The WOW Is NOW

After 5 years & $7 Billion, Microsoft has finally come out with 'the biggest software release ever'. With a boisterous $500 million marketing campaign, it has launched Vista for consumers.




While product reviewers may gush & drool over its rich graphics intense user interface & robust security features, operating system releases have lost their glory. Mr Ballmer hopes to sell 5 times as many Vistas as he did Windows95 & thrice as many as WindowsXP.Lets wait & watch how versatile he is at predicting the future.

With a new software fabric in the making with buzzwords auch as SaaS(Software as a Service) & SOA(Services Oriented Architecture), a shrink wrapped OS package has really lost its sheen. It doesn't help that open source is being preferred by governments in many countries as well as developers worldwide.

But does Vista have anything new to offer.. Microsoft would love to make you believe that there is but the truth is that there are a lot of 'enhancements' & pretty impressive ones from what I've gathered but not a lot of new 'killer features'.

From the snapshots, the graphical UI seems to be absolutely cutting edge & hopefully will bring rich visual experiences into the mainstream. MAC cultists will go ho-hum! but we can spend aeons comparing the two.

Why is no one lining up for Vista in San Francisco?

[image source: engadget]

Web 2.0 Awards

Crazy about social networking, blogs, mashups & everything Web 2.0?
Check out the Web 2.0 awards for 2006.

Close Encounters of the Apple kind

Although my professional loyalties remain with the guys at Redmond, I have had an unabashed admiration for most of the products rolled out by Apple Computer..err..Apple Inc. I mean.

Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in the MACWORLD Expo in San Francisco amidst an entire legion of MAC followers who do not belong to any religious cult but would be willing to take lives to get their hands on the latest uber-cool device by Apple.

The iPhone is not just another phone.. It is yet another testimony of Steve's genius & Apples larger than life vision of bringing a beautiful & magnificent piece of technology to gadget hungry markets.
The hugely popular & ubiquitous iPod which I guess has become not just a super cool digital device but a symbol of a new breed of 'digitally-wired-always-on-the-move' demographic. Apple is hoping to replicate the same kind of success that it enjoyed with the iPod.
And we have the iPhone which is a phone(duh?), an iPod & an internet device all rolled into one piece of artistic brilliance.

His Jobsness has this uncanny ability to influence even non MAC users & has a borderline hypnotic effect on all of us. His almost evangelical persona creates an illusion & hold us in awe. He gives us these shiny metal thingies which we didn't know we wanted & makes us believe that possessing it can actually transform us into 'Happy Human Beings'.. & it really does.There were hordes of mp3 players but the iPod was a far cry from all the stuff that was out there.

So what's gonna happen to the Nokias & Motorolas of the world? Well only time will tell whether Apple can hynotize mass markets or will it remain another internet enabled device that you cannot do without..

Technical deficiencies (2G, disconnect with Apples iTunes music store..) are a few but the highly intuitive user interface more than makes up for it.

Check out the snapshots.
Also check out why Apple makes us cry.

[image source: engadget]