ENT News | News: Microsoft Lays Out ERP Roadmap

ENT News | News: Microsoft Lays Out ERP Roadmap "A week after the controversial disclosure that Microsoft had been in merger talks with ERP giant SAP, Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled the roadmap for its own fledgling bundle of four ERP products.
Rather than detailing features coming in each of the products as new versions are rolled out over the next year, Microsoft chose to discuss five broad goals the company will build into each. "These five product development themes transcend our individual product lines and focus on providing customers with holistic solutions to their business problems," Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, said in a statement.
Microsoft's five ERP themes are improving total cost of ownership, building adaptive processes, empowering users, connecting businesses and bringing insight."

Joel on Software - How Microsoft Lost the API War

Joel on Software - How Microsoft Lost the API War "Here's a theory you hear a lot these days: "Microsoft is finished. As soon as Linux makes some inroads on the desktop and web applications replace desktop applications, the mighty empire will topple."
Although there is some truth to the fact that Linux is a huge threat to Microsoft, predictions of the Redmond company's demise are, to say the least, premature. Microsoft has an incredible amount of cash money in the bank and is still incredibly profitable. It has a long way to fall. It could do everything wrong for a decade before it started to be in remote danger, and you never know... they could reinvent themselves as a shaved-ice company at the last minute. So don't be so quick to write them off. In the early 90s everyone thought IBM was completely over: mainframes were history! Back then, Robert X. Cringely predicted that the era of the mainframe would end on January 1, 2000 when all the applications written in COBOL would seize up, and rather than fix those applications, for which, allegedly, the source code had long since been lost, everybody would rewrite those applications for client-server platforms.
Well, guess what. Mainframes are still with us, nothing happened on January 1, 2000, and IBM reinvented itself as a big ol' technology consulting company that also happens to make cheap plastic telephones. So extrapolating from a few data points to the theory that Microsoft is finished is really quite a severe exaggeration.
However, there is a less understood phenomenon which is going largely unnoticed: Microsoft's crown strategic jewel, the Windows API, is lost. The cornerstone of Microsoft's monopoly power and incredibly profitable Windows and Office franchises, which account for virtually all of Microsoft's income and covers up a huge array of unprofitable or marginally profitable product lines, the Windows API is no longer of much interest to developers. The goose that lays the golden eggs is not quite dead, but it does have a terminal disease, one that nobody noticed yet."

Interesting essay, although I don't agree with all of it.

O'Reilly Network: Quiet roll-out of Gmail? [Jun. 16, 2004]

O'Reilly Network: Quiet roll-out of Gmail? [Jun. 16, 2004]: "Earlier today I got three more invitations to hand out to Gmail (after three last week too), and tonight I got another five."

Me too -- let me know if you want an invitation -- pbokelly @ gmail dot com

How do you use OneNote?

How do you use OneNote? "Although we have several different ways to collect information about how OneNote is used, I am always interested to hear how people use it. And this forum provides an opportunity for a dialog that our other data collection systems don’t really provide. So, let's hear it. How do you use OneNote? How is your notebook organized? What do you do with it? Would you prefer a different type of organization, or even a different concept for OneNote besides a tabbed notebook?
As a starter, I'll go first. I use OneNote for the following activities:
..."

It'd be great if more product planners used blogs for this kind of interaction.

The New York Times > Technology > Market Place: Oracle, Locked in Acquisition Struggle, Reports Good Quarter

The New York Times > Technology > Market Place: Oracle, Locked in Acquisition Struggle, Reports Good Quarter "During the quarter, the company improved its cash position, a move Mr. Henley said would help it make acquisitions, regardless of the outcome of its offer to buy PeopleSoft.
"We're growing our cash to get prepared for other large-scale acquisitions," he said, adding that Oracle was considering other multibillion-dollar acquisitions, though he declined to elaborate."

WSJ.com - Oracle Profit Rises As Margin Grows

WSJ.com - Oracle Profit Rises As Margin Grows: "The end of Oracle's fiscal year is traditionally its strongest season as sales representatives scurry to hit targets and secure bonuses. New software-license revenue increased nearly 11% to $1.31 billion from $1.19 billion last year. But strong sales of database systems, where the company is a market leader, masked a weaker performance for its line of business-applications software, such as financial- and human-resource-management systems, where Oracle is No. 3 behind SAP AG and PeopleSoft Inc. New sales of database systems were up 15%, or 11% when the effect of currency conversions are included. New license sales for applications fell by 6%, or 9% in constant currency."

ENT News | News: Virtual Server 2005 Split Into 2 Editions

ENT News | News: Virtual Server 2005 Split Into 2 Editions "Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, which hit the release candidate stage on Monday, will come in two editions when it ships.
...
When the product ships, the editions will be Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Standard Edition and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. The Standard Edition will support up to four processors and the Enterprise Edition will support up to 32 processors. Other features will be the same across the two editions."

Anders Hejlsberg - Tour through computing industry history at the Microsoft Museum

Anders Hejlsberg - Tour through computing industry history at the Microsoft Museum: "Anders Hejlsberg is a distinguished engineer here. At least that's his official title. But that doesn't do justice to the role he's played in the industry (first at Borland, where he ran the team that developed Turbo Pascal and later Delphi, or here at Microsoft, where he and his team developed C#).
But, don't take our word for it -- listen in as he takes you (and interviewer Charles Torre) on a tour of part of Microsoft's Museum and the part he played in computer industry history."

Jupiter Research Analyst Weblogs: Microsoft Expression painting the way to Longhorn?

Jupiter Research Analyst Weblogs: Microsoft Expression painting the way to Longhorn?: "I missed this when it happened but it looks like Microsoft acquired Expression from Creature House. What is Expression? Probably the most innovative natural media vector based drawing tool ever created. It lived for a while over at MetaCreations before they went out of business and I hadn't heard about this product in a while. The cool thing is that Microsoft is offering the full version for free. Download it here. Makes you wonder why they bought the company if they're giving it away. Perhaps it has something to do with that vector based, scalable graphics model that is built into Longhorn? Perhaps it's a good way to gain some expertise in that area? Perhaps both :) I can't wait to try this on a Tablet PC (like the Toshiba with a high res screen). Be interesting to see if it supports pressure sensitivity, if so, this is a killer Tablet app that MSFT should bundle with every system (as long as they're giving it away)"

The New York Times > Technology > Yahoo Expands E-Mail Storage, in Nod to Google

The New York Times > Technology > Yahoo Expands E-Mail Storage, in Nod to Google "Starting today, Yahoo will offer users of its free e-mail service 100 megabytes of storage. That is one-tenth of what Google offers but is still far more than the four megabytes Yahoo previously offered. It will also introduce a premium e-mail service, called Yahoo Mail Plus, with two gigabytes of storage for $19.99 a year."

Oracle Blends IM, Collaboration

Oracle Blends IM, Collaboration "OCS (Oracle Collaboration Suite) 3.0, due in the fourth quarter, adds an instant messaging capability to complement the suite's e-mail, voice mail, calendar, Web conferencing and file management features, said officials in Redwood Shores, Calif. Version 3.0 will include support for collaborative work spaces that can be launched from within other messaging and collaboration applications, officials said."

The New York Times > Technology > Selling 'Nemo' Online, Trying to Repel Pirates

The New York Times > Technology > Selling 'Nemo' Online, Trying to Repel Pirates: "RealNetworks and the Starz Encore Group will introduce an online service today that will let high-speed Internet users download and watch many of the movies shown on the Starz cable channel. The move is another early attempt by Hollywood to build a business out of downloadable movies and head off the sort of piracy that has hurt the music industry.
The new service, called Starz Ticket on Real Movies, will cost $12.95 a month, and subscribers will be able to download and watch 100 or more movies each month, using Real's media player software."

The New York Times > Technology > Pioneer Who Kept the Web Free Honored With a Technology Prize

The New York Times > Technology > Pioneer Who Kept the Web Free Honored With a Technology Prize: "If Tim Berners-Lee had decided to patent his idea in 1989, the Internet would be a different place.
Instead, the World Wide Web became free to anyone who could make use of it. Many of the entrepreneurs and scientists who did use it became rich, among them Jeffrey P. Bezos ( Amazon.com), Jerry Yang ( Yahoo), Pierre Omidyar ( eBay) and Marc Andreessen (Netscape).
But not Mr. Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at a Geneva research laboratory at the time. That is why some people think it is fitting - or about time - that on Tuesday, Mr. Berners-Lee will finally be recognized, with the award of the world's largest technology prize, the Millennium Technology Prize from the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. The prize, valued at 1 million euros ($1.2 million) is supported by the Finnish government and private contributors."

Reuters.com: Famed HP Labs Fellow Kay to Receive Kyoto Prize

Reuters.com: Famed HP Labs Fellow Kay to Receive Kyoto Prize: "Renowned computer scientist and Silicon Valley legend Alan Kay will be awarded one of technology's highest honors, the Kyoto Prize, Hewlett-Packard Co., where Kay works as a researcher, said on Thursday.
It is Kay's third major scientific award this year, Palo Alto, California-based HP said in a statement.
...
Earlier this month, Kay received the Association of Computing Machinery's 2003 Turing Award for leading the team that invented Smalltalk and for fundamental contributions to personal computing. The Turing award carries a $100,000 cash award.
In February, Kay and three former colleagues from Xerox PARC -- Butler Lampson, Robert Taylor and Charles Thacker -- shared the National Academy of Engineering's 2004 Charles Stark Draper Price for the development of a networked personal computer. The $500,000 award recognizes engineers whose accomplishments have significantly benefited society."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Some say Oracle's chances improving in antitrust trial

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Some say Oracle's chances improving in antitrust trial: "It's still early, but some investors already are betting that Oracle will prevail in an antitrust trial contesting its $7.7 billion bid for rival business-software maker PeopleSoft.
'More people are starting to think that maybe Oracle has a good case after all,' said JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens, who has been monitoring the testimony since the San Francisco federal-court trial began earlier this week. '(Oracle) certainly seems to have a better chance of winning than most people thought a week ago.'"

