Sunday, July 27, 2008

Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTimes.com

A stark reality check

“Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

Children are clearly spending more time on the Internet. In a study of 2,032 representative 8- to 18-year-olds, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half used the Internet on a typical day in 2004, up from just under a quarter in 1999. The average time these children spent online on a typical day rose to one hour and 41 minutes in 2004, from 46 minutes in 1999.

Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTimes.com

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Book Review - 'Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,' by Sarah Lacy - Review - NYTimes.com

Still worth a skim, imho -- or maybe just the full book review 

This disjointed grab bag of gossip has its elucidating moments, but as the definitive tale of the rise of Web 2.0, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” serves as a reminder that the latter-day equivalent of Tracy Kidder’s 1981 book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” the gold standard for technology nonfiction, has yet to be written.

Book Review - 'Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,' by Sarah Lacy - Review - NYTimes.com

Friday, July 25, 2008

Ozzie foreshadows ‘Zurich,’ Microsoft’s elastic cloud | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Hmm...

Ozzie told FAM attendees that Microsoft is working on a set of platforms and tools for the cloud transition. “We want to make a programming model leveragable on premise and in the cloud,” Ozzie said.

He noted that “Amazon has done a terrific job” at delivering a hosted solution for developers. “We’ve learned a lot from it.”

Ozzie declined to provide FAM attendees with a delivery date for Zurich, but said “over the course of fiscal ‘09 (which ends on June 30, 2009), you will see the entire strategy rounded out.”

Ozzie foreshadows ‘Zurich,’ Microsoft’s elastic cloud | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Generation Text: Emailing on the Go Sends Some Users Into Harm's Way - WSJ.com

Evolution at work?...

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, several high-profile accidents may have had a role in prompting states such as New Jersey and Washington to outlaw texting while driving. Among the accidents the group cited: a cyclist killed by a texting teen driver in 2005.

But most of the time the victims are the texters, who wind up with bumps and bruises. Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency room has been ground zero in Chicago for texting goofs. Located downtown near shopper-clogged Michigan Avenue, the emergency room is also close to the exceptionally busy lakefront path, where pedestrians and joggers share a lane with bikers.

James Adams, Northwestern's chairman of emergency medicine, says he has treated patients involved in texting incidents nearly every day this summer. He says fallen texters are more prone to facial injuries: They tend to hold their devices close to their faces, so their hands are less likely to break their fall. "By the time their hands hit, their face immediately hits and they smash to the ground," Dr. Adams says. The common outcomes are scraped chins, noses and foreheads, along with broken glasses.

Generation Text: Emailing on the Go Sends Some Users Into Harm's Way - WSJ.com

Advertising - Microsoft Seeks an Ad Friend in Facebook - NYTimes.com

Relentless -- also see Microsoft will Ante Up $1.2B Annually to Keep Pace with Google in today's Boston Globe

The search deal could be a lift to Microsoft as it seeks to catch up with Google and Yahoo in the search business. In June, Google accounted for 61.5 percent of search queries in the United States, dwarfing Yahoo, with 20.9 percent, and Microsoft, with 9.2 percent of queries, according to tracking firm comScore. One of the reasons Microsoft pursued Yahoo so doggedly this year was to increase its share in the overall market.

To Microsoft, Facebook is a quick way to expand the audience for its search engine. More than 29 million people actively use Facebook in the United States. They will soon see prominent displays of Microsoft’s Live Search box on their friends’ and their own Facebook pages.

Advertising - Microsoft Seeks an Ad Friend in Facebook - NYTimes.com

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro

Some interesting aspects of the deal:

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a non-proprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with SQL Server.

After completion of the acquisition, Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro’s team as well as its headquarters in Aliso Viejo, California making it a Center of Excellence for data warehousing.  Existing DATAllegro customers will continue to be supported.

Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro

From the Desk of David Pogue - Apple’s MobileMess - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for how MobileMe went from "very cool idea" to  "This is an airplane that's stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom."

Two weeks ago, Apple launched MobileMe, the successor to its.Mac service, which costs $100 a year. Among other benefits, it can keep multiple Macs, PCs and iPhones in sync. E-mail, calendars and address books are wirelessly kept up to date. Very cool idea.

From the Desk of David Pogue - Apple’s MobileMess - NYTimes.com

Rob Pegoraro - Meant to Sync, MobileMe Is Scattershot at the Start - washingtonpost.com

Another harsh review of MobileMe

Some people instead store their calendars and contacts on a Web service, which works just fine as long as those people have perpetual and universal Internet access.

The smart way around this would be a system that both provided access to the vitals of your daily routine through any Web browser, and synchronized them -- reliably, painlessly -- to your choice of offline programs. Apple's new, $99-a-year MobileMe service looks an awful lot like such a creature, until you try it.

Rob Pegoraro - Meant to Sync, MobileMe Is Scattershot at the Start - washingtonpost.com

Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware | News - Security - CNET News.com

There goes the neighborhood (this is a Blogspot blog; don't panic -- I haven't taken up malware as a hobby, and I screen all blog post comments...)

As for illegitimate sites, Sophos notes that Geocities and Blogger both make it easy for anyone to set up a Web site without much identification. Blogger, owned by Google, is particularly problematic, says Sophos, with the blog site alone accounting for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts. I is not only possible for the Blogger sites to host malicious code, but criminal attackers can also inject links to malicious sites in the comments sections of the blogs.

Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware | News - Security - CNET News.com

Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

A stark report card for Apple -- see the full review (no WSJ subscription required) for details

Unfortunately, after a week of intense testing of the service, I can’t recommend it, at least not in its current state. It’s a great idea, but, as of now, MobileMe has too many flaws to keep its promises.

I am not referring to the launch glitches that plagued MobileMe earlier this month, such as servers that couldn’t keep up with the traffic and email outages that, for some users, persist as I write this. Those were bad, but they have eased considerably. Apple already has apologized for them and is giving customers an extra 30 days on their subscriptions to make up for the poor start. The problems I am citing are systemic.

Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Amazon's Net Doubles On Strong Sales - WSJ.com

Impressive...

Amazon.com Inc., shaking off concerns that the slumping economy is hurting the Web retailer's business, reported that its second-quarter profit doubled on a 41% revenue increase, and raised its sales forecast for the year.

The company's aggressive discounting and free-shipping programs helped lure shoppers who have grown increasingly cautious about their spending, analysts said. Amazon's expanding product line, aided by the growing number of merchants who sell on its site, also attracts return buyers. "Amazon is clearly bucking the trend" of other disappointing technology earnings such as Yahoo Inc. and eBay Inc., said Jeetil Patel, a Deutsche Bank Securities analyst. "It's pretty impressive," he said.

Amazon's Net Doubles On Strong Sales - WSJ.com

New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence - NYTimes.com

See the full article for more on Facebook's evolving strategy

In a speech at his company’s annual conference for developers, called F8, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 24-year-old chief executive, also demonstrated the company’s new design. He predicted that there would soon be a wave of social Web sites built on top of the information users give to social networks.

“We are going to see the big social networks start to decentralize into a series of social applications across the Web,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think we are at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”

New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence - NYTimes.com

Head of Microsoft’s Online Efforts Departs - NYTimes.com

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Microsoft/Yahoo! picture...

Kevin Johnson, the executive in charge of Microsoft’s struggling online business, is leaving the company. Microsoft announced Wednesday evening that Mr. Johnson was departing to become chief executive of Juniper Networks.

[...]

Under the new plan, responsibility for the two businesses overseen by Mr. Johnson — online services and the Windows operating system unit — will be separated.

Microsoft, in a statement, acknowledged that it needed new leadership to lift the performance of the online services business. The company said it would “create a new senior lead position and will conduct a search that will span internal and external candidates.”

