Playbook vs iPad - another random musing

RIM released its tablet device - the 'Playbook' two days ago. Many say its in response to the iPad. I don't think anyone sees it as an iPad killer. But for RIM, this move was extremely critical to ensure that they do not let anyone from their loyal 'BlackBerry flock' leap over to products made by the fruity company from Cupertino - Apple.

RIM perhaps has been having recurring nightmares of BlackBerry loyalists using an iPad, and soon beginning to contemplate using other devices too, such as the one-and-only 'iPhone' over the BlackBerry... *aaaargh* - RIM executives waking up screaming in the middle of the night. "Oh dear!"

Most high-powered business executives had stated clamoring for the iPad even despite its deficiencies (no webcam, no Flash support, poor battery life). So RIM brought out the 'Playbook' with all of the missing features of the iPad and more - it works like a dream with your BlackBerry phone. Pair up the Playbook with the all so familiar, oh-so-dear BlackBerry phone, and no BlackBerry loyalist would even spare a thought for the iPad (at least not in the form and features it has today).

Nice move RIM - Just follow this up, with a timely release, non-buggy performance of the OS6 on the device, and juice up that app store of yours quickly, and you might be able to achieve what you set out to do - Ensuring your flock don't leap over the fence

- OK - now I'm done with my 10 minutes of blogging. Hope to make time soon again

Google to launch operating system

So months after Google Chrome and me having speculated that this is the start of Google's journey to a new operating system, here it is - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139711.stm "Google to launch operating system"

Swine flu - some haha in here

Read this on Twitter today - "90 people get the swine flu and everybody wants to wear a mask. A million people have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom"

Found it so enormously funny.. and true! :)

Google Chrome - Will it whip the pants off IE / Fx? Or is this something else?

So what's Google Chrome? The folks at the big search engine company that over the last few years have released many free, "not evil" applications have added one more to the stable. Yesterday, they announced that Google would be releasing a new browser called 'Chrome'?!!

A browser??!! What on earth ?! That's the space that dominated by Internet Explorer - the ugly, slow, monstrosity from the Microsoft stable. That's also the space that the new, hip and happening new browser - Firefox was rocking in, slowly stealing market share away from Microsoft. And with Safari, Opera and several more, this isn't really the place one would think that Google would get into. Definitely not with a totally new browser of their own. I seem to recall that there were rumors on the Internet grapevine a long time ago that they might release a browser based on Firefox. That never happened. So why this gamble with a totally new browser?

I'm not an expert, but these are my musings on this question -

Google's Chrome browser has not yet been seen by anyone yet. It's due to be released in Beta format (as always with Google) sometime later today. But they put together a very helpful piece of documentation in a comic book format. This is available here ( don't expect them to retain this page for long after they release the product).

Having run through the document very quickly, a few things stuck out for me. And they make me think that Google is not getting into this space with the intention of starting a browser war. They are not coming in with the intention of socking it into Internet Explorer or to burn up Firefox's market. They are coming to build the future OS. The Web OS.

With Chrome, they have taken the first step in developing a framework within which all the future applications would work in a manner similar to the ways that today's applications work in the more familiar Microsoft Windows, but without a installed operating system. It would all be running inside a browser. No matter where you are, just fire up your browser and login with your 'OpenID' (imagine!) and you're ready to roll.

So what makes me to conclude that Google is not out to start a browser war, but something else? Chrome already talks about interacting with web content not as web pages, but as web applications. The various tasks that you do today on a Windows machine are already available web applications - Email, Chat, office Documents, Project Management, CRM (think Google Apps, Zoho, etc.).

In addition, they say that Chrome will also be making use of multiple threads for each of its tabs. In other words, each tab of the browser will be a separate process that will be running a (web) application of its own. It will take up its own share of the machine's CPU and Memory depending on the nature of the application that is running. Doesn't that already sound like the many processes that run in the shell we call 'Windows'? Or for that matter in any of the current operating systems? Google acknowledges that this approach may take up some additional resources upfront. But with the exploding processing power and bandwidth, this may be a small price.

Oh - and what's this?!! A Chrome Task Manager. LOL - now that's just like my Windows operating system. This task manager will help me to see which of my tabs (read processes) may be misbehaving chomping up my machine's RAM and by making the CPU super-busy. All in all, it sounds just like what the Task manager in Windows does too.

In conclusion - Chrome is a browser that has been written from scratch up. And from what I could make out from the comic documentation, these guys are not making nice looking, browser that will have a lower memory footprint than the current browsers, or something that may load some pages a fraction of a second faster than the others.

They are building a new machine altogether. They are clearly making the first, really big leap in the direction of making the Web Operating System that will run the myriad of web applications and will harness the power of the scattered machines connected together by a common thread - the Internet.

I'm waiting for the beta now! :)

Blogging with Zoho!

Hello World!

It has been a long time since my last post. And right now, I am struggling with what I want to post. I am rather excited to be using 'Zoho Writer' to compose this post. I hated using MS Word to do this job. Right now, I know I am writing all this just because I want to write and post something using Zoho Writer. 

But on a more serious note. I would like to get back to 'penning' down my thoughts, and forming it into something usable and useful. Don't think my blog has many viewers. But I would like looking back at it like a trip back into time. 

Delighted with Zoho so far. So much for now. Good night and good luck! :)

Writely has opened registrations again! I didn't get an invite from them though I had signed up to receive an update when they open registrations. Nor did I get any mail from them informing on this. I learnt about the open registrations from Lifehacker :-) Thanks Gina!

Breaking formats

I had the opportunity to meet Prasoon Joshi a couple of days ago. He had been invited to speak to an audience on innovation. The audience was by no means a bunch of duds. The best and the brightest from various business schools and graduate schools of India, with well-honed skill in problem solving and analysis. Yet, many were blown away by what Prasoon presented. He gave a first hand brief on what innovation and the innovation fabric that any and every organization must develop in order to survive. Post the session, I got a minute to ask him - 'What kind of people does the advertisement industry look for?' Pat came his reply - 'We look for people who can break formats.'

I nodded my head in affirmation. Yet, the impact of what he said began to sink into me much later. And as I contemplate on what he said even now, I seem to be seeing greater meaning into it.

How often we settle into routines of comfort? How often we choose to live the mundane just because we are afraid to break formats? We need to break formats in every aspect of life. We need to rethink our lives and make a difference where we can. We need to break some formats. We need to break at least one format in our lifetime. Are you game?!!!