Apple slaps back at NBC in iTunes spat | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Looks like Apple has mastered monopolistic modus operandi -- that won't be particularly helpful as credible iTunes competitors gain momentum...

Apple said in a press release that the dispute over price came after the iPod maker "declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode."

This, according to Apple, would have boosted the per-episode price of NBC shows on iTunes from $1.99 to $4.99. The move by Apple is an attempt to preempt a possible NBC pullout when their contract ends in December.

"Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September," Apple said in its statement.

Apple slaps back at NBC in iTunes spat | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

RIM shares rise amid Microsoft takeover talk - Boston.com

Plausible, imho 

Research in Motion Ltd <RIM.TO> <RIMM.O> moved higher on Thursday on renewed market speculation that Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> could be interested in buying the BlackBerry maker.

"Microsoft has been mentioned as a possible buyer," said Frederic Ruffy, an analyst at options education firm Optionetics in California.

"According to speculation, the software giant might be interested in RIM in response to Google's <GOOG.O> recent announcement that it is interested in making its own mobile phone operating system, which would compete with Windows Mobile," he added.

RIM shares rise amid Microsoft takeover talk - Boston.com

Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Parlano Acquisition Bolsters Microsoft's UC & Social Networking Efforts

 Mike Gotta's take on the Microsoft/Parlano deal; see the full post for details

The announced acquisition of Parlano is a strategic move by Microsoft. The addition of persistent group chat to the Office Communications Server (OCS) platform is a clearly reinforces Microsoft's Unified Communications strategy (which is somewhat obvious) but it also sets the groundwork for integration with Office SharePoint Server in ways that augment what Microsoft is doing in the area of social networking.

Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Parlano Acquisition Bolsters Microsoft's UC & Social Networking Efforts

Microsoft | Reports clash on Microsoft's antitrust settlement | Seattle Times Newspaper

I suspect all parties will want to resolve this before January, 2009... 

"In the market at the heart of the case — Intel-compatible PC operating systems — Microsoft's share has remained persistently high at supra-monopoly levels," said the report, filed Thursday.

Windows ran 93 percent of PCs in 1991 and 92 percent in 2006 (after declining from 96 percent in 2005), according to IDC figures cited by the California group.

The Department of Justice has a dramatically different view of the outcome of five years of judicial oversight.

"[C]ompetition and consumers have benefited from the final judgments entered because of the Department's antitrust enforcement efforts against Microsoft," the DOJ said in a news release issued Thursday in conjunction with a report it filed on behalf of itself and another group of states.

Microsoft | Reports clash on Microsoft's antitrust settlement | Seattle Times Newspaper

At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None - New York Times

Another IBM innovation 

Instead, for the past few years, employees at all levels have made informal arrangements with their direct supervisors, guided mainly by their ability to get their work done on time. Many people post their vacation plans on electronic calendars that colleagues can view online, and they leave word about how they can be reached in a pinch.

“It’s like when you went to college and you didn’t have high school teachers nagging you anymore,” said Mark L. Hanny, I.B.M.’s vice president of independent software vendor alliances. “Employees like that we put more accountability on them.”

At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None - New York Times

Microsoft Settles a Dispute Over a Feature in Its Browser - New York Times

Read the full article for more context 

Microsoft said Thursday that it had settled an eight-year patent dispute that resulted in a $521 million jury verdict against it. Terms of the accord were not disclosed.

The dispute centered on a feature within Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser that allows embedded links. The patent is owned by the University of California and licensed to Eolas Technologies, a closely held company formed by a university researcher, Michael Doyle.

What's likely to happen next: Mozilla.org, Apple (re Safari), and Opera are probably going to get some phone calls from lawyers...

Microsoft Settles a Dispute Over a Feature in Its Browser - New York Times

The Facebook economy - Aug. 23, 2007

Timely Business 2.0 article 

It's an increasingly common tale as the Facebook economy picks up steam. In just 10 weeks, hundreds of developers launched more than 2,500 new applications, triggering 139 million downloads. While a possible Facebook IPO or acquisition could change things overnight, for the moment it's a free-for-all.

