SD Times - One Language to Bind Them All

SD Times - One Language to Bind Them All: "C# is more-much more-than a Java clone. It's the battlefield for a new type of programming."

Interesting perspectives from Larry O'Brien, who definitely is NOT a Microsoft Kool-Aid addict.

Apple - iPod Hi-Fi

Apple - iPod Hi-Fi: "Fill your home with sound, not stereo components. Keep your music collection at your fingertips, not in countless CD cases. Change the way you experience digital music. For $349, iPod Hi-Fi delivers crystal-clear, audiophile-quality sound in a clean, compact design. Hear, hear."

I hear the sound of many until-today-Apple-partner (iPod complementor) business plans being shredded...

Update: MySQL buys company, hires noted database architect | InfoWorld

Update: MySQL buys company, hires noted database architect InfoWorld: "Open-source database company My SQL has acquired a small Web application technology company and in the process hired its founder, Jim Starkey, a noted database software architect, MySQL announced on Monday."

This article contains a few errors and spurious suggestions. E.g., Interbase was not the first DBMS with triggers and support for BLOBs; it was also a DBMS product failure, and Digital's RDBMS, which Starkey also designed, failed to put a dent in the DBMS universe (and was eventually sold to Oracle; small world...). The Interbase-based Firebird has some vocal advocates, but it's a deep outlier relative to MySQL and PostgreSQL.

As Starkey notes in this article, the MySQL AB acquisition is focused on Netfrastructure, not anything related to Interbase/Firebird/etc.

Does open source matter? | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-02-27 | By Neil McAllister

Does open source matter? InfoWorld Column 2006-02-27 By Neil McAllister: "Traditional, proprietary software practices are no longer serving the needs of enterprise IT, but so far open source hasn't provided all the answers, either. If commercial software companies can combine their technical know-how with the community interaction and easy access to technology available with open source projects, wouldn't that be the best of all possible worlds?"

Timely reality check in the MySQL/Oracle debate.

The BlackBerry Wrangle Gets Weirder

The BlackBerry Wrangle Gets Weirder: "Like virtually every other part of this case up to now, the latest round of actions is remarkable. Companies usually try to find a way to settle patent disputes in an effort to avoid an outcome that may result in lost business. And they typically don't make their disagreements over these settlements public, legal experts say. 'I've never seen anything like this at all,' says James Hurst, a patent lawyer and partner at Winston & Strawn in Chicago."

Go figure -- mutually assured destruction...

Good Morning Silicon Valley: OK, short straw gets to tell Bill he can't wear the black turtleneck at the launch

Good Morning Silicon Valley: OK, short straw gets to tell Bill he can't wear the black turtleneck at the launch: "Has Microsoft hired some defectors from Apple's marketing department? How else to explain the weekend's blogosphere buzzstorm over the possible unveiling this week of a tablety computing and entertainment gadget called Origami? The story has all the standard Apple peripherals -- the cryptic viral Web site, the concept video sniffed out by curious bloggers, the surprise media presentation at which an 'innovative concept in development' will be unveiled, and lots of media speculation."

Check the full post for an Origami reality check.

WSJ.com - Latest Acquisition Gives Cisco Entree to Consumer Market

WSJ.com - Latest Acquisition Gives Cisco Entree to Consumer Market: "With Scientific-Atlanta, which is based in Lawrenceville, Ga., Cisco now has even bigger ambitions to get into consumers' living rooms. The convergence of telephone calls, television programming and the Internet into one pipe feeding the home has cable and phone companies in the market for new equipment. By buying Scientific-Atlanta, whose set-top boxes enable a television set to receive and decode broadcast programming, Cisco will be able to provide both corporate and consumer networking gear to the cable and phone companies. In addition, Cisco plans to offer add-on equipment to set-top boxes to help turn them into multimedia centers."

Does Oracle Understand What It's Buying?

Does Oracle Understand What It's Buying?: "You can't really buy an Open Source project. The GPL was designed to make it possible for any Open Source participant to circumvent any other party who gets in the way. Other Open Source licenses are similar. Larry Ellison can buy business and influence over an Open Source project, but if he tries to have absolute control, Open Source developers will code elsewhere, replace whatever Larry holds close, and create new businesses."

Interesting insights from Bruce Perens of Sourcelabs; read the full post.

I've been thinking a lot about open source market dynamics recently, and am rereading Neal Stephenson's (imho) classic In the Beginning was the Command Line (also available in paperback). While open source software is a fascinating phenomenon and has transformed the software business in many significant ways, I think Oracle does indeed understand what it's buying. This doesn't mean Oracle will be completely successful, but I don't think the company is being naive or woefully optimistic -- attributes which some would assign to MySQL AB.

He Helped Build the iPod; Now He Has Built a Rival - New York Times

He Helped Build the iPod; Now He Has Built a Rival - New York Times: "Samsung's decision to hire Mr. Mercer is significant because Apple, in designing the original iPod four years ago, turned to Pixo Inc., the company Mr. Mercer founded after he left Apple in 1994 to create software for hand-held devices.
Apple used Pixo software to create the music player's simple interface, and Pixo's name appeared in the credits of the original iPod MP3 player. Sun Microsystems acquired Pixo in 2003."

Interesting pattern, with key developers leaving Apple and then helping to later save it; see Revolution in the Valley for more insider historical accounts.

Is Microsoft Dropping Cryptic Hints About a New Gadget? - New York Times

Is Microsoft Dropping Cryptic Hints About a New Gadget? - New York Times: "A number of industry analysts said that Microsoft, which has traditionally generated little suspense with its product announcements, was trying to steal a page from Apple Computer's playbook by fueling anticipation with secrecy.
For its part, Apple has sent reporters invitations to a press event on Tuesday to introduce 'fun new' products at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. "

WSJ.com - Blog Epitaphs? Get Me Rewrite!

WSJ.com - Blog Epitaphs? Get Me Rewrite!: "But blogging will no longer be a phenomenon. When people talk about it, they'll often be referring to tools for putting up simple Web sites easily, or a certain style of Web publishing: brightly written, frequently updated and inviting reader conversation. That may feel a long way from the claims of blogging's first heady days, but then that's the way most such things turn out: Wikis aside, today's Web looks very little like Tim Berners-Lee's original idea for a kind of digital whiteboard. Blogging is easier, faster and more conversational than traditional Web publishing, but that doesn't change the fact that relatively few people actually yearn to be publishers. Nor do they particularly care what category the things they read fit into, or what technological tools produced them. That may not sound like the stuff of revolution or VC riches, but it also doesn't sound like a fad or a failure."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Project Aims to Build Portable Entertainment Device

WSJ.com - Microsoft Project Aims to Build Portable Entertainment Device: "The device being developed in the Origami project isn't a music player but would be a broader-use device, said the person familiar with the project. The device would be styled after Microsoft's Tablet PC, which is a portable pen-input PC. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has been a huge promoter of the Tablet PC, which is geared more toward business users than consumers and hasn't sold in high volumes. The Origami project appears to be an extension of the Tablet PC into the consumer market."

WSJ.com - IBM-Led Project Aims to Build Software to Fight Identity Theft

WSJ.com - IBM-Led Project Aims to Build Software to Fight Identity Theft: "A group led by International Business Machines Corp. today plans to unveil a project to develop software that will allow people to manage their personal information on the Internet, the latest effort to combat identity theft and simplify how users access Web-based services.
The open-source software project, dubbed Higgins, comes a few weeks after Microsoft Corp. announced a similar approach called InfoCard. Both efforts aim to help people secure their online identities by managing personal information, bank accounts and contact lists.
...
"Technologically, it's easy to come up with these things, but it's difficult to get developers and users on board," said Mike Neuenschwander, research director at technology consulting firm Burton Group."

Fast Forward: Facing reality about climate change - Feb. 24, 2006

Fast Forward: Facing reality about climate change - Feb. 24, 2006: "My biggest complaint about Gore's talk is that despite the overwhelming evidence he marshals of dire climate change, his upbeat promise at the end that it's not too late to do something about it is unconvincing. But there's no question we have to face reality -- we're hurting ourselves by hurting the climate. Thank you, Al Gore, for saying it bluntly."

Read the full article for a stark reality check.

The Journalistic Triumph of Michael Crichton: BLOG: SciAm Observations

The Journalistic Triumph of Michael Crichton: BLOG: SciAm Observations: "In these days of James Frey's phony memoirs becoming best-selling nonfiction, why shouldn't a novel full of half-truths and misleading nonsense win a journalism award? And so in that spirit of 'reality sucker-punching irony into submission,' let's have a round of applause for Michael Crichton, whom the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has honored with its Journalism Award for those hard-hitting journalistic classics State of Fear and Jurassic Park. "

I'm a bit surprised and disappointed to read this type of nastygram -- I suspect people who read State of Fear, including Crichton's comments at the end of the book, understand he was trying to make an important point about the politics of fear. With his ability to reach and influence a large, mainstream audience, I think his thesis was far more important than any simplifications/etc. he made about research related to global warming.

