Google, MLB.com recognized for best on mobile web

According to eWeek, the Yankee Group has reported that some of the best mobile websites come from Google, Yahoo and MLB.com were reported to have some of the best capabilities for their websites when it comes to the mobile web. According to the website, the biggest difference for websites from this year to last is that they have built in functionality to better service users who are using smart phones. Read more about the report here.

Yahoo Mobile coming at end of March

Announced yesterday, Yahoo will be releasing an a software at the end of March that will bring iPhone like capabilities to everyone's mobile phone. The program will work on the majority of mid- to high-range smart phones. This new application will be promoted with the 70 partnerships it has formed with operators. For more information, read this article at eWeek.

TrueSwitch aligns with Google

TrueSwitch has recently teamed up with Google in order to make it easier to import data from old email services into GMail. It can import information from e-mail servers such as AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail. It also allows the user to chose what they'd like to import, from contacts to messages, and defines which messages were imported from the older accounts. For more information, read the article here at CNet.

AOL beefs up email software

According to a recent article at eWeek, AOL announces that it will now have one click access to other email providers including GMail and Yahoo.

Ted Cahall, president of AOL products and technologies, had this to say about the new technology:
"Web Mail is an integral part of the AOL experience and at the heart of our product offerings. With this new release, we can showcase the important role AOL products continue to play in the company. Enhancing products that already attract a large, engaged audience is a key goal for our organization."

Enterprise Email is Interesting Again

Early this morning I came across this post from the Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog in which Bill Pray lists 5 reasons why the email market and enterprise messaging is getting interesting again. Here’s a summary of the reasons:

1. Choice – Microsoft and IBM had long dominated this market, but Google, Zimbra, Yahoo!, Cisco, Oracle, and Novell are all playing catch-up to these industry giants. Greater choice will foster more innovation and lower prices.
2. SaaS – Google, Yahoo!, and Cisco are all software as a service offerings for email, and that keeps them interesting. Microsoft and IBM should soon be unveiling something similar to compete with these three companies.
3. Social Software – Social media and software is making email more interesting by providing new ways to collaborate within bigger platforms and networks.
4. Mashups – There are several solutions out there that serves as email aggregators: Zenbe, Orgoo, and Fuser are just a small list of solutions that offer this feature.
5. Legal Decisions – Courts are still deciding and defining the legal status of email used within the enterprise between users. Courts will continue to add complexity to email usage.

Why does Zoho Compete with Google?

The question of why and how Zoho competes with Google has been asked many times across this industry. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu details why Zoho competes with Google in his latest post at the Zoho Blog.

Sridhar includes an excel sheet in his post that lists revenue per employee and profit per employee between companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, and eBay to name a few. What this sheet helps show is that all companies fall short of Google’s revenue/profit per employee metrics. Sridhar believes that even though Google has a huge market in the technologies sector, there’s no rational business incentive for Google to actively pursue the business/IT software category. Zoho already has an array of software applications like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho CRM , Zoho People , and Zoho Mail just to name a few, it will be interesting to see what steps Google might take in the future to involve itself more heavily in the business software market.

What’s your take on it?

Enterprise is Moving Towards Cloud Computing

With enterprise organizations moving into cloud computing more frequently, Elastra, a startup company that hosts and runs software entirely on the internet, has decided to jump on this opportunity. This latest article in eWeek discusses how customers can save money by renting the computing power necessary to run applications, instead of purchasing their own hardware and software needed.

Kirill Sheynkman, Elastra's founder and CEO mentions:

"Enterprises are moving into the cloud and understand its financial value, but they need software that lets them deploy and manage applications that meet complex requirements."

This is why Kirill has launched the Elastra Cloud Server which allows customers to deploy applications across the internet by simply pointing and clicking their mouse. The startup is being funded both by Amazon.com and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners for a sum of $12 million. Salesforce.com, Yahoo, and Google are among some companies that already run enterprise applications for other organizations. Could Amazon reign on top with its newest cloud computing project?

Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop Could be Google’s Top Competitor

I came across this post earlier today on TriAdeptDotCom which pointed out a couple of highlights from Zimbra’s new Collaboration Suite. Zimbra Desktop now offers a way to manage and search through email, even when offline and it also expands on services and mashups which it previously did not offer. It has the capability of showing one’s schedule when hovering over a date, and it even shows flight statuses when hovering over flight numbers. The Zimbra Desktop is downloadable and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux users with access to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite.

