Google's Pound of Flesh

We all know Google’s corporate philosophy is “don’t be evil, ” but what does that really mean? Is it okay, for example, to be just a little evil, rather than bad to the bone? Or is it okay to enable evil in others? The latter case certainly represents the minimum coefficient of evil I see operating at the Googleplex now that I know the search giant is involved with the Online Lenders Alliance. You know, payday loans.

Payday loans are cash advances provided to consumers until their next pay cycle secured by post-dated checks with most advances not exceeding $500. These loans are for people who can’t find money any other way to buy milk for […]

By |September 27th, 2010|2010|176 Comments
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Trolling for Dollars

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen filed suit this week against a litany of Internet companies claiming they had violated patents awarded years ago to Allen’s now-defunct Interval Research. Many writers, including one passing himself off as me, claimed this made Allen a so-called “patent troll. ”

I don’t think that is the case.

Patent trolls are individuals or companies that habitually sue others over obscure patents. While the Interval patents generally are obscure, that doesn’t make them invalid. And the fact that Allen and then-partner Dave Liddle paid $100 million for the basic research behind those patents, well that hardly sounds like troll behavior.

If Paul Allen actually were a patent troll. he would have sued in […]

By |August 31st, 2010|2010|28 Comments
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Google's Walk in the PARC

No, Google doesn’t intend to become a national Internet Service Provider, despite its new plan to build a number of optical networks to serve homes and businesses at up to one gigabit-per-second.  The real plan is half Xerox PARC and half Tom Sawyer.

When the Computer Science Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center was organized by Bob Taylor in the early 1970s to revolutionize computer, network, and printing technology, there was a conscious decision to live 10 years in the future. The CSL would build devices that could be expected to make economic sense in 1980, not 1970.  This was a huge leap, because it meant the amount of memory in each […]

By |February 15th, 2010|2010|102 Comments
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Authentication is Secondary

As we’ve all read, Google recently experienced a massive attack on its network, probably from China, and has threatened to leave the Chinese market as a result. I’ve written about that aspect before (Google taking its ball and going home) but this column is about the attack itself and Google’s internal plans for how to deal with future such problems, because of course this will happen again. I’m frankly trying to understand what Google is up to in its response to the Chinese threat — a response that doesn’t make much sense to me given the details of the attack as published.

First reports of the attack blamed a security flaw in an […]

By |February 4th, 2010|2010|67 Comments
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Mobile 2010 Predictions: Apple, Google & RIM, Oh My!

Near the eve of Apple’s tablet announcement, I’d like to turn my 2010 predictive eye again to the mobile space where, as my title suggests, there are only three software players that matter — Apple, Google, and RIM (Blackberry).

But wait a minute, isn’t Nokia the big Kahuna in this space and aren’t they right now suing the heck out of Apple? Yes, but that’s an act of desperation, a stalling tactic intended just to slow Apple down or, possibly, send some useful license revenue from Cupertino to Finland. It doesn’t change the inevitable.

So-called “feature phones” are going away, to be replaced within two product cycles (three years, tops) entirely by smart phones […]

By |January 22nd, 2010|2010|152 Comments
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