PC Magazine Special Report: Inside Windows Vista, Build 5308

PC Magazine Special Report: Inside Windows Vista, Build 5308: "With today's release of the Windows Vista February CTP (Community Technology Preview), Microsoft has publicly passed a key milestone on the road to launching its new operating system. This release of Vista is 'feature-complete', the company says, meaning that all of the fundamental capabilities that Vista will eventually offer are now baked in. Development efforts aren't slowing--the user experience will continue to evolve, bugs will get fixed, performance and compatibility will improve--but the basic shape of the operating system has been solidified, and from here on out we expect to see mostly fine-tuning rather than wholesale changes."

Includes 55-slide slideshow

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of February 27

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of February 27: "... everyone's favorite totalitarian stooge (oh wait, that's Yahoo!) launched yet another beta service, dubbed Google Page Creator, that will let its users create their own Web sites and Web pages using a Web-based tool. The fledgling service, which is based on the same Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) Web technology used by Windows Live Mail, Apple Computer's .mac service, and other Web services, is suffering from a bit of a capacity problem right now, however, so you'll have to sign up to be notified when it's ready for public consumption. Some reports have described Google Page Creator as a 'FrontPage killer,' but that's ludicrous. Instead, I see this service as being aimed more at blogging tools (and yes, I know Google already owns Blogger)."

In Sony's Stumble, the Ghost of Betamax - New York Times

In Sony's Stumble, the Ghost of Betamax - New York Times: "The possible delay and the Blu-ray group's loss of its once-commanding lead are not encouraging developments for Sony in its attempt to revive its electronics group after a series of bungles. PlayStation 3 is crucial to Sony's future, and not only because the latest version of its gaming consoles could generate billions in revenue; the new machines will include disc drives that will turn them into Blu-ray DVD players as well.
'The PlayStation is more than a game system to them; it's one of their attempts to own the digital living room,' said Robert Heiblim, a consultant to electronics companies. 'Blu-ray is also critically important to get right. They don't want to be weak in an area they feel they can dominate.' "

Personal Technology -- Web-Based Office Live Offers Basic Services But Isn't Very Flexible

Personal Technology -- Web-Based Office Live Offers Basic Services But Isn't Very Flexible.: "In general, Office Live is a step in the right direction. But it could be more flexible and sophisticated, without getting complicated. And it could use some sort of local backup option."

Traveling this week...

Sorry for the light posts -- traveling this week

Is PlayStation 3 in Trouble?

Is PlayStation 3 in Trouble?: "Merrill Lynch in a report today says Sony's launch date for Playstation 3 continues to slip. Its analysts suggest PS3 may not launch until the fall in Japan, and only arrive in the U.S. and Europe in late 2006 or early 2007 (likely in such limited supply that it may not effectively be available for another year)."

Read the rest of the article/post -- looks like big trouble for Sony.

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

Technology News Article Reuters.com: "Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) (RIMM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has not shut down communications with U.S. patent holding firm NTP Inc. and remains open to a 'reasonable settlement opportunity,' its chief financial officer said on Friday. "

So... maybe not so confident about NTP's patents being undone...

That Which We Call a Blog... - New York Times

That Which We Call a Blog... - New York Times ""The State of the Blogosphere" presented at sifry.com this week by David L. Sifry, the founder of Technorati, a leading blog search site, shows just how complicated things have become. According to Mr. Sifry's data, mainstream media sites, as measured by the number of blogs linking to them, are trouncing news-oriented blogs by a growing margin. Bloggers link to The New York Times Web site about three times as often as they link to the technology-oriented Boingboing.net. Only four blogs show up in the top 33 sites."

Amazon to take on iPod with its own music player | CNET News.com

Amazon to take on iPod with its own music player CNET News.com: "Music industry executives are enthusiastic about Amazon's entry because it might be a counterweight to Apple, which many see as having too much power in digital music.
...
One reason that the subscription services have not fared well is that the experience of using them with portable players is more difficult than using an iPod. The Microsoft software that all these services use has been awkward, and the players--made by several manufacturers like Samsung, iRiver and Creative Labs--have not been as appealing to consumers as those made by Apple.
Amazon hopes to remedy these problems by designing its own player in conjunction with a consumer electronics maker, and ensuring that the software works easily with it. The player would be discounted for customers who agreed to buy the music service for a specified period, the music executives said."

I'm surprised Amazon waited so long... Read the full article for more details. I suspect the device will run Windows Mobile.

I'm still happy with Yahoo! Music Unlimited, which I use on a desktop PC, a laptop, and a Creative Zen, but the overall user experience definitely leaves room for improvement.

Chris Pratley's OneNote Blog : OneNote 12 is now OneNote 2007, and it's in the box!

Chris Pratley's OneNote Blog : OneNote 12 is now OneNote 2007, and it's in the box! "OneNote makes sense here of course not just because it is great for note taking and capturing information in a mobile environment but also because of the Shared Notebooks feature. If you are out of the office a lot, you need a collaboration system that doesn’t require you to have internet access in order to work. OneNote provides that via shared notebooks which are like super-rich wikis that you can use offline and then have changes you and others made sync up when you later get a net connection. Groove of course is a nice complement as it provides a workspace for shared documents, forms, etc that can also be used offline. You can read more about Groove at Marc Olson's blog."

Major progress in shared notebooks for OneNote 2007.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Poetic justice for Apple hackers

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Poetic justice for Apple hackers "Apple Computer has resorted to a poetic broadside in the inevitable cat-and-mouse game between hackers and high-tech companies.
The maker of Macintosh computers had anticipated hackers would try to crack its new OS X operating system built to work on Intel's chips and run pirated versions on non-Apple computers. So, Apple developers embedded a warning deep in the software — in the form of a poem."

Apparently not a joke -- see the article for the poem.

Microsoft Rethinks Its Office 2007 Server Line Up

Microsoft Rethinks Its Office 2007 Server Line Up: "But the big kahuna on the Office Server 2007 side is Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007. That offering will combine Microsoft's current Content Management Server, SharePoint Portal Server and what was expected to debut as a standalone Excel Server into a single product. Until quite recently, Microsoft was using the name 'Office Server' to refer to Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007, company officials acknowledged.
SharePoint Portal Server 2007 will act as a backend for a variety of new client-based Office services. It also will incorporate a variety of workflow engines, designed to mesh with Windows Workflow Foundation, the next-generation Windows workflow technology that Microsoft is baking into Windows Vista, Longhorn Server and other future Windows releases."

WSJ.com - Dell's Profit Leaps 52% On Strong Foreign Demand

WSJ.com - Dell's Profit Leaps 52% On Strong Foreign Demand: "Computer maker Dell Inc. said its fiscal-fourth-quarter profit rose 52%, reflecting growth in sales and services outside the U.S.
The results, coming after two consecutive disappointing quarters, reflect the resiliency of the company's low-cost, direct-sales strategy developed by founder Michael Dell. The strong results also underscore a bright patch for high tech, coming on the heels of better-than-expected earnings reports from other companies, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Applied Materials Inc. among them."

FWIW pre-open mkt cap today:
AAPL: ~$60B
DELL: ~$75B

Thought for thinkers - The Boston Globe

Thought for thinkers - The Boston Globe: "The implication is that for complex choices, once you have done a certain amount of thinking to gather relevant information, further thinking is counterproductive. Instead, busy yourself with other tasks, and let your unconscious work on the problem. (The study did not include data on people who shopped on impulse, spending little or no time gathering information on an item.)"

Interesting research in the "Blink"/"Think" debate zone.

WSJ.com - UPDATE: First Virus For Apple Mac OS X System Found

WSJ.com - UPDATE: First Virus For Apple Mac OS X System Found: "'Leap-A is not a virus, it is malicious software that requires a user to download the application and execute the resulting file,' said an Apple spokesperson.
'Apple always advises Macintosh users to only accept files from vendors and Web sites that they know and trust,' said the spokesperson. 'We have a guide to safely handling files received from the Internet.'"

Yeah, yeah -- it'd only be considered a virus, by the mainstream press, if it attacked a Microsoft platform...

WSJ.com - Article

WSJ.com - Article: "Users of Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL) Macintosh computers like to think their machines are better protected than their counterparts running Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows operating system.
Not so fast, says Sophos PLC, a U.K. computer-security firm.
A new virus could begin making the rounds on Macintosh computers around the world. Called Leap-A, the virus spreads through the iChat software inside the Mac OS X operating system, Sophos researchers said."

InformationWeek | Microsoft | Office 2007 To Feature New Workflow, Collaboration Tools | February 15, 2006

InformationWeek Microsoft Office 2007 To Feature New Workflow, Collaboration Tools February 15, 2006: "Office 2007, previously code-named "Office 12," will replace Microsoft's current Office 2003 suite, which will be three years old when the new product arrives. It's an important release for Microsoft—during its fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31, Office and other "information worker" products contributed one quarter of the company's $11.8 billion in revenue, and 45% of operating profits. Microsoft has been broadening the capabilities of its Office to reflect workplace trends such as increased collaboration among employees of different companies, and large numbers of traveling workers."

Oracle's New Enemy - Forbes.com

Oracle's New Enemy - Forbes.com "Is Oracle more of a threat now?
Mickos: No. They don’t really understand open source. It isn’t about price; it is about freedom of software. They think if you give people free beer you can take away their free speech. It doesn’t work that way in open source."

Interesting perspectives -- read the full interview -- but MySQL AB's world is a lot more complicated than it was a year ago.

