2007-10-25

Une nouvelle application riche connectée

This is exactly the sort of evolution I'm expecting to see around the Internet. When Web-based (i.e. DHTML) applications are too limited in terms of functionality and user experience, you need to offer a full-blown, desktop-like application that is connected to the Internet and manipulates information that resides on the Internet.
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Plutôt qu'une nouvelle version de son site, eBay propose depuis le
début du mois en bêta test son eBay Desktop. Une sorte de widget
qui permet à son utilisateur d'utiliser les services du site d'enchères
depuis une interface beaucoup plus ergonomique et intuitive. Découverte.

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2007-10-16

DocSyncer Bridges Your Desktop With Google Docs

Someone is finally realizing that desktop applications are not going away anytime soon...
clipped from www.techcrunch.com

One of the biggest drawbacks to working with Webtop productivity applications such as Google Docs or Buzzword is that they force you to work simultaneously in two different worlds: the online world and the desktop world. You can upload your desktop documents one at a time to these services, and they convert them for you into a Web-based document, but there is no easy way to bulk upload your docs. And syncing between the two worlds is more trouble than it is worth.

A new service called DocSyncer hopes to fix all that.

It uploads all of your Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) from your desktop to Google Docs and then keeps them in sync. Whenever you make a change on your desktop, the change is automatically reflected in the corresponding file on Google Docs, and on DocSyncer.com.
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2007-09-18

CrowSpirit

clipped from www.google.com

CrowdSpirit

CrowdSpirit

mini-crowd.pngCrowdSpirit is a crowdsourcing community built around designing electronic products and staying involved throughout their product life cycle. Users submit ideas for innovative electronic products that the community fine tunes and votes on. The best ideas and their product specifications rise to the top where investors provide financing and development partners make prototypes. Once products have been made they are tested by the community and recommended to retailers. Users involved with product creation can earn a share of the product revenue. Typical products will include MP4 players, DVD players, computer peripherals, headphones, etc.

A Q&A community consultation service for problems and ideas that may be possible. Deeper than say Yahoo Answers, focus is on products and prototypes.

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2007-09-14

Salesforce Enters Custom Application Market With Force.com

clipped from www.techcrunch.com

Salesforce will enter the custom software market next week with the launch of Force (site will go live Monday morning), a new platform that will allow developers to create database driven applications and deploy them as services. So if Salesforce doesn’t offer what you are looking for, and no one has built it for you on Salesforce’s AppExchange, you can simply build it yourself using the Apex framework.

At its core Force competes as a development platform with .NET, Java, etc. But there are also a slew of startups that have focused on allowing people to easily create and deploy database driven applications - DabbleDB, Zoho Creator, LongJump, Coghead and WyaWorks, among others. All will take a hit from Force. In fact, this may be sort of game ending for them. Salesforce has its eyes on much bigger fish than those startups.

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2007-09-05

Microsoft Officially Launches Silverlight

clipped from www.google.com
Microsoft Officially Launches Silverlight
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Microsoft has officially launched its Flash rival Silverlight .

Silverlight 1.0 provides cross browser support under both Windows and OS X, and in a partnership with Novell will also be available for Linux.

Silverlight was initially released to rave reviews in late April, with Michael Arrington saying that it would become “the platform of choice for developers who build rich Internet applications.”

Microsoft has rolled out a number of Silverlight powered applications since then, including Live Station, Popfly and Tafiti.

Microsoft has also announced that a number of content providers will be providing Silverlight enabled content online, including Entertainment Tonight, HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment.

For a full explanation of what Silverlight does read here.

(via Beet.tv)

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2007-09-04

ContactOffice, a web office suite

ContactOffice, a web office suite, is announcing that it has upgraded its online office suite to version 2.0 after months of development.
The newly upgraded platform is completely powered by AJAX, giving it a more fluid and seamless integration. It was developed using the open source Google Web Toolkit, and in addition to featuring a higher level speed and usability, it still sports messaging, calendaring, contact management, document sharing, Skype integration, SMS, fax, bookmarking and notes.

ContactOffice, which has 350,000 users, was founded in 1999 and was profitable by 2003. Two subscription packages are available in the form of paid and free versions, and companies are able to brand the online productivity suite with their own logos.

