Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Busted stuff

Turns out the link I posted yesterday to the version of Word that you can access over the internet doesn’t work unless you’re on the Citrix website, because of licensing code.  So, jump to the complete directory of trial versions, and try any Office 2003 app out.  The Runaware service is super cool, and super fast. 

It’s 24 degrees C here today…

and spring has sprung…

Over on John Battelle’s blog he has posted the letter that Google insisted be included in the prospectus.  It’s an interesting read, as are the comments that follow.  I’m in the "good strategy and good business" camp on this one. I think they’re smart to lead with their values.

John Battelle: " I can only imagine the eyes rolling at Kleiner Perkins, Morgan Stanley, and the rest of the veterans as the founders insisted on this."

Kindel on the Edge Case

Charlie Kindel (a former boss and mentor of mine) throws his 2 cents worth into the edge case debate with the observation that edge case products typically have “huge technology surface areas”.  That’s a very succinct way to describe the complexity of what we’re all trying to do.  In a related and longer piece he talks about the need to design for your end customer, whether it’s “Aunt Tillie” or your favorite Alpha Geek, and one of my favorite topics, which is the 3 rev design cycle.  Version 1 gets you to market.  In Version 2 you fix what was wrong with Version 1. And in Version 3 - bluesky, with real customer experience now, what you might be able to do with this technology.

Try Office 2003 for free

Check this out… it’s the latest version of Microsoft Word 2003 running in a Java window across the Internet.  I had breakfast this morning with an old friend, Jim Courtney, who pointed me to this.  Jim is a partner in a business called TechTransform which helps businesses, like Runaware (the creators of this technology) commercialize their products.

Back in February, Scoble complained about Office advertising (here and here) on his weblog.  Maybe the answer is to simply let the customer trial the product.  If anyone at Microsoft is reading this, Runaware might be the answer,

Test drive versions of the whole Office Suite are available here if you want to try anything else.