Microsoft should attack Google for its proprietary ways

Laura Knotek

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I never understood fully how ads bring in money sometimes, especially on most websites. I guess, to be more clear, I can't believe there are so many people that actually click on ads. I only do when its an accident.
I use Adblock Plus in Firefox to hide most of the ads.
 

blehblehbleh

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I never understood fully how ads bring in money sometimes, especially on most websites. I guess, to be more clear, I can't believe there are so many people that actually click on ads. I only do when its an accident.

Depends on the business model. There's per clicks, but then there's also per page view or the standard method of paying for the ad to run for a limited time.
 

brmiller1976

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And there's also simply selling user data.

Google can easily be "Axciom on steroids," and sell extremely detailed user profiles. If you have a Google log-in and use Chrome as well as a couple of other Google services, it can report your income, expenses, rent, computer habits, car ownership, sexual orientation, marital status, home ownership status, and a host of other very valuable information to companies who precisely target you -- and tie it directly back to your personally identifying information.
 

simbadogg

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Did you really just say that microsoft should attack google for proprietary ways? I understand that this is a microsoft centric forum, but are you seriously serious? Seriously? Of all companies, they have the least around of room to be making that argument.
 

Rich White

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This war of propietary eco-systems has been brewing for a while. There's a reason why Microosft is in bed with ePub and Barnes and Noble, in bed with Nokia and offering their own Surface devices. Microsoft tackled Google in certain strategic areas - Cloud Services, Web Office, and Media Store. Skype and Outlook and integrated messaging Google lacks any real advantage on those areas except a head start which will close in a year.

Next Generation Search is Voice Search and Vertical Search as in "Thursday Night, Lamb Dinner, Boston" where search will allow the whole process to be completed and reservations booked by voice. Fetch the reviews, restaurant ratings, prices, side dishes, etc. There's a whole new war in search coming for usable human voice interaction and Google's existing algorithms may not win the war. It's not the way they structure data.

So third party developers can build Google Tools until we get into Twitter/Instagram wars and banning Instagram for proprietary Twitter Filters. This is the new world.
 

simbadogg

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Wow, a personal attack without any real substance!

Not an attack, just stating how you've shown a lack of either knowledge of what standards are, or comprehension. Simple and current example, google dropping EAS support saying they're going to move to CalDAV
Exchange ActiveSync - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CalDAV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although EAS is ubiquitous, it isn't a standard, it's a proprietary msft technology. CalDAV is an internet standard. Which is exactly why you stating that "Microsoft is open and cross-platform, Google is closed and restricted-platform." is a crock. Same with you saying "If a service is proprietary and doesn't support basic standards like IE10, it's closed." I hope you're not implying that IE10 is a standard. But, carry on
 

briankariu

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wow. I think most people on this thread were born post 1996...how did Microsoft become the good guy?
First of Microsoft has never supported open standards. They would rather have people pay for standards they develop
Secondly, windows phone is nowhere as popular as Symbian
Thirdly if Google won't bring the apps to windows phone, Microsoft should just get a liscence from google and make the apps and
 

brmiller1976

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Microsoft is open, Google is closed.

Microsoft supports multiple platforms with an outstanding experience. Google is sabotaging competing platforms and trying to lock users into Android and Google Service.

IMAP/DAV on Google is not "open." It is a forked, proprietary implementation that doesn't support push and other standard features.

Microsoft supports an open implementation of push services on Outlook that supports the integrated mail clients on all devices. Google's proprietary, closed system requires a Google developed app to get push services on any non Google OS.

Those are the facts.
 
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arrowrand

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Microsoft is open, Google is closed.
There is nothing open about Microsoft, unless the fact that MS openly licenses EAS to anyone willing to pay makes them "open" in your book.

Google is sabotaging competing platforms and trying to lock users into Android and Google Service.
iOS users far and wide would disagree. In fact, some Android users are a little twisted up about the quality of Google's iOS apps.

IMAP /DAV on Google is not "open." It is a forked, proprietary implementation that doesn't support push and other standard features.
Google's IMAP implementation is neither closed nor proprietary. In fact, any IMAP capable email client can access Gmail without a license or a fee. Microsoft doesn't support IMAP at all, and if they did this entire conversation is moot. Every other mobile OS that matters supports IMAP, but since MS doesn't this is Google's fault? That's ridiculous.

Microsoft supports an open implementation of push services on Outlook that supports the integrated mail clients on all devices. Google's proprietary, closed system requires a Google developed app to get push services on any non Google OS.
By open support, you mean that Microsoft offers push on any device that supports and pays for EAS. That's not open at all.

And just as a side note, my Gmail shows up in Thunderbird before the Gmail app on my Nexus via Google's IMAP implementation.
Those are the facts.
Your "facts" are contrived to support your own position.
 

brmiller1976

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Microsoft is open. All major phone OSes can get Microsoft services without restrictions.

Google is closed. Major OSes cannot get push services at all, others require proprietary apps to get push.

It really is that simple.
 

Laura Knotek

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Microsoft is open. All major phone OSes can get Microsoft services without restrictions.