The apps have names like FoodFight, Zombies, (fluff)Friends, and Fortune Cookie, and they let users indulge in everything from scrawling graffiti and sending virtual cocktails to buying music, brokering loans, and joining charitable causes - usually without leaving their Facebook homepages. Some apps have attracted hundreds of thousands of users, and a select few have pulled in millions.

The Facebook economy - Aug. 23, 2007

NBC to end iTunes sales of its shows | CNET News.com

 A different mode of negotiation and/or a leading indicator?

NBC Universal, unable to come to an agreement with Apple on pricing, has decided not to renew its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on iTunes.

The media conglomerate--which is the No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple's online store, accounting for about 40 percent of downloads--notified Apple of its decision late Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity because negotiations between the companies are confidential.

NBC to end iTunes sales of its shows | CNET News.com

Future Implications: Why the Gphone will fail | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Interesting reality check 

As I've mentioned before, the only way for Google to make any headway in the cell phone business is through the help of the 700MHz spectrum. With this tactic in mind, Google could create its own phone that works like Skype on the spectrum and in the process, kill off the entire cell phone industry. But for Google to throw a device into the cell phone business on domestic and international carriers would not only be a mistake, it could be an indication that Google is getting in over its head.

Future Implications: Why the Gphone will fail | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Microsoft XML Team's WebLog : Announcing CTP1 of the XML Schema Designer

 Microsoft goes further with XML Schema design

XML Tools team has released the first CTP of the XML Schema Designer - a graphical tool for working with XML Schemas. The XML Schema Designer is integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and the XML Editor to enable you to work with XML Schema definition language (XSD) schemas.

From a quick skim, I don't think this will slow market leader Altova's momentum

Microsoft XML Team's WebLog : Announcing CTP1 of the XML Schema Designer

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano: Microsoft strengthens unified communications portfolio with leading enterprise group chat provider.

Continuing communication/collaboration consolidation 

Today Microsoft Corp. announced it has agreed to acquire Chicago-based Parlano, maker of MindAlign, a leading application for enterprise group chat. Microsoft expects to add Parlano’s group chat functionality as a new feature of Microsoft^® Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft’s server and client software for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP.

“Parlano has been successful in meeting the rigorous communications needs of companies in financial services and other vertical markets,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “Parlano’s expertise and technology, added to Microsoft’s unified communications offering, will deliver customers the most complete presence, instant messaging and group chat solution on the market.”

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano: Microsoft strengthens unified communications portfolio with leading enterprise group chat provider.

Microsoft and Its Rivals Take 'Office' Politics Global - WSJ.com

The Open XML/ODF debate expands...  but I assume ISO support for Open XML is inevitable at this point.

Jean Paoli, one of Microsoft's top standards experts, says the company wants Open XML adopted as a standard to encourage rivals to use its format, not squelch interoperability. He points out that other vendors, including Apple Inc., are adopting it. He says IBM is stirring up opposition to Open XML's gaining approval from the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, to protect its Lotus Notes office suite, which uses the rival format Open Document.

"It is very bizarre to see IBM try to block everyone from using" Open XML, Mr. Paoli says. Open Document is already an ISO standard, but Microsoft says there's room enough for more than one document standard.

Microsoft and Its Rivals Take 'Office' Politics Global - WSJ.com

Monster CEO: Millions of users' data may be stolen - The Boston Globe

This is going to be one for the record books... 

While investigating the recent theft, the company learned that its website had previously been hacked.

"We're assuming it is a large number. It could easily be in the millions," Iannuzzi said in an interview with Reuters.

To be safe, he said, all Monster.com users should assume that their contact information has been taken.

Monster CEO: Millions of users' data may be stolen - The Boston Globe

Official Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog: How Docs & Spreadsheets grew at Google

The inside story 

Here are some statistics: 87% of Google employees worldwide used Docs & Spreadsheets in the past week and 96% have used it in the past month. Googlers have created and shared more than 370,000 documents and spreadsheets and they create more than 3,000 new ones each day. In fact, I wrote this blog post and shared it with colleagues using Docs & Spreadsheets just a few moments ago. If it works for us, it might just work for you too.

