Labs: Introducing digital locker

Labs: Introducing digital locker
Microsoft's digital locker hits beta -- see this page for an overview of what it's all about and the digital locker home page to explore. Microsoft's brief summary: "The new way to try, buy, and download software instantly." Non-Microsoft software, that is.

More details: "Digital locker is designed to address the typical barriers of online software purchases for customers, such as concerns about adware and spyware. In addition, digital locker - along with Microsoft’s delivery partners, Digital River, eSellerate, Handango and Kagi - offers the thousands of ISVs building applications for the Windows platform a cost-effective way to promote and distribute their products to hundreds of millions of Windows customers."

Sun, Microsoft answer Mass. call for ODF/Office converter

Sun, Microsoft answer Mass. call for ODF/Office converter: "Seven companies have responded to a call by Massachusetts officials for information on software plug-ins that would allow Microsoft Office users to read and write files in the OpenDocument format (ODF). Among those who replied are Sun Microsystems Inc., a strong proponent of ODF, and Microsoft Corp., a strong opponent."

Meanwhile, from today's Boston Globe, the plot thickens:
"Blasting former state technology officials for flouting the open government process, a state Senate oversight panel yesterday called on the Romney administration to postpone implementing a disputed mandate requiring use of 'open standards' for data generated by some 50,000 state government computers."

The MySpace Bubble - Forbes.com

The MySpace Bubble - Forbes.com: "But some are already beginning to sense a social-networking site backlash. Internet artist and blogger Sean Bonner has created anti-social networking gag site Isolatr. Catchy Web 2.0 tagline: 'Helping you find where other people aren't.'"

Timely "social networking" reality check

Analyst: 'Net Neutrality' Unlikely To Affect Google - Forbes.com

Analyst: 'Net Neutrality' Unlikely To Affect Google - Forbes.com "Apple Computer and YouTube.com would be the more-likely losers.
[...]
A song downloaded from iTunes, on the other hand, uses 150 to 200 times the bandwidth of a Google search, Berman said. And downloading an episode of Lost uses roughly 9,000 time more bandwidth than searching for something on Google."

Microsoft offers Internet Explorer 7 Public Beta 3

Microsoft offers Internet Explorer 7 Public Beta 3: "New features and functionality in the Beta 3 release include:
All security updates for IE7 released through June.
The ability to drag-and-drop reorder browser tabs in the tabbed-browsing bar.
The reappearance of the optional read e-mail button for the customizable 'Command' bar, or main toolbar.
The Web page zoom-in scaling feature adds a horizontal scroll bar automatically.
A global RSS feed settings dialog.
A global RSS 'refresh now' function.
Additional work carried out since the Beta 2 release aimed at improving Web-site compatibility. "

Very impressed with IE7 beta 3 so far...

Inside Google's New-Product Process

Inside Google's New-Product Process: "The philosophy is, try a bunch of ideas, refine them, and see what survives, says Marissa Mayer, the search giant's product-launch czar"

Timely interview/reality check

Microsoft pushes back Office 2007 release - Yahoo! News

Microsoft pushes back Office 2007 release - Yahoo! News: "Microsoft said it will now aim for a launch of Office 2007 to business customers by the end of 2006 rather than an earlier target of October. Microsoft also said it would delay the general availability of the Office upgrade to early 2007 from its previous January target."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Veteran to Join Google

WSJ.com - Microsoft Veteran to Join Google: "Vic Gundotra, a 15-year Microsoft Corp. veteran, is leaving the software giant to join rival Google Inc. in one year.
Mr. Gundotra, a general manager for evangelism, played a key role in trying to get software developers to use Microsoft's software and online offerings when creating new programs."

It'll be interesting to see what Google looks like in a year -- when, I assume, his non-compete expires.

Tom Rizzo's SharePoint Blog : Alas, WinFS, I knew him well Horatio

Tom Rizzo's SharePoint Blog : Alas, WinFS, I knew him well Horatio: "In addition, some of the tenets we laid out for WinFS are actually being delivered in SharePoint. While it's not based on the WinFS technology, SharePoint delivers some of the key ideas that was part of WinFS (hierachical content types with rich metadata and business logic, replication - ok - this is really offline sync to Outlook and Groove in SharePoint, etc)."

Tom Rizzo's perspective, as one of the original WinFS team members; read the full post.

Myhrvold stirs it up - John Cook's Venture Blog

Myhrvold stirs it up - John Cook's Venture Blog "Former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold -- the so-called "patent troll" who runs Bellevue's Intellectual Ventures -- is back in the news with stories in Fortune and BusinessWeek.
BusinessWeek titles its story "Inside Nathan Myhrvold's Mysterious New Idea Machine," while Fortune attaches this scary headline: "Who's afraid of Nathan Myhrvold?""

Adesso gets in sync, new CEO | InfoWorld | News | 2006-06-28 | By China Martens, IDG News Service

Adesso gets in sync, new CEO | InfoWorld | News | 2006-06-28 | By China Martens, IDG News Service: "John Van Siclen, previously senior vice president of worldwide sales at support automation software vendor SupportSoft has joined Adesso as its new CEO. Prior to SupportSoft, Van Siclen was president and CEO of enterprise content management company Interwoven Inc.
[...]
'The only one who thought about doing this was Microsoft with WinFS,' he said. The software giant has just revealed that it no longer plans to release the file system as a separate product but will bundle WinFS in the next release of its SQL Server database. 'Microsoft would do well to buy us,' Landry quipped. 'We can do more with their software than they do.'"

Subtle as always...

GaryDev | To eveything, turn turn turn...

GaryDev To eveything, turn turn turn... Nice picture of Gary Devendorf (wearing a Lotus shirt, naturally) and (pre-Microsoft assimiliation) Bill Corrigan, two of the best product managers I've had the privilege of working with. (Um, Gary: the Notes template you're using for your blog puts your "blogroll" over Bill's head, at least in IE7 and Firefox...)

Microsoft Buys iView - Digital Asset Management, Software - CRN

Microsoft Buys iView - Digital Asset Management, Software - CRN: "Microsoft Corp. has bought iView, a British maker of digital asset management software, the latter company said Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed."

Looks like perhaps the list of things for which Microsoft defers to partners, from its Enterprise Content Management White Paper (p. 15) just got one item shorter.

Sale of Digital Security Firm Said to Be Near - New York Times

Sale of Digital Security Firm Said to Be Near - New York Times: "RSA Security, a pioneering digital security company, quietly put itself up for sale several months ago and is now near a deal with EMC or at least one other bidder, people involved in the auction process said last night.
A deal, possibly worth more than $1.8 billion, could be reached in a few days, these people said. The company has a market value of $1.46 billion."

Q&A: Microsoft Flexes Muscle with the High-Performance Computing Community

Q&A: Microsoft Flexes Muscle with the High-Performance Computing Community: "One such collaboration is with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 served as the underlying operating system for a new HPC cluster that recently achieved 4.1 trillion computations per second (teraflops) on 896, 64-bit Intel Xeon processors. This result, arrived at by using Dell PowerEdge 1855 blade servers, Cisco Topspin InfiniBand switches and Force10 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) switches, was sufficient to place the system at 131st on the Top500 list. The cluster, named Lincoln, will serve strategic campus and state initiatives, with its peak performance approaching 6 teraflops."

Google Aims to Speed the Online Checkout Line - New York Times

Google Aims to Speed the Online Checkout Line - New York Times: "In its quest to 'organize the world's information,' Google now wants to keep track of your credit card number and where you live.
[...]
Google is charging merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price to process card transactions, less than most businesses pay for credit card processing. Banking industry executives say that credit card processors typically pay MasterCard and Visa a fee of 30 cents and 1.95 percent for every purchase, so Google will be subsidizing many transactions.
What is more, for every $1 a company spends on search advertising, Google will waive the fees on $10 worth of purchases. Factoring in the 2 percent fee, that represents a rebate of at least 20 percent of advertising spending."

Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal: It's Time to Reduce The Tangle of Wires We Use for Gadgets

Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal: It's Time to Reduce The Tangle of Wires We Use for Gadgets: "He [Howard Stringer, the CEO of Sony] then ventured a guess as to why Sony and others sell so many different chargers and adapters: 'I have a sneaking suspicion it's because the last three years, the most profitable business at Sony was the component division,' which makes such accessories. When the crowd laughed, he said: 'I'm serious.'"

Line56.com: Oracle's Content Management Plans

Line56.com: Oracle's Content Management Plans: "'Content management is $4 billion today and expected to grow to over $10 billion in the next few years,' says [Oracle's VP of Global Technology] Shimp. That would put content management close to the entire database market in size, and Oracle doesn't want to let the opportunity go. Shimp sees an opening based on current implementation dynamics. 'The bulk of CM is still flat-file systems,' he says. 'We provide a database-backed solution.'"

Collaborative Thinking: IBM To Microsoft: Game On!

Collaborative Thinking: IBM To Microsoft: Game On!: "And that is what's most important about this release of Sametime. V7.5 signifies IBM's return to competing with Microsoft when it comes to unified communications. While not a perfect release (I wish it did more to modernize the back-end), it is an initial volley."

