Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Microsoft is acquring Parlano, aimed at “strengthening its unified communications portfolio with leading enterprise group chat provider” for a new feature of Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator.

Meanwhile, at LinuxWorld three weeks ago, Projty unleashed its OpenProj free, open source Microsoft Office Project “complete replacement.”

Who needs Microsoft Office Word, Excel, (soon) PowerPoint? Google Apps wants to know! BUT where is Google on the Projects front? Projity to the rescue, BIG TIME.

How is OpenProj being received? I spoke with Marc O’Brien, Projity co-founder and CEO, to find out.

O’Brien told me 28 million Microsoft customers are “impacted” by the insertion of OpenProj into the open source ecosystem:

Since over 28 million users have Microsoft Project installed on their computers, OpenProj offers another opportunity for project manageers and anyone trying to manage any type of project. Instead of a $1000 license fee for Microsoft project, Projity custoemrs can download OpenProj for free and use it anytime they want from their machine.

O’Brien projects Projity will capture 7-11 million users for OpenProj all told:

Microsoft has noted that 7% of all Office desktops run Project. Project is part of the Office suite.  There are over 100 million users of OpenOffice alone (a stat from Johanthan Schwartz,  Sun CEO). In just the OpenOffice community that gives a 7 million user count. However, we see an  enormous opportunity in the general market so are anticipating  between  7-11 million users.

Is it doable? Since launching at LinuxWorld, OpenProj has been downloaded more than 50,000 times, O’Brien told me; He expects to hit the 100,000 mark in September.

OpenProj downloads are good, very good, but Projity ’s business model is dependent upon an “upsell from the free, open source dessktop solution” to its for-fee, Web-based, Project-ON-Demand SaaS product.

The “small monthly fee” for Project-ON-Demand ranges from $7.99 to $19.99. The pitch:

Extend “the project” with our unique architecture: External partners and customers can now work together on projects by simply logging into their browsers. Project-ON-Demand can also be integrated with Salesforce.com. When integrated with Salesforce.com, project teams can complete their tasks either within Project-ON-Demand or Salesforce.com. In both instances there is a simple interface for updating tasks. Projity’s Gantt Chart is revolutionary for a browser: users graphically extend durations, establish links between tasks and even link tasks between different projects. Project-ON-Demand also contains Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS & RBS Charts, Earned Value costing, Multi-Project Portfolio management, and Advanced Multi-Project Reporting. If you have existing Project files you can open them in Project-ON-Demand and continue working.

OpenProj is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. O’Brien happily told me OpenProj is “taking a direct hit on Microsoft Office Project” because “the majority of all downloads have been on Windows machines.”

O’Brien will be evangelizing more “direct hits” at Microsoft next week at the Office 2.0 Conference.

I predicted yesterday: Office 2.0 Enterprise Showdown: Zoho vs. Google Apps vs. Microsoft

Add OpenProj and Project-ON-Demand to the disruptive SaaS mix, big time.

ALSO: Lending Club $108 billion Market Opp ex Facebook: Goodbye Banks! EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

PLUS: CNN Declares Google Dependence, BUT Reuters Independence

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Who says HULU is NOT a name worthy of an Internet venture? Michael Arrington can’t resist “clowning around” over the NBC Universal and News Corp. JV NewCo turned ClownCo turned Hulu online video YouTube “killer”:

Hulu means “butt” in both Indonesian and Malay. But that’s nothing compared to Swahili, which 80 million or so people speak in sub-Saharan Africa. In Swahili, Hulu means, among other things, both “cease” and “desist.”

BUT(T) in Sweden, HULU stands for Hyper Urban Level User and is the name powering ”Internet everywhere” ambitions: A design manufacturer of “WiMAX mass-market subscriber units.” 

hulu.se boasts that the “genius” of its strategy is that its products are “interoperable”: Undoubedtly NOT interoperable with hulu.com, however.

ALSO: CNN Declares Google Dependence, BUT Reuters Independence

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Thank you Robert Scoble. Your Facebook friendship lessons video, made especially in my honor and also in Steve Rubel’s honor, reconfirmed what I have been alerting Facebookers to since the day Mark Zuckerberg graced a San Francisco stage in his flip-flops to bestow F8 upon the world: Facebook is SCARIER than Google!

Why? Because Facebook stalks each and every Facebooker, with permission!

“To stalk”: To follow or observe a person persistently, to track (American Heritage Dictionary).

Dave Morin, who I have dubbed “the Matt Cutts of Facebook,” shares with the world today how Facebook does the stalking, under a dubious guise of assessing “engagement.”

After enjoying Scoble’s video entertainment yesterday, I underscored how Zuckerbeg’s Facebook knows, tracks and records every single time Robert messages a friend, or sends a fan a video, or looks at an enemy’s wall, or goes to the same event as a co-worker, or uses the same application as his Silicon Valley neighbor, or participates in a friend’s group…in sum, Zuckerberg knows more about Robert and his Facebook friends-fans-enemies than Robert and the Scobleizer 4900 know about themselves.

