Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Microsoft expands in the cloud. 

The Google brand was built off of free lunches. Nevertheless, contrary to conventional blogosphere wisdom, Google is NOT “eating Microsoft’s lunch” in the enterprise cloud.

Google Apps is, literally, a joke in the enterprise, as I reported first hand from the Enterprise Search Summit one year ago and reiterate with each and every not so shock and awe Googley move that responds to serious, proprietary, secure enterprise computing needs with sophmoric, entry-level, shared software devoid of serious functionality and mocking of enterprise-class security and privacy.

Google Sites is but the latest laughable attempt at a Googley consumerization of the enterprise. While geeks gone wild was the tech early adopter blogosphere embrace of a cutesy, template-driven free, Google online Web site service, I underscored how any enterprise foolish enough to use Google Sites, would end up getting what it paid for: NOTHING!

SEE: Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’?

Microsoft announces today:

the company will offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. This announcement marks a significant step for Microsoft toward expanding its software plus services strategy.

Geeks are NOT going wild, however, egging Microsoft on for a (food) fight mano a mano with Google solely in the cloud. Will a day ever come that software WILL solely be delivered in the cloud? Unlikley. Microsoft is laying a foundation for a rational, online-offline, complementary enterprise exploitation of software assets. 

The stand alone, free Google cloud is NOT enterprise friendly. The stark reality of Google Terms Of Service:

You agree that Google has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any Content and other communications maintained or transmitted by Google services. You acknowledge that Google may have set no fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through Google services or the amount of storage space used; however, we retain the right, at our sole discretion, to create limits at any time with or without notice.

Google reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, Google services (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Google shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of Google services.

The Microsoft BETA Terms Of Service acknowledge the offline reality of serious business: 

You are responsible for maintaining and backing up your data that you create, use and store with the service. You are responsible for ensuring that you maintain your primary means of business.

If a business relies on the free Google cloud to maintain its primary means of business, it risks being out of business!

MORE ON THE VERY RISKY GOOGLE “ENTERPRISE”:

There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise and
Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL 

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Poor CNET? The latest woe of the vintage online property: A staff writer ”reports” being jilted at a cross-country media altar by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, even while acknowledging the “absurdity of flying 2,500 miles to interview a guy who works about 40 miles from” her office.

Nevertheless, CNET Editor-In-Chief, newly bumped up Dan Farber, jumps on Elinor Mill’s personal bandwagon, even while acknowledging the CNET approved “dispatch” of a CNET writer to “Mickey Mouse” land, apparently with little more than naive dreams of Google headline glory for backup.

Farber likens Schmidt to Putin for ”stonewalling,” echoing Mill’s protestations that she was unexpectedly “stunted” by the Google CEO, despite ardently having ”always wanted to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt one-on-one.”

Mills admits she got her chance, and, incredulously, offers up a public play-by-play on how she blew it!

Contrary to the CNET double-team against Schmidt, the Google CEO “one-on-one” accorded the CNET staffer was not a fiasco because of what Farber suggests is Google arrogance. It is CNET’s Mills who dropped the ball on her shot at Googley glory by being unable to pose any in-depth, significant questions about the known purpose of the supposed CNET “exclusive”: A discussion of Google Health.

Mills claims she ”dove in with several probing questions about Google Health.” CNET’s version of “probing questions,” however, present as softball opportunites for Eric Schmidt to talk standard Google Health speak. What’s more, Mills neglected to pursue follow-up question opportunities to gain real, new, hard data and information.

The first (not so) hard hitting Google Health question Mills asked of Schmidt: “Was it difficult for Google to get health industry players like Aetna, Quest Diagnostics, and Walgreens onboard?”

Mills reports of Schmidt’s response:

“It took a while,” he said, adding that Google lined up health experts to be on an advisory health council and they are integrating their systems to work with Google’s GData. “It was OK. It wasn’t that hard.”

IT WAS OK. IT WASN’T THAT HARD are non-answers, not deserving of publication. Mills ought to have continued on: Why did it take a while? Were obstacles encountered? What objections were raised? Has any organization declined to collaborate? If yes, why?

Also, GDATA: What about it? How will the “integration” work? How will privacy and security be protected by Google? Mills ought to have really probed.