Another timely reality check from my Burton Group colleague Mike Gotta

VoIP Loop - Microsoft to the Enterprise IP Telephony Market: Game On!

VoIP Loop - Microsoft to the Enterprise IP Telephony Market: Game On!: "With these announcements Microsoft is firmly going after the enterprise VoIP market, not just in software, but also in hardware. They are also integrating VoIP completely into their collaboration environment. This is the first result of Microsoft's steps to integrate its communications and collaboration groups earlier this year. They will position OCS 2007 as an alternative to organizations considering migrating their TDM environments to alternatives from Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, etc. Microsoft wants to lead in the effort to integrate communications, collaboration, as well as the integration of both into business processes. They want to be considered as a primary alternative when enterprises plan the evolution of their communications & collaboration architecture."

Timely reality check from my Burton Group colleague Irwin Lazar; read the full post.

Adobe updates Flash Player, Flex tool | CNET News.com

Adobe updates Flash Player, Flex tool | CNET News.com: "In tandem with the Flash Player 9 release, Adobe is making its Flex 2 product line available, including a free, entry-level Flex 2 Software Development Kit meant to encourage development of more Flash applications. "

WSJ.com - Adobe Seeks To Regain High Ground In Microsoft Dispute

WSJ.com - Adobe Seeks To Regain High Ground In Microsoft Dispute: "According to people close to continued talks between the two companies, Adobe is alarmed Microsoft has settled on using an older version of PDF instead of the latest. Such a move could have a disruptive affect.
Users of the older version would be kept from the latest features in the software and would have no incentive to upgrade to the newest Acrobat document editing software and free reader built around the newer 1.6 version of PDF."

Interesting permutation...

With a Cellphone as My Guide - New York Times

With a Cellphone as My Guide - New York Times: "If you stand on a street corner in Tokyo today you can point a specialized cellphone at a hotel, a restaurant or a historical monument, and with the press of a button the phone will display information from the Internet describing the object you are looking at."

WSJ.com - Vonage Phone Device To Target Business Travelers

WSJ.com - Vonage Phone Device To Target Business Travelers: "Vonage Holdings Corp., battling Internet-calling rivals such as eBay Inc.'s Skype and cable providers, is expected to unveil a plug-in device as early as today that will turn a computer into a phone.
[...]
Vonage's new product would let users make calls using dialing software embedded on a memory drive that can plug into a USB slot on a laptop or desktop computer. The software would launch when the USB device is plugged in"

Feature from PC Magazine: MySpace Nation

Feature from PC Magazine: MySpace Nation : "Social networking isn't a new idea. In fact, it's the very idea that sparked the creation of the Web itself. When he dreamed up the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee envisioned a tool that would give a voice to the common man. The Internet would allow anyone to exchange information with anyone else around the world. As he wrote in his memoir, Weaving the Web, it would engender 'the decentralized, organic growth of ideas, technology, and society.'"

Timely snapshot of a sometimes scary market space...

Comcast fires employee caught sleeping on camera - Boston.com

Comcast fires employee caught sleeping on camera - Boston.com: "The Comcast technician was at customer Brian Finkelstein's home when he fell asleep after spending an hour on the phone waiting for his own company's customer service, the Comcast subscriber said."

TheirSpace: 'Terror on the Internet,' by Gabriel Weimann - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

TheirSpace: 'Terror on the Internet,' by Gabriel Weimann - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel, is one of a handful of people who began tracking terrorist Web sites almost a decade ago, long before most analysts were aware of the problem. 'Terror on the Internet' usefully outlines the basic contours of his subject, giving a taste of Al Qaeda's Internet rhetoric and strategies, along with those of less well-known militant groups from Colombia to the Basque country to Chechnya. The book also includes chapters on related issues, from the risks of cyberterrorism to the debate over surveillance techniques. "

WinFS Decision Shows New Thinking at Microsoft

WinFS Decision Shows New Thinking at Microsoft : "'It's really an indication of the end of the Gates era,' Smith said. WinFS was Gates' 'pet project,' not Ozzie's.
'It was an opportunity to showcase some leadership on the part of Ray Ozzie,' Smith said. 'I believe he had something to do with this decision, but they chose not to highlight that.' "

Interesting speculation, and certainly Ray Ozzie knows a thing or two about distributed/replicable storage systems... For my view on the WinFS news, see this article.

What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It? - New York Times

What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It? - New York Times: "Despite WiFly's ubiquity -- with 4,100 hot spot access points reaching 90 percent of the population -- just 40,000 of Taipei's 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service since January. Q-Ware, the local Internet provider that built and runs the network, once expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but it has lowered that target to 200,000. "

Put the Pedal to the Metal: Take the 2007 Microsoft Office System Out for a Spin

Put the Pedal to the Metal: Take the 2007 Microsoft Office System Out for a Spin "With the online test-drive, people can experience products directly for themselves to learn how the next release can help them better manage documents, organize their work and collaborate with others. In just minutes, anyone with access to an Internet connection can try out the latest improvements to familiar Microsoft Office applications using sample data to demo editing documents, sending e-mail, and posting to Microsoft Office SharePoint® sites to illustrate real-time collaboration functionality. The system is set up not only with Microsoft Office client applications, but also with server offerings pre-populated with data to allow people to easily experience the new server functionality in Microsoft Office. This is the first online test-drive made available before the launch of a Microsoft Office release, and it features 18 product-specific tutorials with step-by-step instructions covering most Office system client products and servers, including Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office Project Server 2007."

Interesting milestone -- reach client exploration of Microsoft's next-generation rich client apps.

It uses the Citrix browser plug-in, and is apparently quite popular (and/or built with insufficient resources); at the moment, it indicates "The Test Drive system is busy with an estimated wait time of 188 minutes."

7:45 a.m. Eastern update: got in after ~5 minutes; in addition to the Citrix client, you'll also need a Windows Live ID (formerly known as Passport id). I couldn't get it to work, but maybe that's because I'm using IE7 beta 2. Also, unsurprisingly:
"The Test Drive System supports the following:
* Windows 98, 2000 and XP
* Internet Explorer 5.5 and later"

Update 2: crashed and restarted IE7, tried again; I'm in. Unclear how test-drivers are supposed to test Outlook without an id/pw, but maybe I missed some help text...

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Is Microsoft taking aim at the iPod?

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Is Microsoft taking aim at the iPod?: "The latest rumors of the mythical mPod appeared recently in a Reuters report, with unnamed sources saying Microsoft is showing the device to music companies. I'd argue that Microsoft has already developed an iPod challenger, and it's been on sale for a couple of weeks at Best Buy and Amazon.com for about $200."

Read the full article for more on how Microsoft is working with key device partners such as iRiver.

Microsoft Plans to Blend Phones With Computers - New York Times

Microsoft Plans to Blend Phones With Computers - New York Times: "'We've been far ahead of Microsoft in these technologies,' said Ken Bisconti, I.B.M.'s vice president for workplace, portal and collaboration products, speaking from Cambridge, Mass.
Microsoft is also facing a growing open-source communications software market. One project, an open-source, Internet-based PBX called Asterisk, has more than 500,000 systems now in use. 'Microsoft might have realized that there are a lot of people who have seen this idea,' said Mark Spencer, an Asterisk designer and president of Digium, a company in Huntsville, Ala., that sells a commercial version of the program. 'They want to get the message out there that they have a strategy.'"

Microsoft Unveils Unified Communications Product Road Map and Partner Ecosystem

Microsoft Unveils Unified Communications Product Road Map and Partner Ecosystem: "Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is scheduled to be released in late 2006 or early 2007. Microsoft Speech Server 2007 will be available in late 2006. Communications Server 2007, Communicator 2007, Communicator phone experience, Live Meeting, RoundTable and the IP-enabled business desktop phones featuring Communicator phone experience will complete Microsoft's unified communications solutions and are scheduled to be available in the second quarter of 2007. "

Microsoft Unified Communications VPR: Press Materials

Microsoft Unified Communications VPR: Press Materials One key development, from this (.doc) fact sheet:

"Communications Server 2007 delivers the webconferencing capabilities of the Microsoft Office Live Meeting service as an on-premise, server-based solution. This enables organizations to host meetings, presentations, training classes and similar gatherings using the corporate network."

Microsoft and Siemens Collaborate to Usher in New Era of Unified Communications

Microsoft and Siemens Collaborate to Usher in New Era of Unified Communications: "Siemens Communications Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today announced the expansion of global collaborative efforts to advance the transformation of telephony, audio-, video- and web conferencing, instant messaging, and e-mail into a single unified communications platform. Cooperation between the two companies is rooted in a shared vision for unified communications that is people-centric, breaks down silos between different forms of communications systems, and expands on ongoing efforts by the two companies to integrate technologies around Microsoft® Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server."

Interesting that this news comes about a week after Siemens announces plans to sell key parts of its telecommunications business, e.g., quoting from a 2006/06/20 WSJ article:

"On the heels of an agreement to combine its telecommunications-equipment business with that of Nokia Corp., Siemens AG said it is in talks to sell a majority stake in its enterprise unit, which supplies packages of telecom gear and services to corporate customers."

