http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/cloud-wars-goog-msft-fb/all/1

We’ve been experimenting with Google+ since getting an early trial invite and like what we see so far. Hurry up with the API and business pages please Google!

The Wired piece focuses on the identity aspect of social media platforms and makes a good case for Google’s strong position in fully controlling a complementary stack of products (mobile and potentially desktop OS, comms like Gmail and Googe Talk, social media and search).

Wired have also cottoned on to Google’s overall strategy which, as usual, seem to be based on applying pressure to competitors’ cash cows when they stray too close to the core Google business of advertising. The last thing Google wants to see are the likes of Twitter and Facebook walling lucrative parts of the web away from Google’s search (and therefore advertising) products. Apple launched a mobile OS, Google launched Android. Microsoft got into search, Google attacked Office, and now Windows. Twitter and Facebook tried to shut Google out from large and active parts of the web and (surprise surprise) Google+ presents a direct and credible threat to both Facebook and Twitter.

We have some very big players with deep pockets and smart people duking it out. Interesting times….

They have a staff of over 50 highly skilled and intensively trained employees operating in a custom-built manufacturing facility. CPM approached Iperior to replace an outdated website and company brand. Iperior re-branded the company including full logo redesign and provision of graphics for signage and offline marketing. We then built a custom-designed site with full CMS capability based on open-source platforms, avoiding the use of proprietary and problematic technologies like Flash.

The notable thing about this for me is that the forecast is still predicting growth of 8.3%. While that may seem unremarkable for us digital types used to seeing much bigger numbers, I think it’s safe to say that most sectors would be delighted to see growth predictions like this given the current economic circumstances.

It is also interesting to see to what degree Facebook is lagging behind MySpace in terms of ad revenue. I would attribute this largely to clever deals with minimum revenue guarantees that MySpace has signed in the past and I imagine this gap is set to close.

Greg

http://gigaom.com/2008/11/26/why-microsoft-fails-to-win-online/

Om talks about Microsoft’s structural issues and the gimmicky marketing of the Live search engine.

I see plenty of other problems for Microsoft as an organisation.

On the consumer OS front there is no single competitor ready to snatch a big chunk of the market but I see a number of things happening:

• Mark Shuttleworth is putting a lot of cash behind Ubuntu and I expect it to improve dramatically in terms of ease of use.
• Mac OS will increase market share due to increase in Mac sales.
• Mac OS may be licensed for PC use in the future.
• One or more virtualisation packages may evolve into an OS-type platform.
• I expect Google to eventually release a platform aimed at Windows, probably a suite of web services bolted onto a Google flavour of Linux.
• As mobile devices become increasingly important, Symbian and Android will become major competitors to Windows.
• As free alternatives (open-source and ad-supported) proliferate, and the importance of the OS diminishes, Microsoft will be forced to reduce OS revenue per user or stop charging completely.
• Disruptive things I can’t predict will happen but I doubt they will favour Microsoft and its dated business model.

Outside of the consumer OS market, Microsoft have other challenges:

• Their cash-cow, Office (inc Exchange), is under attack from free/cheap web services and software packages like Google Apps, Zoho, Zimbra, StarOffice, OpenOffice.
• Window Server 2008 looks like a decent product but Linux will continue to make inroads in the datacentre.
• Oracle and MyQL are causing problems for SQL Server.
• I have doubts about the quality of Microsoft’s leadership at the highest level. I think Bill Gates is already being missed.

Today, Microsoft is worth as much as Google and Apple combined. I think that ratio will change radically over the next 5 years unless Microsoft make some major changes.

Greg

The emphasis in the Practice is on giving human healthcare to people in a simple, direct way.

The centre, lead by Dr Jim Clarke, stress involving people in decision-making about their own health and explaining complex medical information to patients in simple, jargon-free language.

Iperior built a simple Joomla!-based site for Rathcoole Green Medical centre to enable staff to update the site easily using the CMS. We also integrated Google Analytics for information capture.