma muito tendenciosa. É facil manipular resultados assim. Como Preston quer falar de sistemas operacionais, nos dias de hoje, e não colocar em sua lista, um item que fosse, sobre “segurança” ? Eu respondo: porque prejudicaria o Windows 7. E como evitar falar de segurança? ( e outras coisas que ficaram de fora ) Resposta: enchendo linguiça, colocando itens como “Qual melhor nome?” .. e etc. Existem diversos outros itens que deveriam ser avaliados, que o Snow levaria vantagem, diferenciais importantes, mas que foram “esquecidos”. Como disse antes, uma comparação sem muita utilidade ou propósito. O mercado abriga lugar bem específico para cada um dos sistemas. “Mac users” continuarão muito fãs do “gato da neve”, e pessoal do windows continuará fã do windows, por pior que seja qualquer notícia falando mal de cada sistema. O que fica é um artigo tendencioso, parcial e pouco profissional. Que na minha opinião mal serviria para ser publicado em um Blog, imagina na Computerworld.

(Computerworld, 8/25/09) With the arrival of the Bing search engine and the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership, it’s been a hectic summer for search – not that you’ll see market leader Google sweating.

With a united front building against its cash cow search business, Google is playing it cool.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said back in June about Bing: “I don’t think Bing’s arrival has changed what we’re doing. We are about search, we’re about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation.” For the most part Google is ignoring Bing, at least publicly.

Google’s plan, according to an upcoming Time magazine feature story, is to keep on innovating in search and let Microsoft mass market the heck out of Bing. But here are three reasons why quietly innovating may not be enough to keep the tenacious Microhoo at bay.

1.  Microsoft Has Deep Pockets and Dogged Commitment to Search

So far, Microsoft’s investment in Bing has paid off. In June and July, Bing’s market share increased nearly a full percentage point, from 8.0 percent to 8.9 percent.

2.  Google Doesn’t Market Itself

Google is one of those companies, like Starbucks, that doesn’t do much consumer advertising. Why should they? When your company name is a worldwide verb, you don’t exactly need to get the word out. But with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, the ground is starting to shift under Google.

The Bing ads have changed perceptions. They rather humorously portray Google’s search results as a random collection of links, many of them useless. If anything, the ads have made people question, for probably the first time, whether Google’s search is the best way.

With the Bing ads getting more prevalent and aggressive, Google may be forced into responding with ads that remind us why Google’s search engine became so popular in the first place.

3. Google Depends Almost Solely on Search for Revenue

Online search advertising is Google’s cash cow, responsible for nearly all – 97 percent – of the company’s revenue, according to published reports. Microsoft-Yahoo is arguably the biggest threat to that revenue stream in Google’s short but wildly successful history.

Google is still the search king. Its 64.7 percent search market share is still dominant. But for the first time, Google’s entire business is threatened by an ambitious, well-financed partnership bent on search success. Wouldn’t you be nervous?

Hey! Have you guys been using Bing at all?  I do, I still use both Google and Bing.  I know when people get used to something, they stick with it.  I say – why not open your options to both.  If you would like a refresher/introduction to bing, refer to my post on July 30, 2009 regarding Bing!

I’m going to interrupt the Cloudy Days for Data series again to muse this time about marketing…

I’ve been very pessimistic on Nokia’s future prospects in the United States but there’s no distinction in that stance; so has just about every other pundit.  It seems like every time Nokia had something novel to offer, whether it be new devices like the promising internet tablets or a potentially hot service like Ovi, the ball wound up fumbled… sometimes by design.

A large part of that design was the stubborn insistance on model numbers over names, despite the allure shown by competing products like the iPhone and Blackberry.  It’s been long known that this sort of branding resonates loudly with US citizens, so when Nokia portfolio manager Ira Frimere declares in a recent Computerworld article:

“I’ve learned it’s not what I like, but what my customer likes,” he said.