Microsoft takes partners for communications push - Yahoo! News

Microsoft takes partners for communications push - Yahoo! News: "The software giant announced partnerships with Hewlett-Packard Co., Motorola Inc. and other device makers to provide the necessary hardware designed to work with its software to integrate communication systems.
Microsoft's push into business telephone market pits the company against Cisco Systems Inc. and other competitors seeking to capitalize on a shift by large companies to cheaper Internet-based telecommunications."

Software Notebook: IBM has own plans for Microsoft Office

Software Notebook: IBM has own plans for Microsoft Office: "IBM says it has developed a way to incorporate elements of its Lotus Sametime 7.5 instant-messaging and conferencing software into Microsoft Office programs. The move, to be announced today, would let businesses using Microsoft's Office suite, Outlook and SharePoint choose IBM's Sametime system over Microsoft's Communications Server and related programs."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Wants Your Office Telephone

WSJ.com - Microsoft Wants Your Office Telephone: "The founding vision for Microsoft Corp. was a computer on every desk, each one running Microsoft software. The next dream is every office phone.
Today Microsoft is set to announce a broad initiative into the business telephone market, including desktop phones and videoconferencing devices designed by Microsoft and sold by partners, with some available as soon as June 2007. Microsoft software programs would link the new phones to computers so that they can handle voice functions, such as making a phone call and receiving voice mail."

Deja vu, in some respects; see, e.g., this NYT article from five years ago.

The End of Authorship - New York Times

The End of Authorship - New York Times "Will Google's plans to create a digital universal library deprive the written word of its old-fashioned accountability and intimacy?"

Essay by John Updike

What's in Store : WinFS Update

What's in Store : WinFS Update: "These changes do mean that we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release. With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering. "

The vision remains largely the same, but the go-to-market vehicles have changed -- no more distinct WinFS, but many facets of the WinFS vision will be delivered via Visual Studio and SQL Server instead.

Verizon to End Airline Telephone Service - New York Times

Verizon to End Airline Telephone Service - New York Times: "Verizon Airfone, whose handsets have graced the backs of airline seats for more than two decades, will end its phone service on commercial airliners before the end of the year."

Long overdue, imho; I think I've seen the Airfones used less than 5 times over the last 15 years...

FT.com / Technology - Oracle revenues soar on buying spree

FT.com / Technology - Oracle revenues soar on buying spree: "Oracle executives on Thursday claimed vindication for their company's aggressive spate of acquisitions as the US software maker reported a 25 per cent increase in revenues in the final three months of its latest fiscal year."

NOVELL: Novell Reports Financial Results for Second Fiscal Quarter 2006

NOVELL: Novell Reports Financial Results for Second Fiscal Quarter 2006: "Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments were $1.3 billion at April 30, 2006, down $347 million from last quarter primarily due to cash used to repurchase common stock and the acquisition of e-Security."

Let's assume $1.3B today, with mkt cap ~$2.2B and revenue in its most recent quarter of $278M...

Novell's New Guard

Novell's New Guard: "In a morning call with analysts, Hovsepian pledged to “accelerate growth.” He said that could include “organic and inorganic” growth and other means of “enhancing shareholder value.” Moves could include putting some of Novell’s $800 million in cash to work through a gutsy acquisition of another open-source software distributor such as MySQL or a startup like Spikesource or by doing more aggressive stock buybacks."

Hmm -- IIRC, that number was closer to $1.6B not so long ago.

Digg Expands Into New News Areas

Digg Expands Into New News Areas "Digg officially announced that it's expanding beyond tech into new areas, including world & business news, entertainment, science and gaming. The blessed event betas on June 26. Interestingly enough, Digg is adding subcategories and the ability to customize the site based on the different areas that fit your tastes."

Microsoft swims upstream on security | CNET News.com

Microsoft swims upstream on security CNET News.com: "Under the Forefront plan, the brand-new Microsoft Client Protection product, now in development, will be sold as Forefront Client Security for PCs and servers. In addition, updates of Antigen for Exchange and Antigen for SharePoint will also carry the Forefront tag, Microsoft said. Antigen for Instant Messaging and the ISA Server firewall and Web caching software are also in the Forefront group. "

Must Click Off Now, I Need My Cursor Back - New York Times

Must Click Off Now, I Need My Cursor Back - New York Times: "The optical mouse, smaller than a standard desktop version for easy portability, connects via a U.S.B. port. It has the usual two buttons and a scroll wheel. But if you want to make an Internet telephone call, the mouse transforms into a flip phone. The scroll wheel becomes the volume control, and if you click it, it mutes the call.
...
One drawback is that while you are on the phone, you cannot use the mouse as a mouse."

File under "Future collectors' item", I suspect...

The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Photography is its own reward for busy Microsoft executive

The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Photography is its own reward for busy Microsoft executive: "In addition to being Microsoft's chief technical officer, Vaskevitch is a father willing to learn horse-jumping at age 40 in order to spend time with his kids; a friend who organizes lavish trips to distant corners of the world; and a photographer who caught the digital wave in the mid-1990s and will show his work publicly for the first time beginning this weekend."

He's also pretty hard core on enterprise architecture... I recall a May, 1995 interview in DBMS Magazine (long since merged with Database Programming & Design, to create Intelligent Enterprise; alas, the article wasn't published on the Web...), for example, that was perhaps the best leading indicator of Microsoft's enterprise strategy that I've ever read.

Novell Ousts 2 Executives in an Effort to Lift Shares - New York Times

Novell Ousts 2 Executives in an Effort to Lift Shares - New York Times: "'The board concluded that a management change would be the best way to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy and build value for shareholders,' said Thomas G. Plaskett, a director of Novell since November 2002. He was also named nonexecutive chairman."

Given Novell's current cash/short-term investment-to-market cap index, I suspect there are many financial analysts and business development people who believe the best way to build value for shareholders to have NOVL acquired, e.g., by IBM or Oracle.

Bill Gates's World of Possibility

Bill Gates's World of Possibility: "Melinda Moree met plenty of naysayers who dismissed the prospects of a malaria vaccine. Then she encountered Bill Gates.
No one had developed a human vaccine against a parasite like malaria before, and the monetary incentives simply did not exist for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs targeted at poor children. Development would require cooperation among scientists, drug companies, health groups and international governments -- an alliance so large it didn't seem possible, she recalled someone telling Gates."

Related theme from BusinessWeek's Sorting Out the Gates Legacy:

"Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its $29 billion endowment, Gates aims to improve health and education and reduce poverty worldwide. The $1.5 billion he has given to immunize poor children has already helped avert an estimated 1.7 million deaths."

The New York Review of Books: The Threat to the Planet

The New York Review of Books: The Threat to the Planet: "Armadillos appear to be pretty tough. Their mobility suggests that they have a good chance to keep up with the movement of their climate zone, and to be one of the surviving species. Of course, as they reach the city limits of St. Louis and Chicago, they may not be welcome. And their ingenuity may be taxed as they seek ways to ford rivers and multiple-lane highways."

Read the full review for a stark reality check...

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Plan for two-tiered Internet puts higher price on speed

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Plan for two-tiered Internet puts higher price on speed: "The need to build more robust networks and decide how best to run them comes at a time when the United States has fallen behind countries in Europe and Asia. Broadband service in the U.S. is slower and more expensive than in places like France, South Korea and Japan. The telecommunications bill, called the Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006, had about 200 amendments filed by Wednesday. Addressing digital television, municipal broadband and a host of other issues, it represents the most massive overhaul of telecom policy since 1996."

Google testing new ad formula - The Boston Globe

Google testing new ad formula - The Boston Globe: "Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, is testing online advertisements for which clients pay only when Web surfers click on an ad and buy a product or generate a sales lead."

Apparently Google seeks to obsolete its current business model before somebody else does it for them.

Adobe to be Google's latest Web search distributor - Yahoo! News

Adobe to be Google's latest Web search distributor - Yahoo! News: "Adobe Systems Inc. said on Wednesday Google Inc. had agreed to pay the multimedia software maker a 'significant' amount to distribute the Web search leader's software.
...
The deal calls for users to receive a free version of the Google Toolbar Web search software when they download Adobe's Shockwave player for use with an Internet Explorer browser."

This is about as appealing as Apple forcing users to download iTunes in order to install the Quicktime player, imho.

A Way to View 'Desperate Housewives' While Cruising the Nile - New York Times

A Way to View 'Desperate Housewives' While Cruising the Nile - New York Times: "Sony's LocationFree TV was the first hardware device to enable remote viewing of live TV ? as long as you watched on the company's L.C.D. screen that came bundled with the base station.
After slow sales, Sony reconfigured its approach and now markets the LF-PK1/M, a $280 stand-alone paperback-size base station, as well as the original $1,500 LFX11 bundle, which includes the L.C.D. TV.
LocationFree can transmit programming to that L.C.D. TV as well as to a Mac, a Windows PC or PSP portable game player. Mac software costs an additional $40."

The article also includes overviews of competitive alternatives.

WSJ.com - AT&T Revises Privacy Policy, Says It May Share Personal Data

WSJ.com - AT&T Revises Privacy Policy, Says It May Share Personal Data: "AT&T's new policy states: 'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others or respond to legal process.'"

