Apple’s new iPhones eliminate most reasons to buy an Android device?

Pure Android from the beginning

I have been thinking a lot along the lines of this post from Benedict Evans regarding iOS 8 and Apple’s new iPhones.

I’ve been on Android since day 1, almost literally. At Google’s 2009 I/O conference they had their first hardware giveaway, a HTC device (later sold as the HTC Magic) running a pure version of Android. It was immediately evident that previous Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices were obsolete. It’s been all Nexus since. The Nexus One, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. My Android experience has been excellent as well as atypical. I have always had the most up to date version of Android and never had to mess with skins or bloatware. Personally I would never buy an Android device not running a clean install of the operating system which puts me in a very small minority. I've never had any doubt iPhones were amazing but my Android experience has been amazing as well.

I don’t know what my next device will be, but I will be considering iOS for the first time. There are a few key reasons why.

Extensibility in iOS 8

I think this is the most important new feature of iOS 8. Extensibility is the ability of applications to interact with one another as well as the iOS system itself. Google Voice / Hangouts could have more access to the dialer for example. Gmail could integrate more closely with Drive and Calendar. Dropbox could become a resource to any other application. The potential of this new functionality is limitless.

In the beginning iOS and Android fell into two extremes when it came to ‘extensibility’. Android essentially allowed any other application to do anything - sometimes this was good, sometimes bad. iOS took the opposite approach. With few exceptions, applications were essentially locked inside their own little area. They did not typically have access to iOS system application resources or other applications.

Today we see both Android and iOS moving away from these extremes and towards a common middle ground. Google continues to lock down Android and now Apple is opening up the iOS system. I think these moves are great for the overall quality of the user experience.

A lack of extensibility was the primary reason I never considered iOS.

Screen size

Every iPhone owner I’ve ever asked says they don’t want a larger screen. They are all wrong. My Nexus 5 has a 4.95 inch display and it’s pretty perfect. Easily my favorite device I’ve ever had. The iPhone hardware is amazing, always has been really, and the display terrific as well. That being said, there’s no benefit of the smaller display. Once the iPhone 6 becomes mainstream, the crowd reminiscing about the good old days of smaller displays is going to be very, very, very small. When it comes to displays in your living room or in your pocket, bigger is usually better at least to a point. The iPhone 6 Plus (terrible name) will certainly be too large for many people’s taste. The 4.7” display of the iPhone 6 isn’t too large - it’s just not. People will never look back.

The Nexus 5, and previous devices, ruined the 4” screen size for me. Regardless of how much I liked iOS and Apple's hardware, I would not have bought a device with a 4” display.

Google Integration

This really goes hand-in-hand with extensibility but is worth considering separately given the importance, and popularity, of Google’s mobile apps. I am personally and professionally heavily invested in Google’s services. I depend on them to do my job and make a living.

Over the last 12-18 months we’ve seen Google’s iOS development team really come into its own. In the past it was not uncommon for Android’s functionality to be several months ahead of iOS. Android’s ‘extensibility’ was wide open. Gmail offered a more integrated experience. Google Voice could control all outbound and inbound calling from the system’s dialer - Voice wasn’t a stand alone application that could handle calling, it was THE app handling all calling, texting, voicemail, etc.

Today it’s not uncommon for iOS to receive new functionality first. While Android still leads the way most of the time, the lag for iOS may be days or weeks rather than months. To 99.99999% of people, this difference is now imperceivable. I work with Google’s applications and mobile devices every day. I would have a very hard time coming up with much of a list of areas where Android offers more functionality than iOS across Google’s services.

The Verdict

At this point, I’m not sure. I'll wait to see what Google has in store this fall when we typically see new Nexus hardware. But this is the first time I’ll actually have a decision to make. 

Gmail hacked?

This is a cross-post from the Umzuzu.com blog. 

The Attack

It usually starts the same way each time, you get an email from one of your contacts, "Hey, I got this weird email from you?" 

You immediately know you didn't send them anything weird or otherwise. You check your sent items for clues. Sometimes clues are right there, sometimes the bad guys have covered their tracks. What do you do now?

Technically speaking you probably weren't hacked but rather phished. In a phishing attack you become the unwitting accomplice, actually handing over both your username and password. The images below show the attack email and phishing site that's been making the rounds the past few weeks.

OFTEN THE EMAIL WILL COME FROM A "TRUSTED" OR KNOWN CONTACT AS THE ATTACKER LEVERAGES THE CONTACTS SAVED WITHIN THE VICTIM'S ACCOUNT. 