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Electronic Arts to Stop Advertising for Online Casinos on Its Web Site

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Electronic Arts to Stop Advertising for Online Casinos on Its Web Site: "Electronic Arts, the video game giant, said Friday that it had decided to stop running advertisements for Internet casinos on its Web site, delivering another blow to the online gambling industry."

Yeah, only productive/wholesome gaming for EA...

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: " Microsoft Corp. and IBM both plan to move into the market to supply software to run key business functions, a government witness in the antitrust trial against Oracle said in a San Francisco federal court on Thursday. "

Hardly surprising that MS would aim high on apps, but I'll be surprised if IBM pulls a major reversal and makes another run at the apps biz.

Michael Helfrich's Weblog: The G8 Sherpas

Michael Helfrich's Weblog: The G8 Sherpas: "Groove was selected as one of the IT innovations that would be used by the delegations and their research staffs. Each leader (i.e., President Bush) has a policy advisor, who is referred to as a 'sherpa'. The sherpa is given a Motion Computing tablet loaded with Microsoft OneNote and Groove. During the negotiation sessions, the sherpa can use the ink chat to securely connect with their research support staff who are in a room some 3000 feet away. Groove was selected because of the secure, encrypted communications between peers, as well as because of the ink chat support. Clicky keyboards have made too much noise at the table in years past, and runners with handwritten notes is low tech."

Skype to Expand VOIP Service

Skype to Expand VOIP Service: "Skype Technologies SA, makers of the free peer-to-peer VOIP application, plans to offer a paid service by the end of the year that will allow users to make calls to conventional telephones in addition to other computers, and will eventually offer a plan that will allow traditional phones to call Skype users, according to the company's co-founder. "

Microsoft, SAP: Web services deal followed failed merger bid- ADTmag.com

Microsoft, SAP: Web services deal followed failed merger bid- ADTmag.com "Broken discussions on a Microsoft-SAP merger, confirmed this week, did not prevent the two companies from trying to knit together .NET and NetWeaver.
Before an anticipated disclosure by the DoJ forced Microsoft and SAP to come clean on their now aborted merger talks, the two companies announced “a significant expansion of their long-standing relationship.” Putting aside whatever ups and downs accompanied their merger negotiations late last year, Microsoft and SAP shared a 10-year plan for cooperation with SAP customers at Sapphire ’04 in New Orleans last month.
...
SAP’s long-standing Unix bias may be shifting. The Sapphire announcement noted: “More than 40,000 SAP installations run on Microsoft Windows -- more than all other platforms combined. Almost two-thirds of all new SAP installations are deployed on Microsoft Windows.”

Oracle should add this to the list of opportunity costs associated with its PeopleSoft acquisition attempt...

Welcome to LoganWiFi [Boston Logan Airport now wireless]

Welcome to LoganWiFi.com#a1: "A1The Logan Wi-Fi system is available in nearly all public areas of Terminals B, C, D & E.
A2To connect to the Logan Wi-Fi network, first insert or activate your Wi-Fi network card in your computer, then turn on your computer, then open a web browser and you should see the Loganwifi.com welcome page. If you do not see the welcome page, try connecting to www.Loganwifi.com. If you still do not see the welcome page, you may have to configure your SSID.
A3Internet connectivity for a 24-hour period is available for $7.95.
A4You will be prompted to pay by credit card when you attempt to connect to the Internet through your web browser."

Via Dave Winer

Wired News: Gmail Invitation Prices Crash

Wired News: Gmail Invitation Prices Crash: "The bottom has fallen out of the market for Gmail invitations.
On Monday morning, invitations to join the testing of Google's Gmail Web e-mail service were still fetching as much as $100 on eBay closed auctions. By Wednesday afternoon, sellers were lucky to crack the $20 mark.
Increased supply is the likely cause. Until now, Google has been relatively stingy with new invitations. But the company seems to have opened the floodgates. Several Gmail users reported that they had received six invitations over the past two days. "

I found 3 more "invite a friend" accounts in my Gmail this morning (already spoken for...)

WSJ.com - AOL Teams Up With WebEx, Lightbridge on AIM Conferences

WSJ.com - AOL Teams Up With WebEx, Lightbridge on AIM Conferences: "America Online Inc. is enlisting Web meeting provider WebEx Communications Inc. and voice conference firm Lightbridge Inc. to establish its instant-messaging service as a business tool.
AOL plans to announce AIM Business Services, which gives workplace users of AOL Instant Messenger the ability to launch conference calls and Web meetings from their buddy lists. The new paid tools, which show up as icons on buddy lists once a user signs up for them at the AIM site, include AIM Voice Conferencing by Lightbridge and AIM Web Meeting by WebEx.
...
The initiator pays for the services and prices run on a per-participant, per-minute basis. Prices for Lightbridge voice conferencing on AIM, where the price per minute is also based on the volume of minutes purchased, start at a package of 120 minutes, or "call units," for $20. Prices for WebEx online meetings on AIM run 33 cents a minute and call-back and call-in teleconferencing, WebEx's voice offerings, run 20 cents and five cents a minute respectively."

IT morale drops to all-time low - News - ZDNet

IT morale drops to all-time low - News - ZDNet: "Seventy-two percent of the 650 organizations contacted by the research company said the continuing lack of job growth in the industry is dampening the spirits of IT staff. More than half of the companies said they lost staff this year.
...
The survey showed that skills in some areas, such as database management systems and Web infrastructure, are still hot this year, as companies continue to build internal IT infrastructure and feel the need for better management of the huge volumes of data they're accumulating. Also in demand are software development skills, in areas such as Oracle and Java application management and networking."

)CRN | Study: Microsoft Dominates In Web Services Space

CRN | Study: Microsoft Dominates In Web Services Space: "Microsoft dominates in the emerging Web services market, a trend that is only likely to continue as .NET commands as ever-greater share of developer mind space, according to the spring 2004 Web Services Development Survey by Evans Data.
...
Confusion abounds in the area of standards, the survey found. Beyond the very basic Web services standards such as XML, XML Schema, and SOAP, most developers were unfamiliar with other standards, including WSDL and UDDI, two standards at the core of Web services. Only 50 percent of respondents had heard of WSDL, for example, and since WSDL is arguably the most important Web services standard, 'this is an unwelcome result,' concluded the authors of the report. Developers were evenly divided on whether standards confusion could hurt their Web services efforts."

(Thanks, Jim)

BW Online | June 9, 2004 | Apple Hits a High Note with Express

BW Online | June 9, 2004 | Apple Hits a High Note with Express: "Chalk up another great product design from the leader in the field, Apple (AAPL ). On June 7, it took the wraps off the AirPort Express, a pint-size Wi-Fi high-speed data router customized to stream music from a computer to a stereo. The size of a small cassette recorder, the AirPort Express primarily targets music lovers who have long sought a way to play the songs stored on their PC elsewhere in the home. Naturally, they'll have to run Apple's own iTunes software to access the coolest music networking features on the Express. "

The New York Times > Technology > New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV

The New York Times > Technology > New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV: "TiVo, the maker of a popular digital video recorder, plans to announce a new set of Internet-based services today that will further blur the line between programming delivered over traditional cable and satellite channels and content from the Internet. It is just one of a growing group of large and small companies that are looking at high-speed Internet to deliver video content to the living room.
The new TiVo technology, which will become a standard feature in its video recorders, will allow users to download movies and music from the Internet to the hard drive on their video recorder. Although the current TiVo service allows users to watch broadcast, cable or satellite programs at any time, the new technology will make it possible for them to mix content from the Internet with those programs. "

WSJ.com - IBM's Computer-Server Business Puts the Squeeze on Rivals

WSJ.com - IBM's Computer-Server Business Puts the Squeeze on Rivals: "IBM's server surge hasn't gained much notice, in part because it has been overshadowed by a slowdown in the company's giant services business, which accounts for about half of its total revenue. But it has put the squeeze on competitors. Servers -- essentially any computer bigger than a desktop model -- coordinate computer networks, crunch data, dish out Web pages, retrieve customer records and perform other tasks.
After regaining the top spot in servers in 2002, IBM captured 32% of the world-wide market last year, widening its lead over Hewlett-Packard Co., at 27%, and a sinking Sun Microsystems Corp., with 12%, according to International Data Corp., a market-research firm in Framingham, Mass. Dell Inc., the only other major company that is growing in server-market share, stood at 9%.
...
Although IBM has had success selling Wintel boxes of its own, its most powerful, higher-priced models use IBM-made chips and a variety of other operating-system software. Some are smaller, modernized versions of its giant mainframes of yore, once the engine of IBM's profitability. Indeed, IBM says the key to its gains was its decision to continue designing and manufacturing a proprietary line of microprocessors, the miniature brains of computing, instead of standardizing on Intel chips as many competitors have done. IBM also has been selling more servers that run on the free Linux operating software, the bane of Microsoft."

