Comments on: Software-as-a-Service: Won’t Get Fooled Again

By: Fraxas

Fraxas — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 14:22:14 +0000

That quote came from an earlier version of http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=putting_the_sun_google_partnership — I remember reading it the day it came out. It’s since been redacted away, invisibly.

By: Cote'

Cote' — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 20:28:48 +0000

That flip from focusing on what the technology can not do to instead focusing on what it *can* do is a major rung on the maturity ladder of a technologist. It’s easy for nerds to get all hung up on the limitations of technology and torpedo it because of that. Worse, they’ll spend time “improving” or refactoring the technology to be “better,” burning up money and time-to-market in the process.

Another way of thinking about the mind-set of focusing on what a technology can do is to learn how to exploit your constraints; once you get that down, and even better, to learn how to impose your own constraints to that end. So far, Jason Fried’s talk on this at ITConversations (http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail471.html) is the best summary of all this thinking I’ve come acorss.

And, of course, this “focus on what it can do”/”expliot constraints” thinking can be generalized from the dark caves of the dorks to the mahogany tabled conference rooms of the polo shirts, even the suits.

By: Jaime Cardoso

Jaime Cardoso — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 17:31:43 +0000

Gary: I wouldn’t put much faith in that comment whithout:
a) knowing the context (including the date of when it was said)
b) knowing if was rightly quoted
Second, Sun already made an Web version of an Office Suite. That project failed and, it’s only human that people tend to disdain reruns of the same project. Schwartz was involved in Sun Webtop so, I would, in fact, see him today as one of the main dismissers of that on the grounds of “been there, done that”.
I hope you’re right and that the Webtop flourishes but remember the first company to actually have a “working” product that implemented an office suite to be used via web was Sun.
Stephen, I think I understand you exactly. In 99 I made the first SunScreen implementation in Portugal and, that product was awfull, one of the worst products that Sun ever released. A few years later, we lost a deal because our competitors (another Sun reseller) went with sunscreen and I was saying to the customer “sunscreen doesn’t work” well, several years had passed and, I made a fool of myself and lost the deal. That’s one of those things everyone has to pass through and, those who can admit an error learn with it and move over. Lucky you that Gartner will never admit an error and will keep on making it
PS. When will Itanium rule the world? Is it 2006 now?

By: Gary Edwards

Gary Edwards — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 08:52:58 +0000

Thanks to Jonathan’s big mouth, there goes the Google deal!

“Is AJAX or a browser an appropriate vehicle for heavyweight office productivity software? Absolutely not”

Just when i was beginning to think that Sun had it licked, that they had found a way of monetizing big sister, StarOffice without compromising the darling of the desktop,little sisters assault on the Microsoft empire, providing cornerstone expertise in the new information super computing stack of Google-Linux-AMD, and finding a way of getting Java into the desktop environment, Jonathan goes and steps in it.

I didn’t think Jonathan could ever top the faux paux he committed at OSBC 2005 when he lit into the GPL, accusing the great guarantor of digital freedom of plotting to steal intellectual property from developing countries. Now he pokes Google in the eye at the dawn of the deal that will save his ever loving arse from the firestorm he continues to pour kerosene on. I just don’t get it. If there’s a cure for corporate schizophrenia, send out the SOS. We need it now. Sun is too important to Open Source and Open Standards for this to be happening.

Earth to Jonathan: The AJAX Engine is the perfect transformation tool for rendering ODF in a browser! As in “all browsers”, including IE. If GoogleSpace converts documents to ODF on the server side, and renders ODF on the Browser side, it’s a whole new ball game. If users can work their eMail - workflow (Zimbra), wiki’s (JotSpot) and universal information (Google) within the Ajax engine, and Google produces a public API for working GoogleSpaces enriched with ODF, then the Microsoft grip on computing will be shattered. The desktop will blossom. Mobile, device independent computing will rocket. Your dreams will come true.

So get off the desktop and start thinking about the Open Internet. If you do that, the desktop will follow.

~ge~