Photosynth = Flickr killer? wait for improvements

Ever since I read about the official release of Photosynth, I couldnt wait to get home and get my hands on photosynth. I have looked at the beta site 6 months ago and have been wanting to see it live, hence the urge.
Got to my home, picked up the digital camera, powered it on, storage full message. Aargs... Pam(my wife) has filled the 1 GB memory card with pictures. She was getting out, so I had to clean up the memory card, backing up all the image to my computer and finally picked up the camera and shot around 20 pics of a painting hanging on our livging room wall. I started photosynth. Install went smooth. Created user id as "gajakannan" (ofcourse), and started the "create synth" button, uploaded the pics and waited patiently for the synth to do what it needed to do. It came up with different messages and finally a message that "100% synthed". My eyes lit up and hit the view button. Viola, my pictures were synth-ed exactly how I envisioned.
I liked the tool. It was simple to use. Could have added more inline help. Some features are not intutive as one would expect. For example, after I created a synth, there was not a button to delete if I dont like it. The button was the "x" button that appears on the panel, but not intutive. Also, if I dont like some pictures from the collection, so far, I have not found a way to delete it. I am sure, these shortcomings can overcome very soon.
Flickr killer? barely.
well, the synth opens up several options that one would not have had before. For example 1. You are on a family reunion and want to take a picture of everyone with their face still shows up instead of a small dot. Well, take one full picture and several pictures that will overlap. Put them in synth and guess what, synth automatically would reconstruct the pictures to look like one. Pam was telling, can this be merged and made as one picture for printouts? Microsoft are you listening?
2. Can make a nice zoom in and zoom out slide for powerpoint presentations where we still struggle to put information together in one place.
3. Microsoft should publish webservice based API, like Amazon AWS for photosynth and let the users unlock the power of photosynth. People could think of so many different uses for synth.

{Gaja;}

Who should be {next} in Oracle's shopping cart?

I could not sleep tonight for some reason and thought will come down and post a blog (My wife tells me I am crazy when I got up from bed). I am writing this blog listening to Lewis Black on comedy central, so watch out what I post here...

After my previous post on Microsoft's shopping cart, I thought to balance my thought process I should look at what could be the next move on Microsoft's competitors to trump before MS makes next announcement.

Oracle is other company I admire a lot (Facebook, Sun, IBM, Google, Nokia and Apple follow the suit in *my list* of admirable tech companies) that I have been watching in the sidelines and rooting for them when ever they make they make the right move. I believe so far Oracle has made good choices on their purchases with Siebel, PeopleSoft, BEA, etc.,

To make them compete with IBM and Microsoft, they should complete their acquisition cycle by buying Sun. I understand if readers are booing me for this suggestion and stop reading. But seriously people if we set our sentiments aside and read through you may agree. Sun has great server OS (Solaris) that already gives IBM, HP and RedHat run for their money. I know Oracle have been working and improving on 'Unbreakable Linux'. I read about that in OTN and Oracle magazine, thats about it. I am not downloading and installing it even on my home sandbox machine to play around with it. Truth is when it comes to Linux, people look at RedHat, Novell, Ubuntu, etc, not Oracle. I can see people nodding their heads now.

On the other hand, does anyone know if Sun makes any money out of Java other than core API support... Lets be serious, every one other than Sun has made more money than Sun by selling Java or Java related technologies. App Server vendors like IBM, BEA(now Oracle), Integration vendors like TIBCO, etc., has probably made more money compared to the scale of money that Sun made in Java technologies (For full disclosure - I dont read all the quarterly reports and line items of these companies my assumption is based on penetration of these products in the market). Sun is certainly providing the thought leadership for Java but dont know how to capitalize that into actionable fat wallet.

Atleast if Oracle buys Sun, then they have a reliable OS like Solaris, solidify their Java platform with Sun/BEA acquisition (compelling competition for IBM) and strengthen their open source initiatives based on Sun's learning. I just ran the stock performance of Sun in the past 15 years against a comparison with IBM and BEA (Oracle) and just that paints the entire story. Sun has become like Borland of 1990s that does not know how to capitalize/market/opertionalize their products. The only shining story they have so far is Solaris (and probably mySQL acquistion). Did anyone even ask Sun what happend to the SeeBeyond acquistion. I remember that being a hot technology along side with Tibco and WebMethods, but quickly faded away, so fast that people dont even remember that product anymore.

Larry, please resuce Sun before this becomes a salvage target like YaWHO (yes, I believe yahoo is going to be Ya-who very soon, heck it used to be one of the *my list* of admirable tech companies).

coming soon *Google Vs Apple*

{ Gaja; }

What should Microsoft do next?

Okay, this is not totally my idea. After the yahoo super deal fell through there were lot of pundits predicting Microsoft's next move or acquisition. I am compiling this list that made more sense to me based on my puny little knowledge...

• FaceBook
• MySpace
• SecondLife
• SalesForce.com
• Novell

Yahoo is so 1990's company. Why would anybody buy them. If you ignore them for another two years or so, there wont be any Yahoo any more (Ofcourse there is a brand name that yahoo carriers, but not worth the money). I dont see anyone making a case for ROI on yahoo purchase. May be finally Steve Ballmer realized it is a bad idea. Yahoo is not even the No.1 visited website anymore.

Why FaceBook/mySpace

Why would you not buy FaceBook or MySpace. In the recent years, if there was a internet company that kicked Google's butt, it was FaceBook. Not Yahoo. Go and talk to pre-teen and teen agers. My 10 year old nephew already has a myspace webpage. He does not know email/IM/blogging/etc., but he knows myspace and he does email/IM/blogging/picture upload everything at myspace without even knowing it. His version of internet is what mySpace or FaceBook provides to him. This is a typical case. If eyeballs matter to making money in internet, it is facebook or myspace. Not yahoo. FaceBook or MySpace is the future desktop for average user.

Why SecondLife

SecondLife, the only reason I keep SecondLife in the shopping cart is because of the virtual environment it provides. It could be testing ground for Microsoft for many of their consumer products. They can bring products in SecondLife before releasing it to general public. Heck, the alpha and beta user community should be built on SecondLife. It can help Microsoft convert the business model.

Why SalesForce

Marc Bernioff was the first one to make money on SAAS market. It is a great place for companies to reduce their data center and Infrastructure costs. Since SalesForce.com is already ahead of the game in SAAS, why not buy them. For one, that would make Larry Ellison blood pressure go through the roof. Seriously, if Microsoft wants to get a play in Cloud computing, OnDemand data center, then SalesForce.com brand will help them make the case much easier. Hey, if MS pulls off the story that enterprises dont have to worry about Infrastrucuture security, just host your applications in our Cloud infrastrucuture, we will host it and we will keep the uptime, patching and maintenance, I guess that would be a good sell.

Why Novell

Firstly, it is a double edge sword for Microsoft to support/strengthen mono capabilities. If they dedicate their mind on mono, it could mean competing with their Windows platform. Conflict of interest. But if they own a Linux platform, then hey, it is another revenue that they did not have before. Even if SUSE Linux steals some of the Windows customers, still the money comes to the same overall bucket. Although, think about customers that may switch from RedHat to Suse because of easy collaboration with Windows and MS products.
Secondly, Microsoft dont know how to play in OpenSource. Novell's acquired DNA in OpenSource may help MS understand the community better. The skepticism may go away if MS play their cards right.