The CNET-Google problem is NOT that Eric Schmidt only had 12 minutes to only discuss Google Health with a CNET staffer. The Google-CNET problem is that Elinor Mills failed to take professional advantage of the opportunity she had to contribute to enhancing public knowledge about the real workings of Google’s Health initiative.

CEO Eric Schmidt himself alluded to Mill’s less than insightful queries:

I don’t think you have highlighted sufficiently the platform characteristic of this. Everyone is assuming it is personal health record…I think of it as a platform upon which many services can be built and it is through that platform that the real innovation occurs.

Here at Insider Chatter, I have indeed been investigating the platform wars that consumer-facing online health applications are engendering. For example, I scooped Microsoft’s Health Vault solicitation to Google to collaborate with the Microsoft platform!

SEE:  Health Vault: Hey, Google, Get With the Microsoft Medical Program! and Microsoft Seeks Healthy Relationship with Google: Health Vault INTERVIEW

Is Google open to Microsoft HealthVault’s openness though? Not likely. On the very day of Eric Schmidt’s keynote at HMSS in Florida, the Microsoft Health Vault team confirmed to me:  There’s been no formal conversations to-date between Google Health and Microsoft.

MORE:  Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’? and Microsoft Flexes Enterprise Muscle: What Google Apps Revolution? and Spot Runner Ad Agency: Google Sans $139 billion Search Engine? and Facebook: Why Sheryl Sandberg is a Perfect Googley Fit

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN 

Are VideoEgg’s ears ringing? Just days ago, VideoEggg rocked Manhattan’s Times Square with the message that IT’S THE ONLINE ENGAGEMENT METRIC, STUPID, at its sponsored affair designed to spur Madison Avenue agency interest in VideoEgg’s new pay for engagement performance ad offering.

Today, Microsoft declares–via three short on details PR paragraphs–a “new reporting standard” for digital campaign performance dubbed “engagement mapping.” Will VideoEgg feel one-upped? Unlikely, Microsoft signed on as the flagship VideoEgg “engagement” debut advertiser!

Engagement is expensive, though, as the VideoEgg “Engaement Debate” host, CMO Troy Young, reiterated at the Hard Rock Cafe last week, via a rolling overhead message. Microsoft ought to know! Redmond is paying “under” 50 cents per “view,” according to Universal McAnn, as cited by AdWeek via VideoEgg.

Talk about CPMs! How about “under” $500 for 1000 “views.” What exactly is a view, though? Engagement is not only expensive, it is ambiguous!

Advertisers pay on an “engagement” basis – that is when a user rolls over the ad and the advertiser’s full screen creative is displayed.

It doesn’t SOUND very engaging! How engaged are prolific Web multi-taskers, after all?

The allmighty Google click isn’t all it is cracked up to be either, though! SEE my VideoEgg report: MySpace To Google (Round 2): Text Clicks Do NOT Rule! VideoEgg Report

Bottom advertiser ROI line? Savvy, deep pocketed brand advetisers will continue to conduct their own, proprietary econometric modeling to ensure that every single penny they disperse on Web advertising–regardless of mechanism or venue–yields measurable contibution to sales of product, as CPG advertiser Bayer Healthcare underscored repeatedly at the VideoEgg conference.

Bottom brand advertising line for the Web’s front runner? Top tier marketers are not swayed by any media platform’s noble talk of “accountabiltiy,” including Google speak. The only accounting Bayer relies on, for example, is its own.

MORE: VideoEgg Rocks: Debuts AdFrames in Silicon Alley: Google Next?

ALSO:  MySpace On Google: Sorry, ‘NO Truth’ To $900 Million Rumors and Facebook Meltdown: Is Twitter Next? and FriendFeed: Got Google Millions? Who Needs Revenues! and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story

PLUS: Why Obsession is GOOD for Startups, and Microsoft

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN 

“The Microsoft HealthVault partner team is handling hundreds of projects representing every corner of the healthcare ecosystem.” Who says? Sean Nolan, chief architect.

I asked the HealthVault team last month: Is Microsoft bracing for a Google Health frontal assualt? NO! Was the resounding response! And rightly so, apparently.

It is no wonder that the Googley man who had visions of changing the entire U.S. healthcare system under the Google brand is long gone from Google: Adam Bosworth engaged in Barack Obama worthy style rhetoric, but like the Democratic presidential frontrunner, was short on concrete ”programs.”