2007-08-29

Worlds First I.T. Guy

Jooce


Jooce is a Flash-based web operating system and sharing platform. They are targeting the millions of people who use "cybercafes" to conduct their Internet affairs instead of a regular desktop or laptop. The Jooce product is aiming to provide these virtual vagabonds with a web-based desktop to manage their IM, email, storage, media and widgets in a secure and protected way. They also provide virtual nomads with an online desktop that they can share with friends to swap files like pictures, documents, audio and video.Jooce is currently in beta. Competitors include Goowy, G.ho.st, DesktopTwo and YouOS.
Investors: Mangrove Capital Partners
Blog: http://www.jooce.com/blog/

Zoho Goes Offline

Online office suite Zoho launches offline functionality for Zoho Writer, and other applications in their suite will follow shortly.
The offline functionality was built on Google Gears, an open source project launched by Google in May 2007. Users will need to install a browser plugin to take advantage of the functionality. After that, an option will appear in the navigation bar to “Go Offline.” The feature works with Internet Explorer v.6 and higher, and with Firefox (including Mac) v1.5 and higher.
For now they are offering read-only functionality offline. Read-write functionality will appear in 3-4 weeks, the company says. Zoho will also begin to roll out offline functionality for their spreadsheet, presentation and other applications in the coming weaks.
Zoho, which competes head-on with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, managed to launch offline functionality on their product before Google did. The fact that they are using Google software to do this makes the story somewhat ironic.

2007-07-06

Xcerion Replays Microsoft Formula

(Interesting article from RedHerring)

Xcerion Replays Microsoft Formula
Step 1: Develop operating system and lock ’em in.
By Eydie Cubarrubia


Two Microsoft alumni—former CFO John Connors and former top Windows engineer Lou Perazzoli—back Sweden’s Xcerion, making it the leading candidate in the race to create an Internetbased OS, contends a Swedish VC. Success there, it’s argued, could well make it a major player in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market, which Gartner projects to rocket to $19.3 billion by 2009, from just $6.3 billion last year. “A web-based OS is extremely diffi cult to do,” says Jorgen Bladh of Stockholmbased Northzone Ventures. “Look at companies, from Microsoft to Google to many startups, trying to create it—we don’t think anyone else is even close.”
Northzone invested $10 million in Xcerion, which is based in the university town of Linköping, 150 miles southwest of Stockholm.
Xcerion claims it lets folks make do with old technology and accessing their stuff anywhere.
It also proposes to combine free software, a community for creating and selling it, and a SaaS platform. “We’re trying to become the Skype for software—do what Skype did for Internet telephony,” says CEO Daniel Arthursson (pictured). “We want to combine what eBay, Amazon, and Google do in one company—a marketplace where you can buy software, and create new software on our platform... and sell it.” The company has a seed-fi - nancing program for developers building apps on top of its OS.
Xcerion fi rst has to convince folks to use its web-based operating system, which Mr. Arthursson claims matches the latest versions of Windows or Mac OS X. Second, it has to entice developers to start making applications on its open-source software and create a community where independent coders can post their apps. And then it has to turn that community into a marketplace, where everyone congregates to buy and sell software.
Mr. Arthursson says “many, many thousands” of people worldwide have already signed up for a beta account of its operating system, dubbed XIOS. The beta launch is scheduled for the third quarter of this year.
The Internet-based OS, then, is the carrot that pulls everyone in. But is Xcerion really just another proprietary venture cloaked in open-source goodness? Mr. Arthursson contends it isn’t. For starters, it’s giving away its OS and basic apps. It’s also eschewing marketing, since “We don’t want to be [perceived] as another Oracle,” he says.
But Xcerion could still fi nd itself lumped with the proprietary set, notes Martin Schneider, a former analyst at Boston-based The 451 Group. “While it can cut down the amount of time and money spent on developing functionality, it can also be seen as a new form of vendor lock-in,” he says, like Microsoft or Oracle locks people in. Relying on the Xcerion OS suggests apps running on it would have to be compatible with it, he says. “[That could] cause data integration issues with legacy and other non-SaaS applications in place.”
At least one Xcerion rival sees things that way. “Based on what I can see on the Xcerion web site, the Xcerion OS will be a powerful but closed environment which works with its own applications, all the apps, hosted by Xcerion,” says Zvi Schreiber, CEO of G.ho.st. G.ho.st’s webbased OS works with all web applications, according to Mr. Schreiber.
Unlike open-source or SaaS companies free of compatibility issues, Xcerion could have trouble snaring big business customers. “The main thing holding existing models in place is compatibility requirements, for which organizations have a high need and individuals tend not to,” says Roger Kay, founder of research fi rm Endpoint Technologies.
If Xcerion seems unfazed by such chatter, it’s because “we’re marketing mostly to consumers,” Mr. Arthursson says. “We’re aiming for the mass-consumer market, and also small businesses.”
Even analyst Mr. Kay sees the possibilities: “If it really is easy and free, people will tend to pick it up, fi rst as individuals and then, if it’s really successful, as organizations.”
Xcerion aims to transform SaaS with its combined free-and-paid model. Eventually, Mr. Arthursson says, its software could make for cheaper, heartier computers, free of hard drives—and OS upgrades.
And things could happen fast. According to Mr. Arthursson, the OS already downloads faster than Google Apps and boots up faster than Microsoft Windows, thanks to the way it’s stored in the browser.

