Rattleblog: Tales from the blogosphere

24-09-2007

by Damien Mulley

This issue of Rattleblog delves into Office wars, a return to iPhone hype and virtual strikes.

It's summer all over again in this edition as the iPhone once again comes back into the news as operator deals get announced in Europe. First was the UK, then Germany, then France, but we have yet to hear anything in Ireland. But with the dollar at a weak price, it might be a good time to just buy one in the US and bring it back to Ireland and unlock it.

Earlier this month, when he who can do no wrong, Steve Jobs announced the new iPod Touch and a drop in price for the iPhone, many of the million who bought the iPhone up to then were peeved. InsideGoogle reported that Nokia, quick to capitalise on this, started buying Google ads to tease Apple and try and coax some iPhone users over to Nokia. Apple in turn started bidding higher to counter the Nokia ads. Did both companies not realise they were probably sinking good money into the Google coffers, money which could very well be spent on the forthcoming Google phone?

While most were delighted with the iPhone price cut and the droolworthy iPod Touch it has not been rosy for Apple with the iPhone and its new iPods. BoingBoing has revealed that the latest iPods have been designed to lock out anyone that uses Linux, ensuring only Windows and Mac OS users can use the world's most popular MP3 player.

Meanwhile, Engadget found a new iPod Touch without the proper interface, allowing people to see the underlying operating system on it and with a hint that the iPod Touch might actually have Bluetooth on it.

Engadget also reported that the Apple Hi-Fi, not long born, has already been canned. While we like the iPod, it seemed the Hi-Fi bored us.

Smart Mobs reports that many cities in the US who were all for building city-wide Wi-Fi clouds are now abandoning the idea because of increasing costs and coverage problems. This might not be good news for iPhone users in Europe since they only have Wi-Fi to get high speed net access with the Apple decision not to support 3G with its phone.

Blognation reports that Microsoft is now working on its own analytics software for websites, something Google has had for a few years. For now the software is called Gatineau, though before it is released it might be renamed to Microsoft Live Vista Analytics Beta Business Edition given the past history of the giant from Redmond when it comes to catchy names.

Last week was not a good week for Microsoft what with losing its appeal against the EU and getting smacked down hard with a record fine, then just a few hours later, Google announced the 3 in its 1-2-3 attack on Microsoft Office by releasing Google Presentations. Google now directly competes with Microsoft Office with the Google Office Applications. However, it looks like it'll be a Battle Royale and not a one-on-one boxing match, since, as Tom Raftery points out, IBM has also released its own free Office suite. The games are finally beginning. Will Yahoo be next to release Office software? Please do guys, competition is good for everyone.

Last week, after Google announced a deal where Capgemini would sell the Google Office applications and GMail functionality to large enterprises, Microsoft released a top 10 list of why Google Apps were not as good as the hype. Someone is getting anxious aren't they? We're waiting for the top 10 about IBM now too.

Moving to virtual worlds, Loic Le Meur reports that Italian IBM employees organised a virtual strike in Second Life. James Connolly must be spinning in his grave when IT people aren't even getting up from their chairs to strike now. We're sure that with a virtual strike, IBM could just make virtual promises to appease their staff.

Staying on the topic of virtual worlds, the top dog in ICANN, the group that looks after the domain name structure on the internet, has said that the future of global commerce will be in virtual worlds. With the fad of virtual worlds petering out, we're thinking that Paul Twomey, ICANN CEO might just be a tad wrong on this.

And lastly for this episode, another future prediction from Rattleblog. Get ready to be able to store everything of your digital life online with the Google Drive. Google Blogoscoped is reporting that Google is now readying GoogleDrive.com to go live in the next while. Of course the site might turn out to be some kind of directions service too. We'll know soon.

Damien Mulley is an Irish blogger and works as a technical writer in Cork.