Thoughtstream: Firefox, Google, Cloud Apps, and Mesh

April 29th, 2008 | Published in Microsoft

I started this post as a review of Spicebird. But my thoughts, here at the end of day, drifted. It happens. But if you bear with me, I actually make a point…I think:

FIREFOX

Recently, I’ve seen a couple of new Mozilla-based applications being discussed in the blogosphere, one of which is Spicebird. Now, to complement the music browser Songbird and social browser Flock comes this open source collaboration client offering integrated email, calendaring, IM, task scheduling, and RSS. Unfortunately, the CNet’s Download Blog reports that Spicebird is "not quite ready to fly," claiming it had some serious bugs that needed to be addressed first.

My first thought when reading about Spicebird was that I already have a Mozilla-based RSS reader, email, and calendaring program: It’s called Firefox. In Firefox, I can access my Google Reader, Gmail, and Google Calendar.

GOOGLE

I suppose if I wanted them all together on one page, I could customize my iGoogle page to display widgets for these things, but I tend to use my iGoogle page for more important purposes…like FriendFeed updates and lolcat pictures.

However, a widgetized portal isn’t the same as an integrated program where everything works on one page or in one window. Hopping from tab to tab in Firefox like I do, necessary even to go from Gmail to Google Calendar, is, quite frankly, just as inelegant as hopping from window to window is when using various desktop software applications.

And let’s be honest here, even Google Apps is just an iGoogle page bundled with default widgets and ways to set permissions so Google can pretend there is some level of I.T. control and sell it to businesses. (See? Users can’t add lolcats to their page because you’re in control!)

OK, maybe I’m being a tad facetious, but the point is that despite the usability Google’s offerings, their productivity applications still sorely lack in other aspects. Even Microsoft Outlook users have the ability to do things that really shouldn’t be so hard for such a pretty AJAX interface.

For example, why can’t I drag and drop a Gmail email into my Google Calendar? Or forward contact information from my Address Book to someone else where they can add them to their Address Book with only a click? (Seriously, add a field for that in my contacts window.) Why can’t I add a task to a to do list? Where is the to do list? I can share a post in Google Reader, but why can’t I share the whole darned feed with someone? Why can’t I put HTML in my signature? All those things I just mentioned and many more I can do with Outlook out of the box, yet somehow…somehow…its very nature of being an old-school program - dreaded installable, paid-for software -means it can’t compare to its online counterparts. (Or can it?)

[Oh, and by the way, Microsoft Outlook doesn’t need some downloadable "Gears" app to work offline. If you lose your internet connection, it just tells you "you are now working offline." ]

CLOUD APPS

Don’t get me wrong, I know why I moved to online apps - so I can get to them from any computer anywhere. Plus, they’re free. But is it really too much to expect that they should be able to offer me the features that I gave up by switching? Or am I just supposed to be content with the fact that I get all new features instead (IM in my email! Avatars! Labels!)?

And as to my main reasons for switching: 1) cost 2) access anywhere, these might not be that big of a deal in the coming future.

MESH

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Microsoft’s big bet on Mesh means that you’re going to be installing software to the Mesh, not to one PC, then another, then another. The gory details on this are fuzzy, but something big is coming.

And they don’t mean just their applications - although I’m sure they wouldn’t mind - but any applications. Like free ones. Which means that Google (or any web app) might not be able to win dominance by their very nature of being an online, access-anywhere app. Any piece of software can become an install once, access anywhere app. All that will matter is that the app delivers features that the user wants or needs.

Maybe the Mesh team haven’t come right out and said all this yet…it’s hard to break through the dev speak and figure out what they mean, especially since they prefer to use terms like "unified application management," or speak in "big picture" views like Ozzie:

"Developers will need to build applications that can be delivered seamlessly across a loosely coupled device mesh by utilizing a common set of tools, languages, runtimes and frameworks – a common toolset that spans from the service in the cloud to enterprise server, and from the PC to the browser to the phone"

But if you’re installing software to Mesh, then what does this mean about the software business model? Will software be licensed based on number of Mesh devices it should install to? Listen to what David Treadwell has to say about Mesh, for example:

One thing that we feel very good about the Microsoft business model…is that mesh makes it a lot easier for people to own multiple devices. Today people struggle with if you have 2-3 pc’s and a cell phone, and music player and other devices, it’s kind of a pain in the neck to keep the data across all the devices, to keep the applications across all the devices. So by virtue of making it…more easy…for users to have multiple devices that they use in different situations, it’s fairly clear to see how there’s some benefit to accrue to Microsoft because we think our devices are compelling, the software that runs on those devices are compelling, and so people will be more excited about owning multiple devices.

And then, on the Gillmor Gang podcast, all these industry pundits get access to David Treadwell, Mesh’s top guy, and they waste his time asking him questions like this:

"So the real question is: whether or not there’s gonna be a transport to take Twitter messages in through the mesh?"

You’ve got to be kidding me.

How about, will Microsoft be releasing all new versions of their applications for Mesh? How will Microsoft Office work on Mesh? Will people purchase Microsoft applications based on the number of Mesh devices it gets installed to? If you have to rebuild a PC, can you just re-install an app from Mesh back to the computer? If you have one Mac and one PC, can you just buy 2 Mesh licenses for Microsoft Office and install it over the net to both devices instead of having to buy Office Standard and Office for Mac? How can I.T. restrict Mesh-enabled work PCs from being shared with Mesh-enabled home PCs? And so forth and so on…

Oh no, they wanted to ask about how Mesh and FolderShare are going to work together. Who cares? Scrap FolderShare for all I care. FolderShare is a tool. Mesh is a platform.

And maybe after Treadwell said this:

Just like you can choose to map a folder to any client device, you’ll be able choose whether or not to map a given folder to the cloud storage as well.

…they could have asked more about the cloud storage platform instead of moving on to how Mesh competes with Amazon’s web services.

*sigh*