GigaOM

Microsoft’s battle to conquer the web has a certain Moby-Dick-like quality. Me-too products, muddled branding strategy and constantly playing catchup with competitors has reduced the king of software to a punch line. The more they try, the further they get. In the third quarter of 2008, Microsoft’s online revenues were $770 million, up 15 percent from Q3 2007. But the losses jumped 80 percent year-over-year to $480 million. Adam Lashinsky succinctly sums it up: Continue »

After an unusually peaceful weekend, I returned to the world of blogs to find people buzzing about Microsoft, which is apparently going to rebrand its Live Search. The LiveSide Blog reports that company has just taken control of Kumo.com, which means either cloud or spider in Japanese. This is likely the first step in the rumored rebranding of Microsoft’s search efforts. It is taking a bit of self-control on my part to not be mean-spirited about this rumored effort. If true, it would be yet another sign of Microsoft’s bumbling efforts when it comes to search.

I am not sure that a new cool-sounding name is going to help much. If Microsoft wants to compete with Google in search, it needs to show that it has a better mousetrap. Thus far it hasn’t really been able to deliver better search results than Google. Whenever I use Microsoft’s search, after trying it a few times, I give up and go back to Google. Don’t get me wrong: Google isn’t perfect, but it somehow gets the job done. If Google’s results are like a vinyl record, then Microsoft’s search delivers the performance of a much-used cassette tape. Microsoft has to get fidelity of its search results up, and not muck around with names, if it wants to prove its mettle.

I’ve spent the past few days pretty immersed in the SC 08 conference here in Austin, Texas, but I’m still embarrassed that I missed the formation of a new lobbying organization think tank called The Future of Privacy that’s being funded by AT&T. The group hopes to help policy makers and business leaders figure out how to manage online privacy.

A big source of irony from the group, other than its purported focus on online privacy to benefit consumers and the industry alike, is that Co-chair Christopher Wolf also headed up one of my favorite astroturfing efforts, Hands Off The Internet, the phone company think tank dedicated to Net Neutrality. Somehow, that connection isn’t mentioned in his FOP bio Continue »

Meraki, the Google and Sequoia-backed startup that focuses on citywide Wi-Fi networks, hasn’t let the demise of municipal Wi-Fi halt its efforts to make money or make the wireless network technology available in more places. It has scaled back considerably on its visions of open source, low-cost Wi-Fi for municipalities, instead focusing on Wi-Fi for apartment buildings, city squares and environments where someone is willing to pay to provide the service. Instead of connecting the world, Meraki wants to connect with paying customers. And that’s a good thing.

Today the company announced a Wi-Fi access point that plugs into a wall, and on Dec. 4 will release a lighter solar-powered access point to go places where power doesn’t. In a briefing about the products, it’s clear that Meraki still holds onto its altruistic views, with CEO Sanjit Biswas trumpeting the growth of Wi-Fi networks in Africa and small Chilean fishing villages. However, he’s quick to point out that hotels and apartment buildings can use the new Meraki products to rapidly install Wi-Fi networks that will cover a complex all the way from the pool to inside bedrooms.

In the last year, the startup has changed its business model several times, from trumpeting cheap hardware and charging a fee to access a dashboard, to tripling the price of its hardware and pushing ads. Such shifting hasn’t sat well with some citywide Wi-Fi network proponents, but the bottom line for many cities and customers is that Meraki’s Wi-Fi networks are still cheaper than those from vendors such as Cisco or Juniper. As Wi-Fi becomes more important, Meraki’s capitalizing on its cheaper gear with new packages that offer to unwire a city street for $10,000, or today’s launch of a residential package designed for apartments and hotels that costs less than $5,000.

Wi-Fi is of growing interest for both consumers and ISPs. Earlier this year, Quentanna, a Wi-Fi chipmaker hoping to build a plug-in home access point to boost wireless signals, launched with a few ISP customers on board. A few weeks ago AT&T purchased hot-spot provider, Wayport for $275 million. If Meraki can figure out a way to spread Wi-Fi and make money, it could be in a good position as ubiquitous access to the Internet becomes more important for gadget-toting consumers. Wi-Fi is one of the most common gateways to the web, and even in a down economy Meraki thinks it can make money on the tools to build those gateways rather than by managing them. Meraki has realized that instead of saving the world, it needed to save its business.

So much for the Obama bump. The markets have resumed their downward spiral, making clear that our economic conditions aren’t going to improve anytime soon. The impact of this sustained selling is even being felt by companies that were, until recently, deemed bulletproof — among them, Google. Shares of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company have dropped below $300 for the first time since 2005, indicating that the company might not be immune to the downturn in consumer spending (and thus advertising) after all. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, makes a very compelling case as to why online advertising is in for some stormy weather.

Citibank Internet analyst Mark Mahaney earlier today cut his fourth-quarter profit and net revenue estimates on Google, saying he’s picking up all sorts of negative data points. “We have conducted two dozen+ checks with SEMs (Search Engine Marketers), Online Ad Agencies, large brand retailers, high ASP retailers, travel companies, etc…Conclusions aren’t uniform, but Search marketers almost universally expect Q4 to be the weakest they have ever experienced,” he writes in his morning note. While these might be transitory issues for Google — the company continues to increase market share in search and has a monopolistic control of online advertising — as Mahaney points out, even it has nowhere to hide as the planet gets hit by this economic comet.

This downturn poses another challenge for Google as well: To date, it has been able to spending liberally on attracting talented folks to its team. But many of those options are now under water, leaving those employees to resent some of their predecessors. Maintaining its talent — and attracting new blood — is going to be that much harder going forward. And that will leave the company even less time to play with its new toys, such as its newly acquired fighter jet.

By now even I am tired of pointing out that broadband over power lines as a viable broadband option just doesn’t work. Many, including Google, have spent millions of dollars to make a go of this technology with microscopic success, but that doesn’t stop others from trying. My friend Karl Bode in October said that 2008 was the year BPL died. Apparently not. Now there is news that International Broadband Electric Communications, a startup working to sign up electric cooperatives in rural U.S. areas where there are no broadband options.

The technology involves sending data on the same wires that provide electricity. Every half a mile or so, a device clamped to the line perpetuates the signal…The key innovation introduced in the past few years, Blair said, is the ability to remotely control the devices fixed to power lines. That way it can be told to switch frequency when it meets interference.

IBEC has signed up IBM, which is are going to get $9.6 million to provide and install the BPL equipment on a network that would reach 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The venture’s promoter and CEO, Scott Lee, says the cost of the network would be as much as $70 million, an amount that they have received as $70 million in low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture. I gotta be honest — this is going to be money down the drain.