Would Microsoft be able to use its acquisition of Yahoo! to "shake its obsession with catching Google and instead look to the next generation of the Internet," asks John Markoff in The New York Times this morning. Writing in his popular "Silicon Valley Memo," Markoff nails the one thing that Google 'gets' that Microsoft doesn't (yet): how to leverage 'The Power of Free.'

Markoff quotes Nicholas Carr, author of the recently published book The Big Switch. The bid for Yahoo!, Markoff cites Carr as saying,  “underscores how Microsoft’s hold on the personal computer desktop is meaning less.”

The context of Carr's observation is found in The Big Switch itself, in which he sets the scene for his book-long discussion of the future of computing by describing the circumstances surrounding what he calls "an extraordinary memorandum" that Bill Gates sent to Microsoft's top managers and engineers on October 30, 2005.

Here's Carr's succinct characterization of this major sea-change moment at Redmond:

"Belying its bloodless title - "Internet Software Services" - the memo was intended to sound an alarm, to warn the company that a new revolution in computing was under way, and that it threatened to upend Microsoft's traditional business."

What had always been the linchpin of Microsoft's success - its control over the PC desktop - was fading in importance. Thanks to the proliferation of broadband connections in homes and offices, people no longer had to buy packaged software programs and install them on their computers. Instead, they could use their web browsers to tap into software supplied over the Internet from central data-procesing plants."

Gates wrote, somewhat understatedly, that this "will be very disruptive." And three years on, his $44.6BN bid for Yahoo! is Microsoft's biggest ever attempt to respond to that disruption.

But it it too late?

"Now Microsoft is trying to make up ground by buying what it has not been able to build," writes Markoff. But he sees a major barrier: "Ultimately, Microsoft’s challenge in making its new acquisition work will be a cultural one."

Pointing ot that Redmond, WA, is no fewer than 850 miles away from Silicon Valley where Yahoo! is based, Markoff wonders out loud if Microsoft can truly "use a huge acquisition to tap into what makes the Valley tick?"

"Will it force Microsoft to look forward instead of backward?" asks Markoff towards the end of his column in The New York Times. If it doesn't, then even Microsoft + Yahoo! will not, ever, equal Google.

Google's secret, according to Markoff, is as follows:

"It has unleashed the power of free — not a new idea for the Valley — to endear itself to a new generation of computer users with services they find they cannot live without, like e-mail, digital video and social networking."

Only time will tell if Microsoft can, via Yahoo!, tap into that same power source.

"HTML has long been at war with itself," writes Yahoo! Architect Douglas Crockford, one of the most popular speakers at AJAXWorld ever since it began life early in 2006. "Is it a document format or is it an application delivery format? You can see that confusion in the cacophonous HTML 5 effort." But Crockford has very clear ideas on how to fix HTML: his approach is to make it better by exploiting unrecognized properties that it has had all along.

The background to Crockford's essay is as follows: the HTML 4 recommendation was published in 1999 and, according to Crock, while there are good ideas in HTML, "many of these were discarded in the XHTML effort." He continues:

"My thinking is that we should take a step back and refocus. The problems with HTML will not be solved by making it bigger and more complicated. I think instead we should generalize what it does well, while excising features that are problematic. HTML can be made into a general application delivery format without disrupting its original role as a document format.

The new language I am proposing is not totally compatible with HTML 4. But HTML 4 was not totally compatible with HTML 3, and XHTML would not have been totally compatible anyway, so that's ok.

This is my proposal for a kinder, gentler HTML 5."

The ten changes Crockford proposes can be read in full here.

"These changes significantly improve the reliability, security, and performance of HTML applications," Crockford claims, adding that the simplification of the language reduces the cost of training of web developers and incorporates the best practices of AJAX development.

"It provides extensibility without complexity. The deltas from HTML 4 are generalizations and reductions, which should make browser implementation more straightforward. This is particularly important for mobile devices that cannot tolerate the power demands of complex platforms. The only new feature here is the module, which is critical for security. Modules makes safe mashups possible."

We can expect the discussion to continue vigorously into 2008, when Crockford will be keynoting at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2008 East, in New York City (18-20 March, 2008).

 

When Microsoft parted with $240M for a 1.6% stake in a company with $140M in revenues and $30M in profits, was it over-paying? Conspiracy theorists were quick to say that the move was deliberate, to inflate the overall value of Facebook to $15BN and thereby prevent anyone else from buying it outright. TIME commented: "The dotcom bubble just got bigger than ever."

Typical of the reaction to the news last week that Microsoft was taking an equity stake in Facebook were the comments that quickly began appearing on Slashdot:

"they put Facebook's value at $15 billion to discourage others from investing in Facebook and make Facebook beholden to them.' (gbulmash)

"Absolutely correct. Not only will others potentially stay away, but it poisons Facebook themselves and creates a strong risk of complete implosion, which MS can use for leverage. Once a line is drawn in the sand, it engages the ego and creates strong psychological need to hold it, and if it starts slipping, it could exacerbate a dramatic downward spiral." (anonymous)

Darren Ginter saw a more purposive explanation. "Microsoft needs to get Silverlight out there. $240 million to Facebook is the cheapest method of getting hundreds of millions to install and use it, willingly.," he opined.

Facebook is almost certain to try an IPO, which makes the Microsoft move all the more interesting. It immediately made the value of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's stake worth $3BN, for example.

Certainly Facebook seems to be sucking users away from MySpace. But as one Slashdot commenter warned, "This feels like 1999 all over again."

 

The BBC carried a report yesterday that raises the alarming possibility of extending cellphone use on board airplanes from just either end of a journey to throughout the duration of the flight.

Now before I go any further let me just say that I do not go as far as the British essayist Pico Iyer, who once wrote, in "The Eloquent Sounds of Silence":

Silence is sunshine...company is clouds;
silence is rapture...company is doubt;
silence is golden...company is brass.

But I will admit to a horror of being surrounded by people talking on their cellphones while the rest of us are trying to enjoy the latest movie or catch up on work, on life...or on sleep.

Here's how it would work, according to Ofcom, the official body that's basically the telecommunications regulator in the UK:


The key to the whole thing, the technical trick that circumvents the problem found in 2003 by the CAA that mobile phone signals skew navigation bearing displays by up to five degrees, is that cellphones in the plane are not allowed to connect to any base stations on the ground.

The proposed system utilizes an on-board base station in the plane which communicates with passengers' own handsets. The base station - called a pico cell - is low power and creates a network area big enough to encompass the cabin of the plane. The base station routes phone traffic to a satellite, which is in turn connected to mobile networks on the ground. A network control unit on the plane is used to ensure that mobiles in the plane do not connect to any base stations on the ground. It blocks the signal from the ground so that phones cannot connect and remain in an idle state.

So much for the technical side if it. The social side of it is less clear-cut. One thing is an iPhone, but a skiPhone might just be the death-knell for (relative) silence on airplanes.