Google Spreadsheet: A Disruptive Part Of A Saturation Attack on Microsoft
In all the Google Spreadsheet hype, two posts I read really summed up what I think is really going on.
Jennifer Rice of Mantra Brand Consulting points out that GS is a classic disruptive technology–a good enough product that doesn’t appear to threaten the leader, but serves a particular market that the leader has chosen to ignore (in this case, the 99% of people who DON’T use all of Excel’s functionality).
Meanwhile, Yaron Galai points out that Google’s strategy with Microsoft has been to employ the saturation missile attack. Most companies can fend of attacks from a single direction, just as most ships can fend off a single missile. But when you overwhelm point defense systems with a flood of missiles, some are bound to get through. More to the point, while Microsoft is fending off Google’s assaults on Office, it’s distracted from attaching Google’s franchise in advertising.
So interesting to hear all the opinions, here is mine:
I moved to SF 5 years ago from Mexico but I am originally from Spain (I apologies in advance for any English grammar mistake). As a SF resident for that long, I have a lot things to say but firstable I want to express that the work HATE sounds really immature to me, at least in a content like "describing a city.
I am agree with many things and I have a few notes to add:
1. Rent is sucks (I can not complain since I live in a rent control house in The Mission and I have a 11×15 room with a great loft for $410, situation that more people have, not just me).
2. Parking is terrible (but I don´t like cars and this city is one of the best cities for bikes I ever been in) so it doesn´t really affect me.
3. The homeless situation is terrible, SUPER AGREE. I am a photographer and I was denouncing this situation for a few years now. Even that, I think is a big problem in all the USA. I saw homeless people sleeping in the streets of Austin, New Orleans, Denver, NYC, Portland… I know in SF we have a lot of homeless people and I wish a home for all of them but it is not a problem just here. SF have more food for them than many other cities and the weather is less cold than places like Chicago or Detroit, so they come here to spend the winter.
I also don´t like:
4. that bikes can not cross the bridges and that bart doens´t run 24 hours… which is a pain in the ass if you go to the East Bay to spend a night.
But also I know hat those things will happen since is a lot of people trying to change the situation)
5. I don´t understand the point that you Chris mention about parades and protests stopping the traffic… I think we should actually TAKE THE STREETS more often!! and of course to high our voices and express the same feeling that you are expressing about capitalism.
No doubt that SF is changing and is doing it very fast. In The Mission (where I live) are more coffee shops than supermarkets. Valencia street is not a street anymore, it is an extended commercial window that takes place from 14th street to the 24th and it is going to "take" more.
The actual situation is also pushing away people who were living here for years and that make the city so special in trade of bringing in tech people who make thousands of dollars a month and can rent houses for 3 times more that the old people who were living there (and of course politicians will take that opportunity to make more money out of it).
*I don´t have any problem with tech people, I just wish that they were fair divisions (people who make 10000 a month can pay houses for $3000 but not people who made $1500).
But Chris, I have to tell you something:
I traveled in over 20 countries in Asia, Africa, Central and North America, Europe and the Caribbean (always staying in them for a little bit, I am not the kind of tourist that visit a place for two days) and I can tell you that I NEVER been in a place like San Francisco:
-SF teaches you to understand everyone choices, everyone feelings, everyone dreams.
-It is a city where you understand and respect that HUMANS are humans, without giving the importance to a gender anymore.
-You also understand how to be healthy, how to take car of your mind, your body, being gentle and honest, not forcing your self to a idealistic perfection.
-SF teaches you to be creative, to live without too much money just because you realize you don´t need as much.
-Gives you the opportunity to live with people from ALL OVER THE WORLD and to known their costumes without go out from your city.
So, as I said, I won´t use the word HATE. I think that every place has a good side and a bad side, it is up to you to be fully happy or not.
Capitalism is taking over all the world Chris, and the USA is the biggest exponent of it.