Android? Car mode? Speakerphone auto-on? Bluetooth volume fail? Micro-USB design-flaw!

[Disclaimer: this information is provided 'as is' without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk]

Are you -that is, your phone- suffering from the following symptoms?

• weeks or even months ago, "car mode" started to seemingly randomly get enabled
• ever since, that seemed to happen more often
• at some point, when you made or received a call, the speakerphone would sometimes be automatically turned on
• since a while, when you make or receive a call, the speakerphone is always automatically turned on
• since then, when connected via Bluetooth to a speakerset, you can change the volume on your phone up or down but that won't have any effect
• it drives you crazy

Free Chatter: all your data are belong to us?

A pun on an Internet meme that I first saw as a hack to World of Warcraft, this is the first thing that crossed my mind when I read the Terms of Service (TOS) of the now free Chatter, released January 31st

First, I briefly used Chatter and it looks like an old version of Yammer. Access via one single email domain, and People, Groups, Files: been there done that. Maybe I should play around a bit more but I'm being a bit careful - after reading this post, you'll understand why

I have a few posts on Chatter, but suffices to say the price per user was aimed at $50 a month before and during development, and lowered to $15 at introduction. A little while later, Chatter became free for existing salesforce.com users, and now it's free for everyone in the world.
Clever move, desperate move, anything in between? I can only guesstimate the motive(s)

A few quotes from the TOS:

"Your Data" means all electronic data or information submitted by You to the Chatter.com Service.

That doesn't leave out anything, agreed? ALL you submit, is referred to by "Your Data"

Finally a great E20 tool - and people play the social card!

(I'm only kidding about "great E20 tool" there of course)
A double post by Dennis Howlett on Tibco's Tibbr and a few others by a few others led me to write this one - not many people get it, it seems

Enterprise 2.0 is raised from its grave on the one side, Social Business is summoned from the other, but, like Dennis says "that misses the more fundamental point"
Jacob Morgan seemed shocked to hear that one panelist bought tibbr without

thinking about the strategic elements and adoption around the platform

Enterprise microblogging: measuring true value "is relative"

Yammer announced a new feature yesterday: Leaderboards

Leaderboards gives users access to statistics about their network activity. The Leaderboards include:

• Most Liked Members: Top 10 users whose messages have received the most ‘Likes’
• Most Replied to Members: Top 10 users whose messages have received the most replies
• Members with the Most Posts: Top 10 users with the most public messages posted
• Most Replied to Threads: Top 10 threads with the most replies
• Threads with the Most Participants: Top ten threads with the most participants

I applaud the introduction of stats as they give insight in general behaviour and performance of enterprise microblogging users - but I think Yammer is missing an opportunity to add real value here

How Chatter made Marc humble

Now I know I've had my fair share of daring blog post titles so far, but this one must definitely be the most daring one

Today TechCrunch announced the public release of Chatter, pointing to prnewswire.com who released the intial story. Let me briefly requote its functionality as stated by TC:

Similar to Facebook, employees can create business profiles with professional information like personal contact data, area of expertise, and work history
(...)
With Chatter, all status updates from a customer’s Sales Cloud, Service Cloud or custom Force.com application are posted to the feed

There. Impressive? I don't think so, nor does Salesforce.com itself. Let me take you through 4 stories on TechCrunch to see Marc Benioff's enthusiasm start in exuberant euphoria and end in modest humility

IT utility and Cloud. And why Salesforce.com is stuck

IT utility is a widespread misconception. Whenever we name utility, we think of our own utility: gas, water and electricity
We cement those into the walls, floors and ceilings of our house, and feel perfectly happy about that. Why?

Because they're boringly static products. Water nor gas nor electricity have changed in the last 50 years nor are they going to change in the coming 50 years. Redefining the meaning of static. And boring.
But, we don't have TV's, ovens or microwaves coming out of the wall. Nor phones, PC's, lamps, etcetera. Only the stuff that feeds them.

Now, over to IT utility. The more boring the IT, the better you can "Cloud It Out". Infra comes to mind,