Microsoft’s Office Web Apps dilemma

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Microsoft finds itself in between a hard place and a particularly large chunk of stone with the impending launch of its Office 2010 Web Applications.

Make them too good, and Microsoft risks slaughtering one of its two biggest cash cows (Office and Windows being the products that keep Steve Ballmer in sharp suits). Water them down too much, however, and Microsoft runs the risk of powerful rivals such as Google or Adobe making vast improvements to their own online Apps and stealing Microsoft’s lunch.

It’s a problem Microsoft is clearly conscious off. It’s bravely decided to give consumers and small businesses free access to the Office Web Applications via Windows Live, even if they haven’t bought a copy of the client software.

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phpDesigner 2008

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

It seems that my endless search for the ideal PHP IDE has finally…er…ended. phpDesigner 2008 is the most promising environment I’ve seen and even though I’ve only just started using it, it’s already seen Zend Studio Pro and the treacle-like Zend Studio Eclipse confined to the recycle bin.

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