SiliconValley.com | 06/08/2004 | Q: What do you get when you merge Microsoft and SAP? A: Microsoft.

SiliconValley.com | 06/08/2004 | Q: What do you get when you merge Microsoft and SAP? A: Microsoft.: "Microsoft's steadfast denial of its interest in the upper tiers of the enterprise software market has always been comically implausible. So to hear that the company once held discussions about a potential merger with Germany's SAP really comes as no surprise. What is surprising, though, is that the talks ended as recently as a few months ago, right about the time Microsoft told the Justice Department it had no plans during the next two years to move into said market. And they began a day after Oracle announced its hostile bid for PeopleSoft in June 2003. "

Microsoft, SAP mulled merger | CNET News.com

Microsoft, SAP mulled merger | CNET News.com: "SAP said that Microsoft approached the company late last year to discuss the idea of a merger. 'A few months ago, Microsoft ended these discussions due to the complexity of the potential transaction and subsequent integration. There are no intentions to resume these talks,' according to a statement issued by Microsoft. "

(Thanks, Barry)

BEA's Bosworth Brews Alchemy

BEA's Bosworth Brews Alchemy: "At Borland Software Corp., Microsoft Corp., his startup Crossgain and now as chief architect at BEA Systems Inc., Adam Bosworth has shepherded more than his share of XML and Internet standards. Now, with his WebLogic Workshop framework released as the open-source Beehive project, Bosworth is setting his sights on extending the browser via the Alchemy intelligent caching framework and conversation with the server. In an exclusive chat with eWEEK Senior Writer Darryl K. Taft and Contributing Editor Steve Gillmor at BEA's eWorld developer conference, Bosworth explored Alchemy's role in BEA's move to the next generation of service-oriented architecture and its implications in the development of new information routers. "

CRN | Microsoft, The New IBM

CRN | Microsoft, The New IBM: "Something interesting happened on the road to and from software dominance. Microsoft, which always delighted in displacing the old farts of technology, has become an old fart itself.
Yes, ladies and gents, meet Microsoft: the new IBM. What once seemed a hungry, always-working-the-angles product powerhouse now seems increasingly set in its ways and downright stodgy."

(p.s. limited/delayed posts this week -- at a conference with limited Internet access...)

As E-Mail Hassles Pile Up, RSS Is the Elephant in the Room

As E-Mail Hassles Pile Up, RSS Is the Elephant in the Room "This real-time services fabric is that deadliest of competitors to e-mail: It shifts attention slowly and surely away from a producer-consumer economy to a publisher-subscriber ecology. Publishers use transparency to establish credibility, then trade that authority for a reliable connection with their customers.
In this new context, the customer—not the company—controls the conversation. Or to paraphrase Anthony Lye, RSS is the property of individuals, not companies. That's why we fell in love with e-mail in the first place."

Yahoo! News - Porn More Popular Than Search

Yahoo! News - Porn More Popular Than Search: "Online porn sites garnered more than three times the visitors of the major search engines combined during the last week in May, a research firm announced Thursday.
According to Hitwise, a Melbourne, Australia-based Web-tracking firm, visits to the top three search sites--Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search--accounted for just 5.5 percent of all Internet site visits during the week ending May 29.
Porn sites, lumped by Hitwise into a category appropriately dubbed "Adult," received 18.8 percent of all Web visits in the same period.
When all search and directory sites--including those such as AskJeeves and MSN.com--are combined, the porn-versus-search skew doesn't look so bad: overall, search engines and directories accounted for 13.8 percent of the total Net visits during the week."

(Full article)

InformationWeek > Databases > Database Sales On Slow Growth Track > June 4, 2004

InformationWeek > Databases > Database Sales On Slow Growth Track > June 4, 2004 "The relational database market grew 7.6% last year to $13.6 billion, the report says. But most of that growth, calculated in U.S. dollars, was because of currency-exchange-rate changes in Europe. The real growth rate was closer to 2% in constant currency, the report says. IDC projects the database market will reach $20 billion by 2008.
Oracle, which reported 8.6% database revenue growth to $5.4 billion in 2003, is the market leader, with a 39.8% market share. IBM, which recorded 5.5% revenue growth to $4.3 billion, came in second in market share, with 31.3%. Microsoft recorded a hefty 14.7% revenue growth, albeit slower than in 2002, to capture the third spot, with a 12.1% market share.
...
Gartner's database market numbers, issued last month, gave IBM the top market position. Gartner calculated the size of the 2003 database market at $7.1 billion, with 5.1% growth--although the market-research firm also attributed most of that growth to currency-exchange-rate changes. Market numbers from the two firms differ because, among other reasons, Gartner only counts software license revenue, while IDC adds maintenance revenue to the mix."

That's actually a bit kind; the Gartner results were radically different, asserting that Microsoft SQL Server was essentially flat-lining, that IBM had a 35.7% overall share compared to Oracle's 32.6%, etc. As with any analysis domain, it's critically important to read the fine print. Also, with Wintel and Lintel the only DBMS platforms showing significant growth at this point, Microsoft's (100% Windows) DBMS market share is more impressive than the IDC and Gartner numbers suggest.

The Seattle Times: Someone's watching you: Spyware likely hitching ride on your computer

The Seattle Times: Someone's watching you: Spyware likely hitching ride on your computer: "Computer viruses are rampant and spam is epidemic. But the fastest-growing Internet malady is spyware, and chances are your computer is infected.
Spyware is software that secretly forwards information about your online activities to a company or person without your knowledge or permission. In most cases, it is used to display advertising and is relatively benign.
As spyware programs accumulate, however, they can bog down your machine and its Internet connection. The most virulent forms can steal personal information.
Some experts say that up to 90 percent of computers online contain spyware. The situation is bad enough that Congress is considering a law banning such software practices. Internet service providers such as EarthLink have begun offering subscribers free spyware scans and removals.
In the first three months of EarthLink's offer, scans of more than 1 million hard drives found an average 28 spyware installations per PC. "

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Digital Domain: What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Digital Domain: What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s: "Mostly, Google has concentrated on recruiting those with a background in what you would expect: computer science. Founded by two near-Ph.D.'s who have purposely placed Ph.D.'s throughout the company, Google encourages all employees to act as researchers, by spending 20 percent of their time on new projects of their own choosing.
As we take our seats in the Coliseum to watch the latest challenger go up against mighty Microsoft, handicappers will see that Google has two advantages, one of which it has disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission: washing machines are provided at the company for employee use. The other, it has not: with a Ph.D.-centered culture, Google's co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have assembled the industry's most unorthodox portfolio of human capital since Microsoft began intense recruiting of computer science majors at top undergraduate schools in the 1980's.
Microsoft has 56,000 employees, but its research group, with 700, is separate. Google has 1,900 employees, and no separate research group, so all 1,900, effectively, are charged to 'boldly go where no one has gone before' (its words). You have to like Google's chances."

Java to follow Solaris' example - ZDNet UK News

Java to follow Solaris' example - ZDNet UK News: "A day after confirming plans for an open-source flavour of its Solaris server operating system, a technology specialist from Sun Microsystems says the company will do the same for Java.
Speaking to ZDNet UK sister site ZDNET Australia, Sun's Java technology evangelist Raghavan Srinivas said an open-source version of Java 'will happen,' although the timeline and licensing details remain sketchy at this point.
'We haven't worked out how to open source Java, but at some point it will happen,' he said.
'It might be today, tomorrow or two years down the road,' Srinivas added. "

(Or, it might be never...)

WSJ.com - Microsoft's New Plan to License Patents Has Linux Fans Worried

WSJ.com - Microsoft's New Plan to License Patents Has Linux Fans Worried "Microsoft Corp., rarely the aggressor in legal affairs, has adopted a new approach to the use of its patents. Some fans of Linux and other open-source software are starting to worry that they could end up as targets.
Microsoft now holds about 4,500 patents, covering its inventions in fields such as how computers store files and how text is displayed on a screen. In December, Microsoft announced a new policy to begin licensing its patents, citing requests from customers, regulators and others, though it is unclear how many of the patents cover techniques already in use by other companies.
The Redmond, Wash., software giant says it has more than 100 patent-licensing discussions under way. It's offering royalty-bearing licenses both to partners and competitors -- even to sellers of open-source products that have emerged as the company's biggest threat.
...
Marshall Phelps, former chief of International Business Machines Corp.'s intellectual-property unit, joined Microsoft a year ago to start a similar operation. While he was at IBM, that company saw a marked increase in patent-licensing revenue."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Realigns Execs In Small Business Division

WSJ.com - Microsoft Realigns Execs In Small Business Division: "Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Thursday it is making several changes to the executive ranks of its Business Solutions division, which sells software to small- and mid-sized businesses.
Doug Burgum, senior vice president for the 2,000-person division, will now report directly to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. He previously reported to Jeff Raikes, a senior vice president who runs the division that sells the Office suite.
Burgum joined Microsoft when it acquired his company, Great Plains Software, three years ago to get into the market for back-office software for small companies.
Microsoft also named Orlando Ayala, a senior sales executive, to the newly created position of chief operating officer for Business Solutions. He will report to Burgum and be responsible for sales, marketing and operations at Business Solutions."

Oracle is right -- Microsoft is very serious about the apps business...

