On top of South East Asia
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
THE NEW SEARCH ENGINE WAR
First off I'm a Google fanatic. I had all (nearly) Google free service account. From Gmail to Hello.com to Picasa and Google groups. My first site when I go online is Google news. But I also got "the best web mail" Yahoo! Mail (although its currently expired) and the inevitable hotmail besides from two other email which specifically cater for you spammers :p out there.
The search scenario for you out there who still live in Mars is that Microsoft is trying to lure web surfers to its all new msn.com portal that already updated with their all new, home-brewed MSN search engine that was built from ground-up to match the best search engine out there that are happens to be Yahoo! and Google. The former supposed to offer the search portal of Microsoft before, but now the all new (not too different from the old anyway in terms of design) MSN portal. Even Bill Gates posts a letter at the front page of the portal stating all the usual stuffs about Microsoft commitment and rapid improvement. Questions start to be asked. Will Google monopoly (or for you Yahoo! diehards, well its duopoly...) will be long last lasting memories reminiscent of Netscape and Real Media (which actually gain grounds in the battle). Well in terms of legislation it will be hard if Microsoft did it the Netscape way again, it'll be sure to attract big attention and as they hardly learn, its not good for business. And they'll be sure to have European legislators on their tails. Although its not particularly clear will they shy-away from controversies after all the past mess, my verdict is that Steve Ballmer will at least make sure it didn't happen.
In which case it will leave two more route, the technological front and the marketing front. But before that, let’s see the vision of both Yahoo! and Google. The former envision to convert its regular customers from non-paying to paid customer, using Yahoo! as their portal and gateway to the internet. Google on the other hand envision organizing the world information to make it easier to reach/search etc. In short Microsoft approach resemblance those of Yahoo! than those of Google. Microsoft tries to lure customers and surfers to use its portal service and turn them slowly into buyers of its services especially the 'Janus' music store (they hit big-time in order to catch iTunes music store BTW).
But in short technologically speaking all those engines are very competitive. Although they are few loopholes here and there with the new MSN search engine especially when they actually direct users to Google News rather than the actual location itself, its doing okay and held its ground very well for now. But the most disastrous thing for now is if Microsoft use its financial resources to market their search engine in a big way. And you can be certain of that! they just struck a deal with Nokia to provide music store direct to phone users and you can be sure the MSN portal will play a big part in that agenda. All in all I have a thought that Microsoft on the long run tries to lure customers and surfers to spend a longer time at its portal and use all those paid and free service for a start before hitting big time of putting more services there. This will lure surfers from Yahoo! and other one-stop portal but unlikely will shattered Google user base. As I said before, PC whiz kids are fanatic bunch :) Microsoft can pour millions in advertising for now Google is pretty safe if they continue their continuous innovation plan and add more related service. And on a high note, they will allocate 70% of their resources to improve their search services. Google is the most vulnerable for now because of its heavy reliance on advertising (accounts for 98% of its revenue) than Yahoo!.
In short the battleground is just being open. The big 3 will continue to improve and the winner? Well it’s US!
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF FREE SOFTWARE
Free software was also known before as some of the lousy and incompetence batch waiting their
doomsday. But the scene right now is quickly changing, and at a rapid pace too. In fact, take a look at your own PC and there must be at least one freeware. Be it either winamp, the irresistible iTunes, or maybe it’s the high-flying Mozilla Firefox which eating the IE-using pie at a very rapid pace.
Pirated softwares which is unfortunately a norm around this part of the world (read: Asia) is already a big virus spreading through PC users. Although I never think with the freeware gaining further ground will ever slowing down the pirate-buying virus, at least it will educate and appeal to those who can't afford original and powerful software. This can at least to a certain extend answers the arguments that software are too expensive and shouldn't cost all that much.
But lately a bunch of free but powerful software had surfaced and gaining further ground. In the media playcategory it’s very well covered. Make your pick, Winamp or iTunes, Real One or Windows Media Player it’s all there. Depend on which functions you like most and which company prefered (PC whizkid are fanatic bunch....).