Stranger Danger

I've shown this site to several people and many of them say if the site was from a trusted person, they'd probably hand their credentials over by attempting to "sign-in".

This site is simply a form that might as well say, "give me your username and password so I can phish your account". If there is ever any doubt, never provide credentials. 

This site offers many clues that can help us determine it's part of a phishing attack. (Click here to enlarge). 

The Response

You've confirmed or strongly suspect someone besides yourself is leveraging your Gmail account to send email. What next? 

Change your Gmail password

You can do so here: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/EditPasswd or from your Gmail Settings: 

1. Open Gmail.
2. Click the gear in the top right.
3. Select Settings.
4. Click the Accounts tab at the top.
5. Click Change password in the “Change account settings” section.
6. Type your current password and your new password. We highly recommend you create a unique password - one that you don't use for any other websites. See more password tips below.
7. Click Change password.

There are also several other ways to access your Account's Security settings. 

Review your Security Settings

You can find them here: https://www.google.com/settings/security 

Review, confirm and update your 'Recovery & alerts' information as needed. This is a great opportunity to review these settings in detail to make sure everything is up to date. 

Check your Gmail Filters

The more sophisticated attacks will often configure Gmail Filters to hide evidence of the intrusion, continue to leverage your account for nefarious activities or attempt to regain access. If a Filter does not look familiar, Delete it. 

To edit or delete existing filters

1. Open Gmail.
2. Click the gear in the top right.
3. Select Settings.
4. Click the Filters tab.
5. Find the filter you'd like to change and click edit or delete to remove the filter.
6. If you're editing the filter, enter the updated criteria for the filter in the appropriate fields, and click Continue.
7. Update any actions and click the Update filter button.

Check your Gmail Contacts

It's becoming more common for the attacker to delete the victim's Contacts. We assume this is to keep the victim from warning other potential victims before the phishing emails have a chance of snaring more victims. If your Contacts have been Deleted, leverage Gmail's 'Restore contacts...' feature under the 'More' menu. 

Review additional information

If you've followed the steps above your account should be back within your control. Google does provide additional tools that can be leveraged to review additional information. 

From the Gmail footer, you can find 'Last account activity' Details in the bottom right or by visiting 'Recent activity' here: security.google.com (When accessed from Gmail, this feature also allows you to "Sign out all other sessions", very handy if you forget to sign out somewhere.) 

Last account activity will show us the recent login activity for our account - if you see Germany, China, Russia, etc. but happen to be in the United States you know your account was indeed compromised. It is common to see your mobile device log activity from other areas but they should be within the United States and relatively close to your general location.   

Protecting yourself

Leverage two-factor authentication 

Enable 2-Step Verification, commonly called Two-Factor Authentication. You can start the process here.

As Google explains:

2-Step Verification drastically reduces the chances of having the personal information in your Google Account stolen by someone else. Why? Because bad guys would have to not only get your password and your username, they'd have to get a hold of your phone.

Two-factor authentication would have foiled the phishing attack detailed in this post. Once your computer is authenticated you won't have to use two-factor authentication every time but anytime a new computer tries to access your account, two-factor authentication will be required. This strikes a good balance between convenience and security. Today many modern services offer two-factor authentication, you can learn more about other services offering this feature here. 

Never trust an unknown or unexpected login page

If you're going about your business on the web and are unexpectedly asked to provide credentials, stop. Never login to a page you don't recognize or don't expect. Always review the URL of the site requesting credentials. If anything looks 'phishy' close the window and attempt to access the service as you normally would from a trusted URL like Gmail.com or Drive.Google.com  

Leverage a good password

Keep your password secure. Don't share your password with others. In Gmail leverage Delegate Access rather than shared passwords. Don't have a single password for the whole office. If you ever think your password may have been exposed, be proactive and change it. 

Never use your primary email address and password as a username/password combination for other sites. 

Many services will allow (or require) an email address as a username, while convenient this can also be problematic if you use the same password for that site as the associated username for your email account. For example, Forbes was recently attacked by hackers who gained access to everyone's username. 

THE SECURITY MESSAGE CURRENTLY ON FORBES.COM, FEBRUARY 17TH, 2014. 

If your email address here is your primary email address and you used the same password for that email account and Forbes, you're at a greater risk of having your account compromised. While Forbes states that passwords were encrypted we can't know the strength of the encryption or if it was fully implemented. Bottom line, we don't want our primary account password in more places than it has to be. Increased points of exposure and passwords don't mix. 

Why Intermedia?