Small world; Jeff Raikes successor Stephen Elop was COO of Juniper, before joining Microsoft in January of this year.

Head of Microsoft’s Online Efforts Departs - NYTimes.com

After the Truce, Yahoo Reports and Icahn Blogs - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Sign of the times -- billionaire raider Carl Icahn explains his Yahoo! perspectives ... on his new blog

Writing Tuesday on his freshly launched blog, The Icahn Report, the activist investor, who just reached a deal with Yahoo to end his bid for control of its board, first detailed his reasons settlement agreement.

“By the end of last week, I realized that although many large shareholders supported me and my slate for the board, they were nervous about having a complete change of control,” Mr. Icahn wrote.

After the Truce, Yahoo Reports and Icahn Blogs - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Servers in the home remain scarce | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Interesting checkpoint for WHS -- which I continue to find invaluable

Microsoft's target group is people with a home network, more than one PC and a lot of music, video, photos, and other files that they want to share. The problem, Gownder said, is that only the techiest of that bunch even know that a server could be the best answer. And even among those, Microsoft hasn't yet clearly demonstrated why it is better than other options, such as adding an external hard drive or network storage or using an online service.

The selling point of Windows Home Server is supposed to be its ability to do other things, but thus far, there has not been the proverbial "killer app."

Servers in the home remain scarce | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Hello, cruel world «

He's back...

So I wanted to get out and stay out. I really did. I wanted at least to have the summer off. But stuff keeps happening and I can’t resist. Jerry Yang and Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer continue doing their frigtarded three-way monkey dance. It’s getting to be like one of those Ricky Gervais bits in the original Office (the funny one) where he lets the scene go on too long and it goes from being funny to being painful … and he still won’t stop. He makes you watch. It’s terrible but you can’t look away. And, if you’re me, you can’t help rushing to the computer to make fun of it. So thanks a lot, Ballmer-Icahn-Yang, for not letting me getting any rest. Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in. Bastards!

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Hello, cruel world «

Today @ PC World Esquire First to Newstands with E-Ink Battery-Powered Cover

Check the shelf life before you plan on making one  a collectors' item

Newsstands across America will come to life this September when men's magazine Esquire rolls out the first magazine cover ever to use E-ink. That's the same core technology behind Amazon's e-reader the Kindle, Esquire's cover will flash "The 21st Century Begins Now" and the inside page will feature an E-ink ad by Ford who is sponsoring the effort.

(Via Barry Briggs)

Today @ PC World Esquire First to Newstands with E-Ink Battery-Powered Cover

Business & Technology | Microsoft to let developers sell Xbox games online | Seattle Times Newspaper

App stores opening in many domains...

Microsoft Corp. will let independent developers sell video games for the Xbox 360 console - and keep most of the profits - beginning this holiday season, the company said Tuesday.

In a move to "democratize game development" and broaden the range of titles available for the Xbox 360, Microsoft said it will let game makers who are members of its $99-a-year XNA Creators Club submit their games for peer review. If they pass, the game creators can sell their work on the Xbox Live Marketplace, the console's online store.

Business & Technology | Microsoft to let developers sell Xbox games online | Seattle Times Newspaper

Report: Google talks acquisition with Digg | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Hmm...  Interesting coverage of Digg in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good

Social news site Digg.com, a perpetual target of acquisition rumors, is in "final negotiations" to sell itself to Google for $200 million, according to a TechCrunch report Tuesday that cited multiple sources.

The two companies have been in talks to bring Digg into the Google News group, but it could be a few weeks before the deal closes, if it closes, according to the report.

Report: Google talks acquisition with Digg | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Yahoo’s Revenue Rises a Bit, but Profit Falls 18% - NYTimes.com

Timing is everything...

With the slowing economy taking a toll on the online advertising business, Yahoo said Tuesday that its net income dropped by nearly 19 percent in the second quarter from a year ago as revenue grew at a sluggish 6 percent rate.

Analysts said the results would do little to improve Yahoo’s negotiating position with Microsoft, which has tried to buy all or part of the company. “This is not a quarter where they can go back to Microsoft and say they deserve a higher price,” said Youssef H. Squali, an analyst with Jefferies & Company. “And Microsoft can’t come to them and say the business is falling out of bed and we can pick you up for a song.”

Yahoo’s Revenue Rises a Bit, but Profit Falls 18% - NYTimes.com

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Apple getting ready for 'product transition' | One More Thing - CNET News.com

This class of device is inevitable; the key question, at this point, is whether Apple will get there first

One scenario that was not addressed by any of the initial questions from the financial community was that involving a brand-new product. There has been lots of speculation over the past year or so that Apple has a minitablet/UMPC/MID type device in the works that would take the Cocoa Touch interface found in the iPhone to a larger screen. But that has always seemed like a more far-fetched notion, given all that Apple has had on its plate this year.

Apple getting ready for 'product transition' | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Technology Review: Redesigning Facebook

A more app-assertive Facebook

Specifically, the profile redesign splits the existing profile into tabs, emphasizing the wall, where a user's friends leave him or her short, semipublic messages, and the news feed, which describes the user's activities on the site. Most important for third-party developers, it removes most of the applications that the user has installed from the main page of the profile, relegating them to a "boxes" tab instead. To compensate for the applications' reduced visibility, Facebook allows users to add tabs for their favorite applications, presenting the possibility that developers could design entire sections of a user's profile.

Technology Review: Redesigning Facebook

After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com

Looks like both Apple and Microsoft are doing what's right in terms of customers and competition, instead of appeasing Wall Street

But the company’s stock fell about 10 percent on Monday in after-hours trading as Apple executives hinted during a conference call about Apple’s

third-quarter financial statement that they would price products more aggressively in the future. It planned on taking away what Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s chief financial officer, called an “umbrella for our competitors.”

The company also told Wall Street analysts to expect lower gross margins and made a conservative sales estimate for the final quarter of the 2008 fiscal year. Executives sketched out a series of reasons for the profit margin decline, including educational discounts, component price adjustments and a new product line that is widely rumored to include redesigned laptop computers.

After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com

TiVo and Amazon Team Up - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that introduced millions to the joy of skipping television commercials, is trying to crack a decades-old media dream. It wants to turn the television remote control into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows.

The company, based in Alviso, Calif., will introduce a “product purchase” feature on Tuesday in partnership with the Internet retailer Amazon.com. Owners of TiVo video recorders will see, in TiVo’s various onscreen menus, links to buy products like CDs, DVDs and books that guests are promoting on talk shows like “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Late Show With David Letterman” and “The Daily Show.”

TiVo and Amazon Team Up - NYTimes.com

Yahoo Deal Wards Off Proxy Fight - NYTimes.com

Not over yet...

The compromise agreement represents a limited victory for Mr. Icahn, whose chances of taking control of Yahoo dimmed last week when one of the company’s largest and most influential shareholders said he would back the existing board. The deal may bring some stability to Yahoo after months of turmoil were set off by Microsoft’s takeover offer and its eventual collapse. Significantly, the deal leaves Jerry Yang, the Yahoo co-founder and chief executive, whom Mr. Icahn had vowed to replace, at the helm of the company.

In a statement Monday, Mr. Icahn struck a conciliatory note, yet he made it clear that he has not abandoned hopes for a deal with Microsoft.

“While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole company or the sale of its search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo’s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders,” Mr. Icahn said.

Yahoo Deal Wards Off Proxy Fight - NYTimes.com

Monday, July 21, 2008

Dark Knight tickets are hot sellers on eBay | Technology | Reuters

Sign of the times...

As hype for new box office champ "The Dark Knight" reached a fever pitch over the weekend, moviegoers were surfing eBay and Craigslist for tickets, sometimes paying five times face value for them.

