Week of March 24, 2008

Microsoft To Develop For The iPhone

Friday, March 28, 2008

Microsoft is not one to pass up on an opportunity. They did that earlier this month when they announced that they have licensed their Activesync technology to Apple for the iPhone, and Fortune also reports that Microsoft is looking at developing Office applications for the iPhone. This makes sense for Microsoft, which would be foolish to pass up the enterprise market developing for the iPhone, just as Microsoft didn't ignore the Macintosh in developing software for its Office suite.

Facebook Apps Set Free

Thursday, March 27, 2008

It was only a matter of time, but the trend toward social networks losing their walled garden status is happening faster and faster. This week came the announcement of the launch of Ringside Networks, whose business model is to help companies extend their Facebook applications so that they can be used on any website on the Internet.

We outlined this scenario in our company newsletter several weeks ago: Social Networks need to be wary of the AOL scenario, where their walled gardens keep people out more than in. It's a situation worth watching as we roll through 2008.

Microsoft Announces Data Portability Partnerships

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Yesterday we discussed how Yahoo! was driving openness, but they are far from alone. Microsoft has also announced that they have reached an agreement with five social networks on data portability, including Facebook and Bebo. Now, when you are looking at your Windows Messenger address book and are a member of Facebook or Bebo, you can directly invite friends from Messenger.

Microsoft is a member of dataportability.org, and the underyling idea is to let users take their social network data with them, including the ability to easily transfer address books, calender items, and the like to new locations on the Internet. Believe it or not, Microsoft has been at the forefront of this, having release an API to do this almost a year ago. Now, however, they are making the ability more seamless for consumers.

Yahoo! Joins OpenSocial

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Readers of our New Media Landscape report know that we predicted that a big part of Yahoo's strategy moving forward would be to embrace more open standards, driving the ongoing trend of openness even more aggressively forward in 2008. Well, today Yahoo announced that they are joining Google's open application platform, OpenSocial. They will also take part in a foundation to support the platform entitled the OpenSocial Foundation (similar to the OpenID foundation).

Look for some more aggressive moves by Yahoo in the way of openness in 2008, specifically in the mobile space.

Subsidiezed Wi-Fi Stalled Across US

Monday, March 24, 2008

The New York Times reported today that the goal of cities across the United States to offer free or low-cost wi-fi Internet access to their citizens is dying a slow death. One of the biggest issues is simply implementation. Many manager simply underestimated the number of access points needed. As a result, the weak wireless signals have not converted to mass adoption. This is the case in Philadelphia, where the initial enthusiasm was quickly dampened by the poor signal coverage.