The one that got away. Sometimes its good to see the little guy win out. But what happened to make Microsoft change its mind?

Despite an eye-watering offer of $44.6 Billion, which was rejected by the Yahoo board and a threatened proxy action from Microsoft’s Steve Balmer, it seems Yahoo is safe after all. For now.

Back in February, many observers thought like so many before it, the search provider and Internet marketing company would succumb to the mighty Redmond dollar. But the Internet is a strange new world for Microsoft and nothing is what it seems.

So why did Microsoft walk away and where does it leave Yahoo? (more…)

Its been a while since I’ve written about collaboration and Microsoft’s SharePoint Server product. But I recently had to look again at this for a client and I’ve found something that blows away SharePoint.

Its from KnowledgeTree. If you’re looking to share and collaborate with clients or customers over the Internet, this really is a no-brainer.

Think collaboration software and we instantly think SharePoint - unless you know Lotus Notes in which case, well done, that was a ground-breaking product in its time.

But here’s a new product written for today’s world. Powerful, incredibly flexible, intuitive and Open Source. So what’s so good about this and why choose this over SharePoint?

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It’s Friday, the weekend’s on its way. Time for a lot of people start to think about things closer to home. How about gardening?

Well if you’re anything like me, that big green patch outside the back door was a total mystery. A wilderness unexplored and one I had no intention of becoming an expert in. Life, as they say is just too short.

Well, hold that thought. Because its one that many new house owners share. Wouldn’t it be great if someone could just come along with a website where you could just pick a plant based on type, like a bush, tree, flower, then the size and the colour.

None of this Latin rubbish or earnest country types telling us how wonderfully uplifting digging a hole is, or cultivating some area that really looks more like the Somme battlefield. Well, that was the rationale behind PickaPlant. Read on, dear readers, if you will…

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No its Sky. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky, to be precise. The mighty News Corporation may be considering joining the Microsoft bid for Yahoo.

If successful, an Internet super presence would be created that would have a truly disruptive effect on the way we live. Not just by what they do, necessarily, but by what they force others like Google to do.

The news will come as a shock to many, as Yahoo was believed to be talking to Rupert Murchoch’s News Corporation, along with Google with a view to forming a unified defence against Microsoft to keep Yahoo independent.

This represents a shift of allegiance for the publishing giant and a massive body-blow for Yahoo. So what are the implications of this, not just for Yahoo, but for Microsoft?

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I guess it was only ever going to be a matter of time. When Yahoo’s board rebuffed the Microsoft offer we all hid behind the sofa and waited for the Seattle bully-boy tactics to begin.

Well we didn’t have to wait long. Steve Balmer, Microsoft’s heavy hitter has waded in with a characteristically unsubtle threat to Yahoo’s board.

Mr Balmer is furious that Yahoo should dare to stand up to Microsoft, rather than simply rolling over like so many innovators before it to become just another faceless component of the Redmond marketing machine we know so well.

He’s threatened to go direct to Yahoo’s shareholders to try to take the company by proxy. In a web-centric world, does Microsoft’s imperialism still strike fear into all before it?

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It looks like the shark infested waters of the UK broadband market have claimed another victim.

After many weeks of rumours, Tiscali has announced it’s up for sale. The Italian ISP, despite having taken over the consumer side of Pipex Communications, as I reported back in July, has thrown in the towel.

Isn’t it now finally time that the UK’s incompetent regulator Oftel takes action to release BT’s stranglehold on the UK’s broadband and leased line service. Why shouldn’t UK customers have the speed, service and competitive pricing enjoyed elsewhere in the world?

Surely even our civil service mandarins must realise that only BT is thriving and ask why?

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First, an apology. You’ll have wondered why your regular dose of ear bashing has been a little scarce of late. Well, I can now tell you why!

Over the last few months, I’ve been working on getting a website live. Not just any site, an all-singing, all dancing WEB 2.0 site. It was quite an experience. Frustrating at times, others exhilarating, but never dull.

In the coming weeks I’ll tell you something about PickaPlant and share some of the lessons learnt. But in the meantime, go and take a look at http://www.pickaplant.co.uk and see what all the fuss was about. In fact, go buy some plants - I need to recoup my investment!

While the media has focussed on the Microsoft v Google implications of the Yahoo offer, others have picked up on the threat to Zimbra.

Whatever Microsoft’s agenda Microsoft for Yahoo, the significance of acquiring the only realistically competitive threat to its flagship Exchange product will certainly not have been lost on Steve Balmer.

It appears unless Microsoft lose an anti-trust action, Zimbra will be crushed underfoot. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learnt from a certain little Dutch Bank… (more…)

What do you do when Internet giant eBay buys your ground-breaking technology company, jet off to a tropical beach somewhere?

Well, if you’re the guys who gave us Skype, you don’t. You start again. They’ve invented a way to bring real, full screen TV on the Internet. Ladies and gentlemen and media moguls, I give you joost.

All the hype about FaceBook and social networking is masking another revolution. With TV audiences gradually dwindling, people are spending far more of their time on the Internet. So what happens when the Internet can show you your favourite TV programmes?

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Who would have thought that itv should be the broadcaster that would struggle with the challenges of the new media revolution?

The UK’s leading commercial television provider seems to be lost in the brave new world of the Internet. Watching forlornly in the wings as that great aunt of broadcasting, the BBC, strides confidently forwards.

State owned enterprises rarely achieve in the white heat of competition. So the way the BBC has coped with convergence and new media technology is all the more remarkable. So just what has gone wrong with itv? (more…)