Yeah, that'd be fine -- if and only if AT&T were paying me to use its services.

I used to be a cautiously optimistic AT&T customer, during the C. Michael Armstrong era; at one point, AT&T provided my home phone, cable TV, broadband Internet, and wireless phone services. I've long since switched to different service providers for all of the above.

WSJ.com - Boeing Weighs Sale or Closure Of Connexion Internet Venture

WSJ.com - Boeing Weighs Sale or Closure Of Connexion Internet Venture: "After six years of failing to turn a profit from its ambitious in-flight Connexion Internet venture, Boeing Co. is considering selling the unit or shutting it down altogether, according to people familiar with the situation."

Anil Dash: Office 2007 is the Bravest Upgrade Ever

Anil Dash: Office 2007 is the Bravest Upgrade Ever: "My experience has been the same as most of those who I know that are using the new version: Word went from being frustrating and confusing to fairly straightforward to use. PowerPoint went, in a single upgrade, from being the worst widely-available presentation software to being the best. Excel is a fundamentally different kind of spreadsheet application, focused on presenting information usefully instead of optimizing for the creation of complex formulas."

Timely reality check -- read the full post.

Sun Adds Database, New Look to Java SE 6

Sun Adds Database, New Look to Java SE 6: "Sun is adding Java DB, the Sun-supported distribution of Apache's Derby Project and the group layout SWING component from the NetBeans GUI Builder."

Derby was created from IBM's donation of its Cloudscape DBMS.

Google Watch : A Competitor's Guide to the Internet, Part II

Google Watch : A Competitor's Guide to the Internet, Part II Handy index of competitive services from AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

Collaborative Technologies Conference Boston 2006 : CTC Presentations

Collaborative Technologies Conference Boston 2006 : CTC Presentations My Burton Group colleague Mike Gotta and I presented a session titled "Microsoft vs IBM Lotus: Comparative Analysis" at the CTC 2006 event yesterday. You can download the presentation pdf here. 42 slides in 45 minutes -- and we even had time for Q&A... I counted at least 4 attendees from IBM and Microsoft in the room, and nobody threw anything at us, so apparently we managed to keep it fairly balanced...

TechWeb: Switching To The Mac: A Guide For Windows Users

TechWeb: Switching To The Mac: A Guide For Windows Users "Once you get past the cute commercials and talking heads, there are some hard facts that you need to know to make an intelligent decision about switching. And, to be honest, there are some things about Macs that will seem a little weird if you do make the switch. We're here to guide the way."

Excellent summary/reality check, via David Weiss

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : More on the PDF support in Office

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : More on the PDF support in Office: "I know that it is common for folks implementing a format to extend it in order to support whatever extra features that application has. Those of you who are developers know that the way you differentiate your product is to innovate and design new powerful features that deliver value to your customers – it’s good to continue improving. This is not the case though for our PDF support, and we have no intention of ever doing so (even though as far as I can tell there is nothing in the PDF spec that limits third party extensions and Adobe has never tried to stop that until now). We’ve publicly stated that we will not extend the spec, and I’m hoping that as long as we can be clear on that then Adobe will change their mind about wanting us to remove the support."

More on the debate from Microsoft's Brian Jones, responsible for the save-as-pdf feature in Office 2007.

Mumbai Mirror: And then, the Instant Messaging wars

Mumbai Mirror: And then, the Instant Messaging wars: "Globally, MSN Messenger is the most popular instant messaging client, with 204.6 million users in April, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo is No 2 with 76 million users, the research firm said."

Is $100 laptop project flawed? | CNET News.com

Is $100 laptop project flawed? CNET News.com: "'The real reason that this won't be successful is a misunderstanding of the history of technology. They are looking to introduce a nonstandard, untested platform...which they will only sell to governments,' he said. 'The decision to buy will be made by politicians who are elected every five years, and politicians generally don't take the decision to risk their political future on nonstandard technology.'
The project aims to develop a portable PC for use by children in the developing world for about $100. The price has risen since the plan was first announced to about $135 to $140. "

Windows Live Executive Leaves Microsoft - New York Times

Windows Live Executive Leaves Microsoft - New York Times: "'We've made the difficult decision to part ways with Martin Taylor but we don't comment on personnel matters,' the company said in an e-mailed statement that did not disclose the reason for his departure. Adam Sohn, a director in the group that reported to Mr. Taylor, declined to comment. Mr. Taylor could not be reached for comment. "

WSJ.com - Computer Failure Snarls AirTran Airways' Operations

WSJ.com - Computer Failure Snarls AirTran Airways' Operations: "The rapidly growing discount carrier, a unit of AirTran Holdings Inc., Orlando, Fla., says it installed a new computer system late Monday night to handle flight check-in at airport ticket counters, kiosks and via the Internet. But the new system, from Navataire Inc., failed early Tuesday and travelers weren't able to check in at home or at airport kiosks, and ticket agents weren't able to print boarding passes, an airline spokesman said.
...
spokeswoman for Navitaire, a unit of Accenture Ltd., wasn't aware of the glitch."

Oops...

Report: Mother of teen sues MySpace for $30 million | News.blog | CNET News.com

Report: Mother of teen sues MySpace for $30 million News.blog CNET News.com: "The mother of a Texas teenager has sued MySpace.com for $30 million, after her daughter said she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the social-networking site. "

Yahoo Messenger allows users to share services - Yahoo! News

Yahoo Messenger allows users to share services - Yahoo! News: "Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) is set to allow users to embed in its instant messaging service formerly independent programs that help them collaborate on activities ranging from calendar scheduling to watching videos or even trading commodities. "

A Mania in Telecom to Merge - New York Times

A Mania in Telecom to Merge - New York Times: "As Nokia and Siemens announced plans to merge their telecommunications equipment businesses — the third major industry deal in less than a year — the big unanswered question was not if, but when, the remaining giants would team up."

WSJ.com - Siemens to Sell Stake In Corporate-Service Unit

WSJ.com - Siemens to Sell Stake In Corporate-Service Unit: "On the heels of an agreement to combine its telecommunications-equipment business with that of Nokia Corp., Siemens AG said it is in talks to sell a majority stake in its enterprise unit, which supplies packages of telecom gear and services to corporate customers.
Siemens didn't identify the potential buyers for the unit, which has about €3.5 billion, or about $4.4 billion, in annual sales. But with the potential sale and its planned joint venture with Finland's Nokia, the German electronics-and-engineering giant is dismantling its telecom unit known as Com, which posted €13.14 billion in sales for fiscal 2005."

Launch of Windows Live Messenger Marks Significant Progress for Microsoft's Windows Live Era

Launch of Windows Live Messenger Marks Significant Progress for Microsoft's Windows Live Era:

Definitely not a minor upgrade... The new feature I'm likely to care most about, near-term:

"Sharing Folders. Now sharing is as easy as dragging and dropping a file. With a new, intuitive user interface, customers can more easily share their files and personal photos with family, friends and colleagues on their Windows Live Messenger Contact List."

I'm hopeful this can be used for sync'ing stuff across my PCs as well as with others.

Top-secret Google data center almost completed

Top-secret Google data center almost completed: "Search engine giant Google is nearing completion of a new data center on the banks of the Columbia River in The Dalles, Ore. But trying to get information about the project is almost as difficult as finding Bigfoot."

On a related note, from Ray Ozzie's TechEd keynote 8 days ago:
"It's estimated that just among Microsoft and Yahoo and Google, there are well over 1 million servers racked up in data centers, located around the globe, serving trillions of e-mails, and IMs, and searches, housing many, many petabytes of storage, serving 1 billion Internet users. And the investment continues, you don't have to stray far from our Redmond headquarters to see. Earlier this year, Microsoft purchased a huge track of land in central Washington along the Columbia River, near the third-largest hydroelectric power source in the world, the Grand Coulee Dam. Last year Google purchased a tract of land in western Oregon, also along the Columbia River, a little further south. It's rumored that Yahoo is considering moving into this area, as well. This is just one geography, the same thing is happening elsewhere, elsewhere in this country, elsewhere worldwide."

Ray in Charge | Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter | ZDNet.com

Ray in Charge Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter ZDNet.com: "Ray's steel is of a different caliber: He has a graceful kindness that we all can feel, and a cautious streak that has served him well in the Gerstner years and to some extent at Groove. But when he sees an opening for something that will advance his vision, he acts, regardless and in fact because of the obstacles he faces in getting there."

What, Steve -- no John Lennon analogy for this milestone :)?...

David Weiss: $100 Office

David Weiss: $100 Office "If you buy the Student and Teacher Edition of Mac Office any time between June 13 and September 12, 2006 you get $50 off via a rebate coupon located here. This is the lowest price I've ever seen for Mac Office! Just thought you ought to know."

From Microsoft Mac blogger David Weiss. The Windows student/teacher edition of Office is similarly priced, with Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Word 2003 and a license for using the apps on up to 3 PCs -- ~$125 at Amazon.com at the moment.

