IT Spot

The LShift team just released a RabbitMQ to XMPP gateway proof-of-concept.

RabbitMQ Open Source Enterprise Messaging

(Credit: RabbitMQ)

RabbitMQ is an implementation of AMQP, the emerging open source standard for high performance enterprise messaging. Think of AMQP as the open source version of something like MQ Series or other high-volume JMS servers.XMPP is open XML technology for presence and real-time communication.

Message volume shouldn’t be a problem for services like Twitter. RabbitMQ with an XMPP gateway might be part of the the solution. The combination means you can inject very high volumes of messages into IM or other XMPP enabled applications with far fewer scale issues.

For the geeks:
The mod_rabbitmq module implements an ejabberd extension module which gateways AMQP (as implemented by RabbitMQ) to XMPP.

Via James Governor Monkchips on Twitter.

The de facto registrar of superlative achievements has credited Mozilla for officially setting a record for downloads in a 24-hour period: 8,002,530 copies of Firefox.

Mozilla’s Download Day on June 17, whose server-crippling success delayed its official start, sought to popularize the open-source Web browser. Mozilla, which oversees the Firefox project, projected at the time that it cleared 8 million, but the number is now official.

“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” Gareth Deaves, Guinness’ records manager, said in a statement.

Though Download Day was a big publicity stunt, it’s hard to sniff with too much disdain at the total. To me at least it indicates that people see more in this particular browser than just a bundle of bits to surf the Web; they like its technology, its open-source nature or other attributes, and downloading and using it is an event somewhat akin to suffering in line for hours for rock show tickets or to buy an iPhone.

I’m skeptical that Download Day in and of itself will appreciably shift Firefox’s market share results in the short term. But it did probably coax people toward a more modern browser, which Web site operators probably are happy to see, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla managed to sign up more Firefox fanboys through its promotional devices.

Also for the record, Net Applications gave Firefox 3 2.31 percent market share for the entire month of June, compared with 4.28 percent for Safari 3.1, 16.13 percent for Firefox 2, 26.38 percent for Internet Explorer 6, and 46.45 percent for No. 1 IE 7. The statistics are based on actual usage at various major search engines. Because Firefox 3 was released midway through June, the statistics likely will show significantly greater share for it in July.

Adobe Systems announced on Monday that it was taking steps to make Flash content on the Web more easily indexed by search engines. It touted deals with both Yahoo and Google, the top two search engines. Curiously absent was any statement about whether Microsoft would do likewise with its Live Search.

I was hoping that Microsoft might clear up the matter, but its response was “no comment.” (It said it’s possible that it’ll have more to say, and I will post more when and if that comes.)

It’s unclear whether there is a stumbling block and whether it might be Adobe that is uninterested in Microsoft or the other way around. Clearly, there is no love lost between the two around Flash–Microsoft is trying to take Flash head-on with its Silverlight technology.

That said, I can’t imagine that Microsoft would want to have any more reasons out there for people not to use its search technology.

A month ago, Microsoft was called out on releasing Sandcastle as open source…without the source. Sam Ramji, Senior Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft and one of its key open-source advocates, immediately pulled the project from Microsoft’s CodePlex open-source hosting site.

One month later, Sandcastle is back up, and is fully “dressed” in open-source code. What might have passed as a simple mistake for another company was pounced on by me and others. Sam, for his part, explains that Microsoft can’t afford to be treated like “another company” when it comes to open source:

Some people felt it was draconian to pull the project from CodePlex, others thought that didn’t go far enough; some were upset because they loved the project and couldn’t find it; some thought we were holding ourselves to a higher standard than necessary. I believe that as we continue to build our practices across the company to participate in open source development, we must strive to achieve the highest possible standards.

Some won’t believe Sam on this, but I do. He, Bill Hilf, Robert Duffner, and others at Microsoft are actively trying to help the company do right by open source. I’m not naive enough to think that they’ll achieve their goals anytime soon, but it’s important to recognize that they’re not attempting to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. These guys believe the open-source ethos.

The question is, will it be enough?

