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What’s in Your Bag

Posted on June 19, 2007
Filed Under Interesting Stuff |

The Irregulars had two interesting discussion threads over the last few days discussing what we carry when we travel and what our software kit looks like. A few observations that proxy larger trends.

• We’re split PC-to-Mac users about 60/40, which is interesting for a bunch of enterprise guys/gals. This is not insignificant and somewhat connected to a bigger trend that I’ll highlight below.
• Lot’s of Blackberry users and a few soon-to-be-iPhone users, the common thread is that those of us (I’m a BB Pearl guy) look at these devices as a way to reduce bag clutter with fewer devices. As an iPod user I can see Apple’s logic on the iPhone, but for reasons I can’t quite articulate that is not a powerful motivator for me, in fact even if I had an iPhone I think I would still carry my iPod. Weird huh?
• Firefox dominates IE by a significant margin, which is opposite of the broader market.
• Everyone with Firefox has a nice bundle of extensions they rely on. I suspect they use FF primarily because there is a broad library of purpose specific extensions available.
• For blog editing everyone uses some offline editor, even if just a text editor.
• Insofar as applications that are used, the biggie was Microsoft Office (which I use, after dumping NeoOffice). But the other interesting thing is that even the most dedicated of MS Office users were using some Google App. What that tells me is that Google’s "death from below" strategy is working and they are eroding Microsoft’s position
• Web application use is standard among this group, in fact there were very few "on premise" apps beyond MS Office. The most common include Skype, Adium, Windows Live Writer, iTunes, NetNewsWire, and Quicken.
• Lastly, while finding the Mac/Windows split interesting, it’s entirely logical given that people are increasingly using web applications as opposed to installed applications. Microsoft’s platform advantage has eroded much faster than I would have expected at the hands of the web browser.

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  My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. I am the VP of Product Marketing for Get Satisfaction and I write about a range of topics that interest me, including public policy, technology, entrepreneurship, finance, and global issues.

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