With the progress of Web 2.0, it’s the wave of the future that webware replaces software. An online word processor is one such webware that can replace Microsoft Word. Further, it has some advantages that Microsoft Word doesn’t have, such as security in data storage since it can store data online besides on your local computer and convenience for cooperation in a work group. Here are top 9 online word processors in no particular order, of which I believe you can find the one you like best.
Google Docs–Most users are familiar with Google Docs. Multiple-users can easily create and simultaneously edit on a single document and save it in real time. It’s superior in the speed of starting, running and real-time saving. Recently, a new feature has been added to Google Docs that you can upload all your files without converting them to Google Docs and then open and share them anywhere using Google Docs.
Zoho Writer – With a clear interface, Zoho Writer has many practical features such as sharing and collaborating with others, supporting offline edition on existing documents, importing documents from your desktop and anywhere on the web and exporting them to your computer. Like Google Docs, it offers simultaneous collaboration among multiple users.
ThinkFree– The editing mode is based on Java which is powerful with numerous spreadsheet templates, but at the same time means low speed in starting and running. Users can get free 1GB online storage space for saving documents.
EtherPad – EtherPad claims to be really real-time. Indeed, it instantly reflects any changes on everyone’s screen when multiple users are editing the same document simultaneously. Thus it is very useful for works requiring simultaneous collaboration.
Buzzword – Buzzword is a part of Acrobat.com now. It allows users to create and collaborate on documents with such formats as doc, docx, txt, xml, rtf, odt and also export to PDF and HTML files. Its greatest feature is its excellent visual performance ability which is completely based on Flash technology architecture.
AjaxWrite – AjaxWrite is the most similar to Microsoft Word of all online word processors and let you easily save your work directly to your hard drive when you finish your work in the way we are accustomed to, so you don’t need to take time to get used of it. But it requires Firefox browser 1.5 or higher. We hope IE support can come in the future.
Zcubes – Zcube can make your documents dynamic by including different media such as pictures, video, rss feeds and so on. You can drag-drop text from desktop or the web to ZSpace and then use ZEditor to edit it. DHTML based platform, directly editing HTML files, and hyperlinks opened in an internal browser with browsing history, all of these let you construct web documents when browsing the web.
WriteOnline –Designed for schools and colleges, WriteOnline includes work prediction, software speech and unique wordbar to help students in developing their writing.
Nevrocode Docs – Nevrocode Docs combines two features, web-based and desktop-based. Thus it provides not only speed and ease-of-use but also a dedicated web-service that saves the documents to Nevrocode servers. However, the documents created within this application can not be saved to the user’s computer.
Taking notes online has many advantages compared with taking notes in the PC. We can access and modify our notes as well as share and exchange them with our friends. Also online note taking has other special features like online to-do list and daily schedule and even there is a client-side that can synchronize our note content with the server.
Here I would like to introduce 15 websites without particular order for note taking in which I believe you will be interested after reading.
Notely http://www.notely.net/
A site specially designed for students to help them get organized in study. It has many features such as note taking, calendar, to-do list, task list, contact list and an upload area. It also supports course classifications as well as export and download of the note as pdf, doc or txt formats which can be sent by email directly. I think combining the features of courses, calendar and note taking can meet students’ needs well as the ordinary PIM tool to add tasks and notes to the corresponding daily schedules through calendar. The feature of friend list is also good through which you can add the friends on Facebook. You can experience this website in advance through the Demo function on the site.
MyNoteIt http://www.mynoteit.com/
A website with many features too, has the features of calendar, group, to-do list, bookmark and friend list besides note taking. It has good features for courses such as adding courses, adding single class, note, score and assignment specifically to each course and storing the contact information of the teacher. You can use mobile phone to browse through your notes with the help of MyNoteIT Mobile. It supports uploading word and OpenOffice files, image and scanning notes as well as audio files. It also offers experience in advance.
EverNote http://www.evernote.com
EverNote, I think it is well known too. It has good features but since I use ubuntu all the time I haven’t used it yet. EverNote can create notes through txt, screenshot, handwriting, etc. It can synchronize with mobile phone or PDA, let you share your notes with others more quickly through IM software or email and search notes more quickly through Google Desktop Search but I think you haven’t had so many notes.
WikiPad http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/
This is a kind of open source note tool like wiki. Not matter Windows, Linux or Mac OS can use this application. It also has many good features: to-do list, auto-store, supporting the export of the notes as html files and storing all data in plain text. You can not only use it as a notebook but also write your own wiki on it and even set up your own PIM or PKM.
NoteSake http://notesake.com/
Many people may know this site that I have ever used for a period of time. It adds course classifications and tags to your notes to make the search convenient, makes it possible to share notes with others through group, adopts special Textile marks to manage the formats of your notes, supports latex marks for you to input math formulas conveniently and provides support for the export of the note as pdf or doc file.
NoteCentric http://www.notecentric.com/
As an application of Facebook now, it manages your notes in an efficient and stable way. It also supports course classifications and offers relevant notes as well as note sharing. It is easy to learn editing the note. It offers good reminding function through RSS subscription.
Writeboard http://writeboard.com/
Its version controlling feature is quite good, which enables you to know the update of every time and compare the differences among different versions, a bit like SVN and you can learn the change of all note content by RSS subscription, so it’s quite suitable for group work. After you create a Write Board, you can invite your classmates and friends to join and a copy of everyone’s modification to the note will be stored.
ZohoWriter http://writer.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp?serviceurl=%2Findex.do
This site has been recommended by many people. It supports multi-person access and WYSIWYG editing pattern. You can import files in formats of doc, odt, sxw, html, rtf, jpg, gif png etc and export files in formats of doc, pdf, sxw, odt, rft, txt html, etc. It has features of convenient sharing and special symbol input as well as spell checking for English notes. If you want to read a note of former version, you can access it by History.
YourDraft http://www.yourdraft.com/
Through WYSIWYG editing pattern, you can create your own note easily. Meanwhile, you can set others’ access limit by allowing others to read and even comment or reply your note. In fact, it is through creating a web page that the content can be added freely by you and even you can use the created web page in your blog or website easily. The introduction on this website explains this feature.
Backpack http://www.backpackit.com/
A site I like very much, can well manage my notes, to-do lists, some of my thoughts and calendar. It not only can be use as a note taking site but also has many other applications such as setting reminding, making task lists and managing photos. The management of the web page is very easy by tagging page and you don’t need to worry about missing anything with the reminding function. It has so many applications that it’s hard for one to imagine. You can read the example uses on the upper of the site.
MyYellowPad http://www.myyellowpad.com/
It can manage your shopping lists, task lists, phone numbers, contact lists, notes, birthday and so on. The overall is ordinary but maybe you will like it.
Jjot http://jjot.com/
The first impression it gave me was that it was a bit like Google Notebook in which you could store your thoughts and the fond content you read on web pages conveniently. However, Google Notebook has been no longer open to sign-ups by new users or being improved, so I think probably it can replace Google Notebook. It’s also a bit like the Knote under KDE which I often use on laptop. What do you think about it? By the way, it seems it can only work well in Firefox browser.
SyncNotes http://www.syncnotes.com/WebView/Default.aspx
From the site name, we can know the synchronizing function is the greatest feature of this site. You need to download the SyncNotes client software to manage and add your notes using you PC or PDA. At the same time, you can synchronize your note content with SynNotes sever through browsers or mobile phones that can get to internet.
Regarding any Microsoft’s Windows OS, a good antivirus program is a key point when you are surfing the Internet. It seems everyone has his own favorite solution to virus with personal feature, but in terms of security experts, there are universal principles for Windows OS anti-virus:
1. Install Antivirus before Connecting the Internet
Do install anti-virus software in any PC of Microsoft’s Windows OS before connecting the Internet, since the speed of malware infecting the computer is faster than that of downloading anti-virus program. If you don’t realize this and take for granted that you needn’t worry about virus infecting your PC before you open the browser to visit any website, you are playing Russian Roulette on the PC security.
2. Choose the Antivirus Containing Real-time Scan Tool
To protect your PC from being infected with viruses or worms, you need a real-time auto-scan tool to ensure you can detect the presence of virus in daily work and prevent virus spreading. Real-time scanning may bring more pressure to the system performance so we often close it, but do make careful consideration. In fact, it’s inadvisable to close the real-time scanning to get extra performance improvement when you are browsing webpage and sending and receiving email.
3. Full Scan the System Regularly
Relying on only real-time scan is far from enough; you also need to ensure full scanning the system regularly. If possible, you should have your computer full scanned automatically everyday, since real-time scan can only effectively protect the system from being infected during connecting and even so, it’s probable that some viruses are not included in the characteristic codebase of your antivirus program and thus can not be detected.. Therefore, full scanning the system regularly is necessary.
4. Don’t Use Two Antivirus Programs at the Same Time
It will bring nothing but troubles using two antivirus programs at the same time, because two antivirus programs running together in the system will cause such problems as their real-time scan tools may conflict in control rights thus impairing the system performance and the virus signature file of the antivirus program may be handled as actual virus by the other one. In a word, to have two incompatible antivirus programs run in your PC may lead to many unexpected situations.
In addition, you can refer to another article of mine by clicking here to find some kind of antivirus recommended and some tips to make your PC run smoothly.
At present the mobile Internet is sharply heating up and there are more and more people surfing the Internet with handsets. It’s because on the one hand, the telecom operators are down-regulating the charge for surfing the Internet with handsets and vigorously promoting application such as I-news, mobile payment and mobile negotiable securities in the industry chain which stimulates user demand; on the other hand, counterfeit handsets develop rapidly with cheap price and support for mobile Internet, which objectively provides hardware foundation for surfing Internet with handsets.
Therefore, more and more Internet enterprises and carriers get involved in this new media – mobile Internet, hoping to win a share. In my opinion, there are three ways worth exploring the mobile Internet to make profit:
Advertisement Model
Whether Yahoo’s portal model or Google’s search model is ad model in spite of the forms of this ad model vary: it may be display ad or keyword ad. Someone thinks ad model won’t be the mainstream commercial model since the handset screen is much smaller than PC screen which will greatly impair the richness of ad displaying contents. Besides, people surf Internet with handset at odd times, for example: when on the way to someplace or waiting, which also decides advertising by wireless Internet will be much weaker than by wired Internet.
However, there are some mobile Internet practitioners who have great expectations for ad model with such viewpoint as although the handset screen is small, the intended target of the handset is much more accurate than wired Internet for the user of each handset is definite, so considering the marketing efficiency, the handset ad is better than wired Internet ad.
In terms of Japan, there are two kinds of ad developing well: one is search ad and the other is banner and textlink. Nevertheless, if lots of banners and textlinks are added on the mobile Internet in some countries such as China whose traffic charge is rather high, users’ surfing cost will be greatly increased and thus this model won’t work at the present stage.
Mobile Business
The rise of Alibaba made the IT industry reacquaint the e-business model and now we expect a good future of e-business on mobile Internet. In Japan, mobile phones can carry out payment. Some Japanese handsets are implanted certain chips which enables people to directly swipe their handsets for taking the metro and bus or using the vending machine. But the development of e-business on mobile Internet may be rather slow for the deficiency of credit system and e-payment system in some countries.
Mobile Online Game
So far, some traditional online game makers have tried to develop mobile online games but haven’t been in full swing that may be because making money on mobile online games is rather slow. Mobile online games are totally different from PC online games. For example, PC online games quite depend on the cybercafe resource while the mobile online games depend on the relevancy to the handset users. When will the mobile online game outburst? Maybe it can only be when all the present industry leaders of the PC online game go for it.
In this new media age, how should the mobile Internet create new profiting models and what services should it push? These are questions needing the industry to explore. No one knows which model will bloom with brilliant flowers but everyone can sow seeds according to their resources and ability. Ad, e-business and online game, probably each way has chance to succeed and the success belongs to the one nearest to users.
Recently I came across a problem that I couldn’t install Cisco Vpn CLient software after I had installed 64 bit OS in my computer in order to use more than 4G RAM. What’s more, I could not install Cisco Vpn Client in any 64 bit OS no matter Windows 2003 or Windows 7.Without installing this software, I had no access to the internal resource of our company network as our company uses VPN dial-in of IPSEC. Thus I searched online and at last I found ShrewSoft Vpn Client software. I installed it in 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate to try my luck and I was glad it worked.
The way to use it is as below.
1. After installation, open it from Start\Program and get the following screenshot:
2. Click File\Import to import former configuration file including the configuration file of CISCO VPN CLIENT – pcf file.
3. After the file is imported, the screenshot is as below:
4. Choose the filename of the imported configuration file and then right-click Connect to input your username and password and now it can be connected.
However, it is displayed on the taskbar instead of auto concealing into the notification area like CISCO VPN CLIENT. The way to solve this problem is to open File\Preferences and choose the options showed in the red frames in the below screenshot.
After this setting, it will be displayed in notification area after you log in. You can minimize the window to the notification area after connection and the username is remembered.
It works well after connection and the computer system speed is not slowed. What’s more, it is a freeware. If you have the same problem as me, you can download it at: http://www.shrew.net/download/vpn. I chose the newest in Development version and it passed test in 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate.
Tip: Remember not to choose the Stable version when downloading; otherwise the pcf file can not be imported.
As the development of knowledge and civilization of human being, people are more and more eager for knowing the unexplored fields and an important way to observe the vast expanse of the universe is through astronomical telescope. However, if you are unable to purchase the expensive astronomical observation equipments, can you observe the astronomical phenomena? Yes! Try the 5 free softwares introduced below and you will find lots of the astronomical phenomena and objects can be simulated which are based on real data. Through them, you can feast your eyes without cost.
Google Earth is a virtual globe software developed by Google and was rated as one of the top 100 new products in the world in 2005 by PCWorld. It lays out the satellite photos, aerial photography and GIS on a 3D model and people can download the free client software to browse the satellite images with high definition from around the globe.
An interesting feature Google Sky was added to Google Earth to the 4.2 version and the later version. Google Sky is like a virtual astronomical telescope to let you roam among hundreds of millions of stars. It enables you to browse and observe with magnification one hundred million stars and two hundred million galaxies from the viewpoint of Earth. Besides, it can show through different layers the star evaluation history, asterism constellations, high definition photos taken by Hubble Space Telescope and galaxy guides. A local space layer let you click directly among stars, galaxies and nebulas that can be seen by naked eyes or small telescopes.
Carina Nebula taken by Hubble camera
Also there is web-based Google Sky so people can experience the pleasure of explore the universe by browser without downloading the software.
Celestia is a free open source software which can run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. With it, you can not only look down Earth from above but also travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100 thousand stars and even out of the galaxy. You can view the nebulas at a distance and also observe the aircrafts near with all movement seamless. There is a large catalog of stars, planets, satellites, comets and spacecraft in Celestia. What’s more, you can download and install extension databases conveniently if you want more.
To operate Celestia is simple and you can control it by shortcut keys:
[F8]: begin running
Keys 1-9: shortcut keys represent nine planets
Space key: suspend and revert
K and L: accelerate time and decelerate time
0: show the orbit
I believe you will find more wonderful features during using it.
Stellarium is also a free open source software and can run on Linux/Unix, Windows and Mac OS X. It uses OpenGL to render the starry sky in real time so the starry sky is the same as that you see by snaked eyes, telescope or astronomical telescope.
It will be of full screen automatically after starting and a vast starry sky is presented before our eyes. You can choose different planets such as the moon and the Mars as start points to observe the space
NASA World Wind is co-presented by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). It’s more authoritative and is totally free at present.
You can see any place on Earth from outer space through the 3D engine of this program. The highest resolution of World Wind can reach one pels standing for 15 meters by combining with online database, which means some big streets can be seen very clear. In addition, you can have a 3D flight around Earth to experience flying over Everest, hurricane sweeping Florida and the climate change situation.
StarStrider is not free but it provides a 30 day trial. It enables you to travel on different planets and look at the sky on outer planets.
Imagine the starry sky seen from Sirius, the solar system seen from Cassiopeia, or Taurus seen from its back. Isn’t these cool? StarStrider lets you do all of these cool things.
Like them? You can download them now and have a try, but before you do it remember to have a look at the system requirements specified on the product websites.
Most people may not think of Microsoft when referring to Web application and service, though Microsoft has made a series of Web applications and services, some of which can be on a par with or even better than the products of the network tycoons like Google and Yahoo.
Then, which are Microsoft’s top Web services? Here I would like to introduce the top 5 after I tried numerous Microsoft’s Web services and all the 5 ones are free.
You will find most of the services below are with “Live” brand and you may be confused with the “Live” product line of Microsoft, especially after Microsoft pushed out Live Essentials applications. In fact, Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft with most of these services being web application, while Live Essentials containing Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Instant Messenger, is one of the ways to offer Windows Live services.
Windows Live SkyDrive is a store service like its name – the hard disk in the “cloud” which provides 25G web store space. With Windows Live SkyDrive, you can upload and download your private files whenever and wherever possible and let others add or upgrade files in the shared folder.
However, SkyDrive is not perfect. You can not use it as a virtual drive – it won’t show up in My Computer, so you can not directly save a file to the SkyDrive, but this is just a small flaw. You have no reason to require a free store service with 25 GB space to be perfect, especially considering Google has just launched such service named GDrive as a part of Google Docs recently and Yahoo’s Briefcase closed in March 2009 supplied only 25M space. Therefore, it is reasonable to classify SkyDrive to the list of the best online store services
Windows Live Sync is the software for remote sharing, which lets you synchronize or share your files on Internet simply and conveniently. To use the complete service, you need to install a client program and an activex control. After installing the client program, you need to log in the site of Windows Live Sync to fill in the information you want to be synchronized in your personal computer.
You can use it to create images of important folders (such as Favorite, Picture and Documents) so that they can keep synchronizing all the time. Besides, you can access your files at anytime when being out by connecting the synchronic computer through remote system. Finally, it makes sharing files so easy. You can share files with your friends, colleagues and family by just adding or upgrading files in the shared files with the file size Sync can handle up to 4GB.
Different from some commercial synchronic services, Windows Live Sync doesn’t store your file copies in the cloud. It is just a channel to connect all of your computers. However, it is because Sync isn’t involved in any online store that it has no limit to the synchronic data volume.
Live Mesh was a great attempt that Microsoft tried to link all of our data together and it succeed. It can not only synchronize the data in different devices of a single user but also supply the shared space for multiple users.
Superficially, Live Mesh is quite similar to the other synchronic services such as Dropbox, SugarSync and even FolderShare which also belongs to Microsoft. Actually, what makes Live Mesh special is the platformization ambition. It can synchronize data from various devices including the Windows PC, the Mac and the mobile phone or even other hardware devices in the future.
Different from the synchronization of files and folders between one PC and another PC, you can create folders in Live Mesh and make all of your personal devices keep synchronic with these folders. In addition, you can access theses files and folders anytime and anywhere by any machine on Internet. Meanwhile, you have considerable control rights with the synchronization. You can choose files smaller than 500MB or files revised in the past 30 days to be synchronized. Also, Live Mesh supports remote control. So far, Microsoft has never indicated to charge for this service or limit the data volume you can store.
Microsoft Office Live Workspace
Microsoft Office Live Workspace is an online collaboration product to let people access and share Microsoft Office files. Its main target users are individual, small-scale business users and education circles not the large enterprises who expect to access files anywhere.
To begin to use it, you need to have a shared workspace first by choosing the one right for you from the 11 preset workspaces such as Project Workspace, Conference Workspace and Travel Workspace. Of course, you can also create a workspace for yourself. Every workspace will have a built template including PowerPoint presentation file, Excel worksheet and Word file. The members in the workgroup can edit and save the file and remote share and collaborate with the others. To edit the Office files, you need to install a free Office plugin but to browse the file doesn’t need this plugin even no need to have Office installed.
