Summary: AstroTurfing group "Consumer Watchdog" is at it again and Schmidt's departures are recalled
Edelman-hosted AstroTurfer, which seems to be bankrolled by Google rivals (Microsoft maybe), has been constantly attacking Google and complainingabout the company to federal personas. Now they are getting politicians to daemonise and give trouble to Google and even Richard Stallman fell for it. This is concerning because the AstroTurfer stooped as low as comparing Eric Schmidt from Google to a paedophile. Schmidt stepped down recently (only from CEO position), but let us not forget the role sometimes played by complaints. For example, Ellison's friendship with Steve Jobs [1, 2, 3] may be similar to that Steve Jobs has with Schmidt. Yes, Schmidt is also a friend of Steve Jobs. They were famously photographed in a coffee shop and Schmidt was inside Apple at one point, then complaints were raised about it.
Just as
a very quick reminder from the news, "[b]efore Google, he [Schmidt] was CEO of Novell and, prior to that, chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems Inc." For
further background consider the following new article:
Schmidt, once brought in as the “adult supervision” in the company, was a veteran of Sun (now owned by Oracle) and Novell, and helped keep the company focused on staying a step ahead of Microsoft. He was also a friend of Steve Jobs and a member of Apple’s board, until Google’s efforts in the Android operating system created conflict with Apple’s iPhone.
His past role at Novell was also mentioned this month in articles including [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11]. Novell's relationship with Google still exists (despite GroupWise defections) and here is
a news article covering Google Wave and Novell's Vibe. It says: "Launching sometime mid-2010, the Novell Pulse is owed as a ‘real-time communication platform for the enterprise’. So with this new product sharing of information, documents, and conversations can be a lot easier along with an increase in productivity and innovation.
"Its integration with Google Wave is for sure one thing which will fetch it most attention. Novell Pulse will perhaps be the first product ever to make use of Google Wave federation. Hence it’s code and features would be hosted by Novell and not on Google’s servers."
Vibe (formerly Pulse) is one of those hyped-up 'cloud' ideas, which are begging for security problems -- a subject which
Novell folks got contacted for comments on. If Novell is trying to outgoogle Google using some Fog Computing ideas (that even Google gave up on), then it says a lot about its future, or lack thereof.
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