Office Live Will Give Small Firms a Web Business Boost

Office Live Will Give Small Firms a Web Business Boost: "Review: Microsoft's set of Web-based services is a good choice for small businesses that can't manage an e-mail server, Web site or collaboration platform."

I spent a few hours exploring the Office Live Essentials beta and am impressed. I think it will be very popular with small organizations. I also expect it will remain in beta testing for a few more months, as it would be ideal for Microsoft to go live with Office Live when the next major release of SharePoint is finished.

Microsoft's Office-Come-Lately

Microsoft's Office-Come-Lately: "Yet company sources say development delays led Microsoft to push its release back about eight weeks. For one, problems with new graphics programs in the PowerPoint presentation software cause some instability, the sources say. Now the company is targeting late September or October for product completion, with general availability to customers shortly thereafter."

Last time I checked, September and October were still considered part of the second half of the year, which is when Microsoft has always said it will ship the next major release of Office. Indeed, I suspect most people assumed Microsoft meant 2006/12/32...

Yahoo! - Press Release: Yahoo!: Our Beliefs as a Global Internet Company

Yahoo!: Our Beliefs as a Global Internet Company: "Doing business in certain countries presents U.S. companies with challenging and complex questions. We are deeply concerned by efforts of governments to restrict and control open access to information and communication. We also firmly believe the continued presence and engagement of companies like Yahoo! is a powerful force in promoting openness and reform. "

Read the full release for Yahoo!'s guiding beliefs and commitments.

Microsoft announces Office 2007 pricing, details | CNET News.com

Microsoft announces Office 2007 pricing, details CNET News.com: "In the biggest change for consumers, Microsoft is replacing its Student and Teacher edition with a $149 Home and Student edition that can be used by all home users. Microsoft is also removing the Outlook e-mail and calendar program from that edition and instead is including its OneNote note-taking application. As with the Student and Teacher edition, the home version of Office can be used on up to three PCs in a home, but cannot be upgraded to a future version of Office. "

Q&A: Microsoft Unveils Next Generation of Web Authoring and Design Tools

Q&A: Microsoft Unveils Next Generation of Web Authoring and Design Tools: "Microsoft is introducing a new tool, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, for building SharePoint applications and designing SharePoint sites. This new product – part of the full 2007 Microsoft Office lineup announced today – will join Microsoft Expression Web Designer, the next-generation tool for designing dynamic, standard-based Web sites, to deliver a complete set of tools for Web design and development.
...
Richards: After we fully release SharePoint Designer 2007 and Expression Web Designer, FrontPage will be discontinued gradually."

Amazon, 4 music firms discuss digital service: report - Yahoo! News

Amazon, 4 music firms discuss digital service: report - Yahoo! News: "Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. is in advanced talks with four top music companies on starting a digital music service as early as this summer, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
...
'The company is considering a subscription music service that would include a discounted portable music player bearing the Amazon brand, the report said."

Web Firms Are Grilled on Dealings in China - New York Times

Web Firms Are Grilled on Dealings in China - New York Times: "Not every member of the panel was prepared to take the companies to task. 'Let's assume for a moment that no U.S. tech company does business in China,' said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat. 'Does it get better? Is it less repressive? Does China move forward? I don't think so.' "

Microsoft features software by Mass. firm in new Office - The Boston Globe

Microsoft features software by Mass. firm in new Office - The Boston Globe: "Groove collaboration software, developed by a Massachusetts start-up, is set to be unveiled by Microsoft Corp. today as a primary selling point for a new premium version of the company's Office productivity suite of software for businesses.
...
''We think this will be the benchmark product for companies that take collaboration seriously," said Chris Capossela, a native of Boston who is vice president of Microsoft's information worker product group."

IBM: No plans to contribute to OpenOffice.org | News.blog | CNET News.com

IBM: No plans to contribute to OpenOffice.org | News.blog | CNET News.com: "'We leveraged a lot of that code but we made dramatic changes to it. We componentized it--we ripped it apart if you will,' Bisconti said.
Because IBM has made such substantial changes to the OpenOffice code, it has become difficult for IBM to submit its modifications to OpenOffice, Bisconti said. 'We haven't found an efficient method to contribute back,' he said."

OSx86 Project - OSx86 10.4.4 Security Broken. (Guess Who Done It?)

OSx86 Project - OSx86 10.4.4 Security Broken. (Guess Who Done It?): "Onlookers have told us that 10.4.4 is a serious step forward in security, utilizing many of the same technologies as the 10.4.1 and 10.4.3, as well as the obfuscated code that Apple filed a patent for a few months ago.Few expected this final version – or at least the version that shipped with the first Macintels – to be easy to hack.
What this means is that Apple’s best attempts to secure their OS have, ultimately, failed. For its best efforts, the company is unable to lock OS X to their hardware. Without doubt, this will have profound impacts on the company’s future as running OSx86 on a PC becomes less a hacker’s trick and more mainstream. When all it requires is the downloading of a DVD, that’s certainly the future we’re looking at."

Official Google Blog: Here comes Measure Map

Official Google Blog: Here comes Measure Map: "It was this feeling that led to the idea of Measure Map. Our goal has been to use the power of web analytics to help bloggers feel that same sense of connection with their audience. Today, as the Measure Map team joins Google, our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have."

Cool -- I look forward to Google integrating this with Blogger...

Windows Vista boot times to pass by in a Flash | Channel Register

Windows Vista boot times to pass by in a Flash Channel Register: "Windows Vista will give the NAND Flash market a big kick when it ships, Samsung has claimed, thanks to technology integrated into the new Microsoft operating system that will allow USB Flash drives to expand a PC's main memory bank, along with support for Flash caches in hard drives to accelerate boot times."

Oracle Buys Open Source Software Company Sleepycat

Oracle Buys Open Source Software Company Sleepycat: "Oracle today announced that it has added Berkeley DB to its embedded database product line which includes Oracle Lite for mobile devices and Oracle TimesTen for high performance in-memory database applications.
...
Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB is the most widely used open source database in the world with deployments estimated at more than 200 million."

Strange days indeed -- Oracle is now the leading supplier of open source database systems (!= open source database management systems/DBMSs), and it also controls the InnoDB technology used in many MySQL deployments (through its October, 2005 acquisition of Innobase).

Sleepycat and MySQL AB are two leading examples of "second-generation commercial open source" vendors, i.e., independent software vendors that embrace open source modus operandi but also charge for commercial deployments of their products (albeit considerably less than more conventional independent software vendor alternatives, in most cases). As such, Sleepycat isn't such a radical departure from Oracle's traditional business model, although it certainly takes Oracle much further into the world of open source (where it's not exactly a neophyte, having made significant contributions to Linux and other open source initiatives in the past).

Oracle's rumored/potential acquisition of JBoss would be a very different deal, since JBoss products are both open source and zero-cost, in terms of software license fees -- JBoss Inc. makes money on services and support but doesn't have a dual-licensing strategy for "community" and commercial deployments.

Oracle snags open-source database company | CNET News.com

Oracle snags open-source database company CNET News.com: "Oracle said on Tuesday that it acquired open-source database company Sleepycat Software for an undisclosed sum.
The database giant said Sleepycat's open-source Berkeley DB database will complement Oracle's existing line of closed-source databases for embedding within applications. The products differ from Oracle's flagship enterprise database software used for general business systems. "

Q&A: A lost interview with ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert - Computerworld

Q&A: A lost interview with ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert - Computerworld: "On the the 60th anniversary of the unveiling of ENIAC, a newly discovered interview with "Pres" Eckert explodes some ENIAC myths."

O'Reilly Radar > Yahoo! Open Sources UIs and Design Patterns

O'Reilly Radar > Yahoo! Open Sources UIs and Design Patterns: "Kudos to Yahoo!, who today released two pieces of goodness into the commons. The first is their UI library, and the second is their Design Patterns Library. The UI Library is a collection of DHTML/Ajax/Javascript (pick your favourite term) controls and widgets. The Design Patterns Library is 'intended to provide Web designers prescriptive guidance to help solve common design problems on the Web'."

Ellison suggests rationale for JBoss acquisition | InfoWorld | News | 2006-02-13 | By James Niccolai, IDG News Service

Ellison suggests rationale for JBoss acquisition InfoWorld News 2006-02-13 By James Niccolai, IDG News Service: "'Rather than fight this open-source trend we think it's important to figure out ways to make it work to our advantage,' Ellison said at the Credit Suisse event, which was webcast.
...
"More and more we're trying to turn our largest customers into 'all you can eat' customers" that can use unlimited database software for a fixed fee each year, Ellison said. "That's very different from Oracle 10 years ago.""

Good Morning Silicon Valley: I can see it now: Norton Antivirus has detected the virus "WINDOWS XP" on your computer

Good Morning Silicon Valley: I can see it now: Norton Antivirus has detected the virus "WINDOWS XP" on your computer: "According to a number of reports in Microsoft's user groups forums, the company's Windows AntiSpyware (Beta 1) flags Norton Anti-Virus as a malicious trojan and encourages users to scrap it. "

More from this CNet article:
"Microsoft released a new update for its product on Friday morning to fix the problem. Symantec and Microsoft have prepared a tool to repair installations of Symantec's software that were affected. The tool is available at no charge from Symantec's support department, the companies said."