Official Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog: How Docs & Spreadsheets grew at Google

iPhone unlocker trades phone for 'sweet' car - Yahoo! News

Sign of the times... 

After facing problems trying to auction the phone on eBay, George Hotz received a call from CertiCell, a company that refurbishes mobile phones. "Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone," Hotz wrote on his blog. "I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones."

Hotz shared the method he discovered for unlocking the phone on his blog, so the phone he traded doesn't hold any secrets. But he put the phone up for auction because he thought someone might want the phone, the second one that he unlocked, for its historical value. "If you are only bidding on this to get an unlocked iPhone, don't. There are much cheaper and easier ways to get one. This is a piece of cell phone history," he wrote on his blog.

iPhone unlocker trades phone for 'sweet' car - Yahoo! News

Apple now sells more than one in six laptops in U.S.

Impressive 

NPD, which collects its data primarily from retail sources and excludes most online and all direct sales, said Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops accounted for 17.6% of June's unit sales, an uptick of more than three percentage points from May's 14.3%.

Baker attributed the jump in market share to refreshes that both laptop lines recently received. The lower-priced MacBook was updated in mid-May with faster processors and more memory, while 15-in. models of the high-end MacBook Pro were outfitted with new backlit LED screens in early June.

Apple now sells more than one in six laptops in U.S.

"Junk sleep" damaging teenagers' health | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com

Hmm... 

Its poll of 1,000 youngsters aged 12 to 16 found that 30 percent managed just 4 to 7 hours sleep as opposed to the recommended 8 or 9 hours.

Almost a quarter said they fell asleep more than once a week while watching TV, listening to music or using other electronic gadgets.

"Junk sleep" damaging teenagers' health | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com

Why Facebook Is the Future - TIME

Somebody deserves a PR gold star -- Facebook coverage in Time and the cover story in Newsweek last week

Facebook is, in Silicon Vall--ese, a "social network": a website for keeping track of your friends and sending them messages and sharing photos and doing all those other things that a good little Web 2.0 company is supposed to help you do. It was started by Harvard students in 2004 as a tool for meeting-- or at least discreetly ogling--other Harvard students, and it still has a reputation as a hangout for teenagers and the teenaged-at-heart. Which is ironic because Facebook is really about making the Web grow up.

Why Facebook Is the Future - TIME

Taiwan’s Acer to Acquire Gateway - New York Times

The $1.90/share purchase price was a 57% premium over Gateway's Friday closing price 

The deal is a relatively quiet exit for Gateway, which once was synonymous in the United States with direct-to-consumer sales. Stung by the slowdown of computer consumption and falling prices and margins, the company’s share price has fallen far from the heights of November 1999, when it hit $82.50. It closed at $1.82 Monday.

Mr. Black said that Acer had not decided what it would do with Gateway’s existing brands and whether it might include them in the Acer brand.

Taiwan’s Acer to Acquire Gateway - New York Times

Massive Microsoft WGA meltdown fingers legit Vista and XP owners as pirates

Oops... 

Microsoft Corp. has blamed an unspecified server problem for a 19-hour stretch during which paying users of Windows XP and Vista were accused by the company's "Windows Genuine Advantage" validation system of running pirated software. Any Vista system fingered during the episode was stripped of some features, including the operating system's Aero graphical interface.

As of Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern, Microsoft said the problem had been fixed.

Massive Microsoft WGA meltdown fingers legit Vista and XP owners as pirates

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : US to vote “yes” on Open XML

 An Open XML standardization update

Similar to what we just saw from Germany earlier this week, the US has voted to approve Open XML as an ISO standard. The result of the vote for "yes with comments" is posted here: http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=vote&committee=INCITS&ballot_id=2341&_UserReference=96EBDF227BF339D246CE4E20

As I pointed out yesterday, Ecma has already publicly committed to dealing with all comments that have been raised by national bodies, and I've seen some pretty good ones coming in so far. The review that Open XML has undergone during this process has been phenomenal, and we'll see a much better specification as a result of it. I haven't seen many comments come through yet that will be too difficult to deal with, so it should be a fun several months working towards the Ballot Resolution Meeting. The majority of the comments are seeking to have bugs in the spec fixed, or further clarification on specific details.

