Digital Collaboration Guide, a SharePoint Architect's view

A week ago the Emerging Business Team at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus hosted a SharePoint 2010 competition titled “SharePoint 2010 SocialFest” where seven startup companies were given one week to develop an application on SharePoint 2010. During the week long event activities such as talks from developers, SharePoint engineering and product management teams, and venture investors were done. By Friday, the contestants presented their applications to a panel of judges which included Charles Schwab & Co. and McKesson. The winner of the competition was Huddle, which was basically synching up external team sites.

The rest of the application developed are the following:

1. Calinda MindUP – presents email interactions into visual maps which help create conversations between groups enhancing collaboration.

2. Confer – is simply twitter on SharePoint 2010 for both internal and external employees.

3. Cortex Intelligence – is an intelligent RSS tools which is presented via webparts fpr discussion, sharing, etc.

4. Leverage Software – makes your email thread into on-deman social workspace for sharing with others.

I received this email from Yahoo:

Dear Yahoo! Briefcase user,
We will be officially closing Yahoo! Briefcase on March 30, 2009. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to download your files back to your computer. You will need to take action before we close, after which any files remaining on Yahoo! Briefcase will be deleted and no longer accessible.
To access your Yahoo! Briefcase account, click the link below:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/

If you are a Yahoo! Briefcase Premium subscriber, your current subscription will be canceled on March 30, 2009. We will refund the unused portion of your Premium subscription, if any. The refund will appear as a credit via the billing method we have on file for you. So please make sure that your billing information is correct and up-to-date. For more information, please visit https://billing.yahoo.com.
For additional information or to review a list of our frequently asked questions, click the link below:

WSJ has written about a history of mistakes Microsoft has done which led to the rise of Google.

In an excerpt:

Carol Bartz made a powerful first day performance as CEO of Yahoo with these comments.

Should we do a search deal? Should we divest of certain assets? Where is the business going? I have many ideas on these subjects, but it would be presumptuous of me to discuss them on my first day on the job. So I am not going to.

It’s been too crazy. People outside Yahoo deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn’t do. That’s got to stop.

Reserved, unsure, whatever. Maybe she’s just using some Art of War tactics.

Let’s see how she performs against Steve Ballmer in the continued saga of Yahoo and Microsoft.

More articles on new Yahoo CEO:

It’s been too crazy. People outside Yahoo deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn’t do. That’s got to stop (Techcrunch)

7 Reasons Why Carol Bartz Is Right for Yahoo (Gigaom)

Wall Street Not Impressed With Bartz As Next Yahoo CEO (Techcrunch)

WSJ: Carol Bartz To Be Named New Yahoo CEO. Is That A Good Thing? (Techcrunch)

BusinessWeek has chosen their 25 most influential people on the Web. The list includes Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Jerry Yang of Yahoo, Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress.

Go ahead and read the entire list here.

Image source from BusinessWeek as well.

Jerry Yang, the fallen CEO of Yahoo, just keeps on looking stupid. He thought he was in the same league as Steve Ballmer but apparently he is a rookie who needs to go back to school and take business courses. It was funny how he announced to the world that the offer of Microsoft at over $44 USD billion dollars was low and the value of Yahoo was way bigger. Today, Yahoo is trading at $12 dollars and they would be lucky to get an offer above $20 billion dollars. Techcrunch has reported that investment bankers at Silicon Valley are secretly making a deal to Yahoo and are asking for Microsoft’s support that they would eventually sell the search business to the software giant.

In an excerpt:

Under the terms of the proposed deal, the investment group would make a takeover bid for Yahoo at a relatively low premium of around 20% to its current price of around $13 per share, valuing the company at just over $20 billion.

Continue reading here.

Webmaster tools now sniffing for malware (MSDN)

Microsoft Examines Causes of ‘Cyberchondria’ (NYTimes)

Is the video game industry recession-proof? (CNet)

Microsoft still fighting a losing battle against Google (ZDNet)

Yahoo, Microsoft make gains in search (CNet)

Google Laughs at Yahoo! and Microsoft (Fool)

Yahoo, Microsoft outperform US search growth (ZDNet)

Microsoft faces antitrust complaint from software trader (ITWorld)

How Microsoft blew its own RIA invention (TheRegister)

Carl Icahn increases his stake in Yahoo (MarketWatch)

Months back, Yahoo CEO Yang played hardball with veteran Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer by continously raising their asking price on a sale of Yahoo to Microsoft. Despite Yahoo investor appeals, Yang refused to give in to the price set by Microsoft even after the software giant has raised it from their previous bid.

Recently, Jerry Yang announced that they already want Microsoft to buy them but the software giant are the one backing down from the offer.

Damn, Yang just showed how inexperience he is thinking that bluffing, asking more, and finally admitting they want Microsoft to buy them after Microsoft decided they had better plans than baby sitting Yahoo CEO is going to work.

Today, Yang announced he is stepping down and feel it is in the best interest of the company. They have now hired Heidrick & Struggles to look for both internal and external candidates for the job.

Jerry, if it was in the best interest of the company then you should have listened to your investors a long time ago when Microsoft was doing everything they can to provide the best offer any company could give yours.

I am reading an article from BusinessWeek making a case about how cloud computing is changing the world. Rachel who wrote the article presented some interesting facts which are as follows:

1. IBM announces on Aug. 1 that they are spending $ 360 million dollars on a cloud computing data center.
2. Dell supplies Web 2.0 heavyweights Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo products that they have specifically tailored for these types of clients.
3. Microsoft is implementing their Software-plus-Services business model which gives clients and option between the two.
4. Analysts predict that annual global market for cloud computing is going to reach $95 Billion in the next five years; accounting for 12% of the worldwide software market.

This should make your Windows Vista box open up faster.

Video description: tips to make vista faster at start up and everywhere else, defrag and do virus and spyware checks as well as these tips to have a speedy computer.——-PAUSE to read everything——-, i didnt want to guess how fast people can read and also i figured you would pause to do these steps anyways so it wouldve been pointless me making this video 5 minutes long and for you to skip around. have fun!!

Asus has announced their latest version of their revolutionary netbooks, the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. The current introductory prices is at $399 USD.

As of their press release:

Asus Eee PC 1000HE are devices to support Lenovo S10.

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