Microsoft: Thinking Outside the Xbox

Microsoft: Thinking Outside the Xbox: "Although the speech focused on PC gaming, Moore [Microsoft's head of Interactive Entertainment Business Peter Moore] did talk about the Xbox 360 somewhat. He once again defended the decision to launch globally and he promised that within the next 4-6 weeks consumers would actually be able to walk into a store and easily purchase the new console. He then highlighted the success of Xbox Live on 360 (54 percent of owners use the service) and Xbox Live Arcade, which has had 2 million downloads. Moore was asked about persistent online worlds coming to the 360 in a Q&A session that followed and he said that that may be forthcoming. 'Our teams are looking at that seriously. I think (persistent worlds/MMOs) it's still the realm of the PC; however, we may have something to talk about soon.'"

Reuters.com | RIM unfazed as tech giants take aim at Blackberry

RIM unfazed as tech giants take aim at Blackberry Reuters.com: "'It's insecure. And Microsoft and Nokia use about five times more of the network than we do. Network capacity is scarce and battery power is scarce. That's why operators can price BlackBerry aggressively,' RIM Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said in an interview at the fringes of 3GSM, the world's largest wireless trade show."

Competition is a good thing... at least for customers.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Google's shares slide as potential woes surface

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Google's shares slide as potential woes surface: "The gloomy scenario further dampened investors' enthusiasm for Google, whose market value has plunged by 27 percent during the past month to wipe out nearly $40 billion in shareholder wealth. Google's shares fell $16.91, or 4.7 percent, to close at $345.70. The shares peaked at $475.11 on Jan. 11."

Halo 2 to Windows Vista

Halo 2 to Windows Vista: "Halo 2 will be coming to PCs, but not as you might expect. Microsoft today said that the blockbuster title will be a Windows Vista exclusive, meaning that PC gamers will need to upgrade to the new OS in order to play it."

Microsoft venture adds to Blackberry woes - Boston.com

Microsoft venture adds to Blackberry woes - Boston.com: "Unlike the Blackberry and its peers, phones running Microsoft's latest Windows Mobile operating system can receive e-mails 'pushed' directly from servers that handle a company's messaging -- without the need for a separate mobile server or additional license payments."

Fractals of Change: Don't Buy Telco Stock - That Includes Vonage

Fractals of Change: Don't Buy Telco Stock - That Includes Vonage: "The telegram business disappeared last month with barely a whimper. The telephone call business is going to go the same way sooner rather than later. Not a good time to invest in that business. BTW, once-upon-a-time AT&T stood for American Telephone and Telegraph. Now, it’s just letters; it doesn’t stand for anything."

Interesting perspectives from Tom Evslin

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus: "Finally, someone spends some time with real PlayStation 3 developer boxes and tells the truth about the gap between Sony's promises and reality. Here are a few gems:
...
'We're talking about a machine barely superior to Xbox 360 - not by any significant margin. It's certainly obvious this machine is not "twice" as powerful as 360, let alone a generational leap ahead.'"

Microsoft Announces Global Partner Support for its Mobile Messaging Solutions

Microsoft Announces Global Partner Support for its Mobile Messaging Solutions: "Today at 3GSM World Congress 2006, Microsoft Corp. and its mobile operator and device-maker partners announced a broad range of services and Windows Mobile®-based devices for business customers to cost-effectively deploy mobile messaging solutions. Leveraging the integration between Direct Push technology in Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), businesses can mobilize their employees on a unified infrastructure without the requirement to pay for additional and costly e-mail servers. This same technology is now available for Microsoft Windows® Small Business Server and is also offered as a hosted service by a number of mobile operators around the world."

More challenges for RIM

Great Online Expectations

Great Online Expectations: "Dan Gillmor's effort to reinvent journalism through Net startup Bayosphere ended, appropriately enough, on the Internet. On Jan. 24, Gillmor, a reporter turned entrepreneur, posted an open letter online conceding that his attempt to build a community news site for the Bay Area wasn't gaining traction. He said he was shifting his focus to academia. 'The site didn't take off -- in large part, no question about it, because of my own miscues and shortcomings,' he wrote. "

Trying to Get a Read on Amazon's Books - New York Times

Trying to Get a Read on Amazon's Books - New York Times: "Yes, Google has a bad-boy reputation for refusing, as a matter of principle, to give Wall Street forward-looking guidance. But the company offers more detailed information than Amazon about its actual operations. By contrast, Amazon is happy to talk about future projections, but it appears to hate to talk about the present."

Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world - The Boston Globe

Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world - The Boston Globe: "The revelations that political bias has crept into articles raises new questions about an Internet phenomenon that some are acclaiming as the future of information. And the issues plaguing the site run deeper than political spin. Wikipedia touts itself as ''the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,' and it is exactly that quality that is causing problems."

Interesting pattern in recent weeks, with stories such as this on page 1 of the Boston Globe.

A Microsoft iPod rival? Gates weighs in

A Microsoft iPod rival? Gates weighs in: "'Yeah, Apple has done a fantastic job with the iPod. How many of you have iPods?' he asked, as a smattering of students around the conference room raised their hands.
Gates looked around the room and continued: 'We are talking with partners about how we, working with those partners, can make even better music players. We've got some in the market today. I'd say in total they have about 20 percent market share, which is lower than we like, and so we're seeing where we can come together to make a device that's less expensive and connects in better ways, does photos and videos in better ways.'"

PBS | I, Cringely . February 9, 2006 - Stupid Net Tricks

PBS I, Cringely . February 9, 2006 - Stupid Net Tricks: "Why is nobody - NOBODY - mentioning Moore's Law in this discussion? The Internet is today 1,000 times the size it was in 1996, yet these discussions tend to view network growth as static. Can the Internet support HDTV or not? Comparing the bandwidth required for an HD signal with an SD signal and mapping that against historical and expected network growth, I'd say it is likely not to be a problem at all. Why is nobody mentioning this?
Congress is arguing about a problem that doesn't really exist.
All the telcos can really point to is Cisco and Lucent's ability to keep prices up on OC-192 line cards. China already sees that as a business opportunity, so I'd say that problem is well on the way to being solved no matter what Congress does.
All the backbone providers can say is that bandwidth prices have gone so low they can no longer operate at a profit.
So go out of business, then. And if you don't go out of business, explain to us why not."

More timely + insightful Cringely analysis; read the full post.

BEA found JBoss acquisition too expensive | News.blog | CNET News.com

BEA found JBoss acquisition too expensive News.blog CNET News.com: "'JBoss has been shopping itself around for months,' [BEA Chief Marketing Officer Marge] Breya said, during which BEA and JBoss representatives discussed purchase prices and other details several times.
'At first, everybody was tossing around numbers from $100 million to $200 million. Then we started hearing more,' Breya said. The price tag was way too high compared to JBoss' revenue. 'When you look at that multiple to revenue without a working business model, it was pretty amazing,' she said. "

It's also pretty amazing to think about what JBoss is doing to BEA's business model these days, and how that would be accelerated by an Oracle acquisition.

Security Curve Weblog: Oracle to World: "Security Mission Accomplished..."

Security Curve Weblog: Oracle to World: "Security Mission Accomplished...": "Oracle has responded to the charges from Gartner and others that it is the new security whipping-boy by sending out the message that 'it's totally handled'. This time it's Hasan Rizvi, VP of security products who's sending the message:
'Our customers are so used to high security that when there is a vulnerability they don't apply the fix because they are not used to it, which is an interesting position to be in. People have to apply them and we can't do too much about that.'"

Check the full post for more good humor.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Frequent Netflix users shoved to back of line

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Frequent Netflix users shoved to back of line: "'In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service,' Netflix's revised policy now reads. The statement specifically warns that heavy renters are more likely to encounter shipping delays and less likely to immediately be sent their top choices."

Mommy, Help Me Download 'Farmer in the Dell' to My MP3 Player - New York Times

Mommy, Help Me Download 'Farmer in the Dell' to My MP3 Player - New York Times: "As digital electronics have invaded Toyland, putting video projectors and cellphones into the hands of 7- year-olds, companies that cater to preschoolers have deliberately sat on the sidelines, determined to hold up the wall between adult technology and children's play.
But the wall is about to come crashing down."

Oracle in talks to consume three open source darlings - report | The Register

Oracle in talks to consume three open source darlings - report The Register: "Oracle is in talks to buy three open source companies in a strategy that would potentially reinforce the company's middleware against low-priced competitors, according to a report in BusinessWeek.
The database and applications giant is talking to JBoss, Zend Technologies and Sleepycat Software about deals that could exceed $600m, the magazine reported. JBoss is seeking up to $400m and Zend could settle for $200m, while no figure was given for Sleepycat. Rumors of an Oracle and JBoss deal have circulated for awhile, but BusinessWeek is the first to claim all three companies are targets."

Counterintuitive but plausible

Good Morning Silicon Valley: New from Google Labs: Google Information Security Catastrophe

Good Morning Silicon Valley: New from Google Labs: Google Information Security Catastrophe: "Given Google's recent encounter with the Department of Justice, does it honestly think we'll allow it to copy and store the contents of our hard drives even for the shortest of times (see "What if we promise not to show the records to Karl Rove?")?
...
"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Kevin Bankston."

