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Microsoft plans Russian data center

As if the Microsoft vs. Google battle didn't already resemble a game of Risk, the software giant announced plans to move into Irkutsk.

The software maker confirmed Monday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the regional Siberian government, but said that it is too soon to say whether Irkutsk will be the site of a planned data center in Russia.

"Though Microsoft Russia is working on potential data center construction in Russia, we are still far from final site selection," the software maker said in a statement.

Microsoft has been on a building spree … Read more

Failed migration to Google Apps for Sky? Who is at fault?

Slashdot has this note suggesting that the UK Internet Service Provider, Sky, is having trouble migrating its users to Google Apps. Reading through the commentary, however, it seems like the real problem stems from poor user documentation, and not technology, per se:

Rupert Murdoch-owned British ISP Sky is migrating their customers to the Google Apps platform, and the customer experience is terrible. Their 1 million customers were told that they need to change their client settings to enable SMTP Authentication and other settings on a certain date ? but not to do it before then or their e-mail would break; but … Read more

Is Google out of its league in telco?

Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal writes an excellent op-ed piece challenging Google's efforts to take on AT&T and Verizon in the mobile world. Google, of course, wants to open up the mobile Internet so that it can farm it as it does the PC Internet: advertising everywhere.

But as Jenkins notes, Google may be at a technology, political, and infrastructure disadvantage in going up against the telcos:

When they're done [rolling out fiber optic networks], the telcos will have not just the preferred platform for delivering high-def, on-demand and interactive services. They'll have several advantages over their would-be rivals, whether Google or Microsoft or the cable companies. One is their history as phone companies, in the form of systems for billing and tracking individual customers in their usage.… Read more

Is Google stuck in the past?

Why is search so focused on the past when what I really want to search is the present?

I occasionally check in on Google to see what it thinks of me. Or, rather, what it makes of the links that connect back to "Matt Asay." For months I've been wondering why it continues to show old data when I google my name.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it puts my Blogger (owned by Google) blog first, despite the fact that I rarely update it anymore now that I blog at CNET. In fact, it has Blogger and my Blogger profile among the top-ten results, despite the fact that these are hardly the most informative/useful links for me.

It then links (twice in the top ten) to my old InfoWorld blog. I posted a lot of stuff there over the two years I was with InfoWorld, but with nearly 1,000 posts on CNET since July, including links from Valleywag, Slashdot, CIO.com, O'Reilly, etc., you'd think that Google would hit "refresh" and update the results that "Matt Asay" yields.

This would be somewhat academic except that both Yahoo and MSN Live both return results that are much more in keeping with who I am, and what I'm currently up to. Is Google search mired in the past?… Read more

Want to make a fortune at Google? Rub lots of backs

Some people at Google slave away at building a better search engine, or enabling social networks like Orkut, or helping people find directions to places. Not Bonnie Brown. She rubs people's backs. And she has made multiple millions doing so.

Ms. Brown didn't get rich on her salary. In fact, Google paid her a miserly $450 per week (part-time, mind you). No, it was her stock options that have crowned her queen of the massage parlor.

She's not alone, either. There are apparently lots of millionaire-masseuses-in-waiting at Google:

It is estimated that 1,000 employees, Ms Brown among them, have accrued fortunes worth at least $5 million apiece from the nine-year-old web giant's rise and rise. The money has flowed from Google's stranglehold of the hugely lucrative online advertising market (it reported revenues of $7.5 billion in the first half of the year alone) and investors? seemingly insatiable appetite for the group?s shares. Yesterday, the company, founded in a garage by two students, sported a stock market value of some $207 billion.… Read more

Facebook nabbing Google employees...Will this make Facebook's UI better?

As TechCrunch reports, Google has a new competitor in town, and it's not necessarily about products. It's about employees.

Facebook is apparently pilfering Google employees at a torrid pace. Why? Or, rather, how? Because Google is now considered staid and middle aged, while Facebook offers cool new opportunities. (The stock market begs to differ with this characterization of Google, by the way.)

...Ex-Googler's inside Facebook are saying that the problem goes further than a few high profile exits caused by vesting stock. Facebook just seems a hell of a lot "sexier" than Google (see Rosenstein's exit email). A steady stream of Google employees are making the switch to Facebook, and competition for top college grads is fierce as well.… Read more

CIOs rate Red Hat the #1 IT vendor for value...again

The only friend open-source vendors have is the customer.

That's what a wise friend at Red Hat once told me. If it's any consolation to him, he's got lots of friends, because CIO Insight's ranking of IT vendors just came out, and Red Hat tops the list for the fourth consecutive year. 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Customers have voted Red Hat the #1 vendor for value over Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Novell, etc.

Wondering who consistently was given the worst ratings by CIOs? CA, Oracle, Microsoft, Cognos, and a range of consulting companies. If you dig into the numbers, the reasons often stem from overpriced and unreliable software.

Red Hat can't rest on its laurels, however. Why? Ask the numbers.… Read more

Episode 609: Tech turkeys!

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Bizarre politics of the Google-DoubleClick deal

PALO ALTO, Calif.--There is something unusual, and perhaps a little worrisome, in the arguments a band of special-interest groups has invoked against Google's purchase of the DoubleClick advertising firm.

The arguments can be found in a series of three letters (PDF) sent to the Federal Trade Commission starting in April. The letters ask, in part, that the FTC "use its authority to review mergers to halt Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick."

It's true, of course, that the FTC shares responsibility for reviewing mergers with the Department of Justice. What's odd is the letters … Read more