Intermedia was basically down all day today which is amazing to me. I've worked with that service a bunch of times, which means I've ripped data off their systems while moving people to Google Apps.

If your email goes down for an entire day, the reason it went down doesn't really matter. It was down. ALL DAY! It's 2013. The problem is that it went down. That's enough, that's it, that's all you need to know. You don't fix it by doing the same thing ... until it goes down again. You fix it by changing. Change your expectations. Change your decision making process. Change your friggin email provider.

Intermedia pricing ranges from $96 - $180 per year ($480 if you add a hosted business phone system) for which amounts to a hosted Exchange 2010 server on the low end as well as SharePoint and chat on the high end.

It's a rip off. Google Apps is $50. Add RingCentral if you want to do phones and the total per user price is $350. Intermedia costs almost 40% more and only provides a fraction of the functionality.

Why Intermedia?

• It's not functionality
• It's not cost

It's because of the status quo. Customers will, rightly, blame Intermedia for today's outage. But who's to blame next time? Exchange Servers go down for entire days all the time. It happens constantly. In 2013, that's silly. It's also expensive. But to a certain degree, it's what people expect. So they complain and then they get over it. We need to have higher expectations for these basic services. 

In response to David Gewirtz's move to Office 365

David Gewirtz recently wrote an article over at ZDNet called "My big email switch: Why I picked Office 365 over Google Apps". I thought many people may have the same questions and thoughts that David worked through so I thought I'd join the conversation. 

It's a good article (and project) that he obviously put a lot of time and thought into. Obviously he can do whatever he'd like but I think David should have gone the other direction for multiple reasons.

Why Google? 

He lays the most obvious reason out himself.

The case for Google was pretty simple. The two organizations I work most closely with, CBS Interactive and UC Berkeley, are both Google shops. I am in contact with my CBSi colleagues constantly — all day, every day — and I have some interaction or another with the University of California each day as well. The nonprofit I work with is also a Google grantee. 

As part of my daily work, I often need to connect into CBSi or UC Berkeley files on Google Docs. I get sent links that require a Gmail account ID, and so forth. The case for Google is the theory was that if I moved fully into the Google world, then all this would become much more smooth. 

It would also avoid the occasional problems of someone sending me a message directly to my never-checked Gmail account, instead of my main email account, since they'd be one and the same. 

Another plus is that I rely constantly on Google Calendar. I've managed to make that application jump through some amazing hoops and have it customized in such a way that it's one of my most critical management applications. I use it not just for appointments, but for project management as well.

David can sense that his collaboration with his partner organizations would improve but it's impossible for a traditional Office user to really understand how much these interactions can improve. There is no comprable experience in the world of desktop apps.

Yes, it would be much easier to "connect into files" on Google Docs if you were already authenticated, but that's the tip of the iceberg. A "file" is a thing. A Google Doc (and Sheet, Slide, Form or Drawing) is a "place" - it has a uniform resource locator (aka a URL). A "thing" has to be passed around individually; only one person can have the "thing" at once - this is why we have version nightmares and dozens of copies of important files. A "place" is somewhere we can all be together and thanks to the modern Internet, we can all be at this same place regardless of our physical location or what particular device we happen to have handy.

Think about how much easier it is to share something interesting from a web site relative to a Word document - it's night and day; there is no comparison. It's hard to collaborate on an Excel file with 5 people who work in the same office! But you shared 1000x that amount of data with 1200 of your closest friends without even trying. The World Wide Web was LITERALLY invented to make sharing and collaborating on content easier.  Don't believe me? Let the man tell you himself.



As a full time Google Apps user David would have been able to flip dozens of workflows, large and small, completely on their head. It is not at all uncommon for dozens of tasks that used to take the better part of a week to be knocked out in minutes.

Why Office 365? 

David's #1 reason he wants to use Microsoft's "cloud" service = Microsoft's desktop software. Pretty sneaky Microsoft.

It's time to stop using Outlook and we'll get to that shortly. But, while you should, you don't need to. Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook sets up in minutes and works great.

Outlook has given us some great memories but it's time to say goodbye: 

• Outlook runs on a single hard disk (or SSD if you're lucky!) in your computer. 1 disk. Gmail runs on multiple data centers simultaneously. 

• Backing up Outlook is your problem. It's taken care of in Gmail. 

• Restoring Outlook is your loved one's problem as you become increasingly frustrated. (It took David 13 days to fix his Exchange/Outlook environment several years back)

• Outlook for iOS = no. Outlook for Android = no. Outlook for Mac = please in the name of all things holy don't do that.