…I have to wonder when this epiphany occurred for him.  No offense meant to Mr. Frimere, but I recall numerous conversations in Nokia US offices over this subject and that was the one consistent theme behind them all.  It did not matter what Nokia executives thought; wrapping product branding and marketing strategies around customer needs and wants is paramount.  Marketing 101.

That is not at all to say that nomenclature alone determines a product’s success.  That is certainly not the sole driver behind RIM, Samsung and Apple quickly and easily overtaking Nokia in the US smartphone market.  But it is certainly an important psychological aspect that cannot be cavalierly dismissed.

Another quote by Frimere, as follows:

“Our strategy is to get as many devices into U.S. carriers as possible,” Frimere said in an interview. “We want to be No. 1 in the U.S.”

…is another I’ve heard ad nauseum, both in and out of Nokia’s halls.  It was a rallying cry for us (current and former Nokia US employees) in 2006 but the enthusiasm fizzled with job, site and market share losses.  The main problem has been that the obvious actions have not matched the stated goals in too many instances.  I can only hope that there are corporate moves of which the rest of us are unaware– but that hope grows thinner by each market-share-sliding quarter.

The most recent buzz has been more about operating systems, though, than naming conventions.  Nokia’s homegrown Linux variant, Maemo, is poised for a refresh both in user interface and device host.  It’s a little late to many of the myriad developers still fiercely loyal to the novel platform, but Maemo is slowly starting to garner the sort of media cache usually reserved for hard products like phones.  Knowing the specifications and the capable team behind the operating system, I’m guardedly optimistic on its prospects.  The only thing that can get in the way of Nokia now is Nokia itself– has the company truly managed to find a way to straddle the precarious razor divide between open source software and for-profit devices?  Can it successfully manage the necessary transition from Symbian’s horizontal success to the more vertical computing needs going forward?

To be fair to Frimere and Nokia in general, I found another quote by IDC analyst Sean Ryan to be rather disingenuous:

“Mention Nokia to the average American and nobody has ever heard of it.”

Tell that to the multitude of Nokia-toting people I encounter every day.  In fact I cannot go a single day without hearing that default ringtone emerging from some unexpected location.  So, true, Nokia’s current share is too small to sustain, but there was a time when Nokia was king in the US.  People still remember; when they find out I used to work for the company, they regale me with stories of the indestructable brick phone they still miss.  There is pent-up demand for Nokia– the continuing challenge is all about capitalization.

The problem is that not only has Nokia fumbled the ball, they consistently fail to recover it even with a collective eye on it.  Nokia claims they will prevail– the only question now is, has the game passed them by?  I hope to hear from Ira Frimere and others on that score.

Thanks to Stephen Gadsby for the Computerworld article link.

By John Thompson
Editor, Green Computing

Green computing. Green IT. Whatever you call it, it still means the same thing – doing what you can to reduce the carbon footprint associated with technology use, whether using technology at home or on the office desk or in the IT department’s lair.

Here are a few snippets from recent Web sites, blogs, etc. Click on the associated link to finish reading “the rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey would say).

Green Computing – Laptop Only Offices

There are ways to go green in IT that might not be obvious. Some businesses may have already made the change to laptops for reasons other than portability and a traveling workforce. Laptops are power savers, and saving power is a green goal. Let’s look at how laptops can help you go green.

http://superbatteryy.blogspot.com/2009/07/green-computing-laptop-only-offices.html

MIS 1 Assignment4: Green Campus Computing

The growing use of computers on campus has caused a dramatic increase in energy consumption, putting negative pressure on CU’s budget and the environment. Each year more and more computers are purchased and put to use, but it’s not just the number of computers that is driving energy consumption upward. The way that we use computers also adds to the increasing energy burden.
http://emilios-blog-emilio.blogspot.com/2009/07/mis-1-assignment4-green-campus.html

