Rain City Guide: Seattle companies get no love

Just back from a good part of a week spent on the Microsoft campus, discussing Exchange developments - far more exciting than the new gadgets being unveiled at CES in Vegas all week. Though it rained almost every single day, and even snowed the night before I arrived, the weather wasn't really that bad, and the sun showed up on Friday morning. Back here in the Bay Area, the weather's been beautiful - it almost feels like spring's here!

Galen Ward in a blog post on the Rain City Guide, a great Seattle-area resource:

I'm no Microsoft "fanboy", but have you ever noticed that when they release some half baked project with a promising future (Microsoft Unified Communications Products) they get a log of grief ("Microsoft's Phone Ambitions Face A Winding Road"), but when Google comes out with a half baked product with a promising future (Google's "Presentations"), the media thinks it's cool and they focus on the future potential ("Google Presentations... one more step in the right direction").

The media's love affair with Google is never-ending. (As a sidenote, just noticed Google's Gmail web-based email service is still in beta... the oldest messages in my Gmail account are from 2004! What's interesting - nobody really cares, or even notices any more.)

Apple and Steve Jobs seem to get the similar favored treatment. To Apple's credit, it makes some really cool products, backed by some clever marketing and a media-savvy Jobs. It's MacWorld time, and the euphoria seems to be building up. As Jobs prepares to take the stage at Moscone Center tomorrow, speculation is rife about a new 3G iPhone and a new ultra-portable MacBook.

It's also time to speculate about ActiveSync support (read previous post: "Apple Licenses Exchange ActiveSync for the iPhone?).