• You need to install and maintain Outlook on any computer you want to use it on. Gmail works on any computer at any time. Never say "I wish I had my work computer" ever again; any computer is your computer. Cloud Computing makes us less reliant on computers; it's one of the ironies of this paradigm shift. 

• Outlook breaks. Sometimes it's fixable; often times you have to reinstall it. Reinstalling takes hours, if you're lucky. 

"I like Outlook better" is something you hear pretty often (and there is the sync connector for those who won't or can't change). But Gmail is more robust, faster, and more mobile. It works better - it is a utility, a tool. What you're really saying is "you're comfortable with Outlook" and that's understandable. Remember when you told everyone who would listen you'd never get rid of your Blackberry? Then you wondered how in the world you used that piece of junk for so long? Similar situation. It's time. 

David also mentions he needs PowerPoint and that "While we have a bunch of Office 2010 licenses, I'd probably need to buy at least two new Office licenses, at least sometime in the next few years." Why? Office 2010 isn't going to stop working anytime soon; the amount of Office 2003 still out there is amazing. Office 2010 is good to go for at least 3 more years. Office is a perpetual license, check the box and move on. The costs David lays out are off as Office has already been purchased. Office 365 = $360 per year based on the article. Google Apps = $100 ($50 per person). $260 is a good chunk of change to hold onto.

Multiple Google Accounts

David's biggest complaint here is that he can't take all of his personal Gmail stuff into his work account. I think this is a good thing. Why would you want to? He probably doesn't have all his personal stuff in his current Exchange account ... otherwise why the Gmail account?

To some of the specific points raised by the author.

• I would share my personal calendar into my work account. 2 minutes to do including logging into the account. David mentions he uses Google Calendar as his primary calendar (I think) - in this case I would just export the Gmail calendar from the personal account and import it into the work account. This takes 5 minutes. This has the added benefit of allowing for professional meeting invites in and out of the account as the professional identity hardworker@mycompany.com vs. justsomedude@gmail.com - this also applies to chat, Google Docs, etc. 

• David also mentions chat contacts. Chat will figure out who you email with and add them in chat if they're available or you can send the invite to force it ... you want to chat, send the invite. A few seconds maybe. Just add them when you want to chat, you don't need to figure it all out at once. Just do it as you work.  

• David talks about Google Voice a bit but I'm not sure I follow. You can move a Google Voice number from one account to another. If I used it as a personal and work #, I'd keep it associated with my personal account ... you'll be you for life, work identities change. 

• David says "Most people will likely have started with individual Google accounts and gotten to like Google services, and then decide they want to move to Apps." I think this is wrong. Many people have personal Gmail accounts that they want to keep personal. They have Apps accounts for work. I don't see how this is different than how he has it set up now. Google tools are useful in personal and work life but we don't necessarily want all that data smashed together. 

It's at the end where David absolutely loses me.

I didn't want to have to be a squeaky wheel to my busy CBS Interactive and UC Berkeley colleagues. I didn't want to make them all change my chat names, change my account access to all our shared documents, and make them re-invite me to all the groups I rely on to do my daily work.

David didn't want to use Google Apps for Business because everyone he works with uses Google Apps for Business. That's one I haven't heard before.

I've made many assumptions in this overview, some of them are undoubtedly wrong, but if you're a person using lots of Google services working with a lot of other people using a lot of Google services ... well, the squeaky wheel uses Office 365.

8/27/2014 Update: apparently David agreed: http://www.zdnet.com/why-i-bit-the-bullet-and-finally-switched-from-outlook-to-gmail-7000032179/

Who owns the best solution for using Microsoft on mobile?

Google. Today Google announced its acquisition of Quickoffice.

The Google team has to be giggling hysterically - I would be. Why Microsoft never pulled the trigger on Quickoffice, I'll never understand. I figured it was only a matter of time. I also figured they would purchase Quickoffice primarily to kill it off.

Google Apps for Business, Government and Education will now have the best mobile experience across Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Absolutely hilarious.

Microsoft has always underestimated the importance of mobile and the Internet. But that they allowed Google to get their hands on Quickoffice might highlight just how disconnected Redmond has become from reality.

Advantage Google

It's been pretty amazing to see the advancements of Gmail over the past 5 years or so. Multitenancy has many advantages for customers but probably even more so for the vendor.

Gmail provides a good example.

