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If i can just upgrade the OS on this one, to a custom Android build, then we're game! :D

We first heard rumors of this policy change a couple of months ago, but now it's made the papers: the Financial Times is reporting that Google is phasing out the use of Windows internally, as employees are migrated to either Linux or Mac OS X on machine turnovers or new hires. The policy change was precipitated in large part by the security breach attributed to Chinese hackers; Google's IT leaders apparently feel that Microsoft's OS represents too great a risk across the enterprise to leave it in place.

In the early days computers were much simpler. The various components of a system, such as the CPU, memory, mass storage, and network interfaces, were developed together and, as a result, were quite balanced in their performance. For example, the memory and network interfaces were not (much) faster than the CPU at providing data.

This situation changed once the basic structure of computers stabilized and hardware developers concentrated on optimizing individual subsystems. Suddenly the performance of some components of the computer fell significantly behind and bottlenecks developed. This was especially true for mass storage and memory subsystems which, for cost reasons, improved more slowly relative to other components.

The slowness of mass storage has mostly been dealt with using software techniques: operating systems keep most often used (and most likely to be used) data in main memory, which can be accessed at a rate orders of magnitude faster than the hard disk. Cache storage was added to the storage devices themselves, which requires no changes in the operating system to increase performance. {Changes are needed, however, to guarantee data integrity when using storage device caches.} For the purposes of this paper, we will not go into more details of software optimizations for the mass storage access.

Awesome dude! :D Time to Plug! :D

"We're initially focusing on education but will be focusing also on healthcare in the very near future."

Life is not linear, it's organic. We're all obsessed about getting people to college. We're obsessed that life starts somewhere and ends up somewhere, and that if we just follow the lines, we'll get there somehow.

It's a bit sad, since everyone who's every spent at least 5 years of life after college, knows it's not linear. And yet, i still see a lot asking questions like, what are the secrets to success, what books should i read to be successful, what profession should i get, if only i can have X, i know i will be Y. Just sad, i think it's time to re-think why in the world we exist anyway? We need to answer more why than what or how or when or where questions.

Who the f*ck ever taught us it's linear anyway?

Vic Gundotra opened Google I/O with a compelling story of his meeting with Andy Rubin on his first day at Google. Vic was asking whether we really needed another mobile operating system. Andy told him why open systems matter. "If google did not act, our future would belong to one man, one company, one vision." Meanwhile, the slide shows a person from the back, with head bowed, and a giant 1984 logo in the background. Wow! The audience explodes in applause.

Yeah, this is a self-selected audience, but there's a deep current of fear of Apple and its plans for world domination in the mobile space. Apple's tight control of what apps can appear on the iPhone is billed as managing the user experience, but it's also incredibly anti-competitive. Apple also blocks applications from competitors. I love Apple as an innovator - they have made everyone in the industry better. But I really dislike how they have become fixated on control. They are over-reaching.

I thought "someone ought to do a new version of the Apple 1984 ad, with someone throwing a hammer through an iPhone screen." Did a quick search, and found one was done in 2008, as a mashup on YouTube. Only 254 views this morning. Just tweeted it, and after Vic's keynote, I imagine that's going to go up quite a bit.

http://bit.ly/cvCNXY

It made me think of how far Apple has come since its famous 1984 ad that introduced the Macintosh. It's sad.

It's sometimes harder for companies to survive success than it is to survive failure.

Update: I posted a follow-up.

You know things are heating up for Apple when even Fake Steve Jobs himself announces that he’s ditching his iPhone and getting an Android phone.

A few select pieces:

Which is why today, just to be mean, Google showed an Android phone tethered to an Apple iPad. Big laughs all around.

Indeed. Don’t bother with the iPad 3G, just get the cheap iPad, an Android phone running FroYo, turn on wifi tethering and you are automatically online for no extra costs.

I’m assuming that Apple could have done this already, but chose not to. Who knows why? Maybe they want to keep people locked into their old way of doing things. Or maybe because they were a market leader with no real competition and just got lazy.

I think the latter. It’s not specific to Apple, it’s a well-known law that any market leader with no competition starts taking their users for granted and always gets lazy.

Yes, Apple still has a larger installed base. I was a little shocked recently when an Apple spokesbot responded to the news of Android’s outselling iPhone OS by reciting the old chestnut about Apple’s having more phones out there.

I was shocked because it’s a familiar line, one that I’ve heard countless times in my 20-plus years covering technology. But I’ve only ever heard it from companies that are doomed and in total denial about it.

Very true. Amusingly, this is actually the exact line used by Nokia and Symbian representatives when asked that very same question. I’m sure Steve Jobs is not enjoying the company in that basket.

My take on the overall situation: I think Apple got arrogant just a tad too early. They were doing great, selling iPhones by the millions despite AT&T and they decided that they had already won, so they could become complacent. They kicked out Adobe, started locking down their product even more strongly than before, stopped innovating on the music front (where is http://itunes.com? Why do I still need an ugly client for the slightest synchronization task?), fell behind both in hardware and software, and Android eagerly filled the void.

One of my tennis coaches once told me “I guess it’s okay to be arrogant if you’re the best in the world”.

Apple became arrogant before they were the best in the world, and they are now going to have to fight hard if they want to stay third or maybe even fourth.

Update: Tim O’Reilly is agreeing.