The Rex on The Goracle
February 24, 2007
Rex Murphy ponders The Goracle’s celebrity status:
“It’s like a boy band or something coming to town . . .” The lady who said that was right. Al Gore is bigger than ‘N Sync used to be. In the global warming game, there is no one who can command the crowds like Al. David Suzuki, who’s been on a rock-star-like bus tour, can certainly generate a buzz. But David is an opening act, a crowd-warmer, a John the Baptist to Al Gore’s messiah. Toronto was just a minor stop on the Gore tour. He’s due in Hollywood for the Oscars on Sunday. He’s nominated, and seriously so, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Apparently this is quite the transformation.
He was so very recently the stock joke of U.S. politics as the most wooden, boring politician since Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge was so boring, Dorothy Parker, on hearing he was dead, asked: “How can they tell?”
Boring? Calvin Coolidge? The man behind The Coolidge Effect? Say it ain’t so.
Google vs. Microsoft
February 24, 2007
Google announced the premier version of Google Apps (formerly Apps for your Domain) and Wired News asks Should You Switch?
Google Apps Premier Edition is a collection of office tools for businesses — word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail, calendar and web page creator — all of which are accessible through a web browser. Pricing is set at $50 per user per year, less expensive than Microsoft Office but with much the same functionality. Microsoft has its own web-based suite of tools in Office Live, but the company’s offering doesn’t match Google’s. And Google isn’t going after Office Live, it’s going after Office.
Huh, why Microsoft Office and not Microsoft Windows Server and Exchange? From my perspective, the real value of Google Apps is E-Mail/Calendar. Talk, Docs and Spreadsheets, and Page Creator are like MS WordPad and Paint. I use them occasionally and I’m glad they are there but I wouldn’t pay for them.
Exchange is different though. Google Apps Premier is game changing. No need for fault tolerant server hardware, backup solution, Windows Server license, Exchange server license, IT e-mail specialists, and internal help desk for e-mail. The value-added of Google Apps Premier over the standard edition is 24/7 phone support and enterprise single sign-on integration.
What am I missing? Does using Microsoft Office imply that an Exchange server is used as well?