Sun blends SeeBeyond, in-house technologies for SOA - Yahoo! News

Sun blends SeeBeyond, in-house technologies for SOA - Yahoo! News: "The company is re-branding technology gained from SeeBeyond, mixing it with in-house software, and presenting the package as the Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite, or Java CAPS. Sun acquired SeeBeyond, with its Integrated Composite Application Network (ICAN) technology, for $387 million last summer ."

I wonder how the reportedly mostly-Microsoft-based SeeBeyond installed base will feel about this rebranding.

Google grabs more ground in Internet search - Yahoo! News

Google grabs more ground in Internet search - Yahoo! News: "The survey by Nielsen/NetRatings showed Google accounted for 48.8 percent of all US search requests in December 2005, up from 43.1 percent a year earlier.
Google's closest rival, Yahoo, saw its share dip to 21.4 percent from 21 percent. The number three search engine, Microsoft's MSN Search, lost 3.1 percentage points to 10.9 percent."

The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Huge Microsoft expansion to ripple through region

The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Huge Microsoft expansion to ripple through region: "For comparison, that's more than twice the capacity of Seattle's tallest skyscraper, the Columbia Tower. The expansion is also more than double the size of Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif."

Microsoft Pumps $1 Billion Into Redmond Campus Expansion: Company accelerates 20-year plan to expand campus by one-third in three years.

Microsoft Pumps $1 Billion Into Redmond Campus Expansion: Company accelerates 20-year plan to expand campus by one-third in three years.: "Microsoft Corp. today announced it will accelerate campus development plans and spend $1 billion over the next three years to expand its Redmond campus by one-third its current size. Roughly half of the development agreement, approved by the city of Redmond in May 2005 to expand Microsoft's Redmond campus over the next 15 - 20 years, will now be fulfilled by 2009, making the company's Redmond campus one of the largest corporate campuses in the world.
A total of 14 buildings will be added to the campus. Seven buildings will be new and seven have been purchased. Coupled with leased spaces, they will provide the capacity to house approximately 12,000 people based on the current conceptual layout. By June 2009, 3.1 million additional square feet will be available. "

To get a sense of the scale, check the map in this fact sheet. According to the WSJ, the new space will house ~12,000 workers.

Curious that Microsoft, while promoting digital workstyle/lifestyle visions, appears to still function mostly by face-to-face, on-campus work/meeting mode.

WSJ.com - FBI, SEC Probe Web Sites Offering Large Returns for Looking at Ads

WSJ.com - FBI, SEC Probe Web Sites Offering Large Returns for Looking at Ads: "Now federal and state authorities are investigating 12dailyPro and sites making similar offers as possible Internet-era variations on a classic Ponzi scheme. Named for Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the U.S. who gained notoriety early in the 20th century, a Ponzi scheme is a fraud that promises outsize returns to investors but pays them with money from subsequent investors, rather than revenue generated by business.
The 12dailyPro site is among the largest of the dozens of what are called 'autosurf' Web sites that have cropped up on the Internet. With names like Auto.ExchangeTrade.com and vegasurf.com, the sites piggyback on a legitimate trend -- the surge in Internet advertising -- by promising generous returns to members who agree to view their ads."

Stimulus/response...

Blogs, wikis find a home in the enterprise | InfoWorld

Blogs, wikis find a home in the enterprise InfoWorld: "Blogs and wikis have moved past the flashy tech bling phase and are now settling in as core elements of the enterprise collaboration infrastructure. Two enterprise content management vendors are helping drive this evolution, bolstering their platforms with security and auditing functions designed to preserve the sparkle of blogs and wikis while making the content safe for the enterprise. "

A Plug for the Unplugged $100 Laptop Computer for Developing Nations - New York Times

A Plug for the Unplugged $100 Laptop Computer for Developing Nations - New York Times: "The great thing about computers is that they are what economists call general-purpose technologies. That is, they provide a platform on which other applications can be built, whether they are cash registers, A.T.M.'s, document repositories or instructional tools.
Ultimately, both sides of the Davos debate are right: cellphones have proven uses and will continue to spread rapidly in developing countries. But cellphones have their limits. Offering general-purpose technologies like low-cost laptops is a riskier strategy, but it just might have a big payoff."

Vonage Plans Sale of Stock - New York Times

Vonage Plans Sale of Stock - New York Times: "The move to go public is the first for an Internet phone provider and indicates a new level of prominence for a technology that has emerged in the last five years to become a serious threat to traditional phone companies."

I'm a very satisfied Vonage customer these days. My historical network problems (requiring frequent power-cycling of my Vonage/Motorola box and Linksys cable router) went away as soon as I stopped running Skype. Go figure...

WSJ.com - Google Updates Tool For Computer Users To Search Desktops

WSJ.com - Google Updates Tool For Computer Users To Search Desktops: "For consumers who activate the new feature in the software, which is known as Google Desktop Search, the search company will temporarily store the text contents of the user's files on its own computers before transferring them to a second computer the consumer uses. Google Vice President Marissa Mayer said the company securely transmits and stores the data, but acknowledged that users have to assess the privacy tradeoff such a feature could entail. The software, which can be configured to also search email and instant messaging conversations, allows users to exclude specific files from being searched or transferred."

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Survival of the unfittest

Guardian Unlimited Technology Technology Survival of the unfittest: "Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive? "

Interesting perspectives, but for me the botton line is that Notes does something useful that other applications can't fully address.

Intel and Skype Help Consumers and Small Business Improve Communication

Intel and Skype Help Consumers and Small Business Improve Communication: "Intel and Skype are working closely together to deliver new, convenient, and cost-effective ways for consumers and small businesses to communicate over the Internet. Wherever you are, as long as you have an Internet connection you can make calls, including video, directly from your PC.
...
As an added bonus, if you are using Skype version 2.0 or higher and an Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology-based laptop PC+ or an Intel® Pentium® D processor-based desktop PC, you can now conference up to ten people at the same time."

From an email alert I received on the same topic:
"What’s next? Intel and Skype are already hard at work to use the dual-core technology to enhance video calling. And, next up, a Mac OSX version of Skype 2.0 that takes advantage of the Intel Core Duo chip in the latest iMacs and MacBookPro laptops."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Dell's Google software test may hurt Microsoft

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Dell's Google software test may hurt Microsoft: "'Google is desperate for new revenue streams,' said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland research firm. 'It's definitely something Microsoft is concerned about.'
Google would pay Dell and Hewlett-Packard to distribute its programs on their PCs, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Google may pay Round Rock, Texas-based Dell as much as $1 billion over three years, the newspaper said."

2 Web Sites Push Further Into Services Real Estate Agents Offer - New York Times

2 Web Sites Push Further Into Services Real Estate Agents Offer - New York Times: "Two real estate Web sites are starting to offer services that could change the way real estate is bought and sold online.
One site, Zillow.com, which will be introduced today, will help consumers obtain more accurate real estate sales information ? to the consternation of some real estate agents.
A smaller site, Redfin.com, introduced an unusual new service last week that might be even more disruptive to the real estate industry: the feature automates the process of bidding on a house online."

Disintermediation is real; it just took ~10 years longer than expected for it to mainstream...

WSJ.com - 'Net Neutrality' Debate Heats Up at Senate Hearing

WSJ.com - 'Net Neutrality' Debate Heats Up at Senate Hearing: "Google Inc. and other Internet companies pressed Congress for a law that would bar telecommunications networks from charging more for some services and controlling what consumers can obtain on the Internet.
...
'There are 250,000 networks that make up the Internet. They are compensated by its users," said net neutrality advocate Vinton Cerf, Google vice president and Internet pioneer. "Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success.'"

Somehow I suspect this absurdity (the proposal by Verizon et al) would have gone nowhere if we were in the second term of a Gore administration, but in a culture wherein, e.g., the State of the Union address includes appeals for energy conservation while the administration simultaneously proposes to cut $100M from programs promoting conservation (amid record profits for oil companies, etc...), it's pretty clear that anything goes -- or, more precisely, that big business interests come first.

WSJ.com - Borland Will Buy Segue Software As Part of Refocus

WSJ.com - Borland Will Buy Segue Software As Part of Refocus: "Borland Software Corp. today announced a $100 million deal to buy Segue Software Inc. and a plan to divest Borland's well-known line of programming tools as part of a major restructuring.
The Cupertino, Calif., company intends to narrow its focus to high-end products that help companies plan and manage major software-development projects. That is a specialty of Segue, a Lexington, Mass., company that Borland has agreed to buy for $8.67 a share, a premium of nearly 25% to Segue's 4 p.m. price yesterday.
...
Selling the development tools, which include the well-known products Delphi and JBuilder, will create a more-focused independent business, Mr. Nielsen said. Borland doesn't have a buyer lined up, but has retained Bear Stearns Cos. to handle the sale process."

Pretty bold...

WSJ.com - Nuance to Buy Dictaphone as It Expands Voice-Recognition Business

WSJ.com - Nuance to Buy Dictaphone as It Expands Voice-Recognition Business: "Dictaphone traces its roots to a company formed in the late 1800's by Alexander Graham Bell. In 2000, Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV of Belgium bought the company for $511 million. Dictaphone emerged as an independent, private company in 2002 following Lernout's bankruptcy. Its major shareholders are European banks who were creditors to Lernout & Hauspie, according to people familiar with the deal.
Nuance is the latest incarnation of the company formerly known as ScanSoft Inc., which began as a document imaging business before buying many of Lernout's speech-recognition products for $42 million in 2001 during the bankruptcy proceedings. ScanSoft acquired Menlo Park, Calif.-based Nuance last year for $221 million and then adopted the name of its former rival. In 2003, ScanSoft bought another competitor, Speechworks International Inc. of Boston, for $132 million."

