Google's CEO said today the company is coming out with a free knock-off of PowerPoint. If you have no idea about the implications of this announcement, skip this post. I'm not going to explain it, you probably wouldn't care anyway, and you'll end up one day using the Google suite of desktop products without ever knowing there was once an alternative. When you turn 50 someone will tell you that you're stupid for using Google. You'll object, you'll be wrong, and the new guard will march over you.

Meanwhile, on today's news, Microsoft watchers everywhere got as mobilized and as vocal and visible, relatively speaking, as mass murderer experts on cable news the last two days. Everyone has a point of view. Everyone is an expert. Everyone knows what all this means. Maybe they do.

Here's what I know. Anyone who believes Microsoft is eternal doesn't know the history of technology corporations. With few exceptions, they live to die, no matter how big and beautiful they are, and not usually by natural causes. Most, figuratively speaking, either commit suicide or are murdered.

Do you recall, for example, the number one and only name in word processing long before Word? That would be Wang. They're gone. How about minicomputers? That would be Digital Equipment Corporation. They're gone. Cullinet, the leading provider of 4GL packaged applications? History. Data General, Prime Computer, Compaq, Lexitron, General Automation, Cambridge Technology Partners,. Data Printer, Centronics, GRid Computer, Diablo, Plexus, Corvus, Northstar? Gone. Lotus… swallowed and digested whole. Cabletron? Apollo? I won't live long enough to walk down this memory lane.

[It's not just high tech, either. Can you say Arthur Andersen, Howard Johnsons, Rexall Drug, Lechmere, Peck and Peck, Tandy, Radio Shack (gasping), Tower Records (what's a "record,"), just to name a few?] Big companies grow old and immune to new ideas. New ideas that change the model threaten their system. They react by giving their old system a bear hug (read: Vista). They hang on for dear life, and the opposite happens. They get clawed to death. Don't write me about the IBM exception, please. IBM is a leading cause of independent technology company premature extinction. For that I give them tremendous credit. Those who can, do, and those who can't buy it. IBM is unique in my opinion for understanding this, as they keeping inching away from pure high tech while cozying up to consulting. Still, they're alive and well and that's to their benefit… IBM is an exception. Microsoft won't be. Google won't be, either. IBM is Hepburn. Microsoft and Google are Anna Nicoles.

Most people think a big important tech company that's been around a long time is essentially invulnerable in any serious way. I, on the other hand, have seen serious, big, important tech companies with long histories catch cold and die virtually overnight from pneumonia. At one time when they were my client, Digital Equipment was hiring 100 people a day. Their VP of sales said they could sell a VAX in less time than it would take one to fall out of a 727 and hit the ground. Then DEC did it's digital imitation of Lockerbie.

This isn't about whether or not Microsoft deserves to expire. This is about whether or not any tech organization can sustain its youthful brilliance in combination with extraordinary growth and market dominance forever. History shows again and again that some smart kid — a pair of smarties in this instance – will come along and change everything. There are one or two teenagers right now in Hoboken, NJ., or Boise Idaho, or somewhere in India, who will figure out a way to pay us for looking at advertising and Google will be history. The point is, Microsoft isn't that force. Microsoft is going to send its CEO out to rattle cages while Microsoft's legal department suggests careful Justice Department reviews of Google acquisitions and while all that is going on, those one or two kids from Bumwater, Wisconsin, are hatching a new model. Nobody who is anybody today gets to live. Get it? That's the beauty and the tragedy of technology.

Cotton don't grow like it once did in the old south. Oil doesn't gush out of the ground in Texas like it used to. The software that defines the world isn't coming exclusively from the northwestern part of the United States. By 2025 if an independent, profitable Microsoft still exists, it will be but a shadow of its former self. If by 2050 Google is still around as a profitable, independent, industry-dominant entity, come find me. The drinks and the ghoulish laughs will be on me.

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No one likes to be called at home at night about a work-related issue. But if your job reasonably includes that sort of thing from time to time, and it involves dealing with the media… then it's best to be as nice as possible when the call comes in or this could happen to you.

In an effort to get some information the other night about the big BlackBerry blackout in North America that began around 8pm, CNBC finally reached someone from the public relations agency representing Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry. A less than warm reception to the intrusive call on the part of the PR rep got the agency's name and its agent's behavior some air time in this column called TechCheck by Jim Goldman:

Research in Motion did release a statement this morning to NBC News, saying "A service interruption occurred Tuesday night that affected BlackBerry in North America… That's a far cry from the reception CNBC got when we finally connected with a rep from the company's public relations firm Brodeur Partners last night as the outage drama was unfolding. She was annoyed that we had reached her at home, clearly not appreciating the magnitude of the meltdown.

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Most students are already familiar with using blogs on sites like MySpace to record thoughts, meet people, and keep in touch with their friends. But blogging is slowly making inroads into university classrooms – some even require you to keep and update a blog as part of course requirements. Not only are blogs useful for letting friends communicate and stay in touch, but in a classroom setting they are encouraging student-to-student learning, allow communication between a course instructor and their students, and generally make writing more exciting for learners at any level.

Case in point:

Take a second to check out this link which is a blog for the Wooster School community – notice that all of the current student bloggers are listed in the blogroll. Teachers are hoping that the eighth graders will learn to communicate on a higher level with one another through this medium that instantly publishes their ideas, giving them an immediate audience for what they wrote.

Here are a few quotes from eight graders taking the plunge into the blogosphere:

When I heard that we would be 'blogging,' I had no idea what it was. Once I learned about how we would be writing our own articles and opinions on the internet, I was very excited. I like when teachers give you freedom to express yourself.

Blogs show me how to really express myself when I'm talking about my personal feelings and also how to give proper instructions. It was like presenting to the audience directly. I had to have everything on point but still try to make everything sound good and fun.

In the past my family would ask me what I'd done at school, and I'd just give them short, vague answers. By reading my blog, my family was able to understand what I’d done that day and we could discuss it at the dinner table that night.

Impressive? I’d sure say so…

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