Aug 29, 2018 | Adobe, Apple, Azure, Box, business, Cortana, Google, home assistants, IE, Microsoft, Office, Office 365, OneDrive, Outlook, Skype, Surface, web_services
Microsoft does not have an ecosystem for consumers or small businesses in 2018. There is very little synergy between Microsoft products and almost nothing locks us into Microsoft products when we move from one category to another. It makes old-timers sad to think of...
Aug 27, 2018 | Android, Apple, Chrome, Echo, Google, Google Home, home assistants
Google is an advertising company. Its incentives are all tied to maximizing engagement with places where you will see ads served up by Google’s ad network. But that has more depth than you realize, driven by Google’s desire to have those ads be more effective and...
Aug 19, 2018 | Amazon, Apple, business, Echo, Google, Google Home, home assistants, web_services
Amazon seeks to be the middleman in every financial transaction on the planet. Its incentives are all tied to making customers happy in every context where Amazon can take a small fee as money moves from one place to another. Since the beginning, Amazon’s mission...
Aug 16, 2018 | Apple, Google, iPad, phone
Apple is a company that sells premium smartphones with very high profit margins. Its incentives are all tied to profits from selling iPhones. The other products, the iPads and Macs and the rest, are all swell businesses that generate lovely profits. They help reward...
Aug 13, 2018 | Amazon, Android, Apple, Echo, Google, Google Home, home assistants, Microsoft, phone
Five giant technology companies have set up walled gardens full of shiny devices and enticing services. All of us live in their gardens. We’re not completely locked in. We move from one walled garden to another, but each company hopes to keep you within its garden by...
Jul 15, 2018 | Android, Chrome, Cortana, Google, Microsoft, Office, Office 365, Office tips, OneNote, Outlook, Windows10
Microsoft has quietly improved the speech recognition features in Windows 10 and in the Office programs. They’re still not great but you might want to give them a try if you haven’t talked to your computer in a while. One fundamental truth has not changed: If...