Read/WriteWeb: Rating the Meme Trackers - Memeorandum still tops, but Topix and TailRank up there too

Read/WriteWeb: Rating the Meme Trackers - Memeorandum still tops, but Topix and TailRank up there too: "TechCrunch recently rounded up a list of Memeorandum hunters, or what Don Dodge is calling meme trackers (I like that term). Seeing as I was one of the first off the blocks with a rave memeorandum review back in September 05, right behind Robert Scoble, and I've been gushing about it ever since - I thought it's only fair for me to analyze the raft of contenders that have arisen since then."

Via Dave Winer -- interesting new quasi-category...

Security Watch: Whom do you trust? - CNET reviews

Security Watch: Whom do you trust? - CNET reviews: "Microsoft and Symantec are not alone in planning online managed-security solutions. The pieces of the puzzle exist within other security giants, as well; Trend Micro, McAfee, and CA (formerly Computer Associates) have all purchased smaller security and PC-performance vendors in the last few years and could easily announce similar service plans at any time. As software moves away from boxed media distribution and becomes a strictly downloadable service option in the near future, the question becomes not whether online managed security makes sense for the home desktop user, but from whom? Whom do you trust?"

Timely overview of planned security-as-a-service offerings from Microsoft and Symantec. On "Whom do you trust?" Let's start with "Whom do you think is less likely to destabilize your Windows configuration?" and then get into the security-related feature/function comparisons...

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: So...What About Workplace?

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: So...What About Workplace?: "Readers who have followed IBM’s communication/collaboration evolution over the last few years may be wondering where IBM’s recently renewed focus on traditional Lotus products leaves the more recently-unveiled Workplace product family. In this post, I’ll share my assessment of where IBM is heading with all things Notes/Domino/Sametime and Workplace."

Final part of my Lotusphere 2006 series.

WSJ.com - Google Lures Head Of Amazon.com's Search Unit

WSJ.com - Google Lures Head Of Amazon.com's Search Unit: "The head of Amazon.com Inc.'s online search effort is leaving to join Google Inc. , the latest in a series of high-profile hires for the search engine leader.
Udi Manber, who has been chief executive of Amazon.com's A9 subsidiary, will be a vice president of engineering at Google, spokeswoman Lynn Fox said Tuesday. She declined to provide more details, including when Manber will start and what specifically he will work on."

Microsoft Announces Pricing and Licensing Details for Windows OneCare Live

Microsoft Announces Pricing and Licensing Details for Windows OneCare Live: "Microsoft Corp. today announced final licensing and pricing information for its soon-to-be-released Windows OneCare™ Live, the all-in-one, automatic and self-updating PC care service aimed at helping consumers more easily protect and maintain their PCs to keep them running well. Now available free to new beta testers in the United States, at http://ideas.live.com, Microsoft® Windows OneCare Live will be available in June from retailers and via the Web for an annual subscription of $49.95 MSRP for up to three personal computers. To thank its valuable beta customers and offer an easy transition to the paid service, Microsoft also announced today a promotional deal offering the first year of Windows OneCare Live service for $19.95 to beta customers who become subscribers between April 1 and April 30, 2006."

Check the press release for details. I've been testing OneCare on one of my PCs; it has worked very well so far. $49.95 per year for up to 3 computers -- pretty aggressive. After my trials and tribulations with Symantec/Norton and other anti-virus vendors over the last couple years, I believe Microsoft has a very significant opportunity with OneCare.

Comment-enabled

I've turned Blogger's comment capabilities on again, for a few reasons:
1. I'm eager to engage in constructive exchanges with readers -- my blog readership is growing, and I'm also curious to get a sense of who's out there...
2. Blogger has been enhanced with several features designed to reduce blog-spam -- see this page for details (and note that I've opted for moderated comments, which means I will be notified via email to approve/reject comments before they're posted).
3. I'm reading Naked Conversations and have been reminded blogging sans comments is suboptimal in many ways. (I'm enjoying the book so far, overall.)

[Update: haha, the comment feature wasn't working for this post, at least temporarily...]

InformationWeek | I.T. Research | Credibility Of Analysts | February 6, 2006

InformationWeek I.T. Research Credibility Of Analysts February 6, 2006: "Research firms make their living by offering expert advice to business and technology people about the best ways to invest their IT dollars. It can be invaluable insight, but only if that analysis comes with no strings attached. And on that, there's no guarantee. "

Interesting and timely reality check. Burton Group, my employer, does not engage (and never has) in "white papers" or other dubious vendor-sponsored project types.

The Power Of The Schwartz | The Notes Workspace Must Die

The Power Of The Schwartz The Notes Workspace Must Die: "The old-guard's refusal to give up on the workspace is holding back the product. By sticking with something that's the poster child for everything that's ever been wrong with the Notes client UI it is reinforcing a major element of the 'Notes Sucks' meme that we really wish would go away. "

Interesting debate. I disagree; I still prefer the "classic" Notes workspace, although I agree it needs to be more customizable and programmable (which I assume is part of the plan for Notes Hannover). Of course, I'm not unbiased, having used Notes on a daily basis since ~1988 (starting pre-1.0 at Lotus). It all comes down to fundamental metamodel issues -- for me the database/workspace containment level is a central part of the model, and portal-esque alternatives don't suffice.

Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google's 'Free Lunch'

Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google's 'Free Lunch': "A Verizon Communications Inc. executive yesterday accused Google Inc. of freeloading for gaining access to people's homes using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.
The comments by John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, came as lawmakers prepared to debate legislation that could let phone and cable companies charge Internet firms additional fees for using their high-speed lines."

I'm starting to wonder if these spokespeople for Verizon secretly work for Verizon competitors out to maximize bad will for Verizon...

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Please spay your blog

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Please spay your blog: "Technorati's David Sifry has issued one of his periodic State of the Blogosphere reports, and looking at the numbers, you can't help but think of Tribbles. According to Technorati's stats, the current average reproduction rate for blogs is one every second of every day. The site now tracks 27.2 million blogs, a population 60 times bigger than it was three years ago, and one that is doubling every 5.5 months."

Read the full article for more on retention rates etc.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Royal Caribbean orders world's largest passenger ship

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Royal Caribbean orders world's largest passenger ship: "Royal Caribbean International on Monday ordered the world's largest and most expensive cruise ship, a $1.24 billion vessel that will hold up to 6,400 passengers.
...
The ship will weigh about 100,000 tons based on displacement; a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier comes in at about 97,000 tons."

And why exactly would I want to go on a cruise with 6,400 other passengers?

New Google Service to Blend the Gmail and Chat Features - New York Times

New Google Service to Blend the Gmail and Chat Features - New York Times: "The new program, called Gmail Chat, will let Gmail users exchange text messages with others without having to log onto a separate chat program, making instant messaging simpler and more integrated with the e-mail program.
From anywhere in Gmail, the user can see who is available to chat. The program will also allow users to store instant-message conversations."

I suspect this is a leading indicator and that many vendors will make it simpler to consolidate (sync and async, ephemeral and persistent) communication channels into unified user experiences.

VMWare Goes Free in Bid to Counter Microsoft Virtual Server

VMWare Goes Free in Bid to Counter Microsoft Virtual Server: "Just how inexpensive is Virtual Server? Microsoft announced last month that customers who acquire one license of Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition can obtain the high-end Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition at a reduced price of $99 through June 30, 2006. But even the normal Virtual Server pricing isn't horrible: Virtual Server 2005 R2 Standard Edition retails for just $99 while the regular retail price of Enterprise Edition is just $199. Previous to the R2 versions, Virtual Server cost $499 for Standard Edition and $999 for Enterprise Edition."

Can You TiVo to See Just the Ads? - New York Times

Can You TiVo to See Just the Ads? - New York Times: "TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, has been measuring the postgame replays of the Super Bowl commercials for several years. The two most-watched commercials were the darkly humorous spots in the first and third quarters for Ameriquest Mortgage, said Katie Ho, vice president for marketing at TiVo, followed by a commercial in which a shorn sheep acted like a 'streaker,' interrupting a football game being played by the Budweiser Clydesdales."

WSJ.com - RealNetworks Agrees to Buy Dutch Games Developer Zylom

WSJ.com - RealNetworks Agrees to Buy Dutch Games Developer Zylom: "Using the proceeds of an antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp., RealNetworks Inc. announced an agreement to acquire Dutch game firm Zylom Media Group BV in a deal valued at up to $21 million, furthering its strategy of game-company acquisitions.
Seattle's RealNetworks said Zylom, of Eindhoven, Netherlands, will help strengthen its position in the European market for 'casual' games, which include easy-to-play puzzle and card games that are becoming popular among personal-computer and mobile-phone users connected to the Internet."

BMW is cut from Google results for cheating | InfoWorld | News | 2006-02-06 | By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

BMW is cut from Google results for cheating InfoWorld News 2006-02-06 By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service: "In a move that analysts say indicates a problem that still needs a solution, Google said it has removed BMW's German Web site from its index for violating Google's guidelines against trying to manipulate search results. "

Sign of the times...