Yahoo is seriously looking to take some of the spotlight away from Mircosoft and Google as it enters this space. Will the Yahoo Zimbra Collaboration Suite overtake these two giants?

Microsoft Officially Done with Microsoft….so what’s next?

Reuters reported yesterday that Microsoft has fully stopped pursing Yahoo!, and now looking on to the next step. Microsoft’s Online Division has posted losses eight straight quarters and lost $1.23 billion last fiscal year. This is approximately 5.5% of Microsoft’s operating income. After this, they will now look to conquer the online world by looking at the deal they have with Facebook. The software giant will now provide web search and search advertising in addition to the graphical display ads they’ve already got running on Facebook. However, this endeavor will be limited to United States profiles.

Microsoft May Reopen Negotiations With Yahoo

In our last update concerning Yahoo, we brought you news regarding the reorganization of the business following Microsoft’s failed bid for the company. Latest news as discussed in this article from the Wall Street Journal, indicate that Microsoft may renew their bid pending changes on Yahoo’s end. Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer has informed activist shareholder Carl Ichan that the company will not reopen negotiations with the current board in place. Any potential negotiations will take place after Yahoo’s August 1^st meeting where it is expected that a new board will be elected. The bid that the previous board of Yahoo had turned down was worth $47.5 billion.

This statement was issued by Microsoft regarding the matter.

"We respect the right of Yahoo!'s shareholders to determine the destiny of their company, and we do not intend to engage in ongoing commentary on these issues in advance of Yahoo!'s shareholder meeting."

Yahoo Beginning to Sort Things Out, Announces Cloud Computing as a Priority

We informed you on Monday that Yahoo! has seen many executives leave over the past few weeks and is now trying to pick up the pieces. As mentioned here in EWeek, Yahoo has reorganized their business into three areas: Audience products division will now be lead by Ash Patel, US Region to Market Division will be lead by Hilary Schneider, and a third which has not been given a leader yet. All will be overseen by Yahoo President Susan Decker.

Yesterday, Yahoo announced that it will now begin to focus on cloud computing, with CTO Ari Balogh as the leader. Goals for this division will be: developing a world-class cloud computing and storage infrastructure; rewiring Yahoo! onto common platforms; and creating a stronger partnership between product and engineering teams.

In related news, the New York Times Bits blog divulges an email recently sent out to Yahoo! share holders. This email detailed reasons why Yahoo believes that Google is a better partner than Microsoft. Yahoo also did try to work with Microsoft to create new purchase terms, but that fell through. Many more questions will develop before the August 1^st shareholders meeting.

Yahoo Still Feeling Shockwaves of Microsoft’s Bid

As we reported on May 6, Microsoft officially withdrew its bid to buy Yahoo!. The event that shocked the industry gave Yahoo credit for being brave enough to stand up to the software giant. Now, Yahoo! is seeing the repercussions of Microsoft pulling out of the deal. Over the past week, many of the top executives have quit Yahoo, such as Qi Lu, Brad Garlinghouse, Vish Makhijani, and executive vice presidents Jeff Weiner and Usama Fayyad, according to this article here at the New York Times Bits blog. The majority of these executive workers are leaving the sector of Yahoo that builds services for its users. How is Yahoo going to continue to show that they are going to consistently provide for their users? Microsoft may get their wish of being second in internet advertising after all, with a price tag much less than their original offer.

Grab that Custom Yahoo ID

There is some hope for who have been looking forward to changing their bloated Yahoo ID (ex:johndoe1893747@yahoo.com) to something much simpler. I came cross this post on eWeek which notes that Yahoo has opened two new email domains, ymail.com and rocketmail.com. There are currently 260 million global users, so the chances of getting your preferred alias are slim to none.

Enterprise users do not worry. Email addresses created at these two new domains will still have the same features regular yahoo addresses have including the integrated instant messaging feature, spam and virus protection, a country specific e-mail account, and unlimited storage. It is much simpler to collaborate with teams in your organizations with simplified IDs.

Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Officially Off

With Microsoft officially receding their offer to buy Yahoo! this week, Google is now in a prime position to overtake the enterprise software market within a few years, according to this recent news article at EWeek.

Even though Google is a small player now, the shift in the software business is moving towards “in the clouds” and SAAS. This primes Google to be a front runner within five years of this new, emerging way to operate. Inevitably, Microsoft is now going to have to catch up with Google, and find a way to launch themselves ahead of the already innovation-heavy giant.

