Both this and the Microsoft/Yahoo analysis last week are excellent examples of how “humorists” can speak truths no named reporter/analyst dare utter…

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Google-Salesforce deal: Somehow the significance is lost on me

The problem with Benioff is that for all his talk about the future, and the “end of software,” he’s got a bad case of McNealy-itis. That is, he keeps fighting the battles of the last decade, over and over and over again. Meanwhile the Borg has already written off Office. They’ll milk it for a few more years but they can see the value going to zero. (They’ll never admit that, but they have. Trust me. I’ve got spies close to Ballmer.) Another problem Benioff has is that his business can’t scale. CRM is nice but let’s face it, it’s CRM. It is what it is. It ain’t ever gonna be something that everyone uses. Like an iPod.

Only question remaining is whether Balmer pulls a De Niro “team” from Untouchables or Keitel
“clown” from Goodfellas…

Yahoo, Google ink ad-test deal; Microsoft is not amused

Under this agreement, up to 3 percent of Yahoos search volume will get Google ads slapped onto their results for a period of up to two weeks. It doesnt sound like much, but industry analysts have speculated that outsourcing the entire Yahoo search advertising function to Google might increase the companys cash flow by 25 percent in the first year. Googles monetization power is simply that much stronger. Lets hope for a detailed update on the outcome of this proof-of-concept when its over.

Canada next, please.

Google pushes the FCC for white space access, will offer free reference designs to others - EngadgetThe 700MHz auction is over, but that doesn’t mean the days of high-stakes spectrum drama have come to a close — just like we’d heard, Google today began a renewed push for white space internet. Backed by Microsoft, Philips, Dell, HP and others, white space transmissions are designed to fit in between TV signals on channels 2-51, but there’s just one little problem — the stuff doesn’t really work yet. That’s all about to change, according to Google: the company says it’s done its own testing and will submit a proposal for an enhanced system to the FCC soon — hmm, that could explain that secret test 700MHz network on the Google campus we’ve been hearing about, no?

Nifty. Now if they sync with iCal, maybe I’ll start using Google & Outlook…

Google Calendar Sync: Getting Started

Google Calendar Sync allows you to sync events between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar. Youll be able to determine the direction of information flow, as well as the sync frequency. Staying on top of your Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar events has never been easier

The multi-message mess that is Google’s label handling in clients via IMAP is such a deal ender I’ve stopped using labels (except for the Inbox, which can’t be stopped, but does reduce bandwidth and storage waste to a mere 2x factor…)

Fix it please, would you?

(via Daring Fireball)

Gmail’s Buggy IMAP Implementation | The Good Life…

Gmail’s labeling system could integrate marvelously with IMAP clients if only it used IMAP keywords. Instead, IMAP mailboxes are used to represent labels. All messages (sent and received) are always available in the “Gmail/[All Mail]” mailbox, so any time a message is labeled, a duplicate message is added to the label’s IMAP mailbox. IMAP clients then receive several copies of the same message, none of which integrate with the client-side labeling system. If Gmail had instead used IMAP keywords, only one message would be needed and integration would be seamless.