Google's messaging service:

• Gmail

Microsoft's messaging products and services: 

• Exchange Server 2003
• Exchange Server 2007
• Exchange Server 2010
• Small Business Server 2003
• Small Business Server 2008
• Small Business Server 2011
• Business Productivity Online Suite
• Business Productivity Online Suite Dedicated 
• Office 365
• Office 365 Dedicated
• Hotmail 
• Office Communications Server 2007
• Lynx 2010 
• Office Live Small Business (forced sunset coming 10/11)
•  ...I'm sure there are a couple more. 

Consumerization is an extremely powerful force that's just getting started in the technology industry. The iPhone is the best example. Gmail is another great example. It was cool to see Facebook roll video chat into their service, it was also a reminder that Gmail has had this feature for more than 2 years. 

Today our personal computing experience is dominated by multitenant web-based services. Tomorrow our business computing experience will be as well.

Are you addicted to Microsoft Outlook?

Over 6 million email messages are migrated to Google Apps every day! That's a lot of email messages. Most of these messages are coming out of Outlook.

I'm very thankful I don't have to deal with Outlook for my own email anymore but a vast majority of those people who reach out to Umzuzu for help do, so I find myself working with Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 constantly. I see more projects involving Exchange and Outlook now than I did while working in the Microsoft partner community - one of those ironies you should but don't see coming. I also gain a lot of insight into how people are using Outlook. At larger companies the use cases are fairly uniform. However, with 6 million messages going into Google Apps everyday, you can imagine we see our fair share of small businesses.

Some of the stuff I see people doing with Outlook is crazy. "I don't really use Outlook to communicate with other people, it's more for sending letters" was one recent line I heard from a small business owner. Well, he didn't know it but he was talking about newsletter marketing and Outlook is not the place to be doing that. MailChimp is my favorite as it is a great combination of powerful features and ease of use - and has integration with Google Docs which is great.

People become uncomfortable with the switch from Outlook to Gmail because they perceive, correctly, that they just don't have as much to do in Gmail. This is very uncomfortable for someone who has been spending day in and day out staring at Outlook.

Outlook is the world's best example of bloated software. Outlook has trained the user to associate being busy with being productive. Organizing your Outlook inbox feels productive because you're busy but it's the opposite of productivity - it is busy work defined. "But I have to organize my inbox" ... this is very true in Outlook. This is less true in Gmail.

If you're looking for something on the Internet you can find it in seconds. Obviously searching the Internet is a much more difficult challenge than searching several thousand emails. Thousands of messages can be sorted in Gmail in a second or 2 - anytime you want. If you can find any message you want in a matter of seconds, organization on your part becomes less important. While this is a very, very good development; it is often perceived that doing less, is the same as being less productive. This is a mistake.

You're going to have more available time when you move from Outlook to Gmail. What should you do with it?

• Reexamine what drives your specific communications. My default for many years was, to borrow an account term, Last In First Out (LIFO). I believe this is the default of most knowledge workers who are early in their careers. Outlook loves LIFO and it's how many people manage their day and their communications. Communications should be driven by more strategic objectives. This is why living in Outlook is a mistake. An inbox is no way to manage a day - your days are your life. Life is short. 

• For the love of all things holy, reevaluate your workflows and business processes. Too often the question of "why do you do it that way?" is answered with "I don't really know" or "that's how Sara/Bob/Katie/whoever did it." - you should take a look at workflows often and take into consideration new tools. Sharing is easier than ever. Smartphones are everywhere. Many tools are free. If you've been doing something for 5, 3 or even 2 years it is probably out of date by now and ready to be retooled. "I don't have time for that, I'm too busy." Too busy to work on being more productive? Yeah, sorry but that doesn't make any sense. It's like saying, "I'm too fat to exercise." You'll get better at this type of exercise once you incorporate it into your habits of how you conduct business. 

• "Fit for purpose" is a beautiful term. Until recently the acquisition, installation, testing, support and scaling of software was at best a pain in the ass and at worst a horribly expensive exercise that cost someone their job. Small businesses didn't stand a chance. People use what they perceive to be available. Outlook has been very available for over a decade - it has become the de facto tool for much more than messaging. CRM, Document Management, Enterprise Content Management, Workflow, Scheduling, Collaboration, Customer Feedback, Data Collection, and wow if something takes you longer than a couple of hours you're doing it wrong types of applications. Outlook is not a CRM. Outlook is not a place to store documents. Outlook is not a collaboration application. Outlook is not a survey tool. Outlook is not for data collection. It's time to start over. It's time to start fresh. If you're using Outlook for more than sending emails, scheduling events, and keeping simple contact information you're doing it wrong. Yes, more is possible but that does not make Outlook automatically the best fit for purpose option.  

