Working on a Software Development project and stuck trying to nail down exactly what you are building with the resources you have?  Working with a client and trying to get them to pay for services, and keep getting “That’s too much money.” or “I’d like to get all that done, by December, but I only want to pay for one resource, not four.”.

This happens a lot in our world.  I’m not sure why.  It doesn’t seem to happen in other situations.  But what if it did!  And why does this happen in software development every day!  Check out this awesome video on Client Vendor Relationships.

Leo Laporte and Mike Arrington were talking about the Palm Pre on Twit.tv when Michael Arrington and Leo Laporte when at it.  Michael was asking Leo Laporte whether or not he actually paid for it, and Leo got extremely upset.  Anyway watch the video for yourself.  I warn you it’ gets a little rough.

Personally I know first hand that when you get your ethics questioned, you say things you might regret later.  However getting your ethics questioned is not fun, and really shouldn’t happen if you’ve proven yourself time and time again.  Leo is one of those people that has never given a good review of anything if he hasn’t meant it. 

He is one of my favourite tech personalities and a childhood hero like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dress Up! He got a free Palm Pre to try for 7 days, and will probably go buy a new one anyway.  Palm was smart and gave him one for a few days because they knew he might not be able to get one in time for his internet show.  That’s all.

What does Google think of Bing I wonder?  I started looking around and found this great picture of Bing running on a Dell at a Google office.  In all seriousness, I am hoping Google has a response to Bing shortly.  If they do, I expect another response from Microsoft quickly. This is how innovation happens.  This is how great products are built, and this is how we can finally go away from typing something into a text box, only to be presented with a bunch of advertisers and a billion lines of boring text that might lead to me an answer 60% of the time. 

Silverlight forced Flash into high gear and start fixing problems they have had for years.  Bing will force Google back into innovation action!  As we all know from the operating system wars, the browser wars, and countless more examples, Microsoft is in this one for the long haul.  People wrote off the XBOX, and it’s one of the most successful gaming platforms out there with a ridiculous amount of subscribers.  People wrote off the Zune, but have failed to realize that Zune HD will come, and keep coming, until it succeeds.  People wrote off Vista, but what Microsoft learned from Vista, they have improved in Windows 7. I truly believe success is not measured by how hard you can hit.  I believe it’s more accurately measured by how many times and how quickly you can actually get up after being knocked down. Microsoft is the champ at this.  I hope Google is ready for this storm.

The nice thing is at the end of the day, consumers always win.

Lookout Software Developers and Web Developers!  Here come the Bing advertisements!  Fresh from the television, check out the latest Microsoft Bing TV advertisement!  The question is will they work?  I kind of like it! 

The reality is commercials and web advertising will get people to check out the search engine.  However if the search engine doesn’t work well, or users have a bad experience, they will never come back.  It’s all about the usability of the search engine really.  Check out my article on MSDN to read my thoughts on Bing from a usability perspective.  You should also check out David Wesst’s article on Bing.

Remember a great product supported by great advertising and great developer tools will do extremely well in our new real time world of software evolution.  You need all three ingredients.  If you are missing any one of these elements, the product will not succeed. The verdict still hasn’t fully arrived on Bing.  I love it, but will the world?

As a software developer, I found this freaking ridiculously amazing.  I’ve been hearing about the motion controller from Microsoft for some time, but I hadn’t really thought it would use no controllers at all.  Hello Minority Report!

“Natal” will be able to track movements and sounds of multiple players at the same time, have built in facial recognition technology, and allow you to scan in objects to use in video games.

Anyway, the demo speaks for itself so you don’t need me to tell you it’s cool, watch it yourself!  The software development possibilities are pretty much endless with a technology like this.