With the failure of Vista, Microsoft needs to find a way to move their current profit equation into something that is more low-margin and which is supported by selling a high volume of products. The reason Yahoo! was so appealing was the fact that they had invested and developed cloud computing. Now, Microsoft must find a way to create this internally.

At Search Engine Land Danny Sullivan thinks that Microsoft has spent the past few years chasing after Google in terms of internet search, while Google has been slowly inching in on enterprise software, and now Yahoo is left with running ads of its chief competitor on its website.

So what’s next for both companies? One thing is for sure, Yahoo! is still going to struggle to keep up with Google. And Microsoft needs to find a way to adapt to the oncoming evolution of software in the clouds.

The Latest on Google: Search Engine Share and Google SpreadSheets

The latest news on search engine market share came out yesterday. According to CNet and E Week Google’s market share dropped from 63.1% to 62.8%. With all the news surrounding the Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo!, their search engine share still dropped from 11.9% to 12.2%. However, overall world searching did drop from 71.9 billion searches in January to 67.4 billion searches in February.

Also, according to CNet, Google has also announced it’s latest improvements to its suite of software. Gadgets have been added to the spreadsheet application, giving the user over twelve new ways to see data laid out on a spreadsheet. New views are available in a variety of tables and charts, from pie charts to heat maps for population. Also new to the applications is that users can be emailed each time someone else has modified the spreadsheet. Then the changes are highlighted when you log on to your spread sheet. Another neat feature is that users can now access stock data through the spreadsheet through a Finance function.

Yahoo in serious talks with Time Warner

Earlier in the year, we reported about the possibilities that Yahoo approached Time Warner to become partners with AOL instead of being bought by Microsoft. According to a post at EWeek, that’s exactly what’s going on today. They reported that in the Wall Street Journal, the two companies were considering merging, and Yahoo would be folded into the AOL sector of Time Warner.

According to the Mercury News in the Silicon Valley, these talks have lead to the extension of time in which Yahoo is accepting nominations before the annual shareholder meeting.

The IMing Revolution

At Jimmahdigital.com, they wrote a recent post on instant messengers and their needed collaboration to stay in the game. Ten years ago, everyone used AIM. Over the years, a few more programs came along such as MSN, Yahoo and Google. The one problem most people have with the networks is that they can’t be combined. They all do the same thing, but no crossing of the networks. The reason for this is that originally each networked used a proprietary network that was closed.

So when Google came along, they started using Jabber, which is now the open protocol of XMPP. So this has motivated the networks to start banding together. Last month, Google Chat opened its doors and now collaborates with AIM. So, Yahoo, which is feeling pressure from many directions, is left standing and needs to join somewhere or it’ll get left behind.

Is all of this important for the enterprise? Communication is the key to making enterprise 2.0 works. So what if a company’s branch in Chicago uses AIM and the branch in Miami is using Yahoo? Well, there is potential that shows communication can soon be coming. It’s important that all of these software programs perform together, because as we’ve seen many times in the digital world, if you don’t keep up, it’s only a matter of months and you’re not in business anymore. Do you use the tools in a corporate setting? What’s your take on this?

The Big Chess Game: Microsoft and Yahoo

Yesterday, word came out that Yahoo went to the Securities and Exchange Commission and negotiated a severance package for all it’s employees who have a paid salary. The deal will be taken to the share holders, and then it will be voted on whether they want to cede to Microsoft. Since Yahoo is incorporated in Delaware, there are some laws that play into this. Yahoo legally cannot interfere with a vote by it’s share holders when they decide if they want to go to Microsoft.

The Deal Book at the New York Times lists several ways Yahoo can opt out of this situation, none of which are very easy.

1. Fight it out in a proxy contest – Yahoo can state that Microsoft is undervaluing it and aren’t willing to pay enough for it to sell. This would be very entertaining because the two companies would end up appealing to consumers by running a national ad war along with mass mailings to the share holders.
2. Severance and other change of control contracts – Just in case someone bought Yahoo!, employees then terminated would covered. However, this does not go into affect if you are fired by Yahoo.
3. 3rd Party Buyout -- Someone else can buy Yahoo! However, if more than one corporation was interested, the highest price is the winner.
4. Alliance or Acquisition -- The New York Times finds this to be the best option. This is when we look to AOL, however, this has been rumored for a while and nothing has panned out.
5. Crown Jewel Sale – Yahoo can sell a part of it’s company to make the buy less appealing.
6. Leveraged Recapitalization – Yahoo buys back stocks from the share holders at a premium price. This will be very expensive. Cost is not a problem for Yahoo, if they want the company, they will buy it. This will also make the whole thing more public than it already is. Share holders will know what is going on.