“Google ventures into health records biz,” the Associated Press optimistically headlines today. What really is going on in Google’s Health world is decidedly less ambitious,  though. Over a short term period, and with a small number of users, it is testing an apparently rudimentary application allowing Google to directly import a few fields of patient data into its own seemingly rudimentary Google.com consumer medical data collection form, thanks to the cooperation of some adventuresome patients at the Cleveland Clinic.

Direct competitor Microsoft, on the other hand, is making decidely concrete progress in its HealthVault initiative. I asked Microsoft: Has Health Vault achieved a meaningful head start over Google? “This isn’t a race with Google, it’s about Microsoft delivering on its vision and working with partners,” was the cordial Microsoft response.

Moreover, Microsoft even welcomes Google as a partner! The HealthVault team told me last month:

Transforming healthcare is an incredibly complex challenge – one which no single organization can solve alone. As Microsoft tackles the challenge of merging healthcare with the internet, we are working with dozens of other innovative organizations. We are excited about Google and others joining this space and making their offerings Health Vault compatible.

Microsoft is now announcing concrete programs enabling all to “join this space,” via HealthVault compatible offerings: 

• Microsoft will make the complete HealthVault XML interface protocol specification public.
• With this information, developers will be able to reimplement the HealthVault service and run their own versions of the system.
• Microsoft will irrevocably promise that we will not make patent claims against you for implementing the specification, subject to the terms of the OSP.

What are the expectations of Microsoft HealthVault?:

Will others take us up on this promise? We hope so, we are working hard to help partners build HealthVault applications, and it just makes sense for others who want to offer consumer-controlled health records to start from an established, accepted starting point and leverage all that functionality. For those that take a different path, we will do our best to make sure that consumers can move data back and forth.

This is about putting consumers in control and making a real difference in healthcare. We believe strongly that we will all benefit as consumer-centric healthcare becomes a reality. Someday I’m sure we’ll be competing for market share with other players, but for the next few years anything that solidifies the space is great for everybody.

Will Google be open to Microsoft HealthVault’s openness? Unlikely.  

MORE: Microsoft Seeks Healthy Relationship with Google: Health Vault INTERVIEW and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story

ALSO: MySpace To Google (Round 2): Text Clicks Do NOT Rule! VideoEgg Report

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Users are not the only ones rooting for the success of Firefox 3, the “add-on” world is, including Me.dium.  

Me.dium means to “reveal the hidden world’ behind people’s browsers. Before the venture funded Colorado-based startup can successfully do so en masse, however, it must first successfully reveal what the meaning of Me.dium is, to a critical mass of people.

Socal browsing, co-browsing, virtual presence…is but some of the geek speak that has sprung up to add Web 2.0 flair to Me.dium’s fundamental product handle: Browser sidebar.

Is the typical person that browses the Internet plugged in to browser plug-ins? Not today. Me.dium’s financiers are nevertheless betting–to the tune of about $20 million–that they will be, sooner rather than later. Elliott Katzman, general Partner of Commonwealth Capital Ventures, has not only put his firm’s money behind Me.dium’s vision, he is investing even more, his time. Katzman joined the Me.dium board in conjunction with Commonwealth leading the $15 million Series B funding of Me.dium. Katzman travels from his Boston offices to the west coast monthly for the startup’s board meetings.

In announcing the Me.dium funding, Katzman underscored that Commonwealth “believes Me.dium is pioneering the next phase of social interaction on the Web.” I recently spoke with Elliott Katzman to gain insights into how Commonwealth evaluated the Me.dium investment opportunity and with Me.dium co-founder David Mandell for a first-hand take on how the venture’s “social surfing” tool aims to “lead an exciting new category.”

What is the Me.dium market opportunity? DEMO 07 positioned the startup as ”still searching for a business model.” Me.dium’s position could be more aptly characterized, though, as building towards a highly scalable, highly monetizable Internet platform.

Katzman shared with me how his own entrepreneurial experiences inform his anlaysis of the large potential for an interactive, people-fueled, Web-based transactions system. Katzman founded an online social networking application long before they became fashionable: Myteam.com. In contrast to the niche community site, however, Me.dium is targeting the entire Internet population.

Cofounder Mandell wants Me.dium to “change the way people interact online” by making the solo browsing experience more closely resemble how indiividuals rely on the actions of others to guide their navigation of the offline world. Just as people continuously react to what other people are doing as they make real time decisions in the phsyical world, Me.dium’s Web browsing community serves to guide Web surfing decisions.