And, Robert is fine with that. In fact, Robert wants Zuckerberg and company to know, track, archive and manipulate even more, even more intimately, ABOUT US ALL, as he shared with the world following a luncheon with the aforementioned Morin of Facebook SEE: Robert Scoble Checks Into Facebook Hotel: TechMeme, Mahalo Get Rooms Too

Morin doesn’t disappoint today, outlining exactly how Facebook is ALL KNOWING. ALL THE TIME about what each and every Facebooker is doing at each and every F8 App.

Zuckerberg & company track and record each and every time users:

Look at a canvas page,
Click on a link in FBML
Submit a Mock-Ajax Form,
Click-to-Play Flash.

Is Zuckerberg really stalking the tens of millions of friends Facebook has accumulated to simply make sure they are happily “engaged” with the Facebook “social utillity”? NO!

Zuckerberg and company’s multi-billion dollar IPO ambitions are dependent upon 1) retaining each and every Facebooker within the confines of Facebook’s walled garden as long as humanly possible AND 2) maximizing Facebooker monetization by serving highly behaviorally targeted ads to each and every ”trusted” friend.

In WSJ Facebook Scoop? NO: Behavioral Ad Targeting is OLD Zuckerberg News I report exactly how Facebook stalks and targets its users:

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you Facebook. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they’re more likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a similar one in your town.

WHAT’S MORE, FACEBOOK IS STALKING NON-FACEBOOKERS AS WELL, AS I EXPOSE IN: Zuckerberg Message: Facebook Resistance Futile, Billions of Stubborn Email Accounts Targeted

Zuckerberg and company are proving themselves to be as shrewd as Google, enveloping their Internet domination plans and privacy quagmire in crowd pleasing, and “engaging” Facebook speak.

PLUS: Can Facebook, MySpace, YouTube Escape Junk CPM Ad Purgatory?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

With a billion dollar valuation, NewCo will have no co problem in unveiling its official name when it chooses to do so, I wrote earlier this month.

AND, that time is now: NBC Universal and News Corp. proudly christen their online video joint venture YouTube ‘killer’: HULU.

The newly named destination site LOOKS pretty (see below). But the homepage is but a tease for a tease: “Starting today, interested users can submit their email address to be included in an invite list for the private beta,” so says Hulu.com.

Why HULU?:

Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premier content when, where and how you want it.

Want it? Take your chances:

The Hulu private beta will be available in October. In the interest of delivering a great customer experience and making sure that we can address any feedback that comes along the way, we’re going to start small and grow iteratively in terms of the volumes of people that we invite to participate in the beta.

Start small? That’s NO WAY for a billion dollar YouTube ‘killer’ to operate!

MORE: Video Valuations: YouTube Billions Rule!

ALSO: Can Facebook, MySpace, YouTube Escape Junk CPM Ad Purgatory? and Scoble is Right on Facebook: Zuckerberg Stalks All Your Friends

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Zoho plows ahead with its incremental, always in the news, product enhancement announcement strategy: An integrated start page.

Office 2.0 Enterprise Showdown? In one corner Zoho, the (paid and unpaid) blogosphere underdog favorite AND in the other corner, consumer heavyweight Google PLUS referee Microsoft.

The Office 2.0 Conference stage is set for next week AND both Microsoft contendors are TEASING BIG NEWS.

Zoho has made no secret of its enterprise intentions and Raju Vegesna confirmed them to me last week during my chat with him about Why Google Apps Competitor Zoho is Powered by Google Gears Offline

Contrary to conventional blogosphere wisdom about supposed big, bad Microsoft Office bloat, Vegesna expressed high esteem for the flagship Microsoft product, calling Office the “gold standard” of productivity applications.

Zoho is actually impressed with the breadth of functionailty offered by Microsoft Office and aims to emulate the Microsoft full-featured enterprise strategy by continually addding to and enhancing the functionality of its own prodcutivity applications with the goal of providing an enterprise caliber office suite. Vegesna told me Microsoft Office “sets the bar” for office apps.

Has Zoho met that bar?

Will Zoho announce a “Zoho for the Enterprise” at next week’s Office 2.0 Conference which it is sponsoring? All signals indicate YES.

Fellow Office 2.0 Conference sponsor, and direct Zoho competitor, Google, has been making some Office Apps noise of its own, even while leaving all the Google Gears fun for Zoho.

While Zoho enjoys an omnipresent blogosphere “sponsorship”, Google is running a “Switch to Google Apps” blogosphere banner campaign.

That coy Google! “Switch” from which Office application, pray tell. Could Google be hinting at the “gold standard” of Office apps offered by the company Googler in Chief Eric Schmidt insists he is NOT competing against, Microsoft? 

Google has oddly been even more coy about its Google Pack integration of Sun’s StarOffice which favors a competing office productivity suite over its own Apps.

WHY is Google so StarOffice-Google Apps-Google Gears shy? I have been asking here at Insider Chatter, SEE Google Office Ignores Sun StarOffice: Microsoft Killer Still MIA 

AND I asked Google directly:

Zoho is a direct competitor of Google Apps. Does Google Apps intend to use Google Gears for its offline component, as Zoho is doing?