The hottest items were tickets to Imax showings. The movie opened on 94 Imax screens, and company executives did a good job letting folks know that director Christopher Nolan shot many of the biggest action scenes with an Imax camera, making it was the best venue for viewing the film.

I saw the movie (alas, not on Imax) during the weekend -- it was dark -- *really* dark

Dark Knight tickets are hot sellers on eBay | Technology | Reuters

The Media Equation - Hey, Friend, Do I Know You? - NYTimes.com

A timely snapshot; see the full article for more details and observations

Last month, according to comScore, Facebook had 123.9 million unique visitors and 50.6 billion page views worldwide while MySpace had 114.6 million unique visitors and 45.4 billion page views. MySpace still dominates in the United States, but if my page is any indication, a lot of people who aren’t texting OMG about the guy sitting in the next booth feel a need to opt in to social media.

According to company executives, Facebook, which has over 80 million subscribers worldwide, doubled the number of subscribers under 35 last year, but it tripled the number of subscribers between 35 and 54. Early adopters of Facebook, which was the province of students until 2006, must wonder who let all the old guys in. Sometime in the next day or so, Facebook will unveil a major new design for the site, which users can opt-in to.

The Media Equation - Hey, Friend, Do I Know You? - NYTimes.com

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry - NYTimes.com

This is a weird market dynamic, as there's still a high-end micro-laptop market as well

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

In a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because their low price could threaten PC makers’ already thin profit margins.

Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry - NYTimes.com

Sunday, July 20, 2008

MyVu personal video displays ready to grow - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

I expect this class of display device is going to be in widespread use within the next couple years

Westwood-based MyVu Corp., which has developed a personal optical display for showing high-quality video within a pair of eyeglasses, has had a product in the market for more than a year. But since the launch two months ago of its premium product, dubbed “Crystal,” executives report a sharp increase in retail sales and are hoping for still greater growth after a trial placement in 500 Best Buy stores nationwide, set to begin in September.

MyVu personal video displays ready to grow - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Adesso closes, sells IP; Landry eyes what’s next - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Adesso is no more; see the full article for details

Adesso Systems Inc., a Boston-based company founded in 2000 by prominent local technology executive John Landry, has quietly closed its doors and sold its synchronization software to a former customer.
Landry, the founder of 10 tech companies and an MHT High Tech All Star in 2006, says he has moved on to other projects.
“It’s old news and I’ve got plenty of other fish frying,” Landry wrote in an e-mail message this week.

Adesso closes, sells IP; Landry eyes what’s next - Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Space: Video of the Moon Passing in Front of the Earth Taken From 31 Million Miles Away

Very cool...  See the source page for a video version.

We don't have too many cameras out there in space past the moon, which is why most of our space shots are either looking outward, such as the shots taken by Hubble, or taken of Earth from the moon or closer. Which is why this video is so astounding. It's a video of the moon passing directly in front of the Earth, taken by NASA's EPOXI spacecraft from a whopping 31 million miles away.

(Via Traction Software's Greg Lloyd)

Space: Video of the Moon Passing in Front of the Earth Taken From 31 Million Miles Away

Legg lift gives Yang a stronger hand | Good Morning Silicon Valley

More interesting times for Yahoo!...

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s impassioned campaign to keep his job and control of the company he helped found has won over a key swing vote. Bill Miller, chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, said today that if it comes to a proxy shootout at the Aug. 1 shareholders meeting, Legg will vote its 60.7 million shares (about 4.4 percent of total) in favor of Yang and the incumbents, not the dissident slate led by Carl Icahn that hopes to revive some sort of deal with Microsoft. Acknowledging that major shareholders have a right to be represented on the board, Miller said, “Mr. Icahn’s slate includes people experienced in technology, advertising, capital markets and governance. We would prefer that the company and Mr. Icahn reach a mutual agreement on the composition of the Board and end this disruptive proxy contest.” He also advised Microsoft to stop fussing about who’s on the board and put any offer it has in mind on the table for all the shareholders to see.

Legg lift gives Yang a stronger hand | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Friday, July 18, 2008

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of July 21, 2008 [on Vista sales]

Another timely reality check from Paul Thurrott

Failure? Microsoft Has Sold 180 Million Licenses to Windows Vista
Take that, iCabal: Microsoft is now selling Vista at a rate of 20 million units a month, a figure that is approximately equal to the total actual number of Mac OS X users worldwide. And they do it. Every. Single. Month. So I assume this will end all of the babbling about Vista being a failure: This thing is a mass market success of epic proportions. And it's just getting bigger.

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of July 21, 2008

Unsolicited IM audio spam

I was just interrupted by unsolicited audio spam from Yahoo!, informing me about new features and rates for voice-related capabilities in Yahoo! Instant Messenger.

That's even more annoying than unsolicited text messages from my mobile phone service provider.  Very uncool...

Remember When I Said It's Over? - John Battelle's Searchblog

John Battelle quotes from this article:

Today our US Search Engine Performance Report: Q2 2008 was released. Analysis of data from our client index showed that Google took more than its fair share of the overall increase in search spending: for every new dollar spent on search in Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, $1.10 went to Google. Yahoo lost $0.09, and Microsoft lost $0.01. In other words, advertisers are putting all of their new search dollars into Google, and pulling money out of Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search.

And notes

If I were at Google, I'd be more than a bit worried. Why? Because once you've vanquished your competition, then what?

Remember When I Said It's Over? - John Battelle's Searchblog

Microsoft | Microsoft trims profit outlook | Seattle Times Newspaper

Investing an additional $500M in online services this year

Microsoft's commitment to winning a bigger chunk of online services and advertising business was underscored Thursday when the company slightly lowered its profit forecast for the current fiscal year to reflect planned spending increases.

"We do not make these investments lightly as the loss in this division will be a drag on an otherwise exceptionally good performance," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said in a conference call with reporters and analysts as Microsoft closed the books on its 2008 fiscal year.

Microsoft | Microsoft trims profit outlook | Seattle Times Newspaper

New T-Mobile Sidekick set for July 30 debut | News - Wireless - CNET News.com

See this page for device details

It looks like the creative geniuses in Microsoft's product marketing team may have helped name the new device that will simply be called "Sidekick 2008." Microsoft, which is famous for delineating different versions of its Windows software by the year in which it was released, bought Danger, the maker of the Sidekick, earlier this year.

New T-Mobile Sidekick set for July 30 debut | News - Wireless - CNET News.com

Tech Firms Rise Above Economic Turbulence - WSJ.com

Another view

Earnings reports from four technology giants suggest the tech sector is weathering the economic slowdown better than other industries -- though not always as well as Wall Street has hoped.

The quarterly results posted Thursday by Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Nokia Corp. all point to some common trends that are sustaining revenue growth. At a time when many other companies are struggling amid high energy prices and a worsening credit crunch, these four firms are benefiting from healthy technology demand outside the U.S., the growing economic importance of the Internet, and widening use of cellphone and portable computers in emerging economies.

Tech Firms Rise Above Economic Turbulence - WSJ.com

In Surprise, 2 Tech Titans Disappoint - NYTimes.com

This will be an interesting day on Wall Street

Like two straight-A students who uncharacteristically fail an exam, the technology titans Google and Microsoft issued quarterly results on Thursday that disappointed investors.

[...]

Google executives argued that they were more protected than rivals against choppy economic waters.

“We don’t believe we are inoculated from global economics, but we do believe if there is a worsening, we do better than anyone else in the ad industry,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in an interview.

Meanwhile...

I.B.M. is clearly benefiting from its global advance; it beat Wall Street’s estimates soundly on Thursday. The company said that its net income rose 22 percent in the second quarter compared with a year ago, to $2.77 billion, or $1.98 a share.