Adobe's Executive Shuffle

Adobe's Executive Shuffle: "During Adobe's June 15 second-quarter earnings call with analysts, the company disclosed that Elop will be stepping down as president and head of worldwide sales by yearend.
...
Elop himself downplays the impact. 'The cultural integration continues to go well,' he said in a statement to BusinessWeek.com. 'My situation is somewhat unique, in that there are opportunities for me to lead companies as I had begun to do at Macromedia as its CEO. That period of time was the most rewarding of my career, and I would like the opportunity to do that again.'"

Telecom Giants in Europe Plan $30 Billion Deal - New York Times

Telecom Giants in Europe Plan $30 Billion Deal - New York Times: "The cross-border deal, which was approved by the boards of both companies, would create the world's third-largest network equipment concern behind Ericsson and a combined Lucent and Alcatel, which announced plans to merge three months ago. The transaction is also likely to put considerable pressure on Motorola, which will fall to the No. 4 position among network equipment makers in the world, just as its business is turning around as a result of its hot-selling Razr cellphones. "

A Flash Drive That Holds Your Computer - New York Times

A Flash Drive That Holds Your Computer - New York Times: "Still, Ceedo/Lexar have already done the world a great favor with this software. Even without Install Anything, your flash drive can already store your e-mail program and e-mail, browser and bookmarks, chat program and contacts, essential utilities (FTP and zipping programs, for example), and the trappings of your Microsoft Office environment."

AOL to Turn Netscape Site Into a Newspaper of Sorts - New York Times

AOL to Turn Netscape Site Into a Newspaper of Sorts - New York Times: "In attempt to revive an aging but still well-known Internet brand, AOL is turning its Netscape.com site into a collection of links to news articles, submitted by users and expanded upon by a staff of bloggers."

EBay to Add a Phone Link From Listings to Sellers - New York Times

EBay to Add a Phone Link From Listings to Sellers - New York Times: "EBay said yesterday that sellers on its auction site would be able to add a link to their listings allowing potential buyers to reach them through Skype, the Internet phone service. "

Microsoft Hardware Advances Digital Communications Experiences: First webcams from Microsoft...

Microsoft Hardware Advances Digital Communications Experiences: First webcams from Microsoft... "Seeing your grandchild’s first steps from miles away. Hearing your friend’s laugh from across the country. Sharing your dorm room decorating skills with your parents back home. Those are the moments and experiences that will become the hallmark of Microsoft® LifeCams, an innovative new line of webcams that dramatically simplifies the video communications experience to let people see, hear and share life’s experiences in an extraordinary way."

Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks an Expansion of Power - New York Times

Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks an Expansion of Power - New York Times: "On the banks of the windswept Columbia River, Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing. But it is hard to keep a secret when it is a computing center as big as two football fields, with twin cooling plants protruding four stories into the sky.
...
Today even the closest Google watchers have lost precise count of how big the system is. The best guess is that Google now has more than 450,000 servers spread over at least 25 locations around the world. The company has major operations in Ireland, and a big computing center has recently been completed in Atlanta. Connecting these centers is a high-capacity fiber optic network that the company has assembled over the last few years."

Google's Gbuy nears launch | CNET News.com

Google's Gbuy nears launch CNET News.com: "Google's online payment system, Gbuy, is expected to launch June 28, further pitting the Internet giant against industry titan and rival eBay, according to a research note released Friday by a Wall Street analyst. "

BBC NEWS | Business | EBay to launch keyword ad system

BBC NEWS Business EBay to launch keyword ad system: "EBay is to launch keyword advertising - where internet users will be directed to specific auctions linked to words on the web page they are visiting. "

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact: "Can there be too much of a good thing? Some Google watchers are beginning to think so. Leading technology bloggers' reactions to Google Spreadsheets, which allows users to build and share simple Excel-like spreadsheets on line, have ranged from lukewarm to hostile."

Hands on: Google Spreadsheets is more powerful than you think

Hands on: Google Spreadsheets is more powerful than you think "The program isn't as rich as another free alternative — OpenOffice.org — but its collaboration features may win you over. All in all, Google Spreadsheets offers surprising utility for a Web-based spreadsheet. It's not a real alternative for everyday Excel users, but for occasional use when the data isn't sensitive, it deserves consideration."

MTV Think News - Dick Cheney Might Want To Be Your MySpace Buddy

MTV Think News - Dick Cheney Might Want To Be Your MySpace Buddy: "That joke you made on your MySpace page about taking flying lessons but only wanting to learn how to land? The pictures of you posing with a fake rocket launcher? Sure, they seem funny now, but if the National Security Administration has its way, all of that information could go down on your permanent record, or into a security profile that could land you on a terror watch list."

In Vista, the .NET Brand Lives to Fight Another Day

In Vista, the .NET Brand Lives to Fight Another Day: "The WinFX name is being dropped, and the technologies will now be called .NET Framework 3.0. 'The .NET Framework has always been at the core of WinFX, but the WinFX brand didn't convey this,' Microsoft corporate vice president S. 'Soma' Somasegar wrote in a recent blog posting. 'We have decided to rename WinFX to the .NET Framework 3.0. [The name] .NET Framework 3.0 aptly identifies the technology for exactly what it is--the next version of our developer framework. The change is in name only and will not affect the technologies being delivered as part of the product.'"

WSJ.com - Noted Microsoft Blogger Scoble To Join a Podcasting Start-Up

WSJ.com - Noted Microsoft Blogger Scoble To Join a Podcasting Start-Up: "Mr. Scoble will become a vice president for media development at PodTech.Network Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif., company that produces and distributes podcasts -- audio programs available on the Web that can be downloaded to computers or personal music players, such as iPods. Many podcasts are now evolving to include video, and Mr. Scoble, 41 years old, said he will be working on new video shows at PodTech as well as other offerings."

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Google co-founder in stable condition after conscience removal

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Google co-founder in stable condition after conscience removal: "Lest you were left Wednesday with the impression that Google was actually going to change course after realizing it had compromised its principles by acceding to Chinese censorship demands (see 'And if needed, we can find our principles in seconds with Desktop Search'), let's clear that up: The revelation is not going to get in the way of monetizing what's soon to be the world's most populous Internet market"

Those kids today: PC over TV, study says - Boston.com

Those kids today: PC over TV, study says - Boston.com: "A recent study by the NPD Group found that 94% of households with children ages 4-14 had a computer. That edges out TVs, which the consulting firm's report, 'Kids and Consumer Electronics,' found are in slightly less than 90% of households with that group represented."

Verizon Wireless to launch mobile chaperone service - Boston.com

Verizon Wireless to launch mobile chaperone service - Boston.com: "Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. cellphone service provider, plans on Monday to launch a wireless service that lets parents check their children's whereabouts and alerts them when they venture out of bounds.
Parents can use the service to set up geographic limits and receive text alerts if their children, who also carry phones, go too far from home. The service also lets parents check where their offspring are via a map on their cellphone or computer."

What, no electroshock generator implant option for kids going "out of bounds?"...

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of June 12

WinInfo Short Takes: Week of June 12: "Do not, under any circumstances, upgrade a perfectly good copy of Windows XP to Vista Beta 2. There is a special place in hell for people that foolhardy. Again, you've been warned. Do, however, consider dual booting XP and Vista. "

Club Internet Reveals Details of Its Triple-Play Offering: Next-Generation Digital Television Powered by Microsoft TV

Club Internet Reveals Details of Its Triple-Play Offering: Next-Generation Digital Television Powered by Microsoft TV. "Club Internet, in alliance with Microsoft Corp., today announced details of its exclusive digital television service due to launch this month. This new triple-play offering will be the first in France to be based on the Microsoft® TV software platform. The announcement signifies the continuing development of Club Internet, a historically important provider of Internet services in France, which will now also lead the delivery of next-generation digital television services."

MySpace exploration is marketer's dream - Yahoo! News

MySpace exploration is marketer's dream - Yahoo! News: "Music was MySpace's 'primary get-out-of-the-gate strategy,' Digiaro says. 'As the site has evolved and the audience has grown, another passion point is entertainment, especially movies. We work with studios coming to the site to help them build their brands and establish a presence in the market. They have a limited period of time to do it. The media dollars come and go. But the site and fans stay through the DVD release and sequels. That's a huge prequalified audience. We help them to create a platform that serves as an extension of their overall strategy, to create a message. All the content is integrated into an interactive profile. The studios are pushing the envelope creatively with us.'"

New Scientist Technology - Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites

New Scientist Technology - Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites: "New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming 'semantic web' championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.
...
'You should always assume anything you write online is stapled to your resumé. People don't realise you get Googled just to get a job interview these days,' says Callas."

TechCrunch: SocialText/wikiCalc: More Interesting Than Google Spreadsheets

TechCrunch: SocialText/wikiCalc: More Interesting Than Google Spreadsheets: "But wikiCalc is a much more significant, if less flashy, piece of software than Google Spreadsheets, particularly now that it is being paired with SocialText’s development and enterprise sales resources. It provides the first real non-Microsoft alternative for companies wanting to edit spreadsheets on the network but who are not willing to have third parties like Google storing their data. Upcoming versions of Office will have similar sharing functionality as wikiCalc, but at significantly higher price points. And wikiCalc, like all wikis, will have a true audit trail built in - every change to every cell is stored and can be rolled back. It’s like an infinite undo button."

