Friday Links
Most of the week’s events were of course overshadowed by the departure of Terry Semel from Yahoo!, but there were a handful of stories that are worth paying attention to.
- Google purchased Zenter, completing its Suite of web-based Office applications. However, the search giant also lost two top engineers. Having started to use Google’s products more in the last little while, I’m less positive that it is a reasonable option for a business of reasonable size. Of course there will be growing pains in this type of development, and it is an effective option, but there was even a lengthy lack-of-service for Gmail this week, imagine if your companies entire Office Suite was unreachable?
- There was a quick article on the 10 Most Hated Words on the Internet. I guess Web 2.0 is a phrase, not a word, but it is quickly becoming overused and the meaning diluted.
- After the departure of former CEO Semel, Yahoo! tried to continue with business as usual. Rivals.com was purchased, there are talks of a complicated acquisition/merger with MySpace, and of course, news on Yahoo! wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the company being acquired itself. Om Malik gives a rundown of some possible interested parties and even their odds of actually acquiring Yahoo!.
- Microsoft has uncharacteristically backed down from a fight and there are several questions around the whole situation; are they afraid of Google, what exactly is the complaint about Vista’s search, and is the situation really over? The rival companies will continue to kick sand at eachother over a variety of issues, of course.
Ending everything on a light note, check out this spoof/parody on the Microsoft Surface. With the iPhone set to release in about a week and so many comparisons being drawn between the two devices, I’m not suprised something like this has come out, but really, I still disagree with the nay-sayers and think that both devices are important to the Industry and target completely different niches. Ultimately, everyone will have at least one of each, but I think the Surface has the potential to have a bigger impact on everyday life and more widespread applications for consumers and businesses.