MercuryNews.com | 02/06/2006 | Mac software worries bite into Apple's stock price

MercuryNews.com 02/06/2006 Mac software worries bite into Apple's stock price: "Wall Street is worried that would-be Mac buyers are waiting until they're sure there's enough third-party software available for Apple Computer's new super-speedy Intel-based laptops and desktops."

BTW Apple's mkt cap is now ~$11B less than Dell's.

Softricity Delivers Virtual Desktop Applications via Microsoft SMS

Softricity Delivers Virtual Desktop Applications via Microsoft SMS: "Application virtualization provider Softricity on Feb. 3 introduced a version of its SoftGrid desktop virtualization software that is integrated with Microsoft's Systems Management Server.
The new SoftGrid for Microsoft SMS exploits SMS's software distribution infrastructure to deploy, but not install, virtual applications on targeted end points."

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: The Future of Sametime is...Sametime

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: The Future of Sametime is...Sametime: "Continuing my Lotusphere 2006 series, this post explains more about my perspective on the past, present, and likely future of IBM Lotus Sametime."

Who really won the Super Bowl?

Who really won the Super Bowl?: "Last night at the UCLA Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Marco Iacoboni and his group used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain responses in a group of subjects while they were watching the Super Bowl ads. EDGE is posting results as they come in."

The Dog told me | Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter | ZDNet.com

The Dog told me Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter ZDNet.com: "First, Office is dead. The chorus of 'Gillmor is nuts' from Scoble, O'Kelly, Carr et al in no way refutes the facts. I may be nuts, but then so is Bill Gates, who as Scoble pointed out so presciently produced his 2010 future scenario keynote entirely without PowerPoint. Who needs a presentation program when they can demonstrate what they're talking about with live objects? As Lotus ScreenCam pioneered many years ago, just record the instructions to the screen and audio drivers rather than the bitmaps."

Hey Steve -- these may be separable issues (just kidding...), but I don't recall saying I think you are nuts. On "Office is dead," however: it's more likely to be a cumulative build, i.e., Office-type applications will continue, even with widespread and cost-effective wide-area wireless (which I for one am not counting on being pervasive "real soon now"), primarily to take advantage of local storage, processor, etc. Certainly there will also be software-as-a-service alternatives as well, with some of the most popular probably coming from Microsoft, as part of Office Live and Windows Live.

BTW if you want to see a compelling application of live objects and seamlessly integrated tools, check out Adobe Breeze sometime.

Wave of Video Game Fatigue Afflicts Sales, Not Thumbs - New York Times

Wave of Video Game Fatigue Afflicts Sales, Not Thumbs - New York Times: "From 2000 to 2004, sales of gaming software and hardware in the United States increased to $9.9 billion, from $6.7 billion, according to sales figures compiled by the NPD Group, and the video game industry likes to claim that it is now bigger than Hollywood (which is only true if movie box-office figures alone - a single slice of movie revenue - are considered).
Lately the news has not been as good. In 2005, total sales of hardware, software and accessories grew by 6 percent, to $10.5 billion, mostly on the strength of portable game systems like the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and the Sony PlayStation Portable. But software sales for consoles like the Microsoft Xbox and the PlayStation 2, which represent the heart of the industry, declined 12 percent, according to NPD. "

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus: "This is a fascinating story. Stupidly, few of you will be able to read it on the actual New York Times site, because this is the first article I've run into that's part of the paper's new 'Times Select' system, which you must pay for. I happen to get the print version of the New York Times every day, so I do get Times Select as part of the subscription, but the process of accessing that article online for the first time was complicated and frustrating. Ah well. I'll see about finding a link to the article in a different location."

I see I'm not the only one who thinks $49.95/year or $7.95/month is unreasonable...

Those Cables Behind the Television May Become Obsolete - New York Times

Those Cables Behind the Television May Become Obsolete - New York Times: "On Tuesday, at an annual semiconductor industry design meeting here, the researchers are expected to describe a design that is capable of transmitting more than 10 times the data of today's Wi-Fi using lower-cost silicon germanium material.
The researchers said the new technology would be ideal for moving HDTV video signals around the home wirelessly in the unlicensed 60-gigahertz portion of the radio frequency spectrum."

Google, eBay unit back plan to charge for WiFi access - The Boston Globe

Google, eBay unit back plan to charge for WiFi access - The Boston Globe: "FON's idea, floated just three months ago in a Web posting by founder Martin Varsavsky, is to sign up people who have WiFi hot spots in one of two ways.
Linus members -- named after Linus Torvalds, who created the freely distributed Linux software -- will share their hot spot with other Linus members for free.
Bill members, named after Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, will charge for access to their hot spot. FON will get some of that revenue and share it with Internet service providers."

Wi-Fi sharing company wins Skype, Google as backers - Yahoo! News

Wi-Fi sharing company wins Skype, Google as backers - Yahoo! News: " wireless communications start-up in Spain that is partly a grass-roots social movement seeking to encourage users to share Internet access with their neighbors is set to announce on Monday $21.7 million in funding from big name backers, such as Skype Technologies and Google"

Lexington | The losers | Economist.com

Lexington The losers Economist.com: "Mr Gore now delivers no-holds-barred broadsides against the Bush administration for everything from Abu Ghraib to warrantless wiretaps. But the former vice-president is at his most impressive on his old passion—the environment. Wrongly or rightly, Mr Gore believes that humanity has only about a decade to fix a “planetary emergency”; and he has spent the past few years roaming the world perfecting his lecture-cum-slideshow on the dangers of global warming, much as Ronald Reagan spent the 1950s roaming America perfecting his speech on the evils of government. Mr Gore was at Sundance to promote a documentary based on his speech.
Which points to an interesting paradox: Mr Gore is generating far more political capital by breaking the political rules than he did by obeying them. Mr Kerry's Alito ploy looked brazenly political. But Mr Gore's new persona (or perhaps, more accurately, his rediscovery of his hidden self) is causing something of a buzz. The party's cash-rich Hollywood wing increasingly sees him as a liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton; and he is persuading all sorts of people to take a fresh look at Dudley Do Right. None of this means that he is a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2008. But it does mean that he is far better placed than the junior senator from Massachusetts."

Unfortunately the full article is only available to The Economist subscribers, but you get the idea.

Work and play | The land of leisure | Economist.com

Work and play The land of leisure Economist.com: "A pair of economists have looked closely at how Americans actually spend their time. Mark Aguiar (at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) and Erik Hurst (at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business) constructed four different measures of leisure.* The narrowest includes only activities that nearly everyone considers relaxing or fun; the broadest counts anything that is not related to a paying job, housework or errands as 'leisure'. No matter how the two economists slice the data, Americans seem to have much more free time than before. "

Counterintuitive, but read the full article.

SD Times - Cider Designed to Make WPF-Based Apps Not Hard

SD Times - Cider Designed to Make WPF-Based Apps Not Hard: "The next version of Visual Studio will have a new component, a visual design tool for building applications using Microsoft's upcoming Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) subsystem, code-named Avalon.
The design tool is currently code-named Cider and will be a part of the next Visual Studio, code-named Orcas, due in 2007."

SD Times - Visual Studio 2005: Is It Done Yet?

SD Times - Visual Studio 2005: Is It Done Yet?: "The biggest, clearest winner of the Whidbey generation of products is ASP.NET 2.0. To me, this is head-and-shoulders the best platform for Web development. Sure, there’s a lot of buzz about AJAX and Ruby on Rails, and there’s a lot to justify the interest, but when it comes down to it, ASP.NET 2.0 is going to be the right choice 95 percent of the time, it’s going to be a very close call for a remaining 4 percent, and if you’re in the 1 percent of development teams that has the wherewithal to develop your system in JavaScript or Ruby, you probably already have made your choice."

Read the full post for insightful and (imho) objective analysis from Larry O'Brien.

SD Times - Java Wars: Enterprise Developers Show Loyalty

SD Times - Java Wars: Enterprise Developers Show Loyalty: "IBM in 2005 reclaimed its crown, though the razor-thin margin remains a statistical dead heat, with IBM at 37.2 percent and JBoss at 37.0 percent. There is also a statistical tie between BEA and Oracle, with both at 27.2 percent. Sun showed a strong increase to 19.7 percent, while JRun continues to sink, and is now at 6.8 percent.
...
In the December 2005 study, the top development environment is Eclipse by a wide margin over the second-most popular, IBM’s WebSphere Studio—65.1 percent to 20.0 percent. Eclipse usage has been climbing steadily, since it debuted in this research at 34.5 percent in 2003.
Borland has continued losing market share, falling to 19.2 percent, while Sun’s NetBeans has remained fairly steady at 17.9 percent. JDeveloper and BEA’s WebLogic Workshop have also been falling, and are now at 15.0 percent and 7.2 percent. "

PBS | I, Cringely . February 2, 2006 - The Walt Within

PBS I, Cringely . February 2, 2006 - The Walt Within: "I am not a big Steve Jobs fan. No fawning here. I once called him a sociopath in a book that was translated into 18 languages, and I don't take it back now. But even a sociopath has his moments, and I am beginning to see that this moment belongs to Jobs."