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Socialtext Partners with Dan Bricklin on wikiCalc

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Socialtext Partners with Dan Bricklin on wikiCalc "Socialtext partnered with Dan Bricklin (inventor of VisiCalc) to exclusively distribute, redistribute and co-develop wikiCalc -- the social spreadsheet. Dan brings a rich understanding not just of spreadsheets, but open source and social software. You can thank visiCalc, the original killer app, for the Personal Computing revolution and bringing PCs into enterprises from the Bottom-up. It may take some time, but Socialtext, wikiCalc and the community will develop an important contribution to Social Computing."

Read the full post for more background/context.

Good Morning Silicon Valley: A format war with Microsoft? Is that like a land war in Asia?

Good Morning Silicon Valley: A format war with Microsoft? Is that like a land war in Asia? "The first reviews of Google Spreadsheets have begun trickling in, with most pundits concluding it's pretty much unfit for corporate use. But no one really thought Google foolish enough to take on Excel directly, did they? Clearly, there are other motivations at work here."

The Next Big Thing: Spreadsheets?

The Next Big Thing: Spreadsheets? "What is it about spreadsheets these days? JotSpot recently released a way of creating online spreadsheets that can be shared, called Tracker. Then Google announces one this week. Now, the corporate wiki company Socialtext has a new partnership with Dan Bricklin, no less--inventor of the pioneering spreadsheet VisiCalc--to distribute Bricklin's wikiCalc program."

BT exec pins Google as 'our biggest threat' | CNET News.com

BT exec pins Google as 'our biggest threat' CNET News.com: "'We see Google as our biggest threat,' [BT CIO] Ramji said. 'They don't mean to...it's almost incidental.' He acknowledged that Google comes from a 'different world' but suggested that it had 'morphed' into a different company and warned that Google could do anything BT could do in the consumer arena. "

Strange days indeed...

Motorola's Q: Lovely Phone; Ugly Software - New York Times

Motorola's Q: Lovely Phone; Ugly Software - New York Times: "Unfortunately, this software's designers must believe that you bill by the hour; getting anything done on this phone requires more steps than the Empire State Building."

I'm still tempted... Read the full review.

Google Admits it is Evil

Google Admits it is Evil: "The timing of Brin's comments might not be coincidental. This week, China began blocking several of Google's nonsearch services, including Google Mail (Gmail) and Google News. Now, Google is reportedly considering pulling out of China completely. What a notion. Perhaps it's something the company should have considered a year ago, when it agreed to comply with a human-rights-challenged government and censor its own Web site."

actionable: Definition, Synonyms and Much More From Answers.com

actionable: Definition, Synonyms and Much More From Answers.com: "2. Relating to or being information that allows a decision to be made or action to be taken."

An update from the language-retentive department: I've annoyed several people over the last few years by pointing out that "actionable" had a precise and single definition -- "Giving cause for legal action" -- and that it was thus inappropriate to use the word to mean action/execution-oriented etc., as was often the fashion in business-speak.

I noticed yesterday that Answers.com (a very useful resource; also check out their alt-click tool for instant answers etc.) added a second definition, quoted above, so I'll now stop pestering people about the word...

Microsoft Office Assistance: The next generation of Microsoft application building and Web authoring tools

Microsoft Office Assistance: The next generation of Microsoft application building and Web authoring tools: "What happened to FrontPage?
After nine years of being an award-winning Web authoring tool, FrontPage will be discontinued in late 2006. We will continue to serve the diverse needs of our existing FrontPage customers with the introduction of these three brand-new application building and Web authoring tools using the latest technologies, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 for the enterprise information workers, Microsoft Expression™ Web Designer for the professional Web designer and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 for the Web developer."

Found this via a "The future of FrontPage" link in a Microsoft email newsletter. To summarize: there isn't one.

theWPFblog ? Flash and WPF - My thoughts so far

theWPFblog ? Flash and WPF - My thoughts so far: "So as you probably know from my earlier posts, I am learning WPF since we are using it on some projects. I’ve been playing with it for about 3 weeks now and have come to some thoughts about its potential and whether it has the potential to “kill” Flash. Bear in mind that I’m very new to WPF, so I’m sure that there are a lot of pieces that I am still missing or confused on. The easiest way to do it is to just go through some common features and talk about how they stack up with each other."

Timely reality check

Chris Pratley's OneNote Blog : Syncing OneNote 2007 notes across your many PCs

Chris Pratley's OneNote Blog : Syncing OneNote 2007 notes across your many PCs: "Its an obvious thing. You have two or more PCs that you work with. You want to access all your stuff without having to think about which PC you have it on. You don't want to have to manually schlep files between the two.
OneNote 2007 provides a way to keep your notes available on all your machines. I'll explain below why using OneNote's Shared Notebooks feature is even better than the many folder syncing tools you can use."

Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality

Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality: "Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody -- no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional -- has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay."

Google Browser Sync

Google Browser Sync: "Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings -- including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords -- across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions."

TV Screen, Not Couch, Is Required for This Session - New York Times

TV Screen, Not Couch, Is Required for This Session - New York Times: "Psychiatry, especially in rural swaths of the nation that also often have deep social problems like poverty and drug abuse, is emerging as one of the most promising expressions of telemedicine. At least 18 states, up from only a handful a few years ago, now pay for some telemedicine care under their Medicaid programs, and at least eight specifically include psychiatry, according to the National Association of State Medicaid Directors. Six states, including California, require private insurers to reimburse patients for telepsychiatry, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures."

Real-Life Wrist Communicator Also Tells the Time, if You Care - New York Times

Real-Life Wrist Communicator Also Tells the Time, if You Care - New York Times: "The watch, to be available later this month, uses a wireless system created by Microsoft called MSN Direct that sends data over FM radio frequencies. For $179, you get the watch and a one-year subscription to the service, which includes news, weather, traffic information, stock quotes and movie listings. After that, an annual subscription will cost $40; for $20 more you can sync your Outlook calendar to the watch and receive instant messages through MSN Messenger."

The picture in the article suggests MSN Direct devices no longer qualify as wrist exercise units.

Barry Briggs : Common Sense for Uncommon Times

Barry Briggs : Common Sense for Uncommon Times: "As a Former Spreadsheet Person, I was naturally quite interested in Google's new online version of the venerable application (invented a short quarter century ago by our pals Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston).
Net: it's a nice, and very clever toy, and will no doubt fool lots of people into thinking the death of the thick client version is at hand. Fear not, Excel."

Read the full post for insightful analysis from (former 1-2-3 architect) Barry Briggs; check the comments for other fledgling "Web 2.0" spreadsheet offerings.

Another Windows Vista Bites the Dust

Another Windows Vista Bites the Dust "While PC-to-PC synchronization is out, other P2P synchronization technologies will still ship with Vista, including Meeting Space, an ad-hoc P2P connectivity feature, company officials said."

Wired News: Google: Don't Not Be Evil

Wired News: Google: Don't Not Be Evil: "The worldwide market for evil is stratospheric, and Google is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it. They've made some halting inroads in China, but economists -- many of whom are themselves evil -- estimate that if Google abandoned its inefficient policy completely, it could capture 38 percent of the evil market. That's more than Microsoft and Lindsey Lohan combined. Here are just a few of the many ways Google could provide cutting-edge, convenient and extremely evil services."

Seagate's Hard (Drive) Sell - Forbes.com

Seagate's Hard (Drive) Sell - Forbes.com: "How do you see flash and hard drive competition evolving over time?
[Seagate Technology Chief Executive William Watkins:] My best guess is that you will get a 40 gigabyte drive in 2010 for $80 on flash. I think the same device in a one-inch hard drive will cost you $40 to $50. In a 2.5-inch drive for $50, I suspect you can get 400 gigabytes. I don't see flash being competitive at 40 gigabytes. But I won't be able to do a 20 gigabyte for much cheaper than [the 40 gigabyte drive], while they will be able to do 10 gigs for $40. Anything below 20 gigabytes, they will own.
What you have to get your head around is what is the application set, and how much storage are people going to need in 2010. Our sense, especially with application sets that want to do a lot of streaming video, is that the minimum requirement will be 50 gigs with a more likely minimum at 100 gigs. So, without video, then yeah, 20 gigs will be sufficient. "

Boing Boing: HOWTO turn a $60 Linksys router into a $600 super-router

Boing Boing: HOWTO turn a $60 Linksys router into a $600 super-router: "An open-source replacement firmware for a $60 Linksys router can give it the functionality of a $600 enterprise device. That's because Linksys/Cisco got caught using GNU/Linux in their routers without abiding by the GPL licensing terms and were forced to publish the details of their firmware, opening the door to open source hackers who added all kinds of improvements to the router. "

Oops... Hey, I'd settle for a Linksys firmware version that doesn't sporadically crash when I run Skype...

Moore's Law Corollary: Pixel Power - New York Times

Moore's Law Corollary: Pixel Power - New York Times: "Digital technology has taken the world by storm, so much so that it's easy to think that the revolution is over. In photography, for example, it is tempting to think that once everybody has a digital camera, the transition will be complete and things will settle down, right? Wrong. The revolution is taking off; it's just the boring part that's nearly over. "

Interesting perspectives/projections from Nathan Myhrvold.

