It’s all about profit, and I understand where the silence is coming from, but they are missing the long-term picture. [Chinese leaders’] end game is to extract as much technology out of American companies as they can, transfer that to their own companies and, when they feel those companies have reached a level of technical maturity, show the American companies the door.
—Dan Slane, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission,speaking to Bloomberg about Google’s plan to offer uncensored search data in China and why the information giant stands alone.
Last Friday’s Silicon Alley Insider Chart of the Day should scare Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer so badly that he accidentally buys a Japanese car. Sorry, Steve, you missed the Cash for Clunkers program. That’s OK, maybe someday the Obama Administration will offer a clunkers program for Windows PCs.
Too Many people are making too much about ComScore’s searcher penetration data, which released on August 14. Microsoft and Yahoo executives shouldn’t get their hopes up, nor should analysts, bloggers or journalists writing about the data otherwise be misguided. Similarly, ComScore has overstated Microsoft-Yahoo combined search potential.
August is the month of punditry. With many workers on vacation—this year, many are unemployed or on unpaid furlough, too—tech companies tend to hold back big announcements. So news and blog sites have to fill the space with something, seeing as how there is less news. Five minutes before Midnight EDT, yesterday, Business Week posted analyst Jack Gold’s Windows Mobile-ending prediction. It’s Microsoft punditry at its scariest.
Themes for Chrome 3.0 beta got me to thinking about Google’s sudden personalization push. You can skin Gmail, and there are comic-book heroes and other themes for iGoogle. Now there are Chrome skins, and what about that Android-powered MyTouch from T-Mobile? The marketing push is big customization and personalization.
TechFlash’s Todd Bishop did some good sleuthing of regulatory filings and turned up a so-called Yahoo escape clause to the Microsoft search deal. Two, actually. But while they might comfort Yahoo that there is a way out of the deal, I promise you there is none.
Late this morning, BetaNews founder Nate Mook and I IMed about Google’s Chrome OS announcement. Our differing positions somehow fit oddly together.
