Microsoft Gadgets, Start.com and Innovation: "
A lot of
the comments in the initial post on the Microsoft Gadgets blog
are complaints that the Microsoft is copying ideas from Apple's
dashboard. First of all, people should give credit where it is
due and acknowledge that Konfabulator is the real pioneer
when it comes to desktop widgets. More importantly, the core ideas
in Microsoft Gadgets were pioneered by Microsoft not Apple or
Konfabulator.
From the post
A Brief History of Windows Sidebar by Sean Alexander
Microsoft 'Sideshow*' Research Project (2000-2001)
While work started prior, in September
2001, a team of Microsoft researchers published
a paper entitled, 'Sideshow: Providing peripheral awareness of
important information' including findings of their
project.
...
The research paper provides screenshots that bear a striking
resemblance to the Windows Sidebar. The paper is a good read for
anyone thinking about Gadget development. For folks who have
visited Microsoft campuses, you may recall the posters in elevator
hallways and Sidebar running on many employees desktops.
Technically one of the first teams to implement this
concept
*Internal code-name, not
directly related to the official, âWindows SideShowâ¢â
auxiliary display feature in Windows
Vista.
>
Microsoft âLonghornâ Alpha
Release (2003)
In 2003, Microsoft unveiled a new
feature called, 'Sidebar' at the Microsoft Professional
Developerâs Conference. This feature took the best concepts from
Microsoft Research and applied them to a new platform code-named,
'Avalon', now formally known as Windows Presentation
Foundation...
Microsoft Windows Vista PDC Release (2005)
While removed from public eye during the
Longhorn plan change in 2004, a small team was formed to continue
to incubate Windows Sidebar as a concept, dating back to its roots
in 2000/2001 as a research exercise. Now Windows Sidebar will be a
feature of Windows Vista. Feedback from customers and hardware
industry dynamics are being taken into account, particularly adding
support for DHTML-based Gadgets to support a broader range of
developer and designer, enhanced security infrastructure, and
better support for Widescreen (16:10, 16:9) displays. Additionally
a new feature in Windows Sidebar is support for hosting of Web
Gadgets which can be hosted on sites such as Start.com or run
locally. Gadgets that run on the Windows desktop will also be
available for Windows XP customers â more details to be shared
here in the future.
So the desktop version of
'Microsoft Gadgets' is the shipping version of Microsoft Research's
'Sideshow' project. Since the research paper was published a number
of parties have shipped products inspired by that research
including
MSN Dashboard, Google
Desktop and Desktop
Sidebar but this doesn't change the fact that the Microsoft is
the pioneer in this space.
From the post
Gadgets and Start.com by Sanaz Ahari
Start.com was initially
released on February 2005, on start.com/1 â since then weâve been
innovating regularly (start.com/2,
start.com/3, start.com and start.com/pdc) working towards
accomplishing our goals:
-
To bring the webâs content to users through:
-
Rich DHTML components (Gadgets)
-
RSS and behaviors associated with RSS
-
High customizability and personalization
-
To enable developers to extend their start experience by
building their own Gadgets
Yesterday marked a humble yet significant milestone for us
â we opened our 'Atlas' framework enabling developers to extend
their start.com experience. You can read more it here: http://start.com/developer. The
key differentiators about our Gadgets are:
-
Most web applications were designed as closed systems
rather than as a web platform. For example, most customizable
'aggregator' web-sites consume feeds and provide a fair amount of
layout customization. However, the systems were not extensible by
developers. With start.com, the experience is now an integrated and
extensible application platform.
-
We will be enriching the gadgets experience even further,
enabling these gadgets to seamlessly work on Windows
Sidebar
The Start.com stuff is really
cool. Currently with traditional portal sites like MyMSN or MyYahoo, I can customize my data sources
by subscribing to RSS feeds but not how they look. Instead all my
RSS feeds always look like a list of headlines. These portal sites
usually use different widgets for display richer data like stock
quotes or weather reports but there is no way for me to subscribe
to a stock quote or weather report feed and have it look the same
as the one provided by the site. Start.com fundamentally
changes this model by turning it on its head. I can create a custom
RSS feed and specify how it should render in Start.com using JavaScript which
basically makes it a Start.com
gadget, no different from the default ones provided by the
site.
From my perspective, we're
shipping really innovative stuff but because of branding that has
attempted to cash in on the 'widgets' hype, we end up looking like
followers and copycats.
Marketing sucks.
"
(Via Dare Obasanjo
aka Carnage4Life.)
Posted for historic annotation purposes (re. Widgets as Microsoft
didn't copy Apple here at all; Apple just packaged this better at
the expense of Konfabulator as already noted above). And yes,
Marketing sucks big time!!