If you spend a large amount of time working in Outlook be careful. Bloated software, by definition, excels at disguising busy work as productivity. You'll feel uncomfortable without Outlook to keep you "busy" but another world is waiting.

Computers!

In 1982 instead of naming a "Person of the Year" Time Inc. named the personal computer "Machine of the Year". In 1985 Microsoft released their first Windows computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) and a mouse. More than 25 years later this is still the basic form factor most people think of when they think "computer".  It's time for a new definition.

99% of people still think of a standalone device that sits under their desk or a laptop they carry around in their bag. I still remember sitting in training at Cerner Corporation, the person providing the lecture asked the class, "who knows what a server is?" followed up quickly by "a server is a computer and a computer is a server. That laptop you've got is a server". That's when it clicked for me that these babies didn't mean much as individuals - it was when you put them together that things started getting interesting.

When's the last time you sat down and worked on a computer that wasn't connected to the Internet? Writing emails on a plane doesn't count, that just means you're not being creative enough with your time. Seriously though, do you ever use a computer when it's not connected to the Internet? I don't.

What does this mean? First and foremost it's time to start thinking about the "computer" and more specifically "computers" VERY differently. It is critical we change our thinking because it is required in order to realize the potential at our disposal.

The Internet, how you should be
 thinking of computers.

It's all about the Internet. The Internet is the most disruptive innovation in human history. The Information Revolution, which has only barely started, will make the Industrial Revolution look like a relatively small event. Today you don't have "a computer" you have millions! The idea of a computer we carry around in our mind is little more than a distant memory.

For many people their idea of a computer has become baggage keeping them from realizing the full value available to them. People talk on Facebook about how hard it is to get work email on their phone. They post notes on Twitter about having to go into the office again to access a document. They quickly see who's available to chat on Facebook because they don't have the ability to see presence or chat at work so they emailed the question over instead. We post videos, chat, message and anything we want in our personal lives but still think these things should be difficult at work - they shouldn't be and they're not.

When we think of "computers" as sitting on our desk we're thinking about the past rather than the present or the future. It took 20 years to develop our Windows and Office habits and now we're comfortable in that world. It's time to be uncomfortable. It's time to learn something new. You have millions of computers just waiting for you to realize they're there.

Deep Thoughts... on Chrome OS

I've been testing Google Chrome OS now for about 2 months. Chrome OS is a new Linux-based operating system based on the open source Chromium project. The goal of Chrome OS is to deliver the web to the user as fast and easily as possible. 

Anyone who has spent anytime in technology knows, without question, that a vast majority of people are not "computer people",  never will be and could care less how things work - just as long as they do.

There are many opinions regarding Chrome OS but one fact is clear. Chrome OS is the world's simplest operating system. If you can browse on the Chrome browser, you're already a Chrome OS power user. For a Chrome browser user, any Chrome OS device is ready to go as "their device" in about 10 seconds. Anyone installed a new version of Office lately? How about upgrade a Vista device to Windows 7? How long did that take? An hour? Two, four, five, overnight? That's not even to make it "your device", that's just to make it capable of becoming your device.

In my work with Umzuzu I have access to multiple Chrome OS devices so I get to enjoy the potential enabled by the simplicity of Chrome OS first hand.

Writing this post actually provided a perfect example. I was working on a Chrome OS device from the comfort of my couch. The devices' batteries last for about a day's worth of work so I don't think of plugging them in that often. The particular device I was using prompted me with a low battery warning. "Darn," I thought, "I'm super comfortable and really don't feel like being tethered right now." ... because I would no longer be laying down. Then I noticed the other Chrome OS device within arms reach. Nice! This is a brand new device.

Turn it on, prompted with login, enter Google username and password, done. Not even 10 seconds. What did I get?

• My extensions ... stuff like Pandora, Bit.ly, Blogger, Picnik, Chrome to Phone, Hootsuite, Google Voice, Google Translate
• My bookmarks ... you can use your imagination here.
• My Apps ... Gmail, Google Apps, Salesforce.com, Box.net, Squarespace, Freshbooks, Blogger, Google Voice, Instant Messaging for 2 work accounts and 1 personal account, 5 calendars - work and personal, Picnik, Linkedin, Facebook, Hootsuite ... you know, the Internet. 

I have more and can do more on this brand new Chrome OS device in 10 seconds than most people even realize is possible or exists. What does this mean? This means Windows 7 is bloated. It's a waste of money and more importantly a waste of time, especially at scale. A retail copy of Office can cost almost $300 ... it is possible when Chrome OS devices hit the market some could cost less than Office.