Analysts had expected $1.82 a share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

In Surprise, 2 Tech Titans Disappoint - NYTimes.com

Textbooks, free and illegal, online - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

Faced with soaring prices for textbooks, cash-strapped students have discovered a tempting, effective, but illicit alternative - pirated electronic books, available for free over the Internet.

[...]

Some of the illegal texts available online are copied e-books, while others are paper editions that have been painstakingly uploaded page by page with digital scanners. "Is it some kid sitting in his basement doing the scanning? We don't know," said Allan Ryan, director of intellectual property at Harvard Business Publishing, an arm of Harvard Business School.

Textbooks, free and illegal, online - The Boston Globe

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Microsoft Opens Live Mesh Beta

Clarification from Paul Thurrott; see the full post for a pointer to a more detailed Mesh review

Some reports have mistakenly compared Live Mesh to Apple's lackluster and buggy MobileMe service.  In fact, the two services have little in common beyond the cloud computing marketing umbrella they both employ: MobileMe is designed as a central clearing house for PIM and email data, designed mostly for the iPhone, while Live Mesh is a complete platform that is currently oriented around storage synchronization. Put another way, it will soon be possible for developers to build numerous MobileMe-type services on top of Live Mesh, but the reverse is not true.

Microsoft Opens Live Mesh Beta

An Antic Disposition: Toy Soldiers

IBM's Rob Weir in what I assume is a semi-facetious essay on the state of OOXML standardization; the final two paragraphs:

In any case, since Microsoft has effective voting control of SC34, after almost two years of packing the committee, my bet is that OOXML will effectively be handed over to Ecma for maintenance. That is what JTC1 has done for every other Ecma Fast Track that has been approved. They might call it a "maintenance group" and allow token participation from SC34 liaisons in a non-voting capacity, but in all important ways it will remain Microsoft/Ecma standard. In the end, this makes some sense. Who is better positioned to clarify exactly how Excel financial functions work, the Microosft engineer who has access to the Excel source code, or an SC34 representative from Khazakstan?
Given the leisure to do the job right, my bet is on Microsoft. Everyone knows it for what it is now. There is no longer need for elaborate attempts to disguise the fact that OOXML is and will remain a Microsoft-only standard. Why continue the charade? If Microsoft put OOXML on MSDN, at least we would all have access to it and would know where to send our defect reports to, which is more than we can say about ISO OOXML. A real open standard is preferred, of course. But given a choice of fake ISO standard and a real MSDN specification, I'll take the MSDN version any day.

I'd like to know what sort of space/time-recalc magic Rob Weir thinks Microsoft and/or ISO could have used in this context to make ISO OOXML 1.0 spontaneously appear.  In the meantime, application developers and ISVs are building on the precursor ECMA standard OOXML embodied in Office 2007, and somehow Rob apparently thinks that's inappropriate. 

It may be an inconvenient truth for IBM, and it might be fun to reminisce about the days when Lotus 1-2-3 had monopoly market share in spreadsheets (and when the first Lotus Symphony sought to expand that monopoly to adjacent desktop app categories, more than 20 years ago), but the de facto enterprise productivity application standard today is Microsoft Office.  If IBM and other vendors want to change that picture, they should spend more time investing in a better productivity suite value proposition and less time hypocritically complaining about competitors' attempts to leverage standards.

An Antic Disposition: Toy Soldiers

Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline

Harmonic convergence?...

The Gears on Rails project by Google Gears enables Ruby on Rails developers to take their applications offline, as some sharp developers put Gears to new and different uses.

Developers are putting Google Gears to some interesting uses, including offline support for Ruby on Rails and building client-side search engines.

Gears for Rails represents another boost to cloud computing in its ability to deliver offline capability and synchronization. Meanwhile, Microsoft is leading its own data synchronization charge with its Live Mesh cloud-based data synchronization system, a test build of which is now open to the public.

Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline

Technology Review: Opening Up Microblogging

Hmm...

The first open-source challenge to the pioneering microblogging site Twitter launched earlier this month. Identi.ca, built using open-source software Laconica, was started by the Montreal-based company Control Yourself. The site is getting attention from microbloggers who hope that Identi.ca will improve upon Twitter, which has been plagued by problems.

[...]

Evan Prodromou, Identi.ca's founder, says that he came to see Twitter as a form of communication on a level with e-mail, blogging, and podcasting. "I was starting to feel dependent personally on Twitter as a communication medium," he says, "and I realized that's not the way that the Web that we've built works. Having one company be the sole controller of a particular communication medium is kind of difficult. It's not something that is sustainable in the long run for the Web." Prodromou says that he felt people needed an open-source version of the tool.

Technology Review: Opening Up Microblogging

Apple apologizes for MobileMess | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Sign of the times: check the full article for an example of how Apple can garner praise even when it stumbles

Apple also said it would, for now, stop using the word “push,” with its connotation of “instant,” to describe MobileMe’s transfer of information among devices. “While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe ‘cloud,’” Apple wrote, “changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word ‘push’ until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.”

Apple apologizes for MobileMess | Good Morning Silicon Valley

SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices - WSJ.com

Oligopoly pricing?...

Two of the biggest makers of business software have raised prices, a sign that consolidation in the industry may be easing the competition over prices that has been a hallmark of the last decade.

SAP AG said Wednesday that it has raised prices for the ongoing support and customer-service fees, known as maintenance, that are part of large software purchases. The move comes one month after rival Oracle Corp. raised list prices for its software.

[...]

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, charges many customers an annual maintenance fee equal to 17% of the upfront price of the software. Starting Jan. 1, that fee will be raised to 22% and phased in over four years, the company said. In exchange, customers get enhanced service, including around-the-clock support and help to identify and fix problems with systems from other tech companies that interact with SAP software, a company spokesman said.

SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices - WSJ.com

Little Interest in Buying AOL as the Unit Is Shopped Again - NYTimes.com

A stark reality check

Richard Greenfield, an analyst who covers Time Warner for Pali Capital, said it seemed unlikely that any deal for AOL would be struck before the Yahoo shareholder vote.

“I don’t see why anyone would make a move now with all the pieces on the chess board where they are,” he said.

He added that Time Warner was in a difficult spot because the value of AOL was declining. Its main business of selling graphical display ads is under pricing pressure. And its brand has such a “toxic” connotation with consumers, Mr. Greenfield says, that the company does not use the AOL name when it starts new Web sites.

Little Interest in Buying AOL as the Unit Is Shopped Again - NYTimes.com

Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows - NYTimes.com

This seems late to the game, expensive, and cumbersome

Amazon, which is based in Seattle, is also pursuing the technology and media world’s holy grail — an Internet pipeline to the TV. It has struck a deal with Sony Electronics to place its Internet video store on the Sony Bravia line of high-definition TVs.

The video store will be accessible through the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, a $300 tower-shaped device that funnels Web video directly to Sony’s high-definition televisions. That is an awkward extra expense, for now. But future Bravias are expected to have this capability embedded in the television, making it even easier to gain access to the full catalog of past and present TV shows and movies, over the Internet, using a television remote control.

Mr. Carr said Amazon would pursue similar deals with other makers of TVs and Internet devices. “We can support both streaming and downloading,” he said. “Our goal is to continue to establish partnerships with all companies who have a connected device.”

Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows - NYTimes.com

State of the Art - In Sync to Pierce the Cloud - NYTimes.com

So it's sort of like Microsoft Live Mesh, except it costs $100/year...

Over the years, two million people signed up for .Mac, according to Apple, even though it was a sort of motley, unfocused service.

MobileMe, however, has a much clearer mission that solves a much clearer problem. It’s meant to keep the e-mail, calendars, address books and Web bookmarks on all of your computers — Macs, Windows PCs, iPhones and iPod Touches — synchronized in real time.