What Netflix Could Teach Hollywood - New York Times

What Netflix Could Teach Hollywood - New York Times "Five million families now have a Netflix account, making it one of the most impressive companies around. So why do so many people think it's doomed?"

Timely reality check

With Online Spreadsheet, Google Enters Yet Another Microsoft Market

With Online Spreadsheet, Google Enters Yet Another Microsoft Market: "If there's nothing new here, then why even discuss the product? Because Google Spreadsheets, like all Google products and services, is a work in progress. As always, Google has placed an early, unfinished version of the service on the Web for users to try--although it's currently available only to a limited test group. Google will add features and functionality over time. If it's successful, Google Spreadsheets will turn into a true Excel competitor. And if not, it will simply wither in cyberspace, its fate the same as that of other failed Google initiatives."

The Mossberg Solution -- Smartphones Get Smarter

The Mossberg Solution -- Smartphones Get Smarter: "The Q is the bigger news here. In the tradition of Motorola's RAZR phone, the Q is a sleek, handsome devil. It demolishes the two biggest problems with smartphones like the Treo: They are bulky and expensive. The Q is a little wider than the Treo 700p, but it's just half as thick and, at 4.06 ounces, is more than one-third lighter."

Read the full review -- the link is to Mossberg's no-subscription-required site -- for reasons why he still strongly prefers the Treo 700p.

WSJ.com - TiVo Will Offer Web Video Service To TV Subscribers

WSJ.com - TiVo Will Offer Web Video Service To TV Subscribers: "TiVo Inc. is launching a service to offer Internet video to television viewers, the latest in a series of moves to differentiate its digital video recorder from rival devices.
Starting today, TiVo said subscribers will be able to access video clips from the National Basketball Association, New York Times Co., the female-oriented Web firm iVillage Inc. and others through a new service called TiVoCast, available at no extra charge."

WSJ.com - Drive Makers Cram More Data Capacity On New Disk Devices

WSJ.com - Drive Makers Cram More Data Capacity On New Disk Devices: "The company [Seagate] also is announcing plans for a hybrid drive for laptop computers that combines 160 gigabytes of disk storage with 256 megabytes of flash memory, a feature designed to allow computers to wake up from their 'sleep' mode about 20% faster than disk drives alone. When combined with Microsoft Corp.'s Vista operating system due out next year, such hybrid drives can allow a portable PC to boot up in 10 seconds or less -- a big time saver for portable PC users, said Bill Watkins, Seagate's chief executive officer. 'Our sense is if you could get a 10-second boot time you would buy a new notebook,' Mr. Watkins said."

Why Adobe and Microsoft Hit Delete on PDF Deal

Why Adobe and Microsoft Hit Delete on PDF Deal: "Adobe has its own monopolistic instincts: Last year it bought what was by far its biggest competitor in the graphics-software business, Macromedia. And it's been happy to exploit the demand for its free Adobe Reader to push unrelated software on users -- the Windows version normally comes with a Yahoo toolbar and Adobe's Photoshop album photo organizer.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has a history of taking standards developed by other companies, then writing software that somehow makes them work best, or only, on Microsoft operating systems. That conduct helped Microsoft lose many of its antitrust battles in the past decade; it's easy to see why the company wants to avoid a return to those days.
Still, from what we do know, it's hard not to wish that the bad old Microsoft would reemerge for this one occasion and tell Adobe to go pound sand."

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Skype approaching competitor-lawsuit ratio of 1:1

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Skype approaching competitor-lawsuit ratio of 1:1: "Here's one way to distinguish yourself from the flood of new entrants in the VoIP industry: Sue one of its pioneers. That's exactly what Net2Phone's done."

Novell's Fight for Respect

Novell's Fight for Respect: "Are things at Novell better than it appears from the outside?
[Novell president Ron Hovsepian:] Absolutely. Our core Linux business grew 20% quarter-over-quarter. Why? Our strategy is different than Red Hat's. They are approaching this as an edge server play, and it's an enterprise play. [In other words, Novell sells Linux as part of large company-wide deals, not just to run on individual servers.] We are making extra investments in Linux on the desktop and [products for retail] point of sale and banking that we think are going to be very successful. Desktop revenue grew 100% last quarter. Granted it's still a small sub segment. Customers want to buy an enterprise story [that includes] servers, desktops, and all those pieces. We are focusing the company on building that strategy. Target (TGT) picked us over Red Hat, and they picked us because we had an enterprise story.
What about Red Hat? They had a great run last year, then surprised and delighted analysts again by doing the gutsy acquisition of Jboss (see BW Online, 04/11/06, 'Red Hat's Red-Hot Deal'). How does that affect you?
I think it'll have a positive impact on us, but that will be seen over time. We've really focused on what we do well: dealing with mixed environments (where there's Linux and traditional software). What Red Hat did (when it bought Jboss) was poke IBM and Oracle right in the eye and said: 'We're going to go after this application server market.'"

? Google's Spreadsheet Striptease | Web 2.0 Explorer | ZDNet.com

? Google's Spreadsheet Striptease Web 2.0 Explorer ZDNet.com: "The latest Reuters news reveals that the Google Spreadsheet is not iRows, but was built in-house based on technology acquired from a little-known company called 2Web Technologies:
'Google Spreadsheet relies on technology the company acquired from a small Wall Street software developer it bought last year called 2Web Technologies, which in 2004 introduced tools to convert Microsoft Excel spreadsheets into Web services.'"

Microsoft Strips Key Features from Office 2007, Vista

Microsoft Strips Key Features from Office 2007, Vista: "Meanwhile, Vista is also losing a major feature, PC-to-PC sync, which Microsoft Co-President Jim Allchin described to me back in January as one of his favorite Vista features. 'You really can leave all your documents on a server and use cached copies on the client,' he said. 'It's just synchronizing the files when you make changes, as needed.'
It's unclear whether PC-to-PC sync will appear later, perhaps as a Web download update to Vista, or in a future Windows release. Typically, when Microsoft drops features from the Windows version currently in development, those features get lumped into the next release. Microsoft has indicated that it will be releasing more frequent Windows updates going forward, though it hasn't yet specified how it will deliver those updates."

New Research Reveals Collaboration Is a Key Driver of Business Performance Around the World

New Research Reveals Collaboration Is a Key Driver of Business Performance Around the World: "Collaboration is a key driver of overall performance of companies around the world. Its impact is twice as significant as a company's aggressiveness in pursuing new market opportunities (strategic orientation) and five times as significant as the external market environment (market turbulence)."

IBM: Firm will triple investment in India - Yahoo! News

IBM: Firm will triple investment in India - Yahoo! News: "IBM Corp. said Tuesday it would triple its investment in India to $6 billion over the next three years as the South Asian country becomes a cornerstone in the global network of the world's largest computer services company.
Chairman and Chief Executive Sam Palmisano said the investment will be used to build service delivery centers in Bangalore, India's technology hub, and create a telecommunications research and innovation center for IBM clients around the world."

Google Takes Aim at Excel - New York Times

Google Takes Aim at Excel - New York Times: "Google executives said Monday that the spreadsheet program would make it possible for as many as 10 people to simultaneously edit a spreadsheet document online and chat about it using Google's instant messaging program.
The new service will be able to handle several hundred formulas used to manipulate data in Excel, but not more complex functions like macros, said Jonathan Rochelle, the Google Spreadsheets product manager. "

No charts, no macros; I wonder what it does for concurrent update detection and resolution...

Google tests Web-based spreadsheet to organize data?|?Reuters.com

Google tests Web-based spreadsheet to organize dataReuters.com: "Google is joining a variety of Web start-ups that already offer Web-based spreadsheets, including JotSpot, a company founded by Internet pioneer Joe Kraus, Thinkfree Corp. and Smallthought Systems Inc.'s Dabble DB. Microsoft has begun offering its own add-on technology for sharing spreadsheets."

I hardly think Excel Services is an "add-on", and it'll be interesting to see how deep Google's spreadsheet service is.

TechCrunch Find Out When Your Friends Become Single

TechCrunch Find Out When Your Friends Become Single "Want to know when that cute friend of yours breaks up with her boyfriend? Check out David Weekly’s SingleStat.us, a service that let’s you type in anyone’s Myspace profile and be notified by email if their relationship status changes. It costs $3.95 to sign up for unlimited notifications, and they’ll waive the fee it you mention singlestat.us on your Myspace profile."

Yikes

CRN | Steve Ballmer, Microsoft | CRN Interview: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

CRN Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CRN Interview: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: "Ballmer: Oh. The question is about Linux. Let's talk about it. Four years ago people wrote that we'd be wiped out by Linux. Four years later how're they doing?
CRN: They're doing well on the server side.
Ballmer: No they're not. They're not gaining share. Four years ago we were supposed to be wiped out. Maybe we've both gained share. We've not lost share to them -- maybe we're down a point..that can almost be all accounted for by the number of Linux servers Google's put in for gosh sake. It was supposed to get hot and it hasn't. I'm not saying it can't. I'm not trying to sound over the top or arrogant. What I am saying is there's no new news here, except that what people predicted hasn't happened. This is the year frankly where we're well equipped to come back into the Linux strongholds and take some share "

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Mac security smugness a no-no

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Mac security smugness a no-no: "Apple Computer's new ads making fun of Windows PCs are hilarious.
But like much of what you see on TV, they're just fluffy entertainment, and you have to watch out for the spin. Especially the part about Macs being safer to use than PCs. That may be true for now, but the world of computer security is changing. New threats are emerging, and clinging to stereotypes is a weak defense."