Katzman envisions opt-in Internet surfing among friends will support a powerful commercial referral system and ecommerce lead generation tool. The vision is big and Commonwealth is confident that the Me.dium management team is up to the challenge. Venture capitalists famously advise to “bet the jockey, not the horse,” but founder strength is particularly crucial when the entrepreneurial goal is to create an entirely new market. Agility is key in being able to respond to technology and demand shifts, Katzman conveyed to me.

How IS the Me.dium team doing in conveying its message to the large Internet? Downloads of the Me.dium application are “quite good,” Mandell told me, declining to provide hard numbers, and “regular users are very happy,” he shared. At this juncture, however, “regular” Me.dium users are undoubtedly mainly early tech adopters, and not generally representative of the regular Internet base at large. For example, Elliott Katzman, himself, has a Me.dium profile and enjoys surfing with online friends!

It is of course still early in the Web’s social game: Me.dium and its backers are betting that slow and steady will win the Internet race.

MORE ON ME.DIUM: Got a Web 2.0 Startup? Microsoft Wants YOU!

PLUS: MySpace To Google: Learn How To Sell Advertising, OMMA Report and MySpace to Facebook: NO ‘Reach, Relevancy, Results’! OMMA Report and LinkedIn Preps Spy Network: Is YOUR Company Safe? and Henry Blodget Tech Ticker Puts Yahoo Finance at SEC Risk and Yahoo Refugees? Hillary Clinton To Restore American Dream for Silicon Valley

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Everyone and their blogging uncle is touting he/she knows what is REALLY going on with Yahoo! REALLY? Given that it is a rare writer–old media or new–with the guts to quote any Yahoo! directly, the gab fest is but an amalgam of posturing, innuendo and andectotal one upmanship “citing” anonymous “people familiar with the situation” (WSJ).

Last week, A VC affirmed HE knew exactly how Yahooi! execs feel about the Microsoft situation. Today, Boomtown assures SHE knows where Yahoos! stand on the situation. How can two, third party individuals outside of the Yahoo corporation be so certain that THEY have the handle on the truth about the thousands of Yahoos? Simple: Each claims to have spoken to a handful of Yahoo employees, off the record, of course.

KARA SWISHER: Of course, many Yahoo employees are going to be thrilled with this show of strength. This past week, many had told me the big problem with Yahoo was that its leadership did not inspire them enough with visionary goals of big wins.

“They are so plodding, it creates no excitement to work for anything great,” said one employee to me, expressing a common sentiment. “So you just work 9-to-5 and collect your salary.”

Well, sticking it to Microsoft should certainly crank the excitement factor up to the max.

Sorry, Kara, I experienced Yahoo! excitement first hand this week, for the company and even for Jerry Yang, and I will name MY source: Paul Cushman, Director of Sales, Mobile.

Speaking on the “Titans” panel at the OMMA Mobile conference in New York City Thursday, Cushman underscored his appreciation for the executive level Yahoo! Mobile vision and support, citing Yang’s CES keynote. In the field, a Yahoo! in attendance expressed her confidence to me in Yahoo! management to do the right thing for the company and its employees.

What’s more, Cushman shared his disdain for Google (search),  NOT Microsoft (hug), hailing, “The last thing I want on my mobile device is millions of Google results.”

(ALSO SEE: MOBILE Visions? Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL Open Up: NOT Google! OMMA Report)

Fred Wilson also cites “a lot” of people inside Yahoo to affrim that he knows what Yahoos really want to do. What DO Yahoos really want according to the “A VC”s playbook? To “run their services the way that the CEOs of Union Square Ventures run their businesses”!

How uplifting? Yahoo disdain is to be reborn as Wilson’s own Union Square Ventures love! NOT REALLY–SEE MY REBUTTAL: Is Union Square Ventures Changing Exit Strategies?

Moral of the Yahoo! blogging story: Beware sticky peanut butter tales.

ALSO: Yahoo: Beware Google AND Embrace Microsoft! and Microsoft’s Yahoo Bid a Winner: Google Running Scared! and Henry Blodget Tech Ticker Puts Yahoo Finance at SEC Risk

MORE: How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too and Fast Company Social Media Revolution NOT Off to the Races

UPDATE: Yahoo Refugees? Hillary Clinton To Restore American Dream for Silicon Valley

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN