一周IT新闻•评

乔大帮主关于Google和Adobe的言论（Wired）：这个其实是上周的言论了，乔帮主称Google "Don't be evil is a load of crap"，称Adobe "They are Lazy"。乔帮主是很多人崇拜的偶像，包括我在内，而往往这些偶像说话做事都是很有个性的。这话一出来，Adobe不得不严肃得发博客来澄清，可惜我不是特别了解flash的这些技术细节；而另一边不难听出其中的火药味。对于用户来以及市场来说，竞争是好事，可就人的感情来说，当一个最好的朋友变成最大的对手。某种程度上，乔大帮主的这番言论确是肯定了竞争给他带来的郁闷。能被对手肯定和重视，未尝不是一件好事。

Amazon电子书遭遇价格危机（WSJ）：自水果公司的平板出台之后，各大发行商仿佛抱到了一根救命稻草，Macmillan领头想Amazon施压，把畅销书的价格从$9.99向上提，随后HapperCollins以及Hachette纷纷效仿，一场价格战正在上演。消费者，发行商，电子书阅读器，大家总要打一架才能找到平衡点。看热闹的总是大有人在，最后还是要等东西真正开卖，能卖多少出去说了才算。我家Kindle除了刚开始心血来潮的时候买过总和约摸50刀的书，之后都是去找些免费的书看。虽说我不是那么看书的人，但想想Kindle还是改变了我买书的习惯：如果真的有什么书一定要买，如果不是太多彩图（譬如摄影一类），电子书即使比纸版贵也还是值，至少搬家的时候不用到处找人去送书。不过第一代ipad真的今年就能成功么？

微软遭遇创新危机（NYT）：这一大早的新闻出来没有几小时就成为所有人嘴边的话题，其最主要原因还是发布这个言论的人，微软前VP，Dick Brass，所谓之自己人掌自己人耳光，以至于逼着微软的PR当天发表博客回复此事。创新这个词很具有感情和神秘色彩，对于一个有品的公司来说，你可以骂它业绩烂，但绝不可以骂它没有创新精神，因为这太损公司形象了；可创新又往往没有一个可以量化的指标来衡量，于是公说公有理，婆说婆有理。其实我还是很敬仰微软公司的：Win7用久了发现也还满顺的，和Mac是不同风格，但是很多细节处理你不能不说没有创新；Bing虽然市场份额未见大涨，搜索结果也马马虎虎，但是它有很多处理方式（譬如Entity Card，无穷图片搜索）确实是给用户一种全新的体验，尤其是能赶着竞争对手去思考这些问题不能说没有创新。只是有两点：第一，大众对于牛公司总是有更高的期望值，你去把已有的东西做好不叫创新，你必须做个东西大家从来没有听说过，而且很炫才叫创新；第二：公司大了自然人就多了，人多的地方多多少少政治就多些，各个组为争夺资源必定少不了口水，从而有些东西就显得执行起来慢了，这是放之四海而皆准的真理。

Smart phone biz

Ballmer's insight on small/big-ish consumer device is interesting, and prob he is right on the phone market: software will win in the end. We'll see how this play out with iphone in the next two years...
in reference to:

"I’ll call anything that’s north of 300 million a year non-niche. PC’s are not niche devices. Part of the reason I think they’re non-niche devices is, multiple people can manufacture them, they all interoperate, they work together, etc. TVs are not niche. You know, there’s more than, well over 300 million of those sold a year. They interoperate in that case mostly based on standards, but with some innovation. Phones are not niche. The categories where, I think, a single player can control a large percentage of the volume are the smaller categories. What does Apple sell every year of iPods: 30 million, order of magnitude, something like that. What is the whole video game market is maybe 30 or 40 million in units a year. But when you get these categories that are 300 million, 500 million, a billion, a billion-five a year, the truth of the matter is you’re gonna want multiple points of manufacture, with a lot of innovation around it whether its supply chain, for geographic diversity, and our basic play with our software is to try and be super high volume. So I think you can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that’s gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that’s sold by somebody who doesn’t make their own phone. And, we don’t want to cross the chasm in the short run and lose the war in the long run and that’s why we think the software play is the right play for us for high volume, even though some of the guys in the market today with vertically oriented solutions may do just fine."
- Exclusive Interview With Steve Ballmer: Products, Competition, The Road Ahead (view on Google Sidewiki)