If Google Apps intends to use Google Gears, 1) why has it not done so to date, and 2) What is the Google Apps’s reaction to competitor Zoho being first to announce the use of Google Gears, not Google Apps.

If Google Apps does not intend to use Google Gears, 1) why not, and 2) will Google Apps use a non-Google Gears solution to build an offline component?

When will Google Apps start to have offline functionality, as Google Apps competitor Zoho already does, via the use of Google Gears.

Google repsonded to me with the following re Google Gears and Google Apps:

We made Google Gears (a free, fully open source technology) available to anyone as part of our longer term vision for the web browser to be the ideal platform for deploying all types of applications.  We’re excited to see developers start to apply this technology in innovative and interesting ways.

We’re working on enabling various Google applications with Gears but we don’t have specific timelines to share.

Will the time be right next week at the Office 2.0 Conference?

Google had announced a “PowerPoint” addition to Google Apps by the end of the summer, an announcement of a Google Gears enabled one during Labor Day week would fulfill that promise.

Zoho’s bold New Year’s predictions last January:

We believe 2007 will be the year of the enterprise Web where AJAX applications will play a crucial role in the enterprise space. Web 2.0 will help enterprises drastically reduce their IT spending and we believe this will bring new opportunities for Zoho in enterprises.

Sounds very Googley indeed.

As we are headed into Q4 2007, however, if Zoho intends to fulfill its own 2007 enterprise predictions, time is of the essence: The Office 2.0 Conference next week may indeed be perfect timing for a “Zoho For the Enterprise” official announcement.

Fasten your seat belts: It’s going to be a wild, wild, Web office ride!

ALSO READ: Microsoft Works 9 Frenzy Overblown: What ‘Free, Ad Supported’ Really Means and Google Apps Packs It Up: StarOffice On Microsoft Desktop Rules and Hey Google: When Can Matt Cutts Ditch Microsoft PowerPoint?

PLUS: OpenProj Unleashed: Projity SaaS Microsoft Office Project ‘Direct Hit’

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Can social networks be at once attractive environments for consumers seeking self expression AND safe marketing havens for high CPM brand advertisers? That is the multi-billion dollar Facebook, MySpace and YouTube question.

It is telling that Google sought to assure the non-paying users of its free YouTube video hosting service that its impending in-video ads would NOT interfere with their “right” to no-fee required, unfettered video enjoyment, with the spin that YouTubers control YouTube advertising!

YouTube, Facebook and MySpace have boxed themselves into a “users are in control” at their no-fee, free for all user generated content sites, big, bad dilemna: How can the coddled non-paying users be weaned off of no-advertising-here value propositions in favor of real world ad-supported service models.

YouTube kings Chad & Steve famously touted marketers would NOT be allowed to “mess up” YouTube, even after Google acquire the video sharing site! By conditioning non-paying YouTubers into believing they are entitled to both free services and an ad-free enviornment, Google is hard pressed now to go full steam ahead with lucrative monetization strategies.

What about wild, wild MySpace? Everyone is Tom’s friend AND anything goes: That is why brand advertisers are “scared to death,” as I heard HP’s interactive ad strategist, Mary Bermel discuss at an IAB event last year.

Bermel underscored her reluctance to put money into advertising at MySpace. HP is all about selling product and Bermel cited research indicating that “people involved in social networking tend not to trust products advertised in the social network.” Moreover, people interested in HP products visit the HP site directly or visit review sites, Bermel said.

Bermel mused “Why does HP have to ‘be there’.”

Why indeed? John Trimble, SVP Branded Sales, FOX Interactive Media, countered that MySpace is where the “sizzle” is and sought to put the “best” MySpace face forward, a sanitized one.

Trimble offered that MySpace conveniently offers “protected areas” within MySpace to provide marketers with a “trusted environment.” Trimble cited the MySpace homepage and brand sponsored sections saying there are areas in the site that “are not fully user generated.”

I asked Trimble how his “protected area” brand sales pitch jibes with MySpace’s everyone is Tom’s friend positioning.

After all, if the MySpace rasion d’etre is to promote the unfettered creation of user-generated content, wouldn’t advertisers be missing out on the real MySpace experience if advertising against “non MySpace” content. Moreover, do MySpace friends even visit the “non” MySpace protected areas in MySpace?

Trimble simply reiterated his brand-safe sales pitch in response.

What about Facebook? The self-described “trusted friends” enviornment believes it offers a trusted platform for high quality brand advertisers by definition. Marketers are not in universal social graph agreement, however.

Facebook learned the big lesson of bad adjacency when Vodafone, Virgin Media and other high profile, high quality marketers recentnly pulled their ads from the Zuckerberg social graph to “protect” their brands from appearing on Facebook pages containing content inconsistent with the marketers “values and identity.”

Virgin Media: “We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect out brand.” 

So, CAN Facebook, MySpace, YouTube “protect” high-paying brands and thereby escape Junk CPM ad purgatory? NOT EASILY.

ALSO: Hey Facebook! Free Robert Scoble: Unlock Your 5000 Friend Quota AND Scoble is Right on Facebook: Zuckerberg Stalks All Your Friends

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN