Alec Saunders SquawkBox

$50 / year for an office suite sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?  Google is hoping you’ll think that too, as they tempt users to sign up for their new Google Apps bundle.  Various pundits are hailing this move as Google’s entry into the office productivity space, with headlines such as Google Targets Microsoft, Google Package Challenges Microsoft, and Google Battles Microsoft Head-On. 

So what do you get?  Well, everything that’s currently in the Google bundle you use today - mail, calendar, spreadsheet, word processor, RSS reader, and a dashboard (which I haven’t yet tried) - plus up to 10 Gigs of storage, your own domain name, 24/7 support, service guarantees, and the ability to strip out the Google ads. 

In other words, not much more than you already have for free.

How does it compare to Microsoft Office?  Poorly.  There’s a reason why Office costs what it does.  It includes more, like Powerpoint presentations, for starters.  The Office applications are far more powerful, more usable, better integrated, and produce better results.  And lastly, they run faster, because they’re not hosted.  In terms of functionality, the Google Apps bundle is much more like Microsoft Works, the downscale package Microsoft has sold for 20 years now to students, families and small businesses.    Works sells for …. $49.95, direct from Microsoft.  You can get it for $35 at retail.  That’s a one time license fee, not an annual fee.

It’s that old rich client / thin client argument all over again.  A couple of guys named McNeally and Ellison cooked that doozy up over a decade ago.  The problem is that we can all see that the offerings just haven’t been that great, and Googles latest isn’t a lot different. Nobody can figure out why we should rent low value software from them, when we can just go and buy the real thing…

Om Malik said it best: “Will Google be successful? Who knows - it is fun to watch though!”

In Matthew Gast’s I wish Apple had taken on the telcos, he writes:

The “control your customers and force feed them” model cuts against my entire experience, which is based on open systems and architectures. In theory, an upstart could design a cool GSM phone and sell it directly to end users, bypassing the control-freak middlemen telcos. I had hoped that Apple would do just that. They are the one company that could build a phone that they could sell directly to hordes of consumers without help from the carrier.

Ask a North American carrier about fixed mobile convergence and dual-mode handsets and you’re going to get an interesting answer.  “Those European carriers are mighty innovative guys, but we don’t need to do that… yet.”  Fascinating answer.  Further digging reveals that the European’s have apparently got networks operating at near capacity, which is why dual-mode WiFi devices are appealing.  Apparently we don’t yet have the problem in North America.

So I’ve been told…

Over on the Skype Journal, Jim Courtney has written a blockbuster post titled Privacy and Prejudice: An Interruption 2.0 Manifesto for the AlwaysOn Lifestyle.  Based on his experiences using a variety of Always-On / Always-Connected devices over the last couple of months, this piece is a clarion call for a simpler user experience, and for the industry to deliver the tools to help us retain our privacy in this environment.  He concludes with:

Bottom line: I want to be able to participate in the conversations essential to my lifestyle and my business operations - when, where and how I choose. And the service(s) of choice will only rise above the noise (and become a revenue generator) when I can take back control of my life - through a focus on restoring my privacy and my prejudices to my communications activity.

Must read.

Grand Central and SIPPhone are announcing an interoperability agreement this morning.  Full text below.  The news, short and sweet, is that if you are a Gizmo Project and a Grand Central user, you can now use your Gizmo 747 number to receive calls from your Grand Central account.  Practically speaking, what that means is that people trying to reach you can dial your local Grand Central number, and have that call redirected to a Gizmo sip number anywhere in the world, including running on a Nokia N80i. 

There are a few dozen people I know who will get a lot of use from this.  Guys like Andy Abramson, with tons of phones and phone numbers, will want this immediately. 

Paul Kapustka, writing for GigaOm, said:

Still in beta, the GrandCentral service is the latest entrant in the often-attempted “single phone number” scheme. The Fremont, Calif.-based startup uses a combination of VoIP technology and softswitch-based applications to give users ways to tie multiple phone numbers, services (voice mail, etc.) and devices to a single inbound number.

We all recognize the problem, but the market seems to have rejected single number reach as the solution. That’s why this announcement is so frustrating. 

What would have been really exciting is to have seen Grand Central integrated with the Gizmo / SipPhone experience, rather than yet another peering agreement.  Imagine accessing all of the Grand Central capabilities from within the SIPPhone universe, rather than handing calls from Grand Central off to the SIPPhone network.  Imagine a world where callers to my Gizmo identity reached the GC feature set as part of the Gizmo experience.

