 |
Joanne Bradford who is Microsoft’s current MSN honcho and former Microsoft Web ad czar (“We love ad salesmen“) is leaving Microsoft for startup Spot Runner which is nominally an “Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV.” The trick apparently is to have canned creative content that can be easily modified for a local business. Bradford reportedly will be executive vice president of National Marketing Services, focused on national advertisers” which sounds like a good fit for her and apparently also fits somewhere in Spot Runner’s business model.
As for MSN, former Bradford direct report Greg Nelson, who is the general manager of MSN.com International, will be running things on an interim basis. I would chalk this up as yet more turmoil in Microsoft’s online business – the departure of Bradford’s boss Steve Berkowitz was announced in February. Of course, we’ll really see turmoil if the Yahoo deal goes through and Bradford may well have been dodging exactly that.
It’s a bit of a yawner, but Microsoft has apparently confirmed that Windows 7 will be available in 2010 barring unforeseen quality issues:
Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that Windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started.
…
Well, this is no longer the case. Microsoft explained that it would deliver Windows 7 three years after the consumers launch of Vista. “We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release,” a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to Softpedia via email.
…
In this regard, Microsoft has merely reconfirmed what it has in fact said since mid 2007, that Windows 7 is planned for 2010.
Windows 7 seems to be a just a tune up of Vista, but I’m still a bit surprised that anyone is doing much public talking about it at this stage given the sad history of Vista.
Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick was completed today as the European Union gave its approval. The key graph from Eric Schmidt’s blog post:
Advertisers and publishers who work with us have long asked that we complement our search and content-based text advertising with display advertising capabilities. DoubleClick gives Google the leading platform for display advertising, enabling us to rapidly bring advances to the market in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies.
I still think that getting into the banner ad biz is a step backward, but it does make Google a one stop Web advertising shop.
Microsoft’s MIX08 conference has come and gone, but despite the rumors of a massive Web apps push, the actuality was much more pedestrian:
While the last bullet isn’t a Web app, SQL Server Data Services is obviously a building block for constructing Web apps and could fill up some of the data centers that were also part of the rumors. The beta will be available in 3 to 4 weeks with a launch by the end of the year. Note that SSDS isn’t a full fledged hosted SQL Server or just a raw data store like Amazon’s S3. It fits in between as a simplified structured database service with the closest analog being Amazon’s simpleDB. It is early days yet, but one can’t help but wonder whether other major database vendors have the will (and the wherewithal) to join the party.
Finally, while they aren’t Web apps either, earlier last week Microsoft announced some more data center filler with the extension of their Microsoft Online Services offering of hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint to small and mid-sized businesses.
Predictably, the press release is effusive in describing the opportunities for Microsoft partners, even those whose Exchange hosting services have been neatly undercut. The theory is that they can now sell Microsoft’s hosted service with a bunch of their own embellishments. Less happy are ISV’s who sell SharePoint add-ons that won’t appear in the Microsoft offering. There’s surely a pony in Microsoft hosting their own server applications, but it’s a low margin, capital intensive business compared to selling software.
