As someone who follows browser development pretty closely, a friend sent along this perfect summation of Google’s open source strategy a la Andriod and Chrome by Dan Lyons (formerly known as Fake Steve Jobs):

[Android is] the desktop Linux of mobile phones — a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. Or, to put it another way, Android was indeed created to help solve a problem, but it’s not a problem that customers have, it’s a problem that Google has. Same for Chrome, when you think about it. Google is all about solving the world’s most difficult problems — specifically, those problems that prevent Google from owning every last piece of the world.

I couldn’t ask for a more succinct, merciless quote about these two products. And from the linked FT article:

Disparagement of Android has touched on everything from an alleged lack of sophistication and stability in the software, to the fact that successful devices such as the iPhone and the BlackBerry are based on a different technology model. “The best experiences out there today are ‘vertical’ experiences, where the hardware and software come from the same company,” said Tom Conrad, chief technology officer of Pandora, whose internet music service is one of the most popular applications on the iPhone.

Critics asked why consumers would buy the phone when there was no “killer app” to set it apart, in the way Apple’s iTunes service helped to sell iPhones. “If I was a customer I would say ‘I get Google on my iPhone or my Nokia N95, why do I need this?’”

Microsoft released Silverlight 1.0 this week. Upon hearing the name Silverlight, did anyone else wonder: 1. Why Microsoft departed from its drab literal naming system? (such as, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition or Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista), and 2. Couldn’t they have come up with something better than Silverlight? Considering that, internally, Silverlight was referred to as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere I guess they did make large strides towards improvement.

gapingvoid highlighted Microsoft’s need for name changes:

Apple calls their new OS “Tiger”. Micorsoft calls their new OS “Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005”.

Man, already it’s beginning to bore me, and I don’t even know what it does yet.

Apple has the “Newton”. MS has “Microsoft Windows Tablet PC Edition.”

There ya go, boring me again.

More on why the Silverlight name is a good thing.