It works by storing the master copy of all this information in the cloud. Whenever your machines are online, they connect to the mother ship and update themselves. When you edit an address on your iPhone, you’ll find the same change in Address Book (on your Mac) and Outlook (on your PC). If you send an e-mail reply from your PC at the office, you’ll find it in your Sent Mail folder on the Mac at home.

State of the Art - In Sync to Pierce the Cloud - NYTimes.com

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Apple of His Binoculars (TNR)

Yeah, I tend to agree; see the full article for more details.  I enjoyed the movie, as did my kids, but it was in many ways an unsubtle Apple commercial.

The film is indeed charming and as visually stunning as its enthusiasts claim, but WALL-E's conservative critics are right to identify a problem with its message. Unfortunately, they've misdiagnosed it. There's nothing wrong with the film's anti-corporatism, which is just a variation of the anti-totalitarianism that's requisite to the genre. More troublesome is the film's complicity in the commodified culture it ostensibly critiques. This isn't about Disney, whose external merchandise and marketing are extraneous to the film's artistic vision. Within the movie itself, WALL-E betrays its true corporate overlord, and it isn't Mickey. It's Apple.

The Apple of His Binoculars

Microsoft faces lawsuit over Silverlight | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Just a hunch, but if Gotuit's intellectual property protection is substantive, I wouldn't be surprised to see this trigger an acquisition -- by Microsoft or perhaps by Adobe ... or Google

Microsoft's latest legal headache is a suit from a little-known company called Gotuit Media, which charges elements of Silverlight infringe on the video metadata company's patented technology.

In a suit filed July 2 in San Francisco Federal Court, Gotuit charges Silverlight infringes on several of its patents and seeks an injunction against the software maker as well as damages and attorney's fees.

Microsoft faces lawsuit over Silverlight | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Apple suit: Psystar's Mac clones must be recalled | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Once again Apple goes to extremes to maintain complete control of its product ecosystem

In its lawsuit, a copy of which was seen by CNET News courtesy of our colleagues at ZDNet, Apple alleges copyright infringement, inducement of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, as well as a couple of other legal claims. It seeks any profits earned by Psystar from its Open Computer, triple damages for willful acts, a permanent injunction against the sale of the product, as well as recall of those units already sold.

Apple suit: Psystar's Mac clones must be recalled | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Advertising - Google and Yahoo Defend Ad Alliance at a Hearing - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for more details (and irony...)

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the business plan “raises the specter that one company will accumulate vast amounts of personal viewing data.”

Mr. Smith echoed that concern, arguing that Google would have a complete picture of Internet users’ online activities. “If that happens, Congress won’t need to enact a federal privacy policy,” he said. “We will already have a national privacy policy — Google’s privacy policy.”

Advertising - Google and Yahoo Defend Ad Alliance at a Hearing - NYTimes.com

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

WSJ.com: Microsoft: Yahoo CEO Boasted Of Yahoo-Google Deal

Oh my...

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang made the comments to Microsoft officials during a June 8 meeting between the companies in San Jose. Microsoft has been in off-and-on talks with Yahoo about a merger and is adamantly opposed to the advertising deal that Google and Yahoo signed last month.

"Jerry Yang... looked us in the eye and said 'Look, the search market today is basically a bipolar market: On one pole, there's Google and, on the other pole, there's Yahoo and Microsoft both competing with Google'," Smith said.

According to Smith, Yang then said, "If we do this deal with Google, Yahoo will become part of Google's pole. And Microsoft... would not be strong enough in this market to remain a pole of its own."

Smith said he and other Microsoft officials couldn't believe Yang made the comments.

Article - WSJ.com

XML makes you stoopid! - O'Reilly XML Blog

An update from a heated debate context:

Let me summarize:
1) We ALL agree XML is not the best interchange for EVERYTHING
2) Google COULD have used XML if they wanted ( or JSON looks like a better fit)
3) Using an established format would NOT have effected the actual TRANSFER
4) I admit that Google knows their stuff and has probably analyzed this that XML for the TRANSFORMATION may have been too fat. HOWEVER - they optimized, and in so doing specifically limited expandability or at least reuse.
5) Building a library to do a SPECIFIC task well is OK, but the crux of my argument is IF they spent this time creating better XML or JSON libraries, then we ALL benefit in projects that do not use this protocol.

XML makes you stoopid! - O'Reilly XML Blog

Microsoft Wants Games to Appeal to the Masses - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times -- the article outlines new mainstream audience-oriented plans, and then closes with:

But the surprise hit of the E.A. news conference was a new science-fiction horror game called Dead Space, which is scheduled to be released for PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October. Not for children and not for the squeamish, Dead Space takes place on a space station where something has gone horribly, terribly wrong (the combat revolves around what was described at the presentation as strategic dismemberment). The quality of the animation and the evocative tension and fear of its presentation appeared to be of a very high quality, as long as you don’t mind flying body parts.

Microsoft Wants Games to Appeal to the Masses - NYTimes.com

New Xbox Experiences Reinvent Home Entertainment, and Everyone Is Invited

Interesting that none of the other press I've seen has picked up the exclusive dimension.  See the full press release for more Xbox news.

The exclusive partnership offers Netflix subscribers the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers at no additional cost.

From the Netflix Web site, subscribers simply add movies and TV episodes to their instant Queue, which will appear automatically on the TV screen via Xbox 360. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds. In addition to instantly streaming Netflix movies to the TV, Xbox LIVE Gold members can browse and rate movies, fast-forward, pause and rewind, all using either their Xbox 360 Controller or remote.

Netflix on Xbox 360 will launch this fall with the release of the new Xbox experience, a new generation of games and entertainment experiences that will be available for Xbox 360 this fall.

Another update:

“Xbox LIVE is the world’s fastest-growing online social network on TV,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment LIVE, Software and Services Business at Microsoft. “We doubled our membership the past two years, growing from 3 million to 6 million, and then from 6 million to 12 million. And today, we are adding a new member every five seconds. With the best and broadest social entertainment experiences launching this fall, the future is limitless.”

New Xbox Experiences Reinvent Home Entertainment, and Everyone Is Invited: Xbox 360 promises best and broadest entertainment lineup ever; more fun, social and simple-to-use experience.

Google, Viacom Reach Deal Over YouTube Visitor Data - WSJ.com

Probably not the end of the story...

Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. have agreed to allow Google to anonymize YouTube visitor data before complying with a judge's order to deliver the data to Viacom as part of a broader copyright lawsuit.

Google-owned YouTube announced late Monday night that the parties had agreed to allow it to substitute actual user and visitor IDs and internet protocol addresses with other unique values to help protect user privacy. Lawyers for both companies agreed to a court stipulation which stated that "parties shall agree as promptly as feasible on a specific protocol to govern this substitution."

Google, Viacom Reach Deal Over YouTube Visitor Data - WSJ.com

A Million New iPhones Sold in the First Weekend - NYTimes.com

Impressive...

Apple said Monday it sold one million new iPhones in the initial weekend, on par with estimates set by analysts.

The original iPhone, introduced in late June 2007 in the United States only, sold about 270,000 units in its first two days. Sales topped one million by early September. The new device is sold in 21 countries.

... but (later in the same article):

Still, iPhone sales pale compared with those of established mobile phone makers, like Nokia, which sells almost 10 million phones a week, or the Samsung Electronics Company or LG Electronics, which each ship more than 100 million a year.

A Million New iPhones Sold in the First Weekend - NYTimes.com

Microsoft to link with Netflix - The Boston Globe

More details

In an interview, Hastings said Netflix is working on deals to embed its movie-streaming software in devices from three major consumer-electronics companies. The company invested $40 million last year to support the TV service, which Hastings said will add to profit beginning in 2010.