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : US to vote “yes” on Open XML

Business & Technology | Fans stick by Skype despite outage | Seattle Times Newspaper

Apparently Skype's ~220 million users agree 

If anything, the reaction may be a sign that Internet telephony — or Voice over Internet Protocol — is coming of age, said Richard Levick, chief executive of Levick Strategic Communications, which provides crisis guidance for companies.

"The attention paid to these outages shows that these technologies have been accepted," he said. "As such, this outage will no more drive potential users away than a telephone outage in 1955 would have driven people back to using carrier pigeons."

Business & Technology | Fans stick by Skype despite outage | Seattle Times Newspaper

Play It Again, Nokia. For the 3rd Time. - New York Times

It'll be interesting to see if this software + service permutation works for Nokia 

This week, Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, will revive N-Gage as a multiplayer gaming service that will work on its popular line of smartphones. The service will offer games from major publishers like Electronic Arts, as well as smaller developers like Digital Chocolate that focus on the mobile gaming market.

Owners of phones that run N-Gage software will be able to play games against friends, sample, buy and recommend new games from their phones, and compete in large tournaments.

Play It Again, Nokia. For the 3rd Time. - New York Times

'Virtual' worlds luring children - The Boston Globe

 Check the full article for a timely reality check

Children have always built their own fantasy worlds. These days, the Internet is making it easier -- perhaps too easy, some say.

Spurred by the popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, a host of companies are developing social sites for children, with names like Club Penguin, Be-Bratz, Habbo Hotel, and Whyville.

'Virtual' worlds luring children - The Boston Globe

Behold, telepresence | Far away yet strangely personal | Economist.com

Starting now at around $299K per room -- see the article for details 

The result is something called “telepresence”, which HP and other technology firms are just beginning to sell. It is basically a spruced-up version of videoconferencing, but its creators insist that the technology is so improved as to be unrecognisable. Users still communicate via live audio and video feeds, but the speed and quality of transmission have increased, and the screens have grown and multiplied, in order to create the illusion that the two parties to a conversation are not continents apart but at opposite ends of the same table (as in the picture above). The aim, telepresence's boosters say, is to get participants in such meetings to forget, or at least stop caring, that they are not in the same room.

Behold, telepresence | Far away yet strangely personal | Economist.com

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Swimming with the Fishes | PBS

Timely reality check 

But the next version of Flash video will support H.264, AAC audio, most HD frame sizes, and -- here's the most important part of all -- will work with your graphics card to make it all run faster and with less CPU load.

This is a huge kick in the head to both QuickTime and Windows Media, though of course QuickTime has an important role in video production in most editing systems and in parts of the H.264 codec, itself. Windows Media and its VC-1 codec also have an enduring role in the production of professional content. But when it comes to video client software that is high performance, cross-platform, and available already in 97 percent of all computers, well Adobe wins this round easily.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Swimming with the Fishes | PBS

Minding the Meeting, or Your Computer? - New York Times

Internet Explorer general manager Dean Hachamovitch on the new meeting + technology etiquette (see the full article for more details)

The more discreet way to check e-mail, I.M., and the Web at a meeting these days is the latest-generation cellphone. While they can’t connect to all the data on your PC (yet), smartphones — connected to the Internet, with mobile versions of the same Office software on your PC — make it easy for insatiable information seekers to sneak a peek at headlines or send off a quick e-mail without drawing attention. Just make sure to turn off that “Girl From Ipanema” ring tone.

Minding the Meeting, or Your Computer? - New York Times

AT&T’s Overstuffed iPhone Bills Annoy Customers - New York Times

 AT&T changed the policy; you now have to pay extra for the forest-felling option...

