Yahoo's mobile promise

Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid to buy Yahoo is clearly a move to thwart rival Google from taking over the entire Internet, but such a deal also could give Microsoft a huge boost in the mobile market.

It's ridiculous to think that Microsoft would put together a deal of this magnitude for Yahoo's mobile assets alone. There are obviously other more pressing synergies and tie-ups between the companies. But the mobile piece of the story could be a nice added bonus that could pay huge dividends in the future.

Mobile is the next frontier for Internet companies. Nearly 3 billion people worldwide use cell phones today. That's nearly triple the number of people who have computers, so it makes sense that Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft would all see opportunity here.

And so far, each company has been taking stabs at addressing the market. Google offers its search and mapping applications on cell phones to help people find restaurants, movies, and shops when they're out and about.

But Google's long-term strategy appears to be one that takes more ownership of the services and devices in the mobile market. In November, Google announced Android , a new software development kit for cell phones that will essentially provide a new operating system and user interface tied closely to Google applications. Google is even bidding on wireless spectrum in a Federal Communications Commission 700MHz auction , in a move that could pit the company against cell phone providers like Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

Yahoo is also gunning for the mobile space. And the company has made significant inroads. Like Google it has adapted some of its traditional Web services, like search, for the mobile market. And it's done very well here. The company was ranked as the top Internet wireless Web brand in 2007 with more than 16 million unique visitors per month, according to Nielsen Mobile. Google held the No. 2 spot with roughly 11 million monthly visitors. And MSN came in third with more than 9 million.

Yahoo recently redesigned its mobile home page and announced Yahoo Go 3.0 , which is open to widgets created by outsiders. It's also been rolling out new partnerships for mobile advertising. For example, Yahoo recently expanded its relationship with AT&T. The companies had originally teamed up on broadband services a few years ago, but now that relationship is extended and Yahoo will be providing search and display advertisements on PCs and mobile phones. This is a huge win for Yahoo because AT&T is the largest cell phone provider in the U.S. The company is also delivering display ads to Vodafone and T-Mobile in Europe and Rogers in Canada.

Yahoo's current mobile applications, plus its partnerships with carriers could complement Microsoft's mobile strategy very well. Microsoft has already been moving in this direction and has acquired some companies along the way that will allow it to bulk up its mobile offering. In March, it bought Tellme Networks , which provides voice services for nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service, and voice-enabled mobile search.

Combined Microsoft and Yahoo could be a strong force against Google. And a unified force could provide an opportunity to take back some dominance from Google. But then again Google overtook these companies once before, and there's certainly a chance the company will become the dominant player in the mobile Web as well.

17.11.08 04:58, comment

Will Linux ever be a mainstream desktop play?

Ubuntu has been making gains on the server side of things . And that's likely where Canonical, the commercial entity behind Ubuntu, will earn its profits-- as it hopes to do someday .

But its initial efforts on the client side arguably are what really helped shift the limelight to Ubuntu in the first place. Ubuntu gained the reputation of being easier to install and use than other Linux distributions--factors that have kept even many open-source enthusiasts from adopting Linux on their desktops or notebooks. And user experience remains a significant focus area.

Mark Shuttleworth, who heads and financially backs Canonical, is on record with comments such as "I think the great task in front of us in the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something stable and usable and not pretty, to something that's art." Or more broadly, to surpass Apple, in terms of desktop experience.

I strongly suspect that there are inherent trade-offs between the flexibility and choice associated with open source, and the unified approach that tends to be associated with good user interface design. But the bigger issue with mainstreaming the Linux PC has nothing to do with design and everything with where we are in technology history when it comes to accessing and interacting with software.

Writers of heavyweight client applications don't want to support additional operating systems. Getting the latest versions of applications for its platform is even a challenge for Apple--resurgent sales and market share notwithstanding.

While there's lots of open-source software for Linux clients, there's a very modest amount of closed-source software available. This is not especially a knock on Linux, per se--though low software costs certainly contribute to Linux's attraction in some cases--but rather reflect the decades-long winnowing of the number of platforms that software vendors are willing to support.

There's also a general maturation of the PC operating system. Linux desktop distributions, Mac OS X, and--dare I say it--Windows are far more alike than they are different. You may choose one over the other to make an ideological or stylistic statement, to gain access to specific applications, or just as a matter of personal preference. But both differences and advances are increasingly at the margins.

I think we see some of this in the relatively slow take-up of Vista. The Microsoft haters blame Vista; the blame at least equally sits on the reality that Windows XP is a good enough desktop operating system for most purposes.

In short, I just don't see a lot of enthusiasm for another desktop operating system in the Windows or Mac OS X mold. This is especially so because it represents the past in many ways. Many new applications are running in the network, and the client--in its myriad forms, from desktop to smartphone--is merely a portal to access them.

In a sense, this is an opportunity for Linux. In a world where all you need is a browser and some other standardized client components, why not Linux? And, indeed, I expect that we'll see Linux on a lot of thinner clients, where it will act more as the underpinning for a browser than as a more generalized operating environment.

But I think that it is important to distinguish this from Linux, the desktop OS--as that term is normally used. This isn't about running games or editing movies on the latest quad-core Intel processor. This is about powering lighter-weight clients in which the operating system--and, especially, the general application support enjoyed by any given operating system--just doesn't matter very much.

17.11.08 02:50, comment

BP, Arizona State look to bacteria, not algae, for a biofuel

Algae's not the only organism that can be used as a feedstock for biofuel.

BP will collaborate with Arizona State University to try to figure out a way of using cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic form of bacteria, as a feedstock for diesel or synthetic petroleum. Ideally, the bacteria could be cultivated in large, contained plots of land baked by the sun--Arizona has a lot of that. The bacteria also consume carbon dioxide to grow. Thus, carbon dioxide could be pumped in from a power plant into the contained bacteria farm. The company could thus make money from selling carbon credits and selling fuel feedstock.

Financial details of the deal, announced Friday, were not disclosed.

GreenFuel Technologies has a similar project in Arizona under way but with algae. A lot of companies, in fact, are trying to concoct feedstocks out of algae. The race now is to figure out who can come up with a microorganism and a process that results in the cheapest, highest-energy feedstock. One of the challenges of algae: separating the single-celled buggers from the water they grow in.

Microbes are hot these days. Some companies, such as Cambrios Technologies, are trying to figure out ways to use microorganisms in industrial processes while others are trying to get microorganisms to convert wood chips into ethanol. Others are working on bacteria-based fuel cells.

Earlier this year, BP signed deals with University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois.

17.11.08 00:42, comment