"We're definitely building up a big head of steam, 2008 and 2009 are the strategic investment years. By 2010 we'll be able to maximize revenue and profits," Hastings said.

Fewer movies are available online or on demand through viewers' televisions. Netflix has Internet rights to 10,000 movies, compared with more than 100,000 available on DVD, according to the company's website. On-demand TV service is included in Netflix plans costing $8.99 to $23.99 a month.

FYI Hastings is also a Microsoft board member; small world...

Microsoft to link with Netflix - The Boston Globe

Monday, July 14, 2008

WSJ.com: Microsoft, Netflix To Stream Movies Over Xbox Live

Cool!

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and online DVD rental pioneer Netflix Inc. (NFLX) said Monday they have partnered to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix's library to subscribers of Xbox Live, a Web-based service for users of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game system, starting this fall.

The service will be free to Xbox Live Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers, the companies said. 

More than 10,000 movies and TV episodes will be available from Netflix when it launches on Xbox Live in late fall, with more choices added over time.

Article - WSJ.com

Tech Tracks | How is latest Microsoft move for Yahoo playing with investors? | Seattle Times Newspaper Blog

I suspect Icahn's plan for the post-Microsoft Yahoo! remnants permutation (i.e., if Microsoft opts to not acquire all of Yahoo!)  is quite simple: fire sale -- i.e.,  complete tear-down

Microsoft and Carl Icahn made Yahoo an offer it apparently could, and did, refuse over the weekend. It was another flavor of the search-only alternative transaction Microsoft has been floating since May, but this time around, according to a Saturday night statement from Yahoo, Icahn would get the Yahoo leftovers.

Some investors are wary of that outcome given that Icahn has yet to articulate what he would do if he were in charge. This latest aggressive offer may add a new dimension to investors' thinking ahead of Yahoo's Aug. 1 stockholder meeting, which is starting to look like the OK Corral.

Tech Tracks | How is latest Microsoft move for Yahoo playing with investors? | Seattle Times Newspaper Blog

iPhone: The New Personal Computer - ReadWriteWeb

I agree with many of the perspectives and projections in this post but I have a different opinion about the likely implications for traditional PCs.

When Apple first announced the launch of its iPhone platform, we wrote here that it is a game changer. Even the core of iPhone is a major advance in mobile computing, but with the platform iPhone becomes the new personal computer. The desktop from now on will be for professional and business work. Laptops aren't going away, but will get increasingly less personal use. The reason is that iPhone with its application platform is a better personal computer and it's widely accessible.

My $.02: I think iPhone-class devices will make PCs more rather than less useful, as the devices will facilitate doing more with digital information and communications, making it more useful to have PCs that will, in combination with myriad Internet services, essentially become personal servers. 

I also believe hypertext applications such as Evernote and OneNote are going to become mainstream "killer apps" for personal device networks in the not-too-distant future.

iPhone: The New Personal Computer - ReadWriteWeb

Business & Technology | It's Google's turn to sweat a bit | Seattle Times Newspaper

A nice bonus for Microsoft, even if it wasn't a primary part of the original Microsoft/Yahoo! plan...

The bigger story is that Google and Microsoft are warring over which one will be the world's dominant software company. Yahoo's not a contender, it's materiel.

It's in that war that Ballmer can claim a small but important victory Tuesday, when Google will be the focus of a hearing before the Senate subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights.

The same committee in 1998 raked a cocksure Microsoft over the coals.

Now the senators are concerned about Google providing ad services to Yahoo, and what that consolidation of market share means to the public and Internet advertising.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice has started a formal investigation of the May partnership Google and Yahoo formed to thwart Microsoft's takeover attempt, The Washington Post reported.

Was Ballmer's master plan to hang the antitrust albatross on Google?

Business & Technology | It's Google's turn to sweat a bit | Seattle Times Newspaper

Steve Wozniak out of line at iPhone store? | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Even sadder...

Wozniak could not be reached to comment Saturday night, but he did respond to this report in the CNET News' TalkBack section, asserting that he had been invited by the store staff to be in the front of the line and that store staff had cleared it with those already in front (read his entire response here):

I told them I would come at 10 AM and get in line and they told me back that the line would be short and they had talked to the people in front and that the people in front WANTED me to go first. I discussed the fact that I'd be with a small group too. The Apple store staff also said that the chairs and table in front of the store would be reserved for me. So sitting in those chairs I was in line. I am thankful for the chairs. I'm actually older than almost everyone in the lines these days.

Steve Wozniak out of line at iPhone store? | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

In bid for Yahoo, a more aggressive Microsoft - The Boston Globe

Apparently only Yahoo's board doesn't realize it's game-over time

On Friday, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, made his own phone call to Bostock, in what one person briefed on the matter said was a curt conversation.

Bostock asked Ballmer for more time to evaluate the offer, citing the complexity of separating Yahoo's search business from the rest of the business.

Ballmer refused, giving him 24 hours. "There is no more gas in the tank," he told Bostock, according to this person.

In bid for Yahoo, a more aggressive Microsoft - The Boston Globe

New systems, travel costs give videoconferencing a long-awaited boost - The Boston Globe

I hope this trend continues

Videoconferencing, long touted as a transformative business technology, has long fallen short of its potential, plagued by poor quality or unreliable experiences that can't substitute for important in-person meetings.

But a slew of changes - including improved technology, rising travel costs, and broad societal acceptance of online video - are driving growth in the sector.

New systems, travel costs give videoconferencing a long-awaited boost - The Boston Globe

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Digital Domain - So the iPhone Has Problems. What About the Stock Options? - NYTimes.com

Read the full article for more background on this never-ending saga (the criminal investigation may be over, but the civil suits are still ongoing)

Mr. Jobs plainly did not foresee the good days that were ahead for Apple; on Friday, its shares closed at $172.58. His decision to exchange many stock options for far fewer shares of restricted stock, swapping potential upside for certainty, resulted in his losing more than $6 billion in potential gains.

Then again, it has worked out well enough for him. Ridding himself of those options before they become the stuff of unsavory headlines? Beautiful timing.

Digital Domain - So the iPhone Has Problems. What About the Stock Options? - NYTimes.com

Yahoo Again Spurns a Microsoft Offer - NYTimes.com

The ritual continues...

“It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a proposal,” Yahoo’s chairman, Roy Bostock, said in a statement. “While this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders.”

Yahoo reiterated that it was open to a sale of the whole company at $33 a share, a price that Microsoft had once offered but in recent weeks has spurned. It also said it would accept a sale of its search business, but on better terms.

Yahoo Again Spurns a Microsoft Offer - NYTimes.com

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Google hates XML - O'Reilly XML Blog

An interesting snapshot; see the full post for more context-setting

I just came across an article that announced Google open sourced their ‘Protocol buffers’ but decided NOT to use XML.

It is great that Google is contributing to the community and is showing the world how their system works, but I wonder if the inmates have taken over the asylum. I am a software engineer, so I enjoy the technical information, but I also ran my own company, and evolved to view problems from the business end. If you let the ‘engineers run the show’, then you get a very narrow viewpoint.

I think we have a severe ‘Not invented here’ syndrome inside Google.

Google hates XML - O'Reilly XML Blog

Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | InfoWorld | Who would buy Sun?

A stark reality check for Sun

Ashlee Vance has an interesting article on the future prospects for Sun Microsystems now that its market cap is $7.7B. Sun needs to maintain at least a $10B market cap to remain a potential holding of large cap funds. If Sun's market cap slips below $10B for too long, large cap funds holding Sun will have to sell and thereby cause a further drop in Sun's market cap. With short interest growing from 25 million shares to 57 million shares over the past month, compared to a 3-month trading volume of 17 million, the sharks are definitely circling.

Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | InfoWorld | Who would buy Sun? | July 11, 2008 03:00 AM | Savio Rodrigues

Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times...

