Limelight outlook disappoints
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Internet content delivery company  Limelight Networks Inc on Tuesday gave a weaker-than-expected  financial outlook and blamed the Hollywood writers' strike,  dragging its shares down 15 percent in after-hours trade.
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(InfoWorld) - Critics who blasted Microsoft three months ago for failing to deliver Windows Vista add-ons have again called the company on the carpet, this time for missing its self-imposed deadline to provide promised extras. In late June, bloggers and users were already panning Vista Ultimate Extras as a bust. Extras, available only to customers running the top-end Vista edition, was one of the features cited by Microsoft to distinguish the $399 operating system from its $239 cousin, Home Premium. Microsoft's online marketing, for instance, touted Extras as "cutting-edge programs, innovative services, and unique publications" that would be regularly offered to Ultimate users. But by June, Microsoft had not released any new Extras since it issued a beta of DreamScene, a video screensaver, in February. That infuriated some users; several days later, Microsoft tried to defuse the situation by promising to wrap up DreamScene and 20 unfinished language packs. "We apologize for taking so long to provide a status update to customers," said Barry Goffe, the director of Vista Ultimate, in a posting to a Microsoft blog on July 2. "We intend to ship Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs by the end of the summer." But summer has come and gone, and users now say there has been nothing new from Extras. "Even if the Windows Ultimate team has fled to the International Date Line, summer is officially over," said Windows enthusiast Long Zheng, who blogs at iStartedSomething. Zheng was one of those who turned up the heat on Microsoft earlier in the summer with several postings about the Extras' no-show. "Normally I wouldn't care what season it is in the northern hemisphere, but today it proves this team is incapable [of] delivering anything and should never be trusted again. "The truth is, customers are getting near to nothing [from Extras]," Zheng said Sunday. Most users who left comments on Zheng's blog said they too felt bamboozled. "While I didn't only purchase Ultimate so that I could get the extras, it certainly was a deciding factor," said a user identified as T-Man. "The thought of getting something more was certainly appealing. Especially given the price premium for Ultimate, this is certainly a very hard pill to swallow." A minority, however, was more forgiving about the failure to make the deadline. "Ultimate Extras are just that ... extras," said Brandon Live, a Microsoft employee who works in its search group, in a comment to Zheng's blog. "While I am disappointed with how they've been handled, I never considered them to be the reason anyone would buy Ultimate." "I'm pleased with Vista Ultimate as it is. Just relax, and they will deliver on their own time, not yours," added someone identified as Lipo Network. A few users had fun at Microsoft's expense on the company's own support newsgroups. "Did they mention what year the end of summer release was going to be in?" asked a user identified as "theclyde" on the Vista General Discussion newsgroup. Another user on the newsgroup, Andrew McLaren, said he was Australian, and wondered if Vista team had its hemispheres confused. "Hmmm, maybe the Ultimate Extras guys were thinking of the *Southern* summer? Maybe we'll see those updates by February 08?" Microsoft's Goffe did give Extras an out in his July 2 post, the most recent blog update. "We will not ship the last two Extras showcased in January (Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs) until they meet the high quality bar required by our enthusiastic customers," he said. "We believe that we can achieve that bar by the end of this summer." "That's a catch-all phrase," noted a user named Robert Firth on the Vista newsgroup. "Doesn't matter if it is the end of summer, they said if it isn't ready, it isn't ready. So they could still be telling the truth." That's not good enough, said some. "The only 'ultimate' thing about my copy of Vista is that it is the last copy I will buy of a Microsoft OS," said Bayleaf in a comment on Zheng's blog. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
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Silicon Alley Insider says software maker might be interested in Limelight, a player in the content delivery network arena.
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Underpromising in order to overdeliver can't make up for sluggish operating results.
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Blog: Database issues are causing trouble for some trying to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1.
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DecemberÃ¢ÂÂs Patch Tuesday finds Vista in the bad guysÃ¢ÂÂ sights. Plus: Get Office 2007 SP1, get your fix for Flash, and avoid an HP laptop disaster.
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Microsoft has tuned up its software for service providers, but consumers shouldn't expect much in the near future.Photos: Is IPTV software ready for prime time?IPTV chugs along
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Previously satisfied users say the newest release of the software is causing a variety of problems, including an issue where the software won't load at startup. Microsoft says it is looking into at least one issue, but said overall the number of problems
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Is it love on the rebound with AOL? Will Microsoft wait? Will Google win? Stay tuned!
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Plus: Alcatel outlook weak...Cisco profit climbs...Time Warner lowers earnings target...Electronic Arts lowers outlook, shares fall.
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Sharper Image of San Francisco revised down its outlook for next year, saying sales increased only 4 percent through Dec. 24. This is trending below our expectations for an increase in total company sales
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Plus: Alcatel outlook weak...Cisco profit climbs...Time Warner lowers earnings target...Electronic Arts lowers outlook.
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Is it a mere coincidence? Or is the first week of January really jinxed as far as new releases are concerned?
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Pricey Product will offer low error rate, company says
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Plus:  Microsoft tops its expectations...Google doubles profit year-over-year...SAP earnings beat estimates...EarthLink trims outlook...AT&#38;T posts $7.1 billion loss...Lucent sees first profitable year since 2000...EMC issues sunny report.
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Study comparing iTunes music catalog with Limewire concludes that the free file sharing service isn't such a good deal.