McCaw Places New Bet On Faster, Cheaper Access (TechNews.com)

McCaw Places New Bet On Faster, Cheaper Access (TechNews.com) ""We're entrepreneurs, and we see things that we think ought to be done," McCaw said in an interview. He has been trying to figure out how to get communications into people's homes through wireless networks since he started a working group called Project Angel in the mid-1990s, he said.
He readily acknowledges some of his forays into the satellite and local phone business have been expensive failures, and says that "time will tell" if his new vision will prove successful. McCaw said he has spent the last couple of years developing a technology and strategy, knowing he will face tough competition. "You need to be fairly well organized when taking on an incumbent," said McCaw. "It's really about moats, and they put a lot of snakes and piranhas in there," he said.
So far, upstarts have not had an easy time taking on the dominant cable and cellular companies. "For the past 15 to 20 years we've been seeing people trying to attack that [wireless Internet] business and not succeeding," he said. "As we're walking over the bodies of our brethren, we're asking, 'How can we avoid this?' " The answer, he concluded, is this: "Above all, it has to be simple, cheap and high-quality."

PCWorld.com - Three Minutes: Godfathers of the Spreadsheet

PCWorld.com - Three Minutes: Godfathers of the Spreadsheet: "Twenty-five years ago, personal computers got serious. The occasion: The introduction of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet and the original 'killer app.'
VisiCalc enjoyed a relatively brief time in the sun. The program made its debut in 1979 and saw its sales peak in 1982. It was sold to Lotus Development only three years later, brought down by 1-2-3 and squabbles between creator Software Arts and marketer VisiCorp.
But VisiCalc changed the world by bringing the Apple II into offices worldwide.
In May, the Software History Center in Boston reunited veterans of the PC's first decade to reminisce and exchange war stories. The luminaries included the three principals behind VisiCalc: Dan Bricklin, who conceived the idea; Bob Frankston, who programmed VisiCalc; and Dan Fylstra, whose VisiCorp brought the product to a surprised world. Here are edited versions of interviews with all three."

Vonage slashes price of Net telephony kit | CNET News.com

Vonage slashes price of Net telephony kit | CNET News.com: "Feeling pressure as competition stiffens, Net phone service provider Vonage has lowered the price by $70 of a starter kit available at retail stores.
The kit, which includes a Motorola phone adapter, is now $30 at Circuit City, Fry's and RadioShack after a $50 mail-in rebate, Vonage said Wednesday. The starter kit, which consists of an adapter and two months of free Vonage service, used to cost $100 at the same stores."

Symantec CEO hits out at Microsoft... and Linux - silicon.com

Symantec CEO hits out at Microsoft... and Linux - silicon.com "Symantec CEO John Thompson has hit out at "the myth" that Microsoft's operating system is inherently less secure than the open-source alternatives, which he likened to a "dead-end alley". However, he still had few kind words for the software giant.
Thompson believes the reason Microsoft is so often seen as culpable for virus outbreaks and security flaws is simply because it is the biggest target – though he admitted that if "things get too homogenised, it is not a good thing" – especially where security is concerned.
...
Thompson likened virus writers to graffiti artists – and the operating systems targeted as their 'canvas'.
"If somebody writes graffiti they're not going to write it on a wall at the end of a dead-end alley. They're going to write it on a train that travels right through the city centre."

Microsoft Issues Public WMP10 Beta [UPDATED]

Microsoft Issues Public WMP10 Beta [UPDATED]: "Microsoft issued a public beta release of Windows Media Player (WMP) 10 (code-named Crescent), a major upgrade of its digital-media front end. Now enhanced with a sleeker, easier-to-use UI, WMP 10 appears to address most of the complaints I've had about this product while adding exciting new features related to subscription music services, online stores, and portable devices.
'The Crescent wave is about a broader strategy of 'media everywhere'', David Caulton, lead product manager for Windows Media, told me in a recent briefing. 'When you acquire content, you should be able to push it from the PC to wherever you want, including portable devices. But there were Digital Rights Management [DRM] limitations around subscription content, and you can currently access subscribed content only when you're connected to the Internet with a PC. We're pushing the subscription model to devices, so now you can fill a Portable Media Center (or other portable device) for [a small fee each] month instead of buying the content.' Caulton pointed out that, by comparison, filling a 20GB Apple iPod with songs from the Apple iTunes Music Store would cost thousands of dollars."

(See article for more details on new features)

The New York Times > Technology > Oracle Croons a New Tune About an Old Rival

The New York Times > Technology > Oracle Croons a New Tune About an Old Rival "In business, competitors are routinely cast as enemies to be fought and ridiculed. And over the years Oracle, led by its shoot-from-the-lip chief executive, Lawrence J. Ellison, has directed vast quantities of combative energy and invective at Microsoft - a software maker led by a man even richer than Mr. Ellison, Bill Gates.
But when Oracle squares off against the Justice Department over its proposed hostile takeover of PeopleSoft in Federal District Court in San Francisco next Monday, it will portray Microsoft as a guardian of competition and a welcome new entrant in the $25-billion-a-year global market for the back-office software that companies use to manage finances, human resources, procurement, sales and customer relations.
For Oracle, the new attitude toward Microsoft is not a change of heart but a matter of self-interest. The Justice Department is suing to block Oracle's $7.7 billion bid for PeopleSoft because it argues that the merger would be anticompetitive by reducing the number of major rivals in the business software market to two from three, thus driving up prices. PeopleSoft has rejected Oracle's offer several times; Oracle made its first offer in June 2003."

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: Comcast to Offer Subscribers On-Demand Video Games

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: Comcast to Offer Subscribers On-Demand Video Games: "Comcast Corp. (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the largest U.S. cable television operator, on Wednesday said it will offer subscribers to its high-speed data service a new bundle of on-demand video games.
Comcast said that for a separate monthly fee of $14.95, subscribers would have unlimited access to more than 60 PC-based games, from mainstream titles to educational software. New titles will be added each month, the company said."

Microsoft Architecture Center Update newsletter: On Photography and Modeling

Microsoft Architecture Center Update newsletter: On Photography and Modeling: "Isn't UML a universal modeling language? Maybe it can be for sketching classes, but much higher fidelity is required for automating software development. For a detailed discussion of differences between sketching and model-driven software development, check out Martin Fowler's blog page on UML (http://martinfowler.com/bliki/UnwantedModelingLanguage.html), or the book that we've just written, called Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools (http://www.softwarefactories.com)."

Via Keith Short's blog

Politically Charged EJB Decision Hands a Victory to JBoss

Politically Charged EJB Decision Hands a Victory to JBoss "The EJB 3.0 expert group seems to have handed JBoss the EJB application server market on a silver platter. Several weeks ago at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Las Vegas the EJB expert group announced its decision to shelve the current entity bean architecture and focus on the lightweight persistence of Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs). Specifically, it decided to use Hibernate as the persistence mechanism in EJB 3.0. Hibernate is an open source object/relational mapping solution that joined the JBoss Group last year."

Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. has decided to cease operations

Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. has decided to cease operations: "To our customers, partners and friends:
Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. has decided to cease operations effective May 15, 2004. Our products, including Scopeware Vision and NewsWatcher,
have been discontinued and are no longer available for download, purchase, or continuing support."

Looks like David Gelernter's software company is no more.

The New York Times > Technology > Sony to Halt New Clie Sales Outside of Japan

The New York Times > Technology > Sony to Halt New Clie Sales Outside of Japan "The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate said the Clie failed to realize its intended goal of becoming a mobile device that links content and hardware. ``We consider mobile devices a key aspect of our strategy to converge contents like music, movies and games with hardware and since the Clie functions as a personal organizer, we wanted to refocus our efforts,'' a Sony spokeswoman said.
Sony aims to fill the Clie void with new advanced handsets from Sony Ericsson, its cell phone venture with Sweden's Ericsson, and a new handheld game machine, the PlayStation Portable (PSP).
The PSP promises to play games, movies and music and will hit stores later this year in Japan. It goes on sale in the United States and Europe by the end of March 2005.
Sony plans to stop development and sales of a new Clie after autumn in all regions, except for Japan."

Microsoft granted patent for double-click - Breaking - smh.com.au

Microsoft granted patent for double-click - Breaking - smh.com.au: "Microsoft has been granted a patent on the double-click by the US Patents and Trademark Office. The patent, number 6,727,830, was granted on April 27.
An abstract of the application says: 'A method and system are provided for extending the functionality of application buttons on a limited resource computing device. Alternative application functions are launched based on the length of time an application button is pressed. A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time.
'An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click.'
The inventors have been cited as Charlton E. Lui and Jeffrey R. Blum and the assignee is Microsoft Corporation. "

I have no idea if this is for real -- via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft Plans $300 Million Marketing Blitz for Windows XP SP2

Microsoft Plans $300 Million Marketing Blitz for Windows XP SP2 "Microsoft will spend $300 million marketing its biggest security release ever--Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). But the big question about XP SP2 isn't its price; the big question is SP2's timing. When, exactly, will Microsoft see fit to release this most disruptive of Windows updates?
The marketing campaign, which will be designed to educate and alert users to the security necessities of installing the update, will be far-reaching. The company will provide XP SP2 to customers through the Microsoft Windows Update and Automatic Updates electronic-updating services and will offer the standard network and compact downloads from its Web site. Retail stores such as Best Buy and CompUSA will give customers the update for free. Customers who want to get SP2 from Microsoft on CD-ROM will have to pay a small shipping and handling fee, I'm told. And because of the company's licensing agreements with PC makers, Microsoft will ensure that all new PCs that ship after SP2 is released will include the update.
...
So what's behind all the delays? XP Lead Product Manager Greg Sullivan told me last week that application and Web site compatibility concerns are the biggest problems. SP2's innate security settings will break a lot of applications and services that are used to having unfettered access to the system. Sullivan said that XP SP2 will concentrate on four key areas: helping protect PCs from network-based attacks, enabling more secure email and Instant Messaging (IM), enabling more secure Internet experiences, and providing system-level protection for the base OS. In addition, SP2 will include several new and updated technologies, such as the Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) 2.0 client, Windows Media Player (WMP) 9 Series, Microsoft DirectX 9.0b, Bluetooth Client 2.0, and a new SmartKey wireless-network setup wizard."

