Lyceum Roundtable: Podcast on Software Development & MSFT+YHOO

About 2 weeks ago I did this podcast with my friend and colleague Syd Williams, who is President of Lyceum Associates, on the topics of Microsoft/Yahoo!, the move to cloud computing and thin clients and overall market shifts in software and the Internet.

Duration: 19 minutes (It takes a few moments to load)

[1] While everyone seems to focus on advertising as the primary catalyst behind Microsoft's decision to bid for Yahoo, to what extent does software development play a role? Is there a Trojan horse strategy at work here? Could Microsoft, in fact, use Yahoo to defend its core proprietary model?

[2] In the past Greg has discussed and written about market shifts favoring thin clients? With all the talk now about cloud computing, does he see this accelerating?

[3] What could we expect of today's different players? How might positions shift?

Bravo Microsoft

So I've spent a bit of time pouring over Microsoft's Interoperability announcement and I have to say I am impressed. It really looks like they're starting to get it, and I agree with them that it will be good for the industry, and it will also be good for Microsoft.

Here are a few excerpts that will be of particular interest to Open Source folks:

• Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.
  
• Expanding industry outreach and dialogue. An ongoing dialogue with customers, developers and open source communities will be created through an online Interoperability Forum. In addition, a Document Interoperability Initiative will be launched to address data exchange between widely deployed formats.