Cloud computing is not a TV commercial. The cloud is the complete commodification of the client operating system. The browser is already the most used and useful application on a computer. The browser serves the Internet, in the Internet we find the Cloud, the Cloud is powered by millions of computers ... we can choose to use the power of 1 computer or we can choose to use the power of thousands of computers.

Larry Page, Google's CEO, is the son of a late computer scientist and computer science professor at Michigan State. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The point of Chrome OS is not to enable the potential of 1 computer - it is to enable the potential of thousands of computers. If you think Google is not going to follow through on Chrome OS, you're nuts.

As my friend Leo says, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."  I'll bet Larry Page knows Leo too. 

"Every computer has a browser" ... yes, and every human has a heart but if 70% of everything else is bloat you're hardly running at optimal performance. Chrome OS is fit and it stays fit - starting every time from a clean version, called Verified Boot.

5 years ago we didn't have iPhone, 3 years ago we didn't have Android, 1 year ago we didn't have iPad ... the pace of innovation and change in technology is accelerating. The thought that Apple would one day be worth more than Microsoft once seemed crazy. Today's its worth $100,000,000,000 more. Google will pass Microsoft by the middle of this year and IBM will pass them by the end of the year.

NOWHERE in technology is more stale than the desktop. They range from the rare "sweet Mac" to the more common "oh my god, you work on this everyday? I'd f'ing kill myself. You know computers aren't supposed to work like this, right?" We will see massive changes here in the next 5 years. Chrome OS will catch Windows in the next 5 years. Mac sales will continue to soar at triple digit paces, 300%+ in the enterprise, as well and will play a much more significant role in the Enterprise.

The Internet is the most disruptive innovation in human history. To think it will continue to influence every aspect of society and business and yet our soon to be secondary point of access will keep its form of the pre-Internet era is insane. Today the Web rules.

Microsoft vs. Google on Focus.com

"Google vs Microsoft. Which one is worthy of IT's trust?Google is an information harvesting Giant. Microsoft is the "evil empire". Which one do you trust your technology to?"

...kind of a silly, oversimplified question from Focus.com but it's in my wheelhouse so I let it rip...

You've asked two questions so I'll provide 2 answers. 


1. Both


Both firms are professionally run organizations with thousands of clients and intelligent, caring employees. Microsoft and Google are two of the most important companies our world has seen to date. They'll be in text books (ebooks?) right next to Ford and General Electric. For all the nonsense in the press, both firms continue to post outstanding numbers.


2. Both again, but now it gets more complicated. 


Microsoft is now about 32 years old. They are a mature, healthy on-premises software products company. They continue to compete aggressively across an impressive range of technologies. Microsoft likely competes against as many other technology companies as any firm on earth. Like it or not, the firm is going to fight for every dollar. Microsoft's profits are driven by Windows and Office. This client/server product-based business model created our world's richest man. It will continue to generate billions of dollars in revenues and profits for most of the next decade.  


Google is roughly 13 years old. They are a mature, healthy Internet services company. They also compete aggressively across an impressive range of technologies. The critical difference between the two firms is what lay at the foundation of their business models. One is a software products company, one is an Internet company. I'm not talking about what their marketing says - I'm talking about how they actually make money. So what? Well, the "so what" is the fact that the Internet is the most disruptive innovation in human history - rivaled only by the printing press and the plow. It's difficult to really get a sense of the moment in history we're experiencing first hand. As the leading Internet company, Google doesn't really have to be run all that well and they'll continue to make money hand over fist - that being said, the company is run extremely well and continues to flex its influence across a huge range of industries. 


I'll take my explanation above to a specific one-on-one case that I think you may be referring to in your question: Google Apps vs. BPOS


We'll start with Google. Today we take Google.com for granted but it is an extremely impressive SaaS application. The amount of data Google indexes, organizes and distributes globally on-demand is amazing. Google.com was one of the first globally available SaaS applications and certainly the most successful. In the quest to teach machines to understand content created by man, Google stumbled across AdWords - these two SaaS applications are a seriously powerful team. To enable these SaaS applications to be immediately available to anyone anywhere in the world, Google built a custom software and hardware infrastructure and has continued to invest heavily in this asset ... about $9,000,000,000 over the past 5 years or so. This is important because Google's other Internet services run on the same infrastructure - Google Apps for Business has much more in common with Google.com than it does Exchange Server or SharePoint. This is how Google is able to roll out new features roughly every 2 weeks to millions of users, this is how they're able to provide services at a fraction of the cost of the legacy options, this is how they're able to provide dozens of services as part of Google Apps, and this is how Gmail is able to run at 99.984% uptime. 