We don’t know the whole story to this point. Microsoft and Yahoo could be at the negotiating table right now. Whatever way this chess game ends, it’s been fun watching the ups and downs of two companies battling head to head to keep in the technology world.

Is bookmarking behind the Web 2.0 curve?

In a recent article at CNet, Gordon Haff ponders the subject of community book marking. He points out that there have really been no additions to this field since the start of the Enterprise 2.0 revolution. Yes, we have del.icio.us, but even that hasn’t changed format or updated recently. The parent company of del.icio.us is Yahoo!.

There is also no real social connection between people on the site. Yes, you can look at your friends’ bookmarked sites, but who takes much time to go through their websites? Another archaic feature to this is after things are bookmarked, you can’t rearrange them. Unless you bookmark a second time your page will forever be marked with the date you originally bookmarked it on. There is also the fact that one can only describe the webpage in so many words.

So where does that leave this application? It’s old fashioned and has failed to keep up with the Web 2.0 movement. Perhaps Microsoft, if it acquires Yahoo!, will remake del.icio.us into a more sophisticated business tool.

Let the Wars Begin

As fast as the news of the bid from Microsoft for Yahoo, so did the news that Yahoo! officially rejected the officer yesterday.

In this letter from Jerry Yang to his employees, he claims that the Yahoo! bid was unfair, and didn’t value what Yahoo! really was to the internet world. Here’s a part of the letter:

We believe Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our highly recognizable global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms, future growth prospects, our ability to generate free cash flow and our earnings potential as well as substantial unconsolidated investments (like alibaba and yahoo! japan).

You deserve the credit for the tremendously valuable business we have built. all of us in management, as well as the members of the board, deeply appreciate and respect what you have done and continue to do in order to maintain and enhance yahoo!'s leadership position in the online world.

However, with all this said in his letter, there is word that there could be more layoffs in the future. In this article at the New York Times, Microsoft didn’t appreciate Yahoo!’s rejection of their bid and called it “unfortunate.” They want this deal, and are making indications that they’re not willing to stop until they have Yahoo! as their own. Sources also report that Microsoft would like to keep it friendly, and stay on good terms with Yahoo. In today’s New York Times, they state that stocks closed 2% higher yesterday at Yahoo because of the belief that Microsoft will increase the bid. The other thing speculated about the bid is that Microsoft will put an end date and have the offer expire.

I think the easiest way to take in this situation is to look at it from both sides. I’ll start with Yahoo. It’s understandable that Jerry Yang doesn’t want to sell his business. They are currently the leaders in many things on the internet, such as music, gaming, and personalized pages. They were the search engine to use a decade ago. However, they’ve fallen behind in the one thing they started out doing: the internet search. They can’t compete with Google in the search world. They’re also loosing money and laying off employees left and right.

Microsoft is clearly threatened by the surge of Google’s dominance in the Enterprise 2.0 world and their overall dominance of the internet market. Microsoft isn’t used to loosing when it comes to deals and world dominance on software. They buy Yahoo! and they have a whole new staff with knowledge that can help them attack Google and give them an official competitor.

However, Yahoo! does have other options. It’s come back into the news that they’ve resurrected talks to merge with AOL. I see no advantages into this. Although it’s probably not going to happen because its one last attempt to keep business going, two struggling companies in a desperate last minute merger has failure written all over it. Google has also offered to help out Yahoo! In this article, Yahoo would start running AdSense on its pages, but this would show that Yahoo! is defeated, because in a sense it’s working for its one true competitor. In a sense, Google will be the one winning everything here, they’ve gotten a signed letter of defeat from their relatively only major competitor. And they don’t have to worry about the biggest software vendor in the world starting to compete anytime soon in the majority of the realms they do work in.

I personally think Yahoo! did well by rejecting the first offer. They know Microsoft is serious about their bid. So, I believe that when Microsoft comes back with a higher bid price, Yahoo! should take it. Their business is suffering, they’ve lost dominance. I think giving in to Google is a bad idea and would kill all dignity this once powerful search engine has left. So, Yahoo!, let another big name company come in, buy and begin to watch what happens when the collaboration starts to take off for Microsoft and Yahoo!.