Breaking the terabyte barrier - The Boston Globe

Breaking the terabyte barrier - The Boston Globe: "Three-quarters of a terabyte will let consumers store roughly 375 hours of standard TV programming, about 75 hours of high-definition video, more than a half million photos, or more than 10,000 music CDs converted into the MP3 digital audio format.
And by the end of 2007, PCs will have 1-terabyte drives while notebook computers will sport 200-gigabyte drives, suppliers said."

500 Hour Test of Tomorrow's Windows "Vista" | Tom's Hardware

500 Hour Test of Tomorrow's Windows "Vista" Tom's Hardware: "Tom's Hardware Guide has expended some serious effort in our review of Windows Vista, to let us dig beneath the surface. We spent about 500 hours with the most current version, putting this new Windows operating system through its paces. In this review we also include more than 130 screenshots, and provide an overview of all the many different programs, settings, and functions that this new Microsoft offering delivers."

Via John Battelle's Searchblog. If you want to jump to the conclusion, it's part 40 of the review...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Grey gamers flex brain muscles

BBC NEWS Technology Grey gamers flex brain muscles: "In Japan's rapidly ageing society, more and more older people are looking for ways to keep them active and alert for longer.
Electronic games makers have responded with new products designed to train your brain. "

iTWire - Adobe yet to explain why no PDF in Microsoft Office

iTWire - Adobe yet to explain why no PDF in Microsoft Office: "Meanwhile, industry groups and customers alike are said to be angry at Adobe's actions, given that the company has for some time portrayed PDF as an open document format. Adobe has in effect negated that perception by excluding Microsoft and its vast user base from the so-called open document equation."

WSJ.com - Adobe Hasn't Decided Whether to Sue Microsoft

WSJ.com - Adobe Hasn't Decided Whether to Sue Microsoft: "But Adobe, in a statement, said: 'Adobe has made no determination to take legal action against Microsoft. Further, with regard to any discussions we have had with Microsoft about Office and Vista, our sole motivation is to maintain a fair, competitive landscape in the software industry.' An Adobe spokeswoman declined to comment further.
The dispute raises questions over Adobe's policy regarding its PDF format, because the company publishes specifications for PDF files that companies use in a wide variety of products."

Looks like some back-peddling to me...

WSJ.com - Vonage Faces Lawsuit Over IPO

WSJ.com - Vonage Faces Lawsuit Over IPO: "The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, claims Vonage tried to compensate for a lack of interest among sophisticated institutional investors who usually dominate IPO's by selling shares to consumers, according to the statement. The suit contends that Vonage and its underwriters violated a securities law that 'requires that a company recommending the purchase or sale of its securities to a customer must have a reasonable basis for believing that the recommendation is suitable for the customer,' the statement said. Vonage, 'had no such reasonable basis in this case and improperly crammed investors into the Vonage IPO regardless of their suitability,' according to the statement."

It's difficult to feel sorry for Vonage customers/investors who apparently thought "friends and family" status meant risk-free access to easy profits; Vonage certainly wasn't hiding its financial performance or projections.

Internet Phones: Please Wait for the Next Available Opportunity - New York Times

Internet Phones: Please Wait for the Next Available Opportunity - New York Times: "The prospect of modernizing the telephone seems close because broadband services have solved the so-called last-mile problem, bringing relatively fast Internet connections from local switching centers and cable offices into customers' homes. But connecting home phones to the Internet — spanning the last foot and a half — remains a problem, unless one subscribes to one of the new Internet phone services offered by cable companies here and there."

Timely VoIP reality check by Randall Stross.

MySpace No Longer Their Space? - New York Times

MySpace No Longer Their Space? - New York Times: "The evidence that MySpace is fading is, at best, dubious. Indeed, the site is still hugely popular. According to HitWise, which monitors Web traffic, MySpace sends more traffic to Google than does any other site.
But the fact that people are starting to talk online about MySpace's waning popularity could spell trouble for the site, which allows users to interact, make friends, blog and share pictures and music."

David Weiss: Adobe Obstructs PDF Growth

David Weiss: Adobe Obstructs PDF Growth: "Mac Office, and indeed every application on the Mac OS X that prints, can save to PDF. Can someone explain to me why Adobe would want to make it more difficult for Windows users to produce PDF documents? Print to PDF is one of my favorite features of Mac OS X. If Adobe goes after Microsoft why wouldn't they also go after Apple for including this kind of functionality in the Mac OS? This seems like a very strange move on Adobe's part."

JetBlue wins license for wireless service - Boston.com

JetBlue wins license for wireless service - Boston.com: "JetBlue Airways Corp. won a government auction Friday for wireless spectrum that could be used to provide in-flight telephone, Internet, or entertainment services.
The winning bid of $7.02 million was placed through New York-based JetBlue's entertainment subsidiary, LiveTV LLC, which provides DirecTV service on JetBlue flights."

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon Listed in PC World's Best Products of the Year

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon Listed in PC World's Best Products of the Year "PC World just listed their 100 Best Products of the Year - and FeedDemon is one of them! Oh, and I love their description of FeedDemon:
'With FeedDemon's options, you're just a step shy of having news injected intravenously.'"

Congrats to Nick Bradbury et al -- my morning news scans would take a lot more time, and be a lot less efficient, if it weren't for FeedDemon.

Microsoft adds bells to business Exchange

Microsoft adds bells to business Exchange: "In addition to a standard version of the program, Microsoft says it will sell a new 'Exchange Enterprise' option. The version will include anti-virus protections from Microsoft's acquisition of Sybari Software Inc. It also will offer access to the message filtering service that came with Microsoft's acquisition of FrontBridge Technologies Inc.
The version will also include advanced features for complying with regulations on storing and tracking e-mail, and for unifying different types of communications into a common program."

Wall Street Beat: Novell hits rough waters - Network World

Wall Street Beat: Novell hits rough waters - Network World: "Open-source software offers one of the more exciting opportunities for users, IT investors and entrepreneurs, but Novell can't seem to capitalize on these trends."

Late last year, Novell reportedly had $1.6B cash and short-term investments; if that's still the case, the company's mkt cap minus cash/short-term investments just slipped below $1B (at the moment Yahoo! Finance reports NOVL mkt cap = $2.57B; meanwhile RHAT mkt cap = $5.31B).

E-Mail Addresses to Steer Snail Mail?

E-Mail Addresses to Steer Snail Mail?: "The U.S. Postal Service was recently asked to start delivering packages and letters based on someone's e-mail rather than street address."

DealBook - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - New York Times

DealBook - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - New York Times "The Internet phone company's troubled I.P.O. has sparked talk that a buyer might emerge. If the lawyers don't arrive first."

WSJ.com - Microsoft and Adobe Square Off

WSJ.com - Microsoft and Adobe Square Off: "Adobe wants Microsoft to remove the feature and offer it separately for a fee. Microsoft has agreed to remove the feature but is unwilling to charge for it, Mr. Smith said.
'Adobe has threatened antitrust action unless Microsoft agrees to raise its prices, in particular for the software that would allow Microsoft Office users to save a document in the Adobe PDF format,' he said.
...
Adobe declined to clarify its exact objections to Microsoft's use of the specifications.
Adobe offers technical specifications for PDF free, allowing other software makers to build applications that can read or write PDF files. Software from Apple Computer Inc. and open-source software called OpenOffice use the PDF technology.
Microsoft has offered the feature in test versions of the next version of Office, called Office 2007 and expected to be available by early next year. It will now have to remove the feature, Microsoft officials said."

Vonage may be forced to let investors drop its IPO - The Boston Globe

Vonage may be forced to let investors drop its IPO - The Boston Globe: "Vonage has said little about notices that the company sent out prior to the IPO that may have violated federal securities laws.
These technical errors, outlined on page 140 of the offering documents one day before the IPO, may give customers the right to force Vonage to buy back their shares, according to Vonage's own documents."

Free chapter added to saga of e-books - The Boston Globe

Free chapter added to saga of e-books - The Boston Globe: "Project Gutenberg, a 35-year-old nonprofit based in Urbana, Ill., announced yesterday it is putting as many as 300,000 books online, where they will be available for free download. Called the World eBook Fair (worldbookfair.com), the program will last a month -- July 4 to Aug. 4 -- and will be repeated annually."

Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won't Like About Windows Vista

Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won't Like About Windows Vista: "After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn't just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.) Windows Vista has plenty of good aspects to recommend it. In a future article, Computerworld will make plain the many good things about Windows Vista. When the product ships, we'll also make some final recommendations on the new operating system."

For now, here's Computerworld's attempt to accentuate the negative. Some useful perspectives.

Update: the print view of the article seems to be inconsistently accessible; here's the first page (of 20 or so...) in the non-print-view.