Compared with Google Docs or Zoho, the advantage of Office Live Workspace is the seamless integration with Microsoft Office. You can save files in the workspace and can also use Office programs to edit the files in the workspace. The most important is that it’s better to create files and workspace in the way of template driving.
14
Mobile Internet Needs Top Speed Action – Drawn from Lenovo’s Product Release
0 Comments | Posted by Bob in Internet
The recent two years mobile Internet has been being very popular. Apple’s iPhone swept a big popularity whirlwind over the world in 2009, since it represents the feature of mobile Internet—lightweight and portability. As the next fertile soil of IT field, mobile Internet also attracts some Internet companies and PC manufacturers such as Google and Lenovo.
As we know, Google has launched its own brand phone Nexus One recently. Obviously, as the terminal of mobile Internet, the mobile phone naturally is a field of strategic importance and in order to get a right to speak in this field, Google released its mobile phone which is a shortcut for it to enter this field. Google as a Internet company disinclines to be hands-off at this big business; Lenovo as a PC maker certainly is unwilling to be outdone. You may still remember the event of Lenovo buyback of Lenovo Mobile at the end of 2009 which was regarded as an important signal of Lenovo marching on mobile Internet and now one month past, Lenovo officially announced the mobile Internet strategy at CES 2010 last week on January 6.
There was only one month from buyback of Lenovo Mobile to official announcement of mobile Internet strategy and the three heavyweight products were released at the same time. In this way, Lenovo really acted in the mobile Internet at top speed which not only made its competitors be caught unprepared but also the users be taken by surprise.
Top Speed of Releasing Three Products All at Once
At the CES 2010, Lenovo released the mobile Internet products of its first generation: smartbook Skylight, smartphone LePhone and dual-mode notebook ideapad U1 with brand-new creative idea. Regardless the features of the three products, just the momentum of releasing all at once took the industry’s breath away. In Lenovo’s opinion, mobile Internet is an integrative concept and the hardware devices it depends on are not restricted to smartphones or smartbooks but more individualized and more intelligent products according to the needs of users to make users enjoy the unprecedented change brought by mobile Internet.
Top Speed of Product Innovation
The three products are full of innovation. Firstly, Skylight is the world’s first ARM-based smartbook cooperating with Qualcomm. The netbook was a new force that suddenly rose in 2008 and 2009 to make Internet stride forward in the direction of light, thin and convenient application, while Skylight continue to develop in this direction based on the netbook, with not only lighter and thinner but also instant available features. Skylight supports multi Internet connection types including 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and wired connection and the battery life can last throughout the day to make the user always online and connect Internet at will.
Secondly, the biggest innovation of the smartphone LePhone is to supply rich and humanizing services for users. For example, the most important information for users can be pushed to the LePhone in real time through the “push” technology self-developed by Lenovo and more desktop widgets and apps can be downloaded through the built-in Lenovo app store.
Thirdly, the innovation of ideapad U1 lies in it’s the first dual-mode notebook in the IT industry. You can use it as ordinary notebook and when you need, you can detach the screen to use it as a multitouch tablet. This innovation is of great revolutionary significance for it well realizes the effect of one machine for dual-purpose and tells us we can take the notebook as the tablet PC.
Top Speed of Application Integration
Lenovo clear presentes its view on mobile Internet by announcing the three innovative products which also embodies the strong ability of application integration of Lenovo. Ideapad U1, for example, gives full play to powerful application for both modes of standard notebook and tablet PC. Both modes support 3G web browsing at least 5 hours and 3G stand-by time at least 60 hours and users can choose between longitudinal and lateral pattern to view and so on. These powerful integrative features let Lenovo’s products be actual innovative products not just good-looking.
LePhone also includes all the Internet applications. With LePhone, the users can not only make friends on SNS websites smoothly but also receive various important information automatically pushed by LePhone such as email, news, music, video and real time financial information. In a word, the functionality, the individuation and the interactivity of LePhone are noteworthy.