Now let's look at Microsoft. You noticed I used BPOS above instead of Office 365, why? Well, because Office 365 hasn't been released yet - it's not available. BPOS runs on the 2007 server products and while client/server itself was designed for a world without the Internet even these 2007 versions were designed for a world without the iPhone, Android, or the iPad. BPOS has nothing in common with Bing and everything in common with Exchange Server. Office 365 is built on the 2010 line of server products which are quickly becoming outdated themselves - the 3 year on-premises upgrade cycle just doesn't fit into the reality of today's technology environment - we move at Internet speed now. BPOS is more expensive than Google Apps and it only includes 4 services vs dozens from Apps. BPOS and Office 365 both require on-premises investments like Communications Server for BPOS and a required upgrade to Lync Server for Office 365. Is BPOS or Office 365 a smarter choice than their on-premises counter parts? Absolutely but that's hardly the measure that should be utilized - it's like comparing your car to your horse instead of the other cars. Just because Microsoft paints a racing stripe on client/server products and boards them for you doesn't turn that horse into a car. 


Google makes money with Internet services, they built a cloud and then decided they could run other SaaS applications on it along with Google.com. Microsoft makes money with client/server software products, they built data centers to host those products and called it a cloud. One's not inherently right or wrong - "cloud" is the new "light". Yes there is light ice cream but I doubt your personal trainer recommends it in any quantity. It's not Microsoft vs Google, it's business built on the Internet vs business built on client/server. 

“Cloud Computing Trends: What are the top cloud computing trends to track in 2011?”

Cloud Computing is going to have a great 2011. It is economics rather than technology that truly drives the paradigm forward. Economics is coldly objective and regardless of personal opinion the shift will accelerate. Look to vendors with business models based on technology services rather than software products to find the most robust and value-adding cloud computing services.

1. Adoption.

2011 is going to be all about adoption. The economic benefits of cloud computing are crystal clear. It is less expensive for a business of any size to consume technology services from a specialized provider than it is to purchase, install, support and upgrade legacy on-premise software products. Adoption in small business was red hot for the past 3 years and enterprise adoption is accelerating across IaaS, PaaS, and especially SaaS. 

2. Private-cloud discredited

"Attention staff: the data center is now a private cloud. 

Please note the change and continue with business

as usual."

Private-cloud is marketing terminology developed by legacy on-premise software product vendors to maintain the status quo. The implementation of a private-cloud requires capital investment in software, hardware and professional services. If this sounds familiar, it should. Technologies such as virtualization are very beneficially relative to legacy implementations but ultimately an executive needs to determine if they are in the business of running software products or not - most companies obviously are not. 

3. Multi-tenancy required

The specific definition and relevance of multi-tenancy is widely debated. Many vendors even call single-tenant client/server software stacks "cloud computing" because they are hosted. Re-purposing legacy client/server technology is not cloud computing. Modern consumer and business cloud computing services are multi-tenant from Facebook to Salesforce.com and Google Apps. The shared multi-tenant environment offers economies of scale to the vendor but more importantly it offers transparencies of scale to customers. Transparency in cost, functionality, security, and reliability. The technology community has traditionally created user groups and forums to create this collective transparency - multi-tenancy furthers the knowledge and influence of the community. Innovation can also be delivered across the entire environment rapidly allowing for a constantly improving application - be it in functionality, value, reliability or security. Multi-tenancy is critically important and will be better understood in 2011.

4. Mobile

By 2012, mobile devices will be the primary way in which we access the Internet. Android became the #1 platform in the US in about 2 years. The iPad was the quickest consumer product to reach $1B in revenue. The only technologies capable of fully leveraging the rapid innovation taking place in mobile computing are cloud computing services. Your data on any device, in any location, at anytime can only be realized with modern cloud computing services. 


5. HTML5

Modern browsers like FireFox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera are designed to run web applications. Every day web-based applications become more powerful and many have reached full parity with their desktop equivalents. The most heavily utilized application on the desktop and on the mobile device is the browser. The capabilities of modern browsers will continue to improve and the rate at which they improve will accelerate. For example, the Chrome browser release cycle is 6 weeks. Google is also piloting the Cr-48 with runs ChromeOS, and operating system that, for better or worse, is the Chrome browser. The device is designed to provide as pure a web experience as possible. The advantages of these thin client devices are numerous for businesses and consumers. For some people the browser will move from being the most heavily used application to the only application.