The Philippine Online Chronicles

If you use Gmail and have hundreds of thousands of emails stored on your account, then you have probably experienced some lag in the web app’s performance. Google admits that Gmail has become laggy and lethargic for many so-called power users (those who have almost maxed-out their allotted space). The company says, though, that they have already started fixing the problem and that users can expect a speed boost when using Gmail.

We go from Google to Microsoft now. It’s probably tough for the folks over at Redmond to stomach the fact that their employees use phones from one of their biggest rivals. It’s a reminder of how the company’s own efforts in the mobile space have failed miserably. Although there’s a new buzz around Microsoft Mobile's plans with the upcoming launch of Windows Phone 7 Series, the first actual phones are still months away. Currently, there are many iPhone users even inside Microsoft’s sprawling campus in Washington. There was even a report that Steve Ballmer once took an employee’s iPhone and pretended to stomp on it on stage during a meeting last year. Let’s hope Microsoft gets the launch of Windows Phone 7 right so their employees won’t have to look to competitors’ products for their needs.

More about Apple vs. Google this time, it was reported before that Google and Apple had an agreement not to poach each other’s employees. Well, it seems that agreement is over. RJ Pittman, a prominent product manager at Google, has left the company and is moving over to Apple. It is unclear what Pittman’s new position at Apple will be, but he had previously worked when Google partnered with Lala for Google OneBox Music Search, and Lala is now owned by none other than Apple. It will be interesting to see whether this move sparks more employee movement between the two tech giants.

Moving on to Android, Google’s Mobile Operating System seems more fragmented now than it ever has been. The problem could stem from the fact that plenty of Android phones sold on the market now run different versions of the OS out of the box.  For example, Motorola’s Droid which was launched in October last year runs version 2.0 or “Eclair” while the Backflip, also made by Motorola and which was only launched last week (in the US) runs the older version 1.5 or “Cupcake”. Although manufacturers like Motorola and HTC have said that they will roll out updates for their devices, there is still no definite timeframe as to when the updates will come out. What do you think should Google do about this?

Finally, a new study reveals that users are willing to put up with ads on the news sites they visit, as long as content remains free. The study also says that rather than paying for content, users would just look for alternative free news sources. I guess it’s safe to say that ads are here to stay.

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Image licensed under Wikicommons