This fall, San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation’s most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment.

Drivers will be alerted to empty parking places either by displays on street signs, or by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones. They may even be able to pay for parking by cellphone, and add to the parking meter from their phones without returning to the car.

Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone - NYTimes.com

iPhone Users Plagued by Software Problems - NYTimes.com

Go figure

The setback was a classic example of the problems that can follow when complex systems have single points of failure. In this case, the company appeared to almost invite the problems by having both existing and new iPhone owners try to get through to its systems at the same time.

iPhone Users Plagued by Software Problems - NYTimes.com

For Apple, a taste of humble pie - The Boston Globe

Oops...

Apple Inc.'s reputation for technical excellence has taken a beating in the past 24 hours. Yesterday's rollout of the company's new iPhone was marred by major technical glitches that prevented activation of new iPhones and rendered many older phones unusable. And a new Apple Internet service, called MobileMe, is also under fire for being inaccessible and unreliable.

For Apple, a taste of humble pie - The Boston Globe

Friday, July 11, 2008

White House: Emissions Paper Flawed - WSJ.com

<rare-political-commentary-for-this-blog>

I am so looking forward to January, 2009...

In an extraordinary move, the Bush administration plans to publish a document Friday listing various ways to control global-warming gases, while simultaneously disavowing the document's conclusions and warning that new regulations could lead to a "command-and-control" regime covering a "broad range of commercial and household activities," including factories and power plants but also lawnmowers.

The document, which has been the subject of a weeks-long conflict between officials at the White House and Environmental Protection Agency, attempts to summarize the benefits and costs of regulating greenhouse gas emissions, without drawing any conclusions.

</rare-political-commentary-for-this-blog>

White House: Emissions Paper Flawed - WSJ.com

Tech.view | Waiting for Microsoft to turn green | Economist.com

A surprisingly harsh, superficial, and subjective article in The Economist; the full article goes on to list the usual Vista-bashing conventional wisdom themes, many of which, imho, are unsubstantiated or blatantly biased (e.g., attacking Vista for issues that are class- rather than instance-based for modern OSes, such as the need for less-than-ancient hardware).  Having happily used Vista on several PCs (old and new) over the last year, I'm perplexed by this sort of article, especially from the usually outstanding and objective Economist.

TWO big things happened at Microsoft this past week. Bill Gates retired from the company after 33 years as co-founder, guiding spirit and undisputed boss. Then, following seven years as its flagship product, the venerable Windows XP—arguably the most successful, and certainly the most widely used, operating system in computerdom—was pensioned off as well.

Since June 30th, original equipment makers (OEMs) like Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo have ceased selling PCs loaded with Windows XP. And software retailers no longer have boxed copies of Windows XP on their shelves. For all intents and purposes, XP has now gone the way of the dodo bird.

Tech.view | Waiting for Microsoft to turn green | Economist.com

Gadget Addict Woz Will Line up for IPhone 3G - Yahoo! News

This seems kind of sad...

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak will be in line all Thursday night to buy an iPhone 3G, but he said most of his friends with the original device aren't ponying up for the new one.

Even the inventor of the first Apple computer doesn't have the new handset yet, though he said he's held one in his hand. Wozniak told an audience at the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco that he'll be waiting along with others at Valley Fair shopping center in San Jose. But he said it was more a matter of gadget lust.

Gadget Addict Woz Will Line up for IPhone 3G - Yahoo! News

Platformonomics - A Major Milestone

Charles Fitzgerald on the recent avatar "teleportation" headline; see his full post for more context-setting.

Looking ahead, with enterprise suitability and interoperability now firmly in hand for the burgeoning enterprise virtual worlds market, IBM will no doubt turn its attention to the security problems raised by interoperability.  After all, you wouldn't want more typical Second Life denizens teleporting into your enterprise-class virtual world.  Expect a hue and cry about illegal virtual immigration, foreign avatars soaking up system resources and taking virtual jobs away from local avatars.  Politicians, responding to virtual outrage, will demand action.  And then, enter the virtual world lock-down solution with IBM Tivoli Avatar Access Firewall Manager for zSeries Enterprise Class Virtual Worlds.  Because sometimes you have to create the problem before you can solve it...

With Fake Steve gone, I hope Charles increases his posting frequency :)

Platformonomics - A Major Milestone

Evernote Blog » Blog Archive » This is Your Brain on iPhone

This class of product is going to be high on the list of killer apps that gets me to finally acquire a beyond-the-basics phone.  Somehow I suspect I may not see Microsoft OneNote on the iPhone "real soon now", however...

Apple just launched the App Store for iPhone and it’s got a shiny new Evernote! Our iPhone app is the best Evernote experience on a mobile phone yet; it’ll let you capture image, voice and text notes and automagically zap them to your Evernote account. You can also find, browse and search your notes with full tag, attribute and keyword support. All this without having to futz around with email or the web browser.

Oh, and since your iPhone knows where you are, it’ll geo-tag anything you capture! Having location information in your notes is going to open up lots of new possibilities and future enhancements.

Evernote Blog » Blog Archive » This is Your Brain on iPhone

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google says independent Yahoo better for all

Another leading indicator that the Microsoft/Yahoo! context is getting serious again...

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, has waded into the debate about Microsoft’s pursuit of Yahoo, saying the world would be “better off” if the group were to remain independent.

Mr Schmidt, who was speaking to reporters at the annual Allen & Co media conference in Sun Valley, said an independent Yahoo would mean “more competition ... in search, and more competition in the other advertising markets where Yahoo is a leader”.

He alleged the Microsoft bid for Yahoo was bad for competition.

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google says independent Yahoo better for all

FT.com / Companies / Consumer industries - US halts Apple stock options inquiry

Apparently it was sufficient to have Apple's former CFO employee pay $3.5m to settle civil charges (neither admitting nor denying "wrongdoing")

The US Department of Justice has halted its criminal investigation into stock options backdating at Apple without bringing charges against the company or any of its current or former executives, according to two lawyers involved in the case.

The computer maker was among the most prominent of more than 200 companies to be investigated over the practice, in which the grant dates of stock options are changed using hindsight to inflate their value. Fred Anderson, Apple’s former chief financial officer, and Nancy Heinen, former general counsel, were among those under investigation for alleged improper manipulation of stock options grants.

FT.com / Companies / Consumer industries - US halts Apple stock options inquiry

An Imminent Victory for Net Neutrality Advocates - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

A timely reality check

The dirty little secret of the Internet industry is that all the providers use software tools to manage their network traffic. Comcast got caught and may have been more aggressive than some rivals, but it’s certainly not alone.

Mr. Martin’s proposed ruling in favor of openness could actually end up hurting Internet users if it accelerates the nascent moves by the industry to charge customers based on how much data they use instead of offering essentially unlimited data for a flat fee.

An Imminent Victory for Net Neutrality Advocates - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Sure the new iPhone is cool, but those apps... - The Boston Globe

This is something of a mixed blessing for Apple -- the general tone of the new iPhone reviews is so-so compared to the app raves.

I haven't laid hands on the new Apple Inc. iPhone yet, and I don't much care. That's because I've already spent hours with Apple's most important innovation of the year, and it's not a piece of hardware.

It's an array of powerful, versatile software programs that run on old iPhones as well as new ones, which go on sale today. Most don't cost much and many are free. Hundreds of these applications, or "apps," became available yesterday through the App Store, part of Apple's iTunes Internet retail service.

Sure the new iPhone is cool, but those apps... - The Boston Globe

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Patch domain name servers now, says DNS inventor [ComputerWorld]

Stark... but again very encouraging to know that the nature of the flaw hasn't been publicized yet.