I wouldn’t want you to think I’m singling out Grand Central and Gizmo for special treatment, by the way.  They’re simply guilty of being locked into the same full-on Carrier 1.0 tunnel vision view of the world that is true of virtually every other carrier and VoIP player on the planet, from Verizon all the way to Vonage.  Very few companies, excepting Skype and AOL, understand that there is an opportunity in leveraging the creativity of 3rd party developers to bring new capabilities to the telephony platform.

That’s the unrealized potential of VoIP.

Press release follows

——

GrandCentral’s New Interoperability with Gizmo Project
Makes Receiving Calls Worldwide Possible
Calls Can Now Be Received on Apple and Windows PCs,
Nokia N-80 Internet Edition Phones and Internet Tablets

Fremont, Calif. Feb. 21, 2007 – GrandCentral Communications, Inc. (www.grandcentral.com), a next-generation personal communications company that empowers every existing phone with unique features and control capabilities, today announced that its service is now interoperable with Gizmo Project, SipPhone’s popular Voice over IP (VoIP) service that allows users to make and receive free phone calls worldwide over the Internet on personal computers as well as select Nokia mobile phones and Internet Tablets.

Starting today GrandCentral customers can now designate their free Gizmo Project profile ID (which appears like a 747 area code number in their Gizmo profile) as one of their destination numbers which will ring on their personal computers or select next generation Nokia dual mode Nseries mobile phone or Internet Tablet, whenever a call comes into their GrandCentral number. This new GrandCentral feature also provides existing Gizmo users with the ability to receive calls for free directly from the traditional telephone network (PSTN) on their Gizmo enabled Nokia portable devices, Apple Macintosh and Windows PCs .

“Gizmo Project is the perfect complement to GrandCentral as it furthers our mission to be the one phone number for life solution that people need,” said Craig Walker, CEO of GrandCentral Communications. “GrandCentral directs the inbound call to users’ free Gizmo Project client any time they have an Internet connection. The call stays on-net the entire time and allows our customers to receive calls anywhere in the world using their existing GrandCentral number, for free.”

Owners of next generation Nokia dual mode N80-Internet Edition mobile phone and the Internet Tablet 770, and Nseries 800 Internet Tablet which access the Internet over Wi-Fi can also use versions of Gizmo Project on these pocket sized, portable handheld devices to receive calls without incurring any roaming charges or using any cellular minutes when connected to Wi-Fi networks.

Additionally by using GrandCentral the need for Gizmo users to purchase a separate number for their Gizmo client is eliminated providing an annual savings of roughly $35. “Now people just call your local GrandCentral number and you can answer that call anywhere on the planet there is Internet access, for free. You can’t beat that!” stated Walker. “GrandCentral tells our customers who’s calling on every call and lets the user decide whether to take the call, send it to voicemail or to ListenIn™ on the voicemail while it is being left. This same functionality now exists through a customer’s Gizmo client.”

About GrandCentral
GrandCentral Communications is a next-generation personal communications company that gives consumers unprecedented control over their phone calls by tying all existing phones and voicemail boxes into one through the GrandCentral number. GrandCentral has developed the most comprehensive feature set available in the market today and works seamlessly across all existing telephone networks, systems and devices. The company is privately held and based in Fremont, CA. For more information on GrandCentral, or to sign up for a free account, go to www.grandcentral.com. GrandCentral, the new way to use your phonesâ„¢.
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Press Contacts:
Andrea Roesch
For GrandCentral
(510) 336-4040
pr@grandcentral.com
www.tieronepr.com

Writing as a guest for the BBC, Ottawa Law Professor Michael Geist does a good job at poking holes in the latest broadside from the US copyright lobby.   What I am referring to, of course, is last week’s release by the IIPA lobby group of their latest “Blacklist” of international copyright villains.  They accuse Canada, and it turns out most of the western world, of not taking adequate steps to safeguard intellectual property.  Yet most of the very things that the IIPA wants the rest of the world to implement have legal exceptions in the US granted by fair use, legal exceptions allowing home use of taped televison broadcasts, or other laws.

Just as the MPAA was recently exposed as a software pirate, so it’s clear that the IIPA doesn’t have its own house in order on this issue. Emboldened by early successes like the draconian DMCA, the US copyright lobby is now being exposed as an extremist fringe group, out of step with their own laws and the rest of the world.