2007-07-02

With New Docs Design, Google's Looking a Lot Like MS

Interesting
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So yesterday Google rolled out a new GUI for Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and lookee here: The interface looks a lot like Windows Explorer.

On the right of the start page you'll find a navigation pane with folders. That's folders, a marked departure from the tagging taxonomic structure they inherited from Writely after acquiring the company in 2005. The new folder method does allow you to save docs in multiple folders, though, so it's kind of a hybrid approach. My guess: Google is trying to broaden the appeal of the online service to pave the way for including PowerPoint support later this year. Tags appeal to techies, folders appeal to everybody else.

Of course, this begs the question: What about Gmail? Google's e-mail app, with only 4 percent market share, continues to stick to a tags-only taxonomy. I wonder if tags are a bridge too far for layusers, who've grown up on the folder metaphor.

2007-06-28

Yuntaa Launches Virtual Desktop for File Management

Yuntaa is an online desktop application that lets you store and share your digital media from a central location. Yuntaa is a hosting service.

With this service, you can upload your images, music and videos, share items with the community, and manage all of your files. Yuntaa is designed to mimic your desktop, granting you a few desktop widgets and easy access to your files.

The Yuntaa Manager is a downloadable application that lets you drag and drop items from your computer to Yuntaa, and also select files from your hard drive to be backed up on the site. These files can be automatically updated with the sync function and scheduled to occur on a regular basis.

full post

2007-06-27

Windows Live Folders (beta)

You dreamt about "desktop" remote storage: here it is. They even planned on syncing the remote file folders with the local ones thru FolderShare.
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Originally called “Live Drive” Live Folders is getting off the ground before the rumored GDrive. The service is being launched into a managed beta which will give a select group of testers 500MB of free online storage space.

Users can upload files via a webform or through an ActiveX control. Once on the system, files can be marked public, private, or be shared with other Live users by user name or through email by permalink. Files will be download only since Microsoft doesn’t have an office web suite
yet.

Microsoft already has plans to incorporate file syncing into the storage cloud powered by FolderShare, which they
acquired back in 2005, stepping on the toes of quite a few startups along the way.


Mobile & Social Networking combined

I like the pun!
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Cellfish Media, a spin-off company from media company Lagardère (publisher of Elle magazine) has launched Cellfish.com, a social network and destination portal centered on users sharing music, videos and art between their PCs and mobile devices.

Folders for Google docs; soon to be released in Gmail?

Interesting post from techcrunch.
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Google has announced an update to Google Docs and Spreadsheets that includes improved features and support for folders. Folders are the biggest change. Google has not abandoned tagging and yet the inclusion of folders would indicate that Google is finally listening to the millions of people who prefer folders in preference to tagging.