Paul Mockapetris, inventor of the Internet's Domain Name System architecture, has some advice for those in any doubt about the seriousness of a weakness in the DNS protocol that was disclosed yesterday: Patch your DNS servers right now.

The vulnerability and the attack it enables are among the most dangerous to have been discovered in the DNS protocol so far, Mockapetris said in an interview with Computerworld Wednesday morning.

Patch domain name servers now, says DNS inventor

Data Center Strategies: VMware: Welcome to the Game.

Extensive and insightful analysis from my Burton Group colleague Drue Reeves; read the full post for details and projections

Now that the initial shock of Diane Greene's resignation has begun to subside, the "what happened" question begins to loom as people try to understand what is going on at VMware -- a company that has had the biggest tech IPO since Google.

The elephant in the room is whether the relationship between Diane Greene and Joe Tucci (EMC CEO and VMware chairman) was strained. I want to put that aside for a second and talk about the real issue that perhaps contributed or even led to yesterday's events... because whatever your feelings are about the tension between the two, it is secondary (at least) to the real problem -- competitive strategy in an increasingly competitive market.

Data Center Strategies: VMware: Welcome to the Game.

ConsortiumInfo.org - ISO TMB Recommends Rejection of OOXML Appeals

In case anyone is still tracking this topic...

Last night someone sent me a copy of a document delivered by the CEOs of ISO and IEC earlier that day to the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB).   That documents summarizes the four appeals filed in relation to the adoption of DIS 29500 (OOXML), and provides a response to each claimed basis for appeal.  Those appeals, you will recall, were registered by the National Bodies of South Africa, India, Venezuela and Brazil, not all of which have became publicly available.

[...]

The recommendation of the CEOs is as follows:

The processing of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 project has been conducted in conformity with the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives, with decisions determined by the votes expressed by the relevant ISO and IEC national bodies under their own responsibility, and consequently, for the reasons mentioned above, the appeals should not be process [sic] further.

See the full post for reactions/projections/etc.

ConsortiumInfo.org - ISO TMB Recommends Rejection of OOXML Appeals

Technology Review: A Patch to Fix the Net

A classic case study in constructive criticism -- read the full article for details on how the person who discovered the flaw pro-actively worked with leading vendors to address it

On Tuesday, major vendors released patches to address a flaw in the underpinnings of the Internet, in what researchers say is the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Web. Vendors and security researchers are hoping that their coordinated efforts will get the fix out to most of the systems that need it before attackers are able to identify the flaw and begin to exploit it. Attackers could use the flaw to control Internet traffic, potentially directing users to phishing sites or sites loaded with malicious software.

Technology Review: A Patch to Fix the Net

The ‘Fake’ Steve Jobs Is Giving Up Parody Blog - NYTimes.com

More on the retirement of FSJ

Mr. Lyons said that he had grown tired of his fictional creation, but mainly he was worried about making fun of a real person whose health has been a recent topic of speculation. (After a reporter for The New York Times asked about his lean appearance at a conference last month, Mr. Jobs said he was healthy.)

“I tried transitioning to other voices, like Jerry Yang’s, but it just didn’t work,” Mr. Lyons said, referring to the embattled Yahoo chief. “It seems clear that people reading the blog wanted to read Fake Steve or nothing.”

The ‘Fake’ Steve Jobs Is Giving Up Parody Blog - NYTimes.com

Yahoo Is Inviting Partners to Build on Its Search Technology - NYTimes.com

Hmm...

Unable to beat Google in the Web search business on its own, Yahoo is trying a new approach.

Yahoo wants to enlist a small army of search start-ups as allies in the hope that collectively they will be able to stop the Google juggernaut, whose share of Web searches keeps growing.

Later in the article:

Yahoo executives acknowledged that the new strategy, if successful, could cannibalize Yahoo’s own search business. But they said that if a search start-up became popular, it would probably take more users away from Google than from Yahoo, as Google has a far larger share of the market.

Yahoo Is Inviting Partners to Build on Its Search Technology - NYTimes.com

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Fake Steve Jobs calling it a day | One More Thing - CNET News.com

It was good while it lasted...

Fake Steve Jobs is no more.

Dan Lyons, the former Forbes writer and soon-to-be Newsweek writer, announced Wednesday in a rambling post that he's shutting down the tech industry phenomenon known as The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. After it launched in 2006, the blog quickly became a must-read for anyone intrigued by Apple, its mercurial founder, and Silicon Valley in general.

Fake Steve Jobs calling it a day | One More Thing - CNET News.com

Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You For It - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Sign of the times

Yahoo and Getty Images said Tuesday that they have entered into a partnership under which Getty editors will comb Flickr in search of interesting images. They will then invite photographers to participate in the program and ensure that their images have the proper releases to be licensed legally. Those who are included in the program will get paid at the same rates that Getty pays photographers who are under contract with the company.

Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You For It - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

EMC Replaces the Chief and Co-Founder of VMware, Silencing Talk of a Spinoff - NYTimes.com

I suspect this was the crux of the matter

Ms. Greene was fired after she refused to resign or take another position at VMware, according to a VMware manager who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The point of conflict, the person said, was that Ms. Greene had been pushing hard for VMware to be spun off early next year. After five years of ownership, a subsidiary can be sold off in an essentially tax-free transaction. EMC bought VMware for $635 million in cash in December 2003.

EMC Replaces the Chief and Co-Founder of VMware, Silencing Talk of a Spinoff - NYTimes.com

State of the Art - For iPhone, the ‘New’ Is Relative - NYTimes.com

Another take on iPhone 3G; see the full article for details, including an assessment of the new iPhone's limited GPS features

So the iPhone 3G is a nice upgrade. It more than keeps pace with advancing technology, and new buyers will generally be delighted.

But it’s not so much better that it turns all those original iPhones into has-beens. Indeed, the really big deal is the iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store, neither of which requires buying a new iPhone. That twist may come as a refreshing surprise to planned-obsolescence conspiracy theorists — and everyone who stood in line last year.

State of the Art - For iPhone, the ‘New’ Is Relative - NYTimes.com

EMC CEO's ego has cost investors billions | The Register

Check the full article for very critical EMC analysis

We've written more than any other publication about the tension that existed between Tucci and Greene. Such bad blood seemed inevitable once EMC decided to offer part of VMware up in an initial public offering. You've got the stodgy parent company trudging along with a crepe-flat share price, while the young upstart soars into the stratosphere. In fact, at one point not long after the IPO, it looked as if VMware's market capitalization would shoot past that of EMC.

EMC CEO's ego has cost investors billions | The Register

Microsoft Unveils Pricing and Partner Model for Web-Based Messaging and Collaboration Services

More details...

A Deskless Worker Suite, including Exchange Online Deskless Worker and SharePoint Online Deskless Worker, will be available for $3 (U.S.) per user, per month. Customers can also subscribe to each service independently. Exchange Online Deskless Worker will provide e-mail, calendars, global address lists, anti-virus and anti-spam filters, as well as Outlook Web Access Light for access to company e-mail. SharePoint Online Deskless Worker will provide easy access to SharePoint portal and team sites and search functionality, giving employees read-only access to important information such as company policies, training and benefits.

For information workers, businesses can provide an online business productivity suite of Microsoft’s enterprise-class communication and collaboration software as a subscription service. The suite includes the following:

Exchange Online for desktop and mobile e-mail and calendars with Outlook Web Access and full Office Outlook integration

Office SharePoint Online for portals, collaboration, search and customized team sites

Office Communications Online for instant messaging and presence

Office Live Meeting for Web conferencing and videoconferencing

The suite will be available for $15 per user, per month (U.S.). Customers can also subscribe to each service independently.

Microsoft Unveils Pricing and Partner Model for Web-Based Messaging and Collaboration Services: New offering enables partners to reach more customers and boost sales.