Nokia and Windows Phone, Google Docs Silliness, Windows Thin PC, More

Good morning.

I think I'm going to dispense with the "Daily Update" naming convention now and see how that goes.

Nokia CEO’s biggest hurdles: speed, accountability, and laziness. And that's just when he's dealing with the Windows Phone guys. (Cue drum roll.)

On a more serious note, Bloomberg has an excellent article describing the very real issues Nokia faces as it migrates to Windows Phone. I'm particularly heartened by Rob Sanfilippo's comments that they can't move quickly enough to right the ship. Exactly right.

PC World is off the rails: "A common criticism of Google Docs when it first launched was that it was primitive," Keir Thomas writes. "In some ways this was part of Google's plan." Insightful. Head's up: Google Docs is still primitive, sorry. And doing less is never a plan. It's a stopgap.

Microsoft shipped a CTP of its thin client version of Windows 7, called Windows Thin PC, yesterday. It's described as a "locked down" version of Windows 7, which is true enough, but I don't think that enough people understand it's also a virtualized package that requires server infrastructure to work. It's not a smaller, lighter version of Windows 7.

Nathan Newman offers up an interesting look at Google's products and how this new way of doing business impacts the future of antitrust.

MSNBC says that Firefox 4 is slaughtering Internet Explorer 9 from a downloads perspective. And while Microsoft is no doubt looking for the silver lining in this, I feel this situation is easily explained: The browser wars are not a short term battle, they're a long term fight. And let's be serious, Firefox 4 is not going to beat IE 9 long term. It won't even be close.

I mentioned yesterday that I was going to reevaluate my NYTimes subscription in the light of the recent pay wall stuff, and how the company had yet to announce its plans for Kindle (and Nook) subscribers. Since then, I tried the iPad app (hate it, I'll write about this) and have decided to stick with the superior Kindle experience. And then Amazon and the NYTimes announced some details about what, exactly, Kindle subscribers will get as part of the paywall plans: free access to the NYTimes website. Pretty much the minimum I'd expect, IOW.

There's a weird new trend in Android tablets (and smart phones, actually) where hardware makers are extending the devices with clip-on keyboards, effectively turning them into pseudo-laptops. (Here's a new recent example.) Please, stop. What we really need are iPad 2-thin PC tablets that work this way, since what you want when you clip on a keyboard is a real computer. And no, the Eee Tablet or whatever it's called does not qualify.

Java creator James Gosling has joined Google. Which makes some sense: Java is the development environment behind Android which, if I'm reading the tea leaves right, will soon be one of the world's most dominant computing platforms alongside Windows.

Discuss this Article 3

james3mg
on Mar 29, 2011
I've been trying to get the Windows Thin PC CTB all day- I keep getting a "Page not found" error. Anyone know of another way in?

Thanks!

Mustang17
on Mar 30, 2011
I will be over the moon to get a Nokia handset with Windows phone 7 on it. In fact it was either one or the other when my next contract starts. I have to agree though although the Nokia Symbian system may not be the smoothest, they do have a hell of a lot of features that some smart phones have only recently had in upgrades. I did have the notion that other smart phones were way ahead of Symbian, then when you hear that only now are other OS's getting some features I have taken for granted for some time you do question things. Even the iphones grid of icons, I can have a skin that does that too, but I find it slow to locate things with that system. It looks nice, but not practical. My Nokia had a screen which used anything to move or click an icon with, fingers or pen or gloves, whatever. My Dad's Android phone well, I have to use my big fingers, not my nail, my finger, that is very frustrating hitting the wrong link again and again.

An updated Windows Phone 7 on a Nokia, I can hardly wait.

Mustang17
on Apr 2, 2011
Ah, so the podcast facility on the Windows Phone isnt brilliant.. Jeez I hope this smartphone will become better than my Nokia smartphone sometime soon. Video and audio, and it has a great search facility, its how I found Windows Weekly in the first place. It is also one of my favourite features on my phone.

I hope I am not going to be dissapointed. Though to be fair its a mature system up against a new and hardly updated system.

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