Of course, as a smartbook, Skylight has quite a few lightspots. Remarkably, Skylight further lowers the bound between handsets and netbooks. It is thinner than many smartphones with a weight of less than two pound and it is more convenient to take along than the ordinary netbooks. It lets you use the main applications like Gmail, Facebook and Youtube and you don’t need to worry about the machine swamped, for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform provides powerful mobile managing performance and lowers the power dissipation at the same time.
Actually, from Lenovo buyback of Lenovo Mobile and announcement of mobile strategy with three heavyweight products, we can get a conclusion that as mobile Internet is imminent and the future competition is bound to be more and more intense, those who want to take a share in this field or even get the first must take action at top speed.
At the beginning of 2010, let’s review what great events happened in the software industry in 2009, so that we can keep to the developing thread in 2009 to predict the development in 2010.
Oracle Bought Sun
On April 20 2009, Oracle bought Sun at about $7.4 billion. This was a heavyweight enterprise merger case in the global IT industry of 2009.
Now, this event is still in development and there are continual trace and observation for this news event. Although the American authority has approved this merger case which was expected to be finished in August 2009, this merger is still blocked in the EU.
The main worry the EU has with this case is from the open source database software MySQL which will be acquired together with Sun by Oracle. The open source community is worried about Oracle will affect the development of MySQL after Oracle owns MySQL in the future and impair the competition in database software market.
Although this event happened in 2009, its real impact on the IT industry I’m afraid will begin in 2010. As the result of this merger case clearer in 2010, it will be a great IT event that deserve much attention in 2010.
Some reading for you:
Oracle Acquisition of Sun Makes Perfect Sense
What does the Oracle-Sun News Mean for Enterprise CTOs?
Oracle Sun: Good News, Bad News for Google and Microsoft
Microsoft’s Search Made a Leap Forward
On June 4 2009, Microsoft’s search engine Bing was launched.
In 2009, Microsoft invested much in search engine market embodied in:
1. Launching the search engine Bing
2. Signing the search ads cooperative agreement with Yahoo
The two pieces of news looks like unrelated but in fact both served for Microsoft’s search business.
Bing is a great substitute in the field of search engine core and the ads cooperation with Yahoo is to promote the market share and ads revenue of Bing, which are two strategies prepared for each other.
Indeed, Microsoft’s Bing deserves Google’s fear. Firstly, the performance of Bing is not bad compared with Google; even some innovated features of Bing like image search also worth Google’s tension judging from our observation in the past half year. Secondly, it was showed in a market investigation report that after Bing was launched, Yahoo got converging attack from Google and Bing though Google’s market share was not affected, so Yahoo had to cooperate with Microsoft for the long run.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Search Marketing Vs Google Search Marketing
It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing could be regarded as the most loudly slogan in 2009. As the march of time and the development of IT, there are more content to talk about for cloud, but in terms of the basic concept, I really can not find any difference it has from the ASP (Application Service Provider) in ten years ago and the Web services popular a few years ago.
Perhaps, cloud computing is just a buzzword of IT industry and there will be other slogans as time passes by just like the Web 2.0 in a few years ago which is not talked about now but the content which referred to at that time is still evolving.
No matter the past Web 2.0 or the current cloud computing, after trace to the source, what we need to understand are theses questions: What changes does the Internet bring to the personal consumer and the enterprise? How many daily things will we do on Internet (including mobile Internet) in the future? How will the paradigm of IT change from the PC terminal to the Internet? We had these questions when the Internet came in more than a decade ago and so are us now and in the future no matter what the popular slogan is.
Some reading for you:
Smaller firms take a shine to cloud computing
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Google Revealed Chrome OS
In November 2009, Google revealed Chrome OS and will directly confront Microsoft in 2010.
It was definite a great event for the global IT industry that Google released Chrome OS, since it is widely believed that besides Apple, Google is the most capable company in the world to compete with Microsoft, especially in software field.
Certainly, it has brought big anticipation for the IT industry that Google is entering the PC OS market, so there have been constant analyses and rumors for Google. It is reported that the Chrome OS netbook would come into the market in the middle of 2010. However, I would like to forecast that Chrome OS is incapable to compete with Microsoft in terms of a short time for I’m afraid the real product challenge will just begin in 2010 and we should consider the influence of Chrome OS in the long run.