Google is closed. Major OSes cannot get push services at all, others require proprietary apps to get push.

It really is that simple.
Thanks for clarifying what you meant. When I read or hear "open", I think of FOSS, which most certainly does not indicate any Microsoft products.
 

a5cent

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I doubt that any company like Google, Apple or RIM would say that EAS is restriction free when it comes with a license and fees.

Hey arrowrand, I think the argument you are having with Miller amounts to nothing but a misunderstanding.

In the software world, the term "open" (or open source) is traditionally used to describe exactly what llak611 mentioned, namely FOSS. In no way do the terms "open" or "free" (as in free speech) imply that such software comes without a licensing cost.

Stating that EAS can not be an open standard, due to the fact that it requires companies using it to pay an IP licensing fee, is therefore incorrect.

However, I still agree that EAS is not an open standard, as Microsoft doesn't release source code that anyone could simply integrate, extend, copy or otherwise use. All you get as an EAS licensee is a set of specifications. That certainly isn't open.

However, Miller isn't using the term "open" in that way at all. He is simply saying that anyone that is willing to license EAS gets complete access to the entire specification, at which point they can implement ActiveSync's full feature set. In that sense EAS certainly is open, as everyone gets the same access Microsoft does. Everything about Exchange's synching protocols is laid bare, albeit at a price.

In comparison to EAS, the synchronization protocols supported by Google (CalDAV and CardDAV) are truly open standards. Unfortunately, Google's implementation of those standards go beyond what is in the specification. This is somewhat disturbing, as those extra features are neither open, nor publicly documented. From this point of view, Google's implementation of those standards may be considered less open than Microsoft's EAS, because nobody gets access to the proprietary parts, not even for a price. It is absolutely certain, that those proprietary parts will give Android devices access to features that neither WP nor iOS can match, when using Google's services. It is Google's right to do so, whether that is fair or unfair is irrelevant, but it certainly isn't "open".

Neither approach is truly "open", at least not in the traditional sense of the word. I prefer Microsoft's approach, but I guess that is debatable.
 

arrowrand

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Hey arrowrand, I think the argument you are having with Miller amounts to nothing but a misunderstanding.
But its not. I made reference to that your point in my reply to him.

Here's how the whole thing goes for me.

EAS isn't free. That, right there, as a business decision for Google would be enough for me.

EAS is not perfect. I added my Google account to my Lumia and my contacts appeared to sync, but were horribly screwed up.

1. Contacts that had more than 3 or 4 phone numbers only had those first few imported as numbers. All the rest were added as text notes.

Big deal, right? I have a spam contact with over 200 phone numbers. My phone forwards all of those calls immediately to Google Voice where that caller is blocked. It is a big deal. To me. My Lumia only saw the first few phone numbers.

2. Any phone number that wasn't described as home, office or work was ignored.

3. Any contact with more than two addresses had the excess ignored.

4. Any contact with a custom description for their address had it ignored. Meaning, if I listed your work address as "South Office" it wasn't imported at all, it was ignored.

5. Business contacts with more than one contact person added were ignored. Not that the contact was added with only one person listed, the entire contact was simply left out.

I did try deleting the sync data and did an export/import of my data the hard way. Same exact result.

I may have had more issues than that, but that's all I saw. I removed my account from the phone, put my main SIM back in my Nexus and that the was that.

You can say that the issues that I had were specifically because of Google's CardDAV implementation, but that doesn't really matter.

EAS and Google contacts don't mix well for many people. EAS has serious limitations, and MS wants money for it.

I'm not inclined to leave Google's services. If you and you're all in with MS, WP8, outlook.com and EAS then go. Export your data from Google, import it to Outlook and be done.

Me, I like the Lumia and WP8 is growing on me. The limitations in Outlook.com are more than I can get used to.
 

socialcarpet

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As much as I dislike Google in many ways, I disagree with this thread completely.

Microsoft has a much worse history of trying to lock out competitors, for example the way they hunted Netscape into extinction forcing IE down everyone's throats. The way they tried to force everyone to use their proprietary version of java and a dozen other examples of intimidating competitors, absorbing them etc. Making Word/Office the defacto standard where you need a damn $300 office suite to have interoperability with the rest of the world (mostly since rectified with the free Office web apps though)

Microsoft has since gotten a bit better about this stuff, I think in part because they have some humility now that they aren't quite as omnipotent as they once were, and we are all benefiting from that. Microsoft usually does their best work when they are hungry and it's really only been the last few years or so that Microsoft has made anything I had any interest in. But man did they hit the ball out of the park with Zune, Xbox, Windows 7 and Windows Phone.

Google is for a more "open" web in most ways and they do give stuff away for free. They are basically the antithesis of Microsoft in many ways. It's just that the reason they do these things is somewhat insidious, i.e. they want to infomine every orifice of your digital life in exchange for the free stuff.

What Microsoft needs to do is focus on making all their Windows OS's as good as they can possibly be, never rest on their laurels and do some clever, pointed advertising that points out what makes their stuff better. Particularly with Windows Phone and Windows RT versus Android. Android is the elephant in the room, not Apple and iOS.
 

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