Seven Design Considerations for a Green Data Centre

IT depart­ments are under increas­ing scrutiny and pres­sure to deliver environmentally‐sound solu­tions. Large data cen­tres are one of the most sig­nif­i­cant energy con­sumers in an organisation’s IT infra­strucure so any mea­sures that can be taken to reduce this con­sump­tion (and there­fore also car­bon diox­ide emis­sions) will have a pos­i­tive impact on an organisation’s envi­ron­men­tal foot­print.

http://expressiongreen.com/2009/07/19/seven-design-considerations-for-a-green-data-centre/

Green Campus Computing

Green computing is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. The primary objective of such a program is to account for the triple bottom line, an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success. The goals are similar to green chemistry: reduce the use of hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency during the product’s lifetime, and promote recyclability or biodegradability of defunct products and factory waste.

http://juvz14.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-green-computing-green-computing.html

Google banks on data centre with no chillers

Google has taken a radical new approach when it comes to cooling data centres. The search giant has opened a unique data centre in Belgium that has no backup chillers installed but, instead, relies totally upon free air cooling to keep its servers cool.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/311616/google_banks_data_centre_no_chillers

The Sustainability Potential of Cloud Computing: Smarter Design

If you listen to venture capitalists and tech gurus, cloud computing is “the new dot-com,” the “biggest shift in computing in two decades” or even the “Cambrian explosion” of the technology era. Among its other heavenly attributes, the cloud is being touted for its ability to address the enormous need for energy efficiency of IT’s own footprint.

http://ow.ly/15IfwE

Greening the Internet: How Much CO2 Does This Article Produce?

Twenty milligrams – that’s the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article. Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of CO2 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/07/10/green.internet.CO2/index.html

Sustainable Desktop Computing

To achieve a sustained reduction in energy consumption associated with desktop computers we recommend groups across the collegiate university to work through these five steps:

Step 1: Estimate. First estimate how much electricity your desktop computing infrastructure will consume if computers are (a) left on all the time or (b) switched off at the end of the day.

Step 2: Research. Many groups within the university and around the world have implemented projects to reduce IT-related greenhouse gas emissions and costs. OUCS is working with these groups to write up a variety of approaches in the form of case studies.

Step 3: Implement. There are many tools you can implement to reduce IT-related electricity consumption. How you achieve this within your group will depend on the needs and skills of your users, and the hardware and software infrastructure you own.

Step 4: Communicate. You will need to encourage as many people as possible to “do their bit.” Behavioural change is likely to be a significant and critical part of any initiative that aims to improve environmental performance.

Step 5: Share. In step two we suggest you read about the work of other groups. In this last step we encourage you to share your experiences by documenting your approach in the form of a case study.

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/greenit/desktop.xml

Happy reading “the rest of the story.” Where/how did I find this material? Using Tweetdeck, I set up Twitter searches on “green computing” and “green IT,” although almost all the URLs were found in the “green computing” (without using quotation marks) search. Using “green it” (with and without quotation marks) yielded mostly junk results. There was redundancy in the resulting tweets as people send retweets of the same information, plus there were soft/hard sells for related products. But you also find such information as cited above. You also might want to view my archived “Webinar, Blueprint for Green Computing,” found at the inaugural Virtual FOSE show’s site, http://virtual.fose.com/. It is a free registration.

Besides all this material, I hope that the resulting comments to this blog posting will contain more such green computing sites chockfull of more good information.

As an ex-AT&T “Bell head” anything telecom always gets my special attention. So when I saw the “Google Voice” re-announcement recently I couldn’t help wondering, “Huh, what’s up with that? How does this fit into Google’s core business?” Mostly though, I was interested in understanding why this and why now?

First, let’s put Google Voice in perspective. I’m gonna put it out there and say Google Voice is, IMHO, a refined GUI within a fairly standard VoIP version of unified messaging with number portability thrown in (sorry all for the techno-jargon, but a factual articulation of the technology seemed in order). Nice, but hardly deserving of the media gush that quickly followed this re-announcement, especially since Google Voice is a rebranded version of their Grand Central “one number for life” initiative launched in 2006. So this notion of having the same phone number for life has been done and redone dozens of times over the past dozen or so years. 