$300M marketing campaign for a free product update? Yeah, I'd say Microsoft is serious about security...

WSJ.com - McCaw Is Expected to Launch Wireless Broadband Service

WSJ.com - McCaw Is Expected to Launch Wireless Broadband Service "Wireless entrepreneur Craig McCaw is expected to announce today that he is launching a national wireless broadband service to compete with the high-speed Internet access offered by cable operators and telephone companies.
His company, called Clearwire Inc., aims to offer wireless Internet access to consumers in roughly 20 markets over the next year, according to Gerry Salemme, the executive vice president of Clearwire and a longtime executive at various ventures of Mr. McCaw's. It will launch service in two cities this summer -- Jacksonville, Fla., and St. Cloud, Minn.
...
Initially, Clearwire's service will be marketed to consumers as a fixed product to compete directly against Internet access via cable modems and digital subscriber lines. Mr. Salemme said that Clearwire's service would offer speeds in a range of 1.5 to two megabytes per second, potentially slightly faster than home DSL or cable modems, and significantly faster than wireless services being contemplated by cellular carriers like Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS."

MercuryNews.com | 06/01/2004 | Sony to cut PDA business

MercuryNews.com | 06/01/2004 | Sony to cut PDA business: "Sony announced today that it's essentially getting out of the handheld computer business in the U.S., and that's a big blow to Sunnyvale-based PalmSource. Sony said it won't introduce any new models of the Clie -- which uses PalmSource's software -- in the U.S.
PalmSource's stock closed down 12 percent on the news, making it one of the Nasdaq's biggest decliners of the day."

BBC NEWS | Technology | Return of Colossus to mark D-Day

BBC NEWS | Technology | Return of Colossus to mark D-Day: "
Tony Sale led the team to rebuild Colossus Mk2
Colossus Mk2, a wartime code-breaker hailed as one of the first electronic computers, has been rebuilt and reunited with Bletchley Park veterans. "

WSJ.com - Sun to Unveil Plan Aimed at Linux

WSJ.com - Sun to Unveil Plan Aimed at Linux "Jonathan Schwartz, a former software chief at Sun who was named the company's president and chief operating officer earlier this year, argues that Sun has a distinct advantage over companies that don't make their own operating systems for low-end servers. While pricing Solaris aggressively -- either as a separate product, or bundled with servers -- Sun can still derive additional revenue from the software to counteract the effect of falling hardware prices, he said
Mr. Schwartz, who is describing the strategy at a customer gathering this week in Shanghai, predicts that recurring revenue from software and services could allow Sun to offer companies hardware on a subscription basis or for free -- a bit like the way cellphone services subsidize the price of handsets.
"My belief is in five years, customers will no longer be paying for hardware -- it will be free," Mr. Schwartz said."

The New York Times > Technology > Hewlett to Support Software of 2 Open Source Companies

The New York Times > Technology > Hewlett to Support Software of 2 Open Source Companies "But I.B.M.'s database and applications server products could themselves be undermined someday by open source offerings like MySQL and JBoss. "I.B.M. fears open source as it moves up above the operating system," Mr. Fink of Hewlett-Packard said.
Hewlett-Packard has few such fears. Al Gillen, an analyst at IDC, a research firm, said, "H-P doesn't have much of a software business, so it sees open source software as a clear-cut opportunity to sell more hardware."
Hewlett-Packard is the leader in server computers running Linux, but its market share is slipping, according to an IDC report on Friday. In the first quarter, Hewlett-Packard had 28.8 percent of revenue in the market for Linux-based server computers, followed by Dell Computer with 18.2 percent and I.B.M. with 17.5 percent. The market shares for Hewlett-Packard and Dell declined from the year-earlier quarter, while I.B.M.'s share in Linux-based servers increased."

WSJ.com - H-P to Increase Support Of Open-Source Software

WSJ.com - H-P to Increase Support Of Open-Source Software "Hewlett-Packard Co., one of the biggest backers of the Linux operating system, said it will increase its backing of "open-source" software by being the first large technology company to certify and support programs made by MySQL AB and JBoss Inc.
The move by H-P, Palo Alto, Calif., is intended as a competitive strike against rival International Business Machines Corp., which sells its own stack of proprietary "middleware" software. By adding open-source programs from MySQL and JBoss to its offerings, which also include middleware programs from Oracle Corp. and BEA Systems Inc., H-P says it is giving customers more software choices."

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Sony struggles to adapt in digital age

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Sony struggles to adapt in digital age "Since Idei became chief executive in 1999, Sony's shares have lost almost three-quarters of their value. During that time, Sony's market value plunged to $33 billion from $138 billion.
The "Sony shock" accelerated the decline. On April 24, 2003, Sony reported a fourth-quarter loss of $970 million, triple what most analysts had expected. Sony's trouble is that it's too big and too unfocused, says Al Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing strategist. The electronics unit makes everything from image sensors for digital cameras to CD players, personal computers, and headphones. The entertainment side creates movies, music, and video games. The financial arm houses two insurance companies and an Internet bank.
"It becomes virtually unmanageable once you go into so many categories," says Ries, chairman of Ries & Ries, which advised Apple on marketing its Apple IIe computer."

Yusuf Mehdi Address to Institutional Investors at Goldman Sachs 5th Annual Internet Conference

Yusuf Mehdi Address to Institutional Investors at Goldman Sachs 5th Annual Internet Conference: " couple words about those businesses: On the communications side we have a lot of assets that we've built around, but in general I would say all of our aspirations about what we want to do as a business and for consumers pivot on Hotmail and Messenger. Hotmail is upwards now of 190 million people that use the service on a monthly basis and I guess just a fun fact there that 35 million more mails are sent every day than the UPS delivers physically in terms of the amount of mail that goes through that system. In fact, our total number of users would rank Hotmail as the sixth largest country just to give you a sense of the size of the thing.
And Messenger, four years ago we didn't have MSN Messenger. Today we have 120 million users. And at any given time there are probably 12 million people talking one-to-one on the service. It's really become a pretty amazing set of services.
On the information side for our business a couple of different things there. It continues to be the most popular destination on the Web with 350 million people that come once a month to someplace on the network somewhere in the world. We're in more countries than any other provide, Yahoo, Google, AOL included. We're in more languages and that worldwide growth and globalization has helped us get this success."

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'The Creation of the Media': The American Information Revolution

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'The Creation of the Media': The American Information Revolution "Although Starr doesn't put it quite this way, the heart of his argument is that Americans fundamentally misunderstand what is unusual about their communications media, and why. ''The media,'' for Starr's purposes, include not just the print press but also books, broadcasts (radio and television), the movies and other innovations, notably including telephones, that allow people to share information. Conventionally, Americans think that the most important fact about their news media is that, thanks to the First Amendment, they are ''free.'' The absence of governmental controls over parts of the media -- though not all, as witness broadcasters' wrangles with the Federal Communications Commission -- has indeed made America's communications system distinctive. But the emphasis on the First Amendment implies that the media's evolution has been automatic and unplanned."

The start of the book's first chapter is on-line.

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Spending: The Express Lane to the Internet, Now With Fewer Bumps

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Spending: The Express Lane to the Internet, Now With Fewer Bumps "After years of hiccups, broadband providers have also streamlined the application and installation processes and, crucially, expanded the coverage areas. As of the end of last year, 23 percent of households nationwide had signed up for a broadband plan, according to the Yankee Group, a market research firm."

InfoWorld: Open source software merits debated

InfoWorld: Open source software merits debated "At MySQL, the company’s dual licensing model allows for users to get the database free if they are not deploying it in a commercial application, noted Zack Urlocker, vice president of marketing at MySQL. Customers who will be using the database in a commercial environment and do not want to publish any additions they make to the source code to pay for a license, he said.
“We actually make our money very [similarly] to a traditional company,” with 65 percent of revenues coming from license fees, Urlocker said. Customers pay for licenses and support like a traditional software model, he said.
“We’re not a religion, we’re not a cult, we’re not a charity. We’re a business,” Urlocker said. MySQL experiences 35,000 downloads of its software daily, but only has 5,000 paying customers, according to Urlocker.
Urlocker stressed that the software market has in fact changed. “The old model, which many of us lived through in the enterprise software industry, is high prices for software that doesn’t really work and that’s really not acceptable anymore,” said Urlocker.
Microsoft's Fitzgerald said users will no longer accept the high failure rates that have historically predominated software projects. “That model is never, never coming back,” he said."