When Justine Ezarik, a video blogger in Pittsburgh, saw that a box from AT&T had been delivered to her doorstep a couple of weeks ago, she thought that perhaps she had been sent a complimentary accessory for her new iPhone. Instead, she found a 300-page, double-sided, excruciatingly well itemized bill.

[...]

The reason for the outsize bills is that AT&T itemizes not just every phone call, but every detail about every text message and Internet data transfer. Unless instructed otherwise, AT&T sent out detailed bills.

AT&T’s Overstuffed iPhone Bills Annoy Customers - New York Times

Amazon leaks price, date of first Windows Home Server box

I'll be purchasing one of these on the first day they're available... 

Details and prices of the first home server running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Home Server software were posted briefly on several online stores yesterday. Systems are scheduled to ship Sept. 15 at prices starting at $599.

According to listings on such e-tailing sites as Amazon.com, PCMall.com and onSale.com, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s MediaSmart Home Server will be sold in two models at prices of $599 and $749. The pair are identical with the exception of the amount of included storage: the $599 server contains 500GB, while the $759 unit offers 1TB.

Amazon leaks price, date of first Windows Home Server box

Technology Review: Social-networking site Bebo to use Microsoft's instant-messaging technology

Timely reality check 

Social-networking site Bebo Inc. said Tuesday it will launch a Microsoft-powered instant-messaging program this fall.

The deal signals early, if niche, support for a Microsoft Corp. plan to build a business around letting other sites incorporate its Windows Live Web services.

[...]

So far, takers for Microsoft's Web services platform include Match.com, a dating site owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, and MSNBC, a joint venture between Microsoft and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, but the software maker said it is seeking out more social-networking customers.

Technology Review: Social-networking site Bebo to use Microsoft's instant-messaging technology

San Jose Mercury News - Biz Break: VMware shares soar as tech stocks gain

FWIW, VMWare mkt cap is now ~$25B, while (90% stake) parent company EMC mkt cap is now ~$40B. 

Shares in VMware, the once-obscure maker of "virtual machine" software that made a splashy debut on Wall Street last week, surged another 15.1 percent Tuesday, leading a general rise on the Nasdaq.

VMware, based in Palo Alto, is an EMC subsidiary that was spun out in its own initial public offering - the biggest Silicon Valley IPO since Google in 2004. Offered at $29 share, it soared 76 percent on its first day to close at $51. On Tuesday it closed at $65.99.

San Jose Mercury News - Biz Break: VMware shares soar as tech stocks gain

Microsoft Voice Quality More Than Measures Up: Intel, Texas Instruments and others license Microsoft intellectual property for voice; new Quality of Experience Monitoring Server for customers unveiled.

Interesting times... 

Today at the VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 Conference, Microsoft Corp. outlined how its software-based approach to voice communications is creating new benefits for partners and customers and gaining industry recognition in unified communications. Intel Corporation., Texas Instruments Inc., AudioCodes Ltd., Dialogic Corp., LG-Nortel Co. Ltd. and Polycom Inc. will license Microsoft’s voice codec software, RT Audio Codec, which has been shown to deliver superior sound quality, according to Psytechnics Ltd., a company specializing in voice and video quality monitoring.

Microsoft Voice Quality More Than Measures Up

MTV, RealNetworks to Mount Challenge Against iTunes - New York Times

Looks like Rhapsody is the non-iTunes leader by default these days. 

MTV Networks said yesterday that it would fold its floundering digital music service into a venture with RealNetworks, owner of the Rhapsody music subscription service, as part of a renewed challenge to Apple’s market-leading iTunes store.

MTV’s year-old Urge service, which gained little traction despite being packaged with Microsoft’s Windows Media Player software, will be combined with RealNetworks’ service in a partnership called Rhapsody America. The venture will be led by Urge’s manager, Michael Bloom.

Rhapsody also came pre-installed on the HP laptop I bought during the weekend, along with a lot of HP and other stuff that I uninstalled...

MTV, RealNetworks to Mount Challenge Against iTunes - New York Times

Already, Apple Sells Refurbished iPhones - New York Times

Hmmm... 