Nick Bradbury: Coming soon: super-fast synching in FeedDemon

Nick Bradbury: Coming soon: super-fast synching in FeedDemon: "The way the current beta of FeedDemon 2.0 works, synchronized feeds are downloaded just like non-synched feeds: when it's time to update them, FeedDemon checks each feed for changes. But our sync API makes this unnecessary: instead of downloading every feed, I can just ask NewsGator which feeds have changed since the last update, and then download only those feeds. As you can imagine, this makes updating your feeds a whole lot faster - so much so that even if you don't need to keep your subscriptions synchronized between computers, you'll probably still want to use the sync features to take advantage of the huge speed boost."

Tangent: the "newspaper"-style view of feeds in IE7 appears to be almost identical to the view model in FeedDemon 2.0. I still prefer a dedicated feed viewer, in any case.

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail - New York Times

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail - New York Times: "America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely."

The next big thing: Tiny screens, way up close - The Boston Globe

The next big thing: Tiny screens, way up close - The Boston Globe: "The glasses, made by MicroOptical Corp. of Westwood, enlarged the image from Auerbach's video iPod, making it seem as though he were looking at a 25-inch screen from about 6 feet away."

I think this is one of the next big things. The Globe article annoyingly doesn't include pictures included in the paper version, but check out this example of an eyewear display that your brain sees as a 42" display 11 feet away. The ''Myvu Personal Media Viewer" pictured in the dead-tree version of the article looked a bit nicer, and cost $249 (rather than $549 for the Icuiti device linked above).

Yeah, we are Borg etc., but this type of display just makes more sense, for long flights, crowded areas, better battery life, etc.

Castronova, Edward: Synthetic Worlds

Castronova, Edward: Synthetic Worlds: "In Synthetic Worlds, Edward Castronova offers the first comprehensive look at the online game industry, exploring its implications for business and culture alike. He starts with the players, giving us a revealing look into the everyday lives of the gamers -- outlining what they do in their synthetic worlds and why. He then describes the economies inside these worlds to show how they might dramatically affect real world financial systems, from potential disruptions of markets to new business horizons. Ultimately, he explores the long-term social consequences of online games: If players can inhabit worlds that are more alluring and gratifying than reality, then how can the real world ever compete? Will a day ever come when we spend more time in these synthetic worlds than in our own? Or even more startling, will a day ever come when such questions no longer sound alarmist but instead seem obsolete? "

Highly recommended -- check it out. Parts of the book are difficult to get through (unless you consider macroeconomics
exhilarating) but I thought it was excellent overall.

reality check: Definition and Much More From Answers.com

reality check: Definition and Much More From Answers.com: "An assessment to determine if one's circumstances or expectations conform to reality."

My Dell laptop is mysteriously click-happy this morning; somehow I inadvertently alt-clicked on my blog title... If you're not using Answers.com's 1-Click Answers, you should check it out (even if you're using a slightly flaky Dell laptop...)

Increasingly, Internet's Data Trail Leads to Court - New York Times

Increasingly, Internet's Data Trail Leads to Court - New York Times: "Requests for information have become so common that most big Internet companies, as well as telephone companies, have a formal process for what is often called subpoena management. Most of the information sought about users is basic, but very personal: their names, where they live, when they were last online -- and, if a court issues a search warrant, what they are writing and reading in their e-mail. (Not surprisingly, the interpretation of voluminous computer records can be error-prone, and instances of mistaken identity have also come to light.) "

What Is TimesSelect?

What Is TimesSelect?: "TimesSelect is a new service from The New York Times providing exclusive online access to Op-Ed columnists, The Times Archive and more. If you are a subscriber to The New York Times newspaper, TimesSelect is available for free (find out more). If you are not a newspaper subscriber, TimesSelect is available for less than 14 cents a day. Subscribe to TimesSelect now or start your 14-day free trial."

$49.95/year or $7.95/month.

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: The Future of Domino is...Domino

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2006 Impressions: The Future of Domino is...Domino: "Continuing my Lotusphere 2006 series, this post explains more about my perspective on the past, present, and likely future of IBM Lotus Domino. "

Part 3 (of 5) in my Lotusphere 2006 summary.

Photo from Adobe NYC event

Very cool venue -- although I need a better phone/camera...

WSJ.com - SAP enters hot market for Web-based software

WSJ.com - SAP enters hot market for Web-based software: "Although vendors of on-demand software have sprung up in numerous markets, its main segment has been customer-relationship management, or CRM, software, which tracks sales data, manages marketing campaigns and supports customer-service agents. SAP is targeting this market for the time being.
SAP initially will offer an Internet-based service that allows sales staff to manage contacts and accounts and analyze the sales pipeline. It will add marketing support in the second quarter and service-center capabilities in the third, SAP Executive Vice President Peter Graf said."

The iPod Ecosystem - New York Times

The iPod Ecosystem - New York Times: "Last year, Apple sold 32 million iPods, or one every second. But for every $3 spent on an iPod, at least $1 is spent on an accessory, estimates Steve Baker, an analyst for the NPD Group, a research firm. That works out to three or four additional purchases per iPod."

A Dilbert cartoon all product managers can relate to

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2006073271203.gif

Fitzgerald Hints White House Records Lost - Yahoo! News

Fitzgerald Hints White House Records Lost - Yahoo! News: "But the prosecutor added: 'In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.' His letter was an exhibit attached to Libby's demand for more information from the prosecution."

What a coincidence...

Cambridge, Mass. to get free Wi-Fi | News.blog | CNET News.com

Cambridge, Mass. to get free Wi-Fi News.blog CNET News.com: "Through a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the city will get free Wi-Fi access for its 100,000 residents by summer. The city hopes that this plan will help bridge the digital divide and give low income residents living in public housing the opportunity to get broadband access. The city will work with businesses to obtain donated or discounted computers."

McNealy: Sun is his life's work | News.blog | CNET News.com

McNealy: Sun is his life's work News.blog CNET News.com: "'There are consequences for the management team. There are clear financial and career implications, (for) myself included,' McNealy said. 'I'm not going to kill anybody. What would you like me to do? Tear the hair off their arms real slow with a piece of tape?'"

Adobe Downgrading Mac Platform? | Bayosphere

Adobe Downgrading Mac Platform? Bayosphere: "My impression is that Adobe has been shifting its focus strongly toward Windows, and has been doing so for some time. Apple is competing with some of Adobe's products, too.
I think this is a strategic error by Adobe, but it's theirs to make."

I attended a 2-day Adobe financial/industry analyst event in NYC this week and disagree -- I think Adobe is very serious about non-Windows platforms. Adobe doesn't seem to be in a rush to support Intel Macs, however, noting that the immediate-term demand isn't there yet -- much as was the the case, in terms of lag time, when Apple last switched processors.

InformationWeek | Palm | Report: Palm Still Dominates Despite Pressures | February 2, 2006

InformationWeek Palm Report: Palm Still Dominates Despite Pressures February 2, 2006: "The IDC report indicates that handheld device makers are caught up in a declining market. Palm maintained its top spot in the IDC rankings with 45.6 percent market share for the year, followed by Hewlett-Packard's 20.8 percent. Dell was in the third position with 8 percent market share.
IDC said handheld devices were up 37.6 percent in the fourth quarter over the previous quarter, primarily due to robust holiday sales. "

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Hello, my name is Larry and I'm a recovering ... oh screw it, I'm going to Armani

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Hello, my name is Larry and I'm a recovering ... oh screw it, I'm going to Armani: "Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is certainly a better credit risk than most, but the bank files on him may well include some reference to 'drunken sailor.' Documents related to a recent shareholder lawsuit against the mercurial CEO reveal Ellison as an almost pathological consumerist who habitually maxes out his more-than-a-billion-dollar credit limit: $25 million on a villa in Japan, $194 million for a new yacht, $20 million on 'lifestyle expenses' (can one man really use that many hair products?!?)."

RIM Wins Round in BlackBerry Patent Bout

RIM Wins Round in BlackBerry Patent Bout: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has sided with BlackBerry e-mail device maker Research in Motion, but the case is far from over.
RIM scored a legal victory Feb. 1 when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the fifth patent at the center of RIM's legal battle with patent-holding company NTP. "

IE7 Beta: Never Count Microsoft Out

IE7 Beta: Never Count Microsoft Out: "Apparently, Microsoft's browser-in-beta, Internet Explorer 7, looks pretty promising, according to early reports. Got the same impression from SimpleFeed's Mark Carlson, who stopped by today. I'm not yet daring enough to try it out on my own machine yet, but Carlson, for one, thinks the RSS feed reading features on IE7 could really open up RSS for the masses."

I've been using IE7 beta 2 preview for the last couple days; very impressed so far.

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | ID theft 'costs UK £1.7bn a year'

BBC NEWS UK UK Politics ID theft 'costs UK £1.7bn a year': "At £35 per person, the estimated annual cost was greater than that of planned compulsory national identity cards, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme."

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Salesforce.com's hiccups

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Salesforce.com's hiccups: "It may have made sense for Salesforce to control its infrastructure when it was starting out, but its recent hiccups raise the question of whether the company and its customers will continue to be best served by the dual-focus strategy. It's a critical question, given the fact that for a SaaS provider a sustained case of the hiccups could well be lethal."