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of May 31: Rumor Alert: Microsoft Isn't Going to Sell a $50 iPod Competitor

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of May 31: Rumor Alert: Microsoft Isn't Going to Sell a $50 iPod Competitor "And speaking of Mehdi, during his speech Mehdi also discussed Microsoft's plans for digital music, which set the rumor mills churning. According to reports posted all over the Internet, Microsoft will soon release a $50 digital-music player that will "look and feel as good as the [Apple] iPod." Actually, that's not what Mehdi said. Microsoft isn't releasing such a player--its hardware partners are, along with a slew of other devices that will attack the portable-audio-player market from every conceivable angle. "I've spent time with a bunch of hardware manufacturers who will launch hardware products when we ship our [online music] service that will look and feel as good as the iPod product," Mehdi said. "And they will undoubtedly be a little bit less expensive, and so head-to-head against Apple we'll have a device that will be available to the consumer. We won't produce it, but ... we gave a lot of input. [Portable Media Centers] are for people who want to look at music videos and not just [listen to] music, which is very powerful; we'll have that offering. And then [our partners will release] a bunch of devices in between--little ones that cost 50 bucks and that and that you can go running with." End of story."

I don't think it matters that much if the devices are made by Microsoft; the point is that a reference platform that's supported by multiple hardware vendors tends to be more diverse (in terms of features, price range, etc.) than a platform that's only produced by one vendor. Kinda like the PC/Mac story...

Office Developer Center: Building User Interfaces with the Information Bridge Framework

Office Developer Center: Building User Interfaces with the Information Bridge Framework: "The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework makes programming the Office task pane not only easy but also very powerful. The Information Bridge Framework task pane provides a rich user interface that you can extend by creating your own custom regions. Information Bridge Framework Regions, which are.NET-based user controls that implement the Information Bridge Framework IRegion interface, can contain common controls of many types, execute actions within or outside the context of an Information Bridge Framework solution, and enable solution developers to program the Office task pane through the familiar Windows form-based programming model. With Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework, you can program the Office task pane with your data."

"Smart documents" are getting smarter...

TechEd 2004: A whiteboard with Anders (DEVC11)

TechEd 2004: A whiteboard with Anders (DEVC11) "What are your thoughts on AOP?
Anders is in a "wait and see" mode. He sees a little wary of the fact that "If I look at my code I don't know exactly what is happening", as someone may be weaving in. This sounds a little bit like the people that were wary of polymorphism at first, as they didn't know what was really called. I think it would be good to show some code with and without AOP, and how you get MORE clarity in your code with it (in my opinion). I do think it is wise for Anders to be wary though, but it is good to hear that he is paying attention. He did say that he thought that Attributes were doing part of the job. I worry about people confusing Attributes and AOP.
...
What are some interesting things that you are thinking about?
The biggest thing that Anders mentioned was the fact that he sees a huge impedence mismatch between the DB world, and the rest of the programming world. This is why there are now the nullable types, and the team is going to do a lot more in this area... allowing us to work together better."

Former Informix CEO sentenced to two months | CNET News.com

Former Informix CEO sentenced to two months | CNET News.com "Phillip White, the former chief executive of Informix, a database software company, was sentenced Wednesday to two months in federal prison for securities fraud by a federal judge in San Francisco, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said."

White was way ahead of today's Enron times...

CRN : Breaking News : BEA Visionary Bosworth Details Mobile Browser Concept : 3:14 PM EST Wed., May 26, 2004

CRN : Breaking News : BEA Visionary Bosworth Details Mobile Browser Concept : 3:14 PM EST Wed., May 26, 2004: "BEA Systems is developing new browser technology designed to deliver a rich user experience, even if users are only occasionally connected to the Web.
BEA Chief Architect Adam Bosworth demonstrated the technology, dubbed the Alchemy Universal Client Platform, during at keynote address Wednesday at BEA eWorld in San Francisco. With Alchemy, BEA aims to solve the problem of Web browser use on mobile devices, which currently is a cumbersome experience for users, he said.
...
Bosworth stressed in his keynote that Alchemy remains a concept, not a product. He said BEA plans to deliver the technology only with the help of partners such as Nokia and Intel, which could mean the technology won't be ready for a year or two."

ObjectSpaces Functionality to be Delivered with Longhorn

ObjectSpaces Functionality to be Delivered with Longhorn "Developers who have been following the evolution of "ObjectSpaces" – a technology effort building services supporting object representations of data in relational databases – will be interested to know that these efforts are being merged with the Windows code-named “Longhorn” object/data technology “WinFS”. This decision was made after evaluating the overlapping scenarios that each of these technologies delivered and firm feedback that developers and architects need a consistent, long-lived API delivering this functionality. More information will become available through MSDN for developers and architects to plan and build solutions today using the .NET Framework while planning for the exciting features of Windows code-named "Longhorn"."

That's a big cut from Whidbey. Lots of interesting speculation about the reason for the change in plans.

Wired 12.06: Welcome to Planet Pixar

Wired 12.06: Welcome to Planet Pixar "By any standards, Pixar Animation Studios has reached infinity and beyond. From 1995's Toy Story - the world's first all-CG feature - to last year's Finding Nemo, Pixar's five hermetically crafted movies have grossed a staggering $2.5 billion at the box office, making it the most successful film studio, picture for picture, of all time. "You have to take your hat off to them," says Neil Braun, head of CG-animation company Vanguard and former president of the NBC Television Network. In the history of film, there's just one precedent for this level of economic triumph, this ability to add to the American childhood's beloved cast of characters: Disney Animation Studios.
Pixar hasn't just turned into the new Disney. It has out-Disneyed Disney, becoming the apprentice that schooled the sorcerer. Pixar's most talented animators grew up admiring Disney, worked at the sketching tables in Burbank, and went on to crib the company's DNA. Pixar's story development process as well as its internal lexicon - including sweatbox, when the director critiques individual animations, and plus-ing, heaping more and more good ideas on a structure that's already working - come directly from the House That Mickey Built. Both companies are technical pioneers: Disney imbued 2-D cel animation with comedy and heartbreak; Pixar coaxed empathy from digital effects. Now the flipbook animation style that made the Magic Kingdom a powerhouse is fading to black: Disney's Home on the Range, released in April, is the last fully 2-D production for the studio, and competitors like DreamWorks are retraining illustrators to be 3-D mouse jockeys. Pixar's digital animation is the wave of the future."

Very interesting overview of Pixar's history and likely future.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Some, the Blogging Never Stops

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Some, the Blogging Never Stops "To celebrate four years of marriage, Richard Wiggins and his wife, Judy Matthews, recently spent a week in Key West, Fla. Early on the morning of their anniversary, Ms. Matthews heard her husband get up and go into the bathroom. He stayed there for a long time.
"I didn't hear any water running, so I wondered what was going on," Ms. Matthews said. When she knocked on the door, she found him seated with his laptop balanced on his knees, typing into his Web log, a collection of observations about the technical world, over a wireless link.
Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes, like Mr. Wiggins, quietly so as not to call attention to their habit."

Includes picture of Mr. Wiggins sitting poolside with his mini-laptop...

FTPOnline.com: Whitehorse Rides to Modeling's Rescue

FTPOnline.com: Whitehorse Rides to Modeling's Rescue "The biggest problems occur once the code described by the model is created. You must reflect the changes you make in the code back into the model, so they remain in sync. This is critical because if you ever want to overhaul or make changes to the application, it would be ideal to do so from the model level, not the code level. This means the model needs to be in sync with the code level, or you're going to be creating a great deal of extra work for your programming teams. However, the effort required to keep the application and model in sync can quickly spiral out of control, to the point where it's not worth the effort.
Few companies even try. FTP's own research indicates that fewer than 5 percent of developers take advantage of modeling tools. Industry analysts cite a similar number, leading to an inescapable conclusion: The promise of modeling tools is not being fulfilled. It takes too much effort to use them, and they are too complex for everyday developers to take the time to learn their intricacies and their idiosyncrasies.
Microsoft aims to change this in the next version of Visual Studio .NET, code-named Whidbey. Whidbey will ship with Whitehorse, which includes three separate modeling tools intended to simplify modeling in general and create service-oriented applications in particular. The three modeling tools are a class designer, a distributed service designer, and a logical data center designer."

Boston Globe Online / Business / Microsoft to sell portable music players

Boston Globe Online / Business / Microsoft to sell portable music players "Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, will begin selling portable music players for as much as 80 percent less than Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod. The Microsoft-branded devices will ''look and feel" as good as the iPod for as little as $50, said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN at Microsoft, at the Goldman Sachs 5th Annual Internet Conference in Las Vegas. The iPod sells for $249 to $499. Microsoft will release a number of music players when it launches its online music service this year, giving customers more choices than Apple, Mehdi said. Apple's second-quarter shipments of iPods rose more than eightfold from a year earlier, helping to triple its profit. (Bloomberg)"

(Full article)

Microsoft Kills Kodiak Exchange Server

Microsoft Kills Kodiak Exchange Server "In a surprise move, Microsoft revealed yesterday that the company plans to kill the next major version of Microsoft Exchange Server, code-named Kodiak, and will instead plot a future course of smaller upgrades to Exchange Server 2003. These upgrades will, over time, comprise what would have made up the feature set for Kodiak, which Microsoft originally planned to release in 2005.
"We're actually going to stop using the Kodiak name," Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Thompson said. "But there is a set of things that we're still working on and that we will announce in steps. The next major technology, Exchange Server Edge Services, will come next year." Another Kodiak technology, the Microsoft SQL Server-based data store, will probably be postponed until the next major Exchange Server version, now due in the 2006 to 2007 time frame."

That's a misleading headline -- Microsoft killed the code-name, since it had managed to totally confuse the market about plans for the next major release of Exchange, but it hasn't changed the overall product strategy.