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil investigation into the proposed Yahoo-Google ad partnership. In Wednesday’s edition of the Daily Debrief, I sit down with News.com’s Dawn Kawamoto to talk about the nature of this investigation and what we can expect over the coming months.

Kawamoto explains that Yahoo, in particular, has been more than accommodating to ensure a smooth investigation, or a clean bill of health, if you will. The company has a lot to gain financially if everything goes as planned (to the tune of $800 million in its first year). Its competitors, however (ahem, Microsoft), are insisting on careful scrutiny of documents, conversations, and outside relationships to ensure this partnership does not raise any antitrust concerns.

Google is dominating Microsoft, right? Microsoft hasn’t a clue, right?

According to a collection of blog posts from people that have worked at both Microsoft and Google, there’s much more than meets the eye. In particular, it would appear that Microsoft, crusty thirty-year old that it is, has learned quite a bit about how to add process to enable (somewhat) smooth functioning at scale.

Google? Not so much.

As one ex-Microsoftie who joined Google, only to decide to return to Microsoft, puts it:

This orientation [at Google] towards cool, but not necessarily useful or essential software really affects the way the software engineering is done. Everything is pretty much run by the engineering - PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process. While they do exist in theory, there are too few of them to matter.

On one hand, there are beneficial effects - it is easy to ship software quickly…On the other hand, I was using Google software - a lot of it - in the last year, and slick as it is, there’s just too much of it that is regularly broken. It seems like every week 10% of all the features are broken in one or the other browser. And it’s a different 10% every week….

I heard similar complaints at a recent lunch with some friends that have deep ties into Google. Google has yet to learn how to put polish on products (by which I mean the total product, not the UI). It tends to start lots of projects in that “20 percent of employee time,” and finish far fewer. Search is currently the tonic that covers a multitude of sins at Google, but will it do so forever?

Microsoft has its problems - plenty of them. But for those looking for structure and a career path, Google may not be the place to go.

I’ve become a big fan of the Kindle in a short time. I don’t care about its wireless capabilities - downloading updates to blogs is a waste given that I don’t like to read blogs unless I’m in an immediate position to comment on them, and the ability to buy directly from the device is not an earth-shattering advancement - and I find its menu interface a bit clunky.

No, what I really like about the Kindle is the reading experience. It’s wonderful. The only thing missing is a backlight for reading in low-light conditions, but it’s already better than reading a physical book because the screen is comforting to view and the weight/feel of the product is exceptional.

The Kindle

(Credit: Amazon.com)

None of which matters, however, without good content. This is where my open-source experiment comes in.

This week I tried downloading Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey from Project Gutenberg. Because the Kindle easily can read .txt, .pdf (i.e., PDF can be converted into a supported format), and other file formats, it’s easy to get free content like Northanger Abbey into the Kindle.

The problem, however, is what happens once it’s there.

The content is free. But it’s not pretty. Line breaks aren’t formatted for the Kindle, making the normally exceptional Kindle-reading experience…much less exceptional. For $1.60, I can have that exact same book with everything pre-formatted for me.

Why save the $1.60? Why not pay?

This is one of the core principles underlying successful open-source companies like Red Hat. Yes, you can compile your own Linux distribution, but why when you can have Red Hat Enterprise Linux Premium for $1,200, which is a drop in the bucket compared to Windows Server and pennies on the dollar compared to proprietary Unix offerings like HP-UX?

Convenience sells. I believe the next wave of “convenience” for open source will be software-as-a-service offerings of SugarCRM, Loopfuse, MindTouch, JBoss, etc. Yes, you can (and many will) download and install these for themselves. But for those who value convenience highly, a SAAS offering will be critical. Try with the on-premise solution, but with SAAS.

Can I get the same reading experience on my Kindle with the free Project Gutenberg texts? Sure. I just need to reformat the .txt files for the Kindle. Or I can pay a few dollars for someone else to do that for me at scale. My time doesn’t scale, and is worth a lot more to me than $1.60.

The same is true for IT workers. They can roll their own open-source projects into production, or they can choose to work with vendors that make it easy through support, SAAS, and other convenience-adding features.

Yahoo shares shot up nearly 6 percent in earning morning trading on Wednesday, as reports surfaced that Microsoft may seek partners to make another bid for the company’s search business.