Some reading for you：
What the Hell’s Google Chrome OS
Will Chrome Netbooks Really Be Competitive?
Windows 7 Was Launched
In October 2009, Windows was launched with the help of hundred computer manufacturers.
Two years after the launch of Windows Vista which has been fed up with criticisms, users finally got a decent new choice. From the subsequent report and investigation data, we know Windows 7 do get more popularity than Vista, but there were critics who deemed the good of Win 7 not really very good but just built on the lousy Vista.
According to what Microsoft and PC manufacturers said, the native support for multi-touch of windows 7 will bring innovation for the PC design and application. In 2010 the year for Windows 7 to get into market mainstream, let’s watch to see whether Windows 7 will really be the motivity of the industry innovation.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Pushes Tablet PCs Windows 7 at CES But Not Mobile
62 Windows 7 Tips, Tricks and Secrets
Google’s Nexus One phone has finally been launched, but was not long-awaited like Apple’s iPhone; on the contrary, people are still a bit confused with Google involving into mobile entities.The cooperation of Google with all carriers and manufactures is natural with Google firmly holding Android as open source, not involving in phone entities, while now Google has also push off its own phone which makes Google a suspect. to take over other’s jobs.
After all, Google is not Apple and Google’s Nexus One is not Apple’s iPhone. Apple’s iPhone takes the way of exclusive. It tightly controls manufacture, design and operation in every respect with the only one unconstrained support from third party software brought by APP Store mode. In this case, the competitive relation between Apple and its competitors is clear all the time. In other words, other mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers well know such competitive relation with Google at the very beginning.
However, it’s different for Google who needs large supports from other parties in promoting its open source software Android. Both mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers are to be drawn over to Google’s side, but now Google is involved in mobile phone manufacture; then what will these cooperators think?
Of course, we can assume that the target of Google launching Nexus One is Apple which is apparent. Apple’s success in mobile market with the help of iPhone has made Google have to adjust its development strategy. Nevertheless, Google’s advantage is it has vast audiences but most of its audiences concentrate on Internet application unlike Apple who is the leader of consumer electronics products. Thus it is doomed that Google’s phone is difficult to surpass Apple’s iPhone.
What we can be sure is that Google want Nexus One to be its own iPhone and Google hopes to conduct more detail management so as to give full play to Android, but since Android is an open source product, what it needs is more supports from other parties not Google itself practicing what it preaches. Surely, necessary promotion for Android is inevitable, which may be one of the potential reasons for Google to push out Nexus One.
In addition, the choice of operating mode is also crucial for Google to promote Nexus One. It was reported that Nexus One was based on Android 2.1 and Google would cooperate with North America carrier Verizon and European WCDMA carrier Vodafone with cooperating with American T-Mobile in first launch. So there will be two versions: GSM/WCDMA and CDMA. The bare machine of Nexus One costs $529 in first launch and the price for American users contracting with T-Mobile is $179 which is obviously expensive and is higher than iPhone. Will this be a constraint for promoting Nexus One.
Let’s have a look at the configuration of Nexus One. It adopts Qualcomm’s SnapDragon 1GHz CPU, 512MB ROM and RAM, 3.7 inches AMOLED LCD screen with 80*400 pixels and automatic focusing camera with 5 million pixels. Such hardware configuration ranks top in the current mobile phone industry.
As is known to everyone, smart phones are sharply rising and become an arithmetic facility with multiple features. The smart phone brings more challenge than fortune for Google’s network search empire basically builds on the small text ads related to PC searching. As people more and more rely on powerful smart phones to replace traditional PC, their surfing habit will be bound to change. Besides, network ads may lost the position as number one engine of net economy and thus Google’s position as market leader will be threatened.
Therefore, Google strive to develop mobile market and Google executives said they believed their company can thrive again in the field of mobile Internet. But I think Google must carefully handle the problems of how to develop wireless ads market and where to find the chance for the phone entity. As for Google involving in the phone entity, it’s difficult to say whether it will success at present; at least the market holds little hope of it surpassing iPhone.