Blogger Knowledge: Hello, Photoblogging

Blogger Knowledge: Hello, Photoblogging "The fine folks at Picasa have worked with us to create the quickest, easiest way for Windows users to send photos to a blog—via IM. That's right, Instant Messaging has gone to the blogs. The IM client they built is called Hello. It's a peer-to-peer networking application that enables users to share photos and text-chat about them live. It's a snazzy little app but it's even more impressive when it's engineered to work seamlessly with Blogger.
BloggerBot waits patiently in the Hello client along with the names of your buddies. When you have a photo you want to post, just drag it to BloggerBot, add an optional caption, and it is inst-o-matically published to your blog. Now you're sharing your photos within seconds to the entire wired world. And get this: we host your photos for free. How do you like them apples, Mr. Land?"

Guess I need a new camera now. I continue to be very impressed with Nat Friedman's blog -- great blend of images and text -- and plan to eventually start posting more multimedia stuff...

CRN : Breaking News : Reporter's Notebook: Big Hack Attack On Tech Ed

CRN : Breaking News : Reporter's Notebook: Big Hack Attack On Tech Ed: "The real story out of Microsoft Tech Ed wasn't highlighted on stage but wreaked havoc on attendees nonetheless.
Reporters first noted an inability to link into VPNs from the show's press room on Monday, opening day of Tech Ed 2004 in San Diego. They were able to connect over wire connections to the 'Net, but access to VPNs was precluded and many could not access instant messaging either. Microsoft network support technicians eventually admitted that relevant ports were shut down to prevent hackers who were targeting the show.
A Microsoft executive later said that hackers had put out bounties--she mentioned $50,000--to disrupt the show network. She did not specify further."

CRN : Breaking News : Microsoft Fortifies Next-Gen SQL Server

CRN : Breaking News : Microsoft Fortifies Next-Gen SQL Server "The next beta release of SQL Server will add what Microsoft calls native support for encryption, decryption and key management.
"It'll be up to you which algorithms you use [Triple DES or AES], but we can support cell-level encryption, so credit-card numbers can be encrypted but other cells not," said Tom Rizzo, director of product management for SQL Server."

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: Intel Plans Unprecedented Push for New Chip Set

Technology News Article | Reuters.com: Intel Plans Unprecedented Push for New Chip Set: "Intel's newest chip set, code-named Grantsdale, will be pitched as one of the stars of the show as the importance of PC speed gives way to multimedia and communications features.
To be released by the end of June, Grantsdale has been upgraded with more powerful sound and graphics, an ability to turn a PC into a wireless access point, and a speedier link for peripherals and memory."

Scientific American: Talking to Bill Gates

Scientific American: Talking to Bill Gates "SA: Some critics have said that there is an unbelievable collection of talent here but that there have not been achievements on the order of things like the transistor. Do you see any validity in that?
BG: Well, we do software. And if you look at the papers at Siggraph [a computer graphics conference] and the proportion coming out of our one lab, you see us in many different areas. We wish there were other labs doing more. We are a very high percentage of the nonuniversity work being done in many of these fields. Typically in the computer field, most of the companies don't have long-term research. They just don't.
Take what we've done in machine translation--no, that's not as good as the transistor, but it's pretty phenomenal. The stuff we're doing with speech, pretty phenomenal. Electronic ink. Software reliability. If we weren't able to prove [test and validate] programs, we wouldn't be able to get the Internet to achieve its potential. An investment of the size we're making will only be judged 20 years from now."

Also worth skimming the full interview (14-page pdf)

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check -- updated...

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check -- updated... I decided to try a Blogger template that was created during this century (I started using Blogger during late 1999), in order to turn on the comments capability etc. Note that I reserve the right to delete comments I find objectionable. I also won't be checking for comments more than once a day.

InfoWorld: TechEd: Microsoft to kill 'Kodiak' code name

InfoWorld: TechEd: Microsoft to kill 'Kodiak' code name: "Microsoft will dump its 'Kodiak' code-name that had been tagged to the next generation release of Exchange Server, instead shifting strategy to release individual improvements as they are ready, according to company executives here at TechEd 2004. "

Can't wait to see what Ed Brill has to say about this...

Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Visual Studio 2005 Team System "Satisfying the application development needs of today's large-scale enterprises frequently requires complex, highly specialized sets of tools, technologies, and design methods. With Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Microsoft is addressing the growing complexities of applications and the life cycle required to design, develop, and deploy them by providing the tools and guidance needed to enable predictable, repeatable results without trading off productivity and innovation."

Just realized one of my quasi-predictions from one of my recent articles just came true -- "Visual Studio .NET isn't yet described as a system (as Windows and Office are), but it certainly is one, as a broad, deep, and extensible IDE." Now Microsoft offers three systems -- Windows Server System, Office System, and Visual Studio Team System.

Whitehorse is Part of the Newly Announced Visual 2005 Studio Team System!

Whitehorse is Part of the Newly Announced Visual 2005 Studio Team System! "Today was a great day for us in the Whitehorse project, as in many ways it was our real “coming out” party. Whitehorse was revealed to the world officially at last year’s PDC, but today Steve Ballmer, in his opening keynote, announced to a huge crowd the Visual Studio 2005 Team System product line. A closely guarded secret for many months, we are now able to talk about this exciting group of features that’ll ship in Visual Studio 2005 (formerly known as Whidbey). The Whitehorse modeling tools are officially now known as Visual Studio 2005 Team Architect to emphasize the integration with the other capabilities of the Team System. Anyone interested in these tools should check out the Visual Studio 2005 Team System link."

IBM, Dell rise in servers while Sun, HP shrink | CNET News.com

IBM, Dell rise in servers while Sun, HP shrink | CNET News.com "IBM and Dell each saw server revenue grow by more than 20 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago, according to researcher Gartner.
The "other" category, made up of second-tier manufacturers, also did well, experiencing year-over-year revenue growth of 25.3 percent for the overall market and 71.9 percent for the Linux market--faster than the market as a whole. In most categories, the "other" group generally saw faster growth than nearly all the brand-name manufacturers.
Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, experienced annual revenue declines of, respectively, 16.7 percent and 13.2 percent. Overall, U.S. server revenue grew by 7 percent during the quarter, according to Gartner."

WSJ.com - CA to Release Open-Source Software

WSJ.com - CA to Release Open-Source Software " Computer Associates International Inc. will release its Ingres database software under an open-source license, the company said at its user conference here today.
Ingres began its life as a public-domain database project at the University of California at Berkeley, but was later commercialized and developed as a proprietary product. CA acquired it in the 1990s."

Quoting Jim Gray, from a mid-1990s interview: “Students trained on Ingres went on to start or staff all the major database companies (AT&T, Britton Lee, HP, Informix, IBM, Oracle, Tandem, [and] Sybase).” It's nice that Ingres is getting a bit more press, but since PostgreSQL, Mike Stonebraker's post-Ingres project at UC Berkeley, is already a leading open source DBMS, this move by CA is unlikely to do anything but please existing Ingres customers.

WSJ.com - Toys 'R' Us Unit Files Suit Against Amazon

WSJ.com - Toys 'R' Us Unit Files Suit Against Amazon "Toys "R" Us Inc.'s Toysrus.com unit has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc. charging the Web retailer with violating Toysrus.com's rights to be the only seller of toys, games and baby products on Amazon.com.
Toys "R" Us said that its position as the only authorized seller of toys, games and baby products on Amazon.com extends to 2010. However, as of May 17, "there were more than 4,000 products in exclusive categories being offered through competitive retailers on the Amazon.com platform," the company said."

Lawyers R such dorks sometimes...

Economist.com | Articles by Subject | Oracle v Peoplesoft

Economist.com | Articles by Subject | Oracle v Peoplesoft "Presiding over the trial of the DOJ suit is Vaughn Walker, a judge who is unusually expert in antitrust law, and who has previously tangled with the DOJ's antitrust arm over a newspaper sale in 2000. Many of the DOJ's published witnesses are Peoplesoft customers, who from the beginning have felt threatened by Oracle's bid. Oracle has gathered what looks to be a broader mix, including rival software firms, customers and economists. Both Mr Ellison and Craig Conway, Peoplesoft's boss, have been called to testify.
Perhaps Justice Walker will discover reason and evidence in the government's case. Then Oracle would need to find new sources of growth in a maturing market. But Peoplesoft would then face the challenge of repairing a business that has weakened significantly during the lengthy bidding war. And if the DOJ should lose? Peoplesoft would be left with a damaged boss (and board), a falling share price and, perhaps, a full-scale shareholder revolt. Whether or not Mr Ellison would then choose to continue to pursue his bid (perhaps with an even lower offer), Oracle would probably emerge the winner. As the title of a recent book about Larry's art of war puts it, everyone else must fail."

The New York Times > Technology > Lift and Reach and Hold That Pose, and Advance to the Next Level

The New York Times > Technology > Lift and Reach and Hold That Pose, and Advance to the Next Level "Ever greater weight loss - rather than a chance to battle bigger monsters - is one goal for players of Yourself!Fitness, a video game under development for Microsoft's Xbox. The new title, aimed at women, features a computer-generated personal trainer who guides users through a customized set of exercises and diets.
Players must reach certain goals to advance to the next level. The program creates a fitness plan for each person based on height, weight and other characteristics. The game's virtual coach, Maya, then guides users through a subset of 600 possible exercises, congratulating and encouraging them when they achieve their goals.
...
After the game's release this fall, the company expects to make a Sony Playstation version available at the end of the year, and to sell an Xbox Live version in 2005 that will let participants use a wireless headset to talk to each other during the game.
"Users will be able to create an online community to discuss each other's accomplishments and chat while working out," Mr. Spooner said. "This will be a virtual gym."