The question I do have is what about Gmail? Without hopefully causing a flurry of people telling me how wonderful tagging is, I’m one of those people who download my email from Gmail into a desktop based email client, and I do so only due to the lack of folders in Gmail. Hopefully the inclusion of folders in Google Docs is a sign of future functionality in Gmail.

2007-06-26

No Download Required: 30+ Apps That Are Killing Microsoft

Cut&paste of a post about "WEB3.0".

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With Google acquiring a Powerpoint-like tool to bulk up its impressive web office suite, and hundreds of startups releasing everything from web based word processors to complete operating systems, Microsoft is under fire. Sure, the company remains buoyant for now, but 5 years down the line, Microsoft may be struggling if it hasn’t adapted to this new world of web-based, ad-supported software. This week, we tested some of the services that are nibbling away at Microsoft’s dominance, with Google leading the charge.

Target: Microsoft Word

Google Docs - Google’s word processor, attached to your Google account, integrated into other Google apps.
Buzzword - Simple word processor built off of Adobe’s Flex, currently in private beta.
Writeboard - by 37signals, designed to be used by multiple users, focus on sharing and collaboration.
ThinkFree - basically Microsoft Word online.


Target: Microsoft Excel

Google Spreadsheet - not as good as Excel, but a decent spreadsheet app for basic needs, again integrated into other Google apps.
Zoho Sheet - like Excel but with way less features.
EditGrid - Not an Excel replacement, has graphing, extensive collaboration features.
ThinkFree Calc - Basically Excel online.


Target: PowerPoint
Empressr - Lets you import many types of media including Flash, also embeddable…impressive results.
Zoho Show - very simple creator, the results don’t look very great, but good for quick and simple presentations.
Google Presentations - Not out yet, but Google is going to release a general presentation editor sometime soon (this summer)
Spresent - A flash based editor that makes flash based presentations, they look decent and it has Flickr integration.

Target: Outlook
Gmail - Google’s mail client that has Google search built in, has about 3 GB of storage, can be customized to your domain, free for up to 25 users.
Yahoo Mail - Yahoo’s mail client with unlimited storage, new client very quick.
Zoho Mail - email client, free for individuals, for pay with groups. Has collaborative features.
Zimbra - Web based email client, adopted by ISPs for their clients, has a calendar, and document storage, even integrated VoIP, for a price.

Target: Outlook Calendar
Google Calendar - basic calendar app that integrates with Gmail.
Yahoo! Calendar - basic calendar app that integrates with Yahoo Mail
Kiko - Calendar startup originally owned by the founders of Justin.tv, sold on eBay and now owned by Tucows, lots a great features like RSS import, and contact management.
30boxes - Wonderfully simple calendar. Was one of the hottest in this space until Google Calendar launched and stole some of the thunder from the startups.

Target: Windows Live Messenger
Meebo - web based chat that supports Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ, and Jabber. Recently added chat rooms.
eBuddy - supports MSN, Yahoo, and AIM, has a mobile site.
Google Talk - in Gmail there is a Gtalk client that has all the features of the regular Google Talk client for the desktop. There’s also a version on the personalized homepage.
Campfire - like IRC, except better looking and with file sharing, integrated into the other 37signals apps.

Target: Movie Maker (and others)
Movie Maker is free, so Microsoft won’t lose money here. But users will be spending less time with desktop apps once online video editing becomes more feasible (we don’t think it’s satisfactory yet). Less people using these apps on the desktop would mean less incentive for Windows developers to build for that platform.
JumpCut - iMovie in your browser, lets you edit other people’s videos too.
MotionBox - doesn’t let you edit other people’s videos, but still a fully featured editor.
YouTube Remixer - Currently in Beta, powered by Adobe, results don’t look great, but it’s a start.
Eyespot - not really designed to be an editor, more of a remix and mashup maker, currently has a deal with Starwars to let fans make mashups.

Target: Windows??

OK, so nobody is abandoning their OS anytime soon, but web-based desktops and operating systems, if successful, will mean people spend less time on their real desktops and more time moving files around out in the cloud.
DesktopOnDemand - 1GB of storage, has web browser (you can download so it’s not useless), email client, word processor, spreadsheet editor, IM client, media player and other apps.
Nivio - 5GB of storage, basically Windows in your browser.
AjaxWindows - A webOS built in ajax, has lots of apps, has about 1GB of storage. Seems to be password protected at the time of writing.EyeOS - Open source web OS, enables anyone to collaborate and expand it, for example, make apps.

More (from comments)
Nice online substitute for Microsoft Money is http://moneytrackin.com/

2007-06-25

Web 3.0 : the best of both worlds

With all the noise around Google Apps, some would argue that online, DHTML-based applications are poised to replace traditional desktop applications ("rich clients"). Well, I don't agree.

The web (i.e. the Internet + a web browser) is a fantastic tool to navigate through information, no doubt about that. But it was never meant to be a platform or operating system to run full blown applications.



The requirements of Internet-based applications
My belief is that, in order to be actually useable, Internet-based applications must meet the following requirements:

  1. Automatic deployment over the Internet. The application can run entirely on the server, be cached transparently on the client, or be installed automatically on the client with a confirmation dialog box (Java applets, ActiveX controls)
  2. Communication with the Internet. The application must be able to communication with servers or services over the Internet, to access or store information as well as access computing resources if required.
  3. Robust user interface, preferably compatible with that of the client platform
  4. Offline support. The application must run while disconnected from the Internet.
  5. Efficiency. The user experience must not be degraded by the inherent slowness of the Internet, nor by an over-simplification of the user interface sometimes imposed by web technologies.
  6. Integration with the client platform. Applications must be able to access the local file system, printers and other devices, and intergrate seemlessly with the client OS (indexing, window management, drag&drop,...)
  7. Robustness and security. Unfortunately, most current technologies employed to develop RIAs are not designed for robustness (JavaScript, DOM) nor security (AJAX, REST).

The limitations of the browser

Here's a (partial) list of the limitations of the browser as an application platform:
  • HTML is a relatively poor presentation framework. Sure, it can do text, tables and bitmaps. But it cannot do simple things such as rounded table corners. Not to mention shadows, translucency, or 3D effects...

  • HTML itself is meant for static pages. DHTML adds some level of dynamicity, as evidenced by the myriad of DHTML- or even AJAX-based web sites. But the programming model is not even fully standardized, and the primary programming language, JavaScript, is antiquated (it's not even object-oriented).

  • The business and navigation logic must be implemented on the server side. This would actually be a good idea if: (1) you never needed more than one open window (2) there was no "back" button in web browsers! Sure, you can work around both, but to the detriment of useablility in some cases. This is due to the web's disconnected, request-based approach.

  • Within the browser, you have no access to the rest of the computer (such as the file system). While this looks like a good idea to protect your system from viruses and the like, it's actually a major limitation of you want to store information on your computer (such as in your "My documents" folder) or interact with other, non-web-based applications or the OS itself.

  • Naturally, if you're not actually connected to the Internet, your web application is not accessible (remember that laptop sales outnumber desktop sales...)

  • Finally, the web is inheritently slow - especially request round-trips because of network latency. So displaying any new information, or responding to the simplest of actions, can take up to several seconds. Of course, you can take Google's approach and multiply the number of servers and distribute them all over the world (so that they're closest to the user), but not everbody has Google's deep pockets!


Attempts to solve these issues

Many of these limitations have already been identified, and a few players are trying to address them in what they call "Rich Internet Application" frameworks:

  • Adobe with AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), which relies on Flash for rendering and UI, Flex for client/server communication, and ECMAScript for programming
  • Microsoft with Silverlight, which includes a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation for rendering and UI, an API for client/server (and local) communication, and the .NET Common Language Runtime for programming.
  • Sun with JavaFX

Google is taking a different approach with Google Gears, which tries to solve some of the issues listed above for DHTML/AJAX web applications. Right now, it includes:

  • a local database
  • a JavaScript API to communicate with a server (in an AJAX way)
  • a database synchronization API
Its primary goal is to enable offline use of web-based applications. It does not try to resolve the other issues, such as the limitations of HTML, DOM or the JavaScript language.

And the winner is...

It's clearly too early to tell which of these technologies (or new approaches yet to come) will dominate the market for internet-based application platforms.
But what is almost certain is that we will see a lot of internet-based applications released by a lot of different vendors long before the platform war settles down.