Microsoft, Yahoo and Google

The MS- Yahoo! deal finally came off! That makes Microsoft Bing the no 2 search engine. Apparently it has something like 15% of the market. between Yahoo! and Bing this share is expectyed to go up to 30% or better and start challenging Google who's sitting on more than 65% share.

With this one move Microsoft moves to number 2 position. Yahoo! gives up search business and saves on the R&D expenses. Yahoo woyuld server up ads on the Bing search results and have a sharing arrangement with MS. Look like it is quite win-win for both of them.

Is Google worried! Te gap is so large, if they maintain theinnovation periodically, they should be oki. But, for consumers it is good to have a number 2 challenging number one. The number one is likely to get complacent over time.

ASP, SaaS and Cloud Computing

Just before the dotcom bust many web businesses came up with this Application Service Provider model. Idea was to take the hassle of keeping the software updated out of the users hands and bring the advantage of use & pay to the end users. That looked like a pretty neat model. However there was quite a bit of resistance on the part of the end users about sending the corporate data onto somebody else's servers. Then came the bust and everybody forgot about it.

In the recent past, it made a come back as Software as a Service (SaaS) avatar. Selling points are the same, advantages/disadvantages are thye same in fact the complete model is the same. It's gaining currency alright. There are several examples already, some of them are quite successful too.

From there the next extension is a small step. What if just do everything on the cloud( the internet cloud) that we do on a PC ! It's something Google would love to do, the WinTel combine loses all the hold! Google has a infrastructure that can serve the model easily. Even Microsoft has visions of it. So is it coming? It definitely is. Questions are when will it become viable! How much of the computing will get done on the cloud versus the desktop/laptop!

It ceratinly feels natural, we already store a lot of things on the cloud and this will be truly convenient. All you need is a device that can provide you network access and a keyboard!(or some other input/gesture device and a display. The concern about data priovacy remains. Let's see how that unflods over time.