In the web browsing section, there is the new kid on the block further eating the dominance that IE taken for granted. All hail Mozilla Firefox, the finest web browser there is (with some minor quibbles... Hey no software is perfect). It’s very stable, feature-wide and very secure. And its fast too. Get it at http://getfirefox.net and try it yourself. You gonna love it (depends on your tolerance of change).
Just a few days ago, google had updated its Picasa to version 2 and what a major upgrade it is. Picasa2 as what it's called, boast many features that will even made many full-fledged (read: one with a price tag) ashamed of. The looks of the software is so reminiscent to iPhoto software from the great Mac stable. It can organize and view pictures and even to certain extend play video files. It’s a very neat addition to the software. What's more it can manipulate the image albeit in a simple way to repair and touch your photo. And mind you, it’s quite powerful. Images with poor lighting and colour balance can be repaired quite instantly. The best thing is you can send any image viewed by the software directly to any email, provided that you had a gmail.com email account or hello.com account, both owned by google. That is very neatindeed.
There's also this one good antivirus software that giving away a very version of their antivirus suite called AVG at www.grisoft.com . It’s competitive although I don’t think in the same par say Norton Antivirus or PC-Cilin, but hey good things don’t come cheap. At least you legally using them rather than using Pirated copy that must activated with a pirated keygen. My verdict, AVG is still good enough and holds its ground well. Use it. There’s so much to talk about here, but just a few more URL. I’ll write about the others at some time in the future.
Fresh download – www.freshdevices.com
iTunes – www.apple.com
Mozilla Thunderbird – www.mozilla.org
Skype – www.skype.com
*The writer is not in any way related or on a payroll from any company stated above. Its simply that if the writer like it, he'll tell everyone about it. Full stop.
doomsday. But the scene right now is quickly changing, and at a rapid pace too. In fact, take a look at your own PC and there must be at least one freeware. Be it either winamp, the irresistible iTunes, or maybe it’s the high-flying Mozilla Firefox which eating the IE-using pie at a very rapid pace.
Pirated softwares which is unfortunately a norm around this part of the world (read: Asia) is already a big virus spreading through PC users. Although I never think with the freeware gaining further ground will ever slowing down the pirate-buying virus, at least it will educate and appeal to those who can't afford original and powerful software. This can at least to a certain extend answers the arguments that software are too expensive and shouldn't cost all that much.
But lately a bunch of free but powerful software had surfaced and gaining further ground. In the media playcategory it’s very well covered. Make your pick, Winamp or iTunes, Real One or Windows Media Player it’s all there. Depend on which functions you like most and which company prefered (PC whizkid are fanatic bunch....).
In the web browsing section, there is the new kid on the block further eating the dominance that IE taken for granted. All hail Mozilla Firefox, the finest web browser there is (with some minor quibbles... Hey no software is perfect). It’s very stable, feature-wide and very secure. And its fast too. Get it at http://getfirefox.net and try it yourself. You gonna love it (depends on your tolerance of change).
Just a few days ago, google had updated its Picasa to version 2 and what a major upgrade it is. Picasa2 as what it's called, boast many features that will even made many full-fledged (read: one with a price tag) ashamed of. The looks of the software is so reminiscent to iPhoto software from the great Mac stable. It can organize and view pictures and even to certain extend play video files. It’s a very neat addition to the software. What's more it can manipulate the image albeit in a simple way to repair and touch your photo. And mind you, it’s quite powerful. Images with poor lighting and colour balance can be repaired quite instantly. The best thing is you can send any image viewed by the software directly to any email, provided that you had a gmail.com email account or hello.com account, both owned by google. That is very neatindeed.
There's also this one good antivirus software that giving away a very version of their antivirus suite called AVG at www.grisoft.com . It’s competitive although I don’t think in the same par say Norton Antivirus or PC-Cilin, but hey good things don’t come cheap. At least you legally using them rather than using Pirated copy that must activated with a pirated keygen. My verdict, AVG is still good enough and holds its ground well. Use it. There’s so much to talk about here, but just a few more URL. I’ll write about the others at some time in the future.
Fresh download – www.freshdevices.com
iTunes – www.apple.com
Mozilla Thunderbird – www.mozilla.org
Skype – www.skype.com
*The writer is not in any way related or on a payroll from any company stated above. Its simply that if the writer like it, he'll tell everyone about it. Full stop.
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