Boston.com / Business / As many of its peers failed, ATG weathered a wild ride

Boston.com / Business / As many of its peers failed, ATG weathered a wild ride "For Art Technology Group Inc. of Cambridge, 2003 was nothing to write home about. The company posted a $4.2 million profit that was due to a restructuring of its real estate leases; factor that out and ATG would have suffered a $6.1 million loss.
Still, you won't hear anybody at ATG complain. The company, which went public in 1999, is lucky to be alive."

Interesting bubble survivors' club series in The Boston Globe today.

The New York Times > Business > The Distributor vs. the Innovator

The New York Times > Business > The Distributor vs. the Innovator ""Somebody doesn't just come along, particularly a company that is not an innovator, and say, 'We're going to do it better,' " Ms. Fiorina said. "Dell isn't doing anything. It's just distributing other people's products."
...
Things are just beginning, Mr. Dell replies. "Stay tuned; there's a lot we can and will do," he said. A better business model, he explains, will beat a better technology, and he insists the odds are on his side in the printing business over the long run.
"The days of engineering-led technology companies are coming to an end," Mr. Dell declared."

Given the experience I've had with my last few HP printers (except for a very useful LaserJet, all but one of the HP inkjets I've purchased during the last several years were junk), I think there is ample room for competition.

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > A Demure Pixar Takes No Notice of Eager Suitors

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > A Demure Pixar Takes No Notice of Eager Suitors "Nonetheless, the frost between Disney and Pixar seems to be thawing. Mr. Jobs went out of his way to praise Disney executives two weeks ago in Pixar's earnings call. "Although 'The Incredibles' and 'Cars' will likely be the last two Pixar films marketed and distributed by Disney," he said, "I want to stress that the working relationship between the two companies remains really positive and professional."
Those comments are a stark contrast to his blistering attack on Disney in February, when he called movies like "Treasure Planet" bombs and said sequels to "The Lion King" and "Peter Pan" were "embarrassing."

Great Pixar article in the latest issue of Wired, but the dummies won't post it on their Web site for a week or two.

WSJ.com - Cisco's Fastest Web Router Is Set to Debut

WSJ.com - Cisco's Fastest Web Router Is Set to Debut "The HFR is Cisco's latest entry in what has become a seesaw battle with Juniper, of Sunnyvale, Calif. Juniper, which builds routers aimed primarily at telecom carriers, briefly surpassed Cisco in market share of the fastest routers in 2001. Cisco Systems regained its dominance with a new product, before Juniper leapfrogged Cisco again in 2002.
Since then, Juniper has made steady gains, capturing 34% of the market for the fastest routers in the first quarter, up from 30% a year earlier, according to market researcher Dell'Oro Group, of Redwood Shores, Calif. Cisco's share declined to 59%, from 63%. Late last year, Juniper won a contract estimated at $150 million, to supply routers for a new federal-government network."

(BusinessWeek said "HFR" stands for "huge fast router"; I suspect that's not quite right...)

BW Online | May 31, 2004 | Teaching Microsoft To Make Nice?

BW Online | May 31, 2004 | Teaching Microsoft To Make Nice? "In late 2001, when Bradford L. Smith was bidding to become Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) general counsel, he put together a PowerPoint presentation for senior execs that consisted of a single slide. The message was simple and potent: It's time to make peace. Microsoft's longtime legal deputy argued that the software giant should alter its legal tactics -- and business practices -- to improve its relationships with regulators and tech companies. Smith found a receptive audience in Chairman William H. Gates III and Chief Executive Steven A. Ballmer. The company was just then putting the finishing touches on a tentative settlement with the Justice Dept. that would finally end a bitter four-year antitrust battle, and they were willing to try something new. "I felt like I not only got the job, I got something of a mandate," Smith recalls.
In fact, Smith's appointment signaled a major shift for the tech industry's schoolyard bully. For most of its 29 years, Microsoft rarely shied away from a court fight. But in the past two years, the company has aggressively resolved litigation with governments and companies, settling nearly two dozen cases and shelling out $5 billion to plaintiffs in the process. In addition to the deal with the Justice Dept., Microsoft settled disputes with AOL Time Warner, Sun Microsystems (SUNW ), and smaller companies such as Be Inc. Outsiders say the mild-mannered, 45-year-old Midwesterner has been a key part of the change. "A big reason we were able to reach a settlement was because of the trust I had in Brad," says Paul T. Cappuccio, general counsel for Time Warner Inc. (TWX ), which received $750 million when it settled its antitrust suit against Microsoft in May, 2003.
Smith is hardly cutting these deals on his own. Without the support of Gates and Ballmer, Smith would be writing combative briefs, not colossal checks. While Gates and Ballmer were open to a more conciliatory legal approach, it was Smith who designed the strategy to make it happen. His predecessor, William H. Neukom, who retired in 2002, treated legal challenges like death matches during his 22 years as general counsel. Smith, in contrast, is a natural diplomat. "The company has made it a priority to do all we can to end these legal issues," Ballmer says. "What Brad has brought is a tremendous amount of energy, talent, and creativity to help us in this effort and to do so in a way that increases collaboration with other companies."

PBS | I, Cringely: Divide and Conquer: Why Apple Has an iPod Division

PBS | I, Cringely: Divide and Conquer: Why Apple Has an iPod Division "Apple is being ravaged from both ends of the market. The U.S. Government has told them they can't claim to be the fastest PC because they aren't. So Intel and AMD are nibbling away. Even Pixar uses Intel-based hardware in its rendering farm. Now imagine IBM and Sony attacking from the other end with inexpensive Cell hardware that beats the heck out of Pentium AND PowerPC. Well, the best reaction to that is to follow the Microsoft model, and target a high-margin OS and applications at the low-margin hardware platform built by a third party. Voila, Apple becomes a software company that also sells little hardware devices, again following the Microsoft model.
I'm not saying this is going to happen, but I think it will happen if Apple has any trouble at all maintaining its margins under the current strategy. Absolutely look for the rape of the resellers, and then MAYBE look for the end of Macintosh hardware. But iPods and iTunes will be everywhere, even here in Charleston, which has a Target store, but is more than 100 miles from the nearest Macintosh dealer."

Read the entire essay if you care about Apple's future

Micro Persuasion: Pearl Harbor II: Is Bill Gates on the Blogging Warpath?

Micro Persuasion: Pearl Harbor II: Is Bill Gates on the Blogging Warpath?: "Reading through the news coverage and transcript of Bill Gates' ode to blogging, I cannot help but feel that the blogosphere changed today. It feels very much like 1995 all over again.
Gates' remarks were reminiscent of the infamous Pearl Harbor Day email he sent to his troops nearly a decade ago, in which he 'declared war' on the then nascent World Wide Web. At that time, few of us were on the Web. It was still the realm of techies, much like Weblogs and RSS today.
...
The potential murkier side of the story is that underneath the softer bloggier side that Bill Gates showed today was an veiled declaration of war on Six Apart, Userland, Google and anyone else who makes blogging and wiki publishing tools. Did Bill Gates throw a pebble in the blogosphere pond today? Time will tell. It will be interesting to hear others' perspectives in the blogosphere on the day's events."

Okay, so not everyone in the blogosphere is sanguine... Via Scobleizer, fittingly.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Blogging at Microsoft Backgrounder

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Blogging at Microsoft Backgrounder Interesting history of blogging at MS, via a Channel9 post, naturally...

Dreams of Longhorn | Newsmakers | CNET News.com

Dreams of Longhorn | Newsmakers | CNET News.com: "Q: What's Microsoft's latest thinking on Linux? The market has changed a bit in the past few years, with some consolidation. But companies continue to install Linux on servers. How does Microsoft approach that problem?
[Bob Muglia:] The world has changed a bit. If you went back 18 to 24 months ago, it was unclear what Linux would look like and how it would evolve. It was thought of as free. And there was a whole series of attributes that were attributed to Linux that in retrospect were inaccurate. As time has gone on, it's apparent that Linux is becoming a set of offerings from commercial vendors. When I think of Linux, I don't think about it as our competitor. I think about Linux as a technology that is used by our competitors to build competitive offerings.
Sometimes, those products are solutions or pieces of solutions that need to be integrated together. One of the differentiations that Microsoft has with Linux is that we are a software company first and foremost, and we think about software-based solutions to information technology problems and how our software can drive down cost. That's pretty distinct from, say, an IBM that is first and foremost a consulting company. Our focus is how to provide more out-of-the-box solutions that don't require those consulting services."

Gates courts CEO crowd | CNET News.com

Gates courts CEO crowd | CNET News.com: "Among the advances Gates promised was easier development of business applications. He demonstrated tools for building programs via diagrams and models, without complex coding, skirting the 'structured-unstructured boundary' that limits software development today. Microsoft has said it plans to begin testing new modeling tools, code-named Whitehorse, this year.
'Historically, that would have been a lot of code,' Gates said as he built a sample business application. 'Now that's visual...You can do analysis and change and improvements right at this level.' "

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Bezos got in on Google for six cents a share

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Bezos got in on Google for six cents a share "Amazon.com Chairman Jeff Bezos, ranked by Forbes magazine in February as the world's 82nd-richest person, stands to move up a notch or two when Google holds its initial public offering later this year.
Google, operator of the most widely used search engine on the Internet, disclosed in a securities filing that Bezos was one of the company's first five outside investors. The group, which also includes former Amazon.com executive Ram Shriram, paid 6 cents a share for Google stock in late 1998, according to the documents."