Yahoo jumped 5.8 percent to $21.38 a share in early morning trading, coming a day after the Internet search pioneer’s shares fell below $20 and came a breath away from hitting the level where it traded prior to Microsoft making its failed buyout bid attempt five months ago.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been saddling up to other media companies about teaming up to make a bid for Yahoo, which would then result in a break of the Internet search pioneer with Microsoft retaining the search portion of Yahoo’s business.

Microsoft reportedly is talking to Time Warner and News Corp. about this arrangement, giving investors a sense of déjà vu. Time Warner and News Corp. were among the white knights Yahoo had reportedly sought out, after Microsoft announced its unsolicited bid in February.

Investors may want to keep in mind this one graph in the Wall Street Journal report:

Some of the people familiar with these talks say they are preliminary and unlikely to result in a deal with Yahoo.

Whether investors pay heed to the word “unlikely” has yet to be seen, as Yahoo’s stock goes for yet another head jerk.

The Wall Street Journal has published a detailed account of Microsoft’s talks with Yahoo!, and the reasons for the fall-out. One of the juicier bits is that Ballmer blamed the bankers involved for “screw[ing] everything up.”

Perhaps. But reading through the wreckage, it seems much more likely that the gamesmanship on both sides ultimately resulted in both companies losing. Microsoft still lacks a compelling voice on the web, and Yahoo!…well, Yahoo! increasingly does, too.

“They believed that we needed them much more than they needed us,” one person close to Microsoft says. “Ultimately, we called their bluff.”

Bravo. Now you can both fail together.

Again, I have been hoping the deal would go through because I think it would help Microsoft to make some critical decisions that would favor a more open, pragmatic Microsoft. Microsoft-plus-Yahoo! wouldn’t be able to force a .Net future down the web’s throat, and would enable Microsoft to innovate beyond its closed platform.

Microsoft needs Yahoo!, not so that it can compete in search, but so that it can compete on the web.

The welcome screen for the new Equipt offering lists the products and services available.

(Credit: Microsoft)

If you are looking for “Albany,” you might want to try heading to Circuit City.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that Circuit City will be the first to offer a new Office subscription service, first known by its Albany code name and now dubbed Equipt.

The idea behind the subscription service is to convert more new PC buyers into Office buyers. It plays on the fact that although most people don’t buy Office at the same time as a computer, many do purchase a security software subscription.

Microsoft is trying to tap into the fact that while many people would rather find a copy of Office that they don’t have to pay for (either an older version or a pirated copy) they are willing to pay for security software. “Security is basically the No. 1 thing that gets attached with a PC,” said Microsoft group product manager Bryson Gordon.

Equipt bundles a subscription version of Office Home and Student with Microsoft’s OneCare antivirus product for $69 a year–just $20 more than the suggested price of OneCare alone.

On the main page of the Equipt subscriber center, users can see their subscription status and make changes to their account.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Gordon said some less sophisticated users think they are getting a copy of Office as part of their PC purchase and are disappointed when they come home and find only a trial version of Office. “That’s when a lot of folks will start digging through the drawer for (an old copy).”

Although Equipt is starting out at Circuit City, the deal is nonexclusive and Gordon sees options to go beyond stores and beyond the U.S. Gordon said Microsoft expects to expand to other retailers later in the year and eventually to offer it through other means, such as through computer makers or over the Web.

In addition to placing Equipt on retail shelves, Microsoft is also looking for it to be installed by so-called tech benches, the generic name for things like Best Buy’s Geek Squad.

Also, for now at least, there is no way to upgrade from a OneCare subscription to Equipt, though Gordon said that may be in the cards.

“It makes a lot of sense so it’s something you will likely see,” he said.

I was curious just how Microsoft accounts for the revenue it expects to get from Equipt–i.e., how much gets counted toward Office and how much toward OneCare. Gordon wouldn’t say, other than to indicate it would be wrong to think that the Office unit only gets the $20 difference between Equipt and OneCare.

Gordon said the company’s research indicates that those who opt for Equipt will be people who would not otherwise buy Office, but added “we are going to keep a very close watch on cannibalization metrics.”