Thursday, February 9, 2006

BUSY, BUSY, GOOGLE... GMAIL+GOOGLE TALK, GOOGLE STAR OFFICE, TAKING TALENT AGAIN

Google has been pretty active in the news lately. This past week they launched their GoogleTalk integration with Gmail, which I have to say is way cool. You have GoogleTalk baked into your Gmail. No separate application launch, no clunkiness.

There is speculation that Google will be signing a huge bundling deal with Dell:

CNBC reports that Google is in negotiation with Dell on a $1 billion deal that would let Google install some of its software on all new Dell computers.

Fellow blogger Rich Tehrani writes that for that amount of money, we should expect something "radically" new. He surmises this could be a Google-branded browser, or even a Google counterpart to Microsoft Office.

"Something software-based and something customers aren't likely to download," Rich writes. "The goal would be to get the customers before they get hooked on something else."

Now, here is my take. I see a Google Branded version of Sun's StarOffice.
(full post)

It will be interested to see what really happens and the terms of this deal.

Google went on another talent raid. This time no chair throwing or death threats. Can you image Jeff Bezos getting violent? Hells no. He probably giggled a few times and gave the guy a bonus. Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos are like Brooklyn and the Upper East Side... beef jerky and a porterhouse steak. Anyway, Udi Manber, head of Amazon's A9 subsidiary, will become a vice president of engineering at Google.

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