Now we all know that anything Google launches tends to bask in the Google glow, defying critical analysis.  So I seemed to be the only one interesting in knowing – why now?

In a recent Computerworld article by Mike Elgan, “Why Google Voice is free,” (6/27/09), Mike began to get at an answer of “why now” when he correctly contended that Google intends to monetize this free service via new advertising vehicles within their voice network.  While that answer makes total sense, it still didn’t get at the “why now” part of my question.

And then I was struck with a déjà vu moment – I realized with a jolt that Google is doing now what AT&T did in the 1980s and 1990s – I know since I worked at AT&T at that time. In fact, Mike Elgan made a similar connection when he observed that, “Google Voice means Google is technically, literally and actually a telephone company.”

Once I put that together, I realized that Google seems to be following in AT&T’s footsteps more closely than the media, or even they may realize. But more interestingly, that connection best explained the “why now” part of my question.    

First a quick AT&T history lesson. From the 1980s to the mid-1990s AT&T was in its full power as a global innovation brand fueled by its dominance in the communications business. While the diversity of the AT&T business was amazing, it was generally focused on communications, and they stayed “close to their knitting” (AT&T had many such quaint terms).

But competitive communications pricing pressures being what they were, AT&T expanded into business well beyond its core competency starting in the late 80s. It dabbled in home security, launched PCs, sold electronics games and even explored Pay-Per-View (PPV). They did this so they could grow by controlling digital information delivery channels from its source to its final consumption points to leverage the vast AT&T infrastructure. This explains lots of these diverse AT&T businesses, including their short-lived attempt to build their own internet via a project called “HomeCenter” (circa 1994).

These ambitious (dare I say arrogant) goals were necessary to fund its “big” company overhead. So it played in lots of industries because it could and because the cache of the AT&T brand blinded the leadership into believing that such an AT&T Information Network goal was achievable. So tons of resources were thrown at these diverse business plays in the hopes of reaching the business promised land that a lock on controlling information to users would have provided.

We all know how it turned out. In the briefest of years, AT&T went from a powerhouse to literally being almost a shell of its former self, regulatory issues notwithstanding. Only now, nearly 25 years later, is it beginning to make a brand comeback.  But it will probably never relive its former glory days.

So flash-forward to Google today and why Google Voice now?

Right now, Google is in its prime and has become the arbiter of technological coolness, much the way AT&T was in its day. And like AT&T in communications, Google has a very strong hold on the online ad market, but it’s facing new types of pressures from technology, as well as new business models. Furthermore, the Google PPC money machine is losing its grip and has, by many accounts, already plateaued.  This is similar to what happened with AT&T when MCI entered the field.

So much like AT&T did 20 years ago to maintain its growth, Google is trying to do the same – control the data distribution channels. In the case of AT&T, it was all about information delivery to business and residential users. In the case of Google, it’s all about advertising delivery to its “product” – to its users of its services.  

The trouble with wanting to dominate all delivery channels (whether it be information or advertising) is that you are forced to go further and further afield from your core competency. And while “playing” in disparate businesses is something a leader brand can afford to do, over time the core business tends to suffer – slowly, but inextricably. And then at some point, you are willing to throw out the knitting needles. AT&T did, and that did not end well. Google looks like to be headed in the same direction.

So the launch of Google Voice lets me see these parallels more clearly. As wonderful as Google Voice may be, I am tempted to say to Google, “Stick to your knitting.”

Judy Shapiro

Marketing Works would like to congratulate the team at Progressive Medical, Inc., for being named to IDG’s ComputerWorld’s annual ‘Best Places to Work in IT‘ list. Progressive Medical is ranked 17 on the list of small companies with fewer than 2,500 U.S. employees, and 100 on the overall list of the best work environments for technology professionals. The lists were developed after more than 27,000 IT workers were surveyed regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, diversity, career development, training and retention. This honor is part of the weekly IT publication’s 16th annual Best Places to Work in IT survey, published in the June 15 issue of Computerworld.