On Monday, the company began making refurbished iPhones available at its online store for $399 for the 4-gigabyte model, which sells for $499 at full retail, and $499 for the 8-gigabyte model, which retails for $599. Such an offer is a standard Apple practice; the site already offers discounts on most Apple products, which come with a one-year warranty.

Already, Apple Sells Refurbished iPhones - New York Times

Google Aims to Make YouTube Profitable With Ads - New York Times

Inevitable... 

The company said late Tuesday that after months of testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in control of what they saw.

The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.

Google Aims to Make YouTube Profitable With Ads - New York Times

Dell's Consumer Focus Hits Snags - WSJ.com

The challenges continue at Dell...

Dell Inc.'s first attempt to rebuild its consumer personal-computer business since founder Michael Dell returned to lead the company is having trouble sticking.

Persistent delays in laptop shipments caused by paint problems and supply constraints have put a crimp in the company's turnaround efforts. Since late July, it has delayed shipments of some colorful models of its latest notebook computers, the XPS M1330 and its new Inspiron PCs. This latest incident -- hitting right in the crucial back-to-school selling season -- marks a significant setback in its push to rebuild its brand and business.

I just purchased my first non-Dell PC in several years -- a back-to-school laptop, an HP with 15.4" display, dual-core AMD, 2 gig RAM, 160 GB hard disk, Windows Vista Home Premium, built-in webcam, etc. $749, after Circuit City rebate. Amazing...

Dell's Consumer Focus Hits Snags - WSJ.com

James Fallows (July 24, 2007) - Biting the bullet on Windows Vista: back to XP (Technology)

James Fallows downgrades to XP -- see the article for details (via Fake Steve) 

Microsoft can build very good software: after all Windows XP, now the standard by which Vista is found wanting, is a Microsoft mainstay, and so is the elegant new Office2007 and the particularly elegant OneNote. After the second or third "service pack," maybe Vista will shape up. But I was wrong to suggest that people use the early version. And before you get too mad at me -- hey, unlike people who start wars in which their own kids don't serve, I've paid the price for this misjudgment myself.

Personally, I still prefer Vista

James Fallows (July 24, 2007) - Biting the bullet on Windows Vista: back to XP (Technology)

Facebook for iPhone doubles as a massive phonebook | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone

A potential killer app for the iPhone? 

There's been a lot of buzz over the iPhone optimized version of Facebook in the past couple of days, and with good reason--it rocks. It does nearly everything the full version of Facebook can do, sans apps from the Facebook apps platform, which I assume are on their way later this year. Everything is rolled up into a tight little package using a simplistic set of two rows of tabs to cover core navigation, and a sliding interface that mimics the iPhone's signature UI. To get there, just point your iPhone (or browser) to http://iPhone.facebook.com.

Facebook for iPhone doubles as a massive phonebook | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone

Jive Software takes in $15 million to run with Web 2.0 collaboration | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Jive is making impressive customer and partner progress 

Fueled by a round of venture capital, Jive Software is pushing into the corporate technology market with lightweight Web collaboration software.

The company is expected to announce next week that Sequoia Capital has invested $15 million into Jive Software which has been self-funded and profitable until now.

Jive, perhaps best known for its online forum software, is focusing the company on Clearspace, a product first written about here and commercially introduced earlier this year.

Jive Software takes in $15 million to run with Web 2.0 collaboration | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Business Technology : Ballmer and Chambers Report Nothing New to Report

An interesting joint customer reassurance exercise 

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers made a joint appearance today to announce that everything is exactly the way it has always been. The move is intended to reassure customers that even though they’re pushing rival communications technologies, the two companies’ products will still work with one another.

Business Technology : Ballmer and Chambers Report Nothing New to Report

Identity attack spreads; 1.6M records stolen from Monster.com

 Nasty -- read the article for details

According to Symantec Corp. security analyst Amado Hidalgo, a new Trojan horse called Infostealer.Monstres by Symantec has stolen more than 1.6 million records belonging to several hundred thousand people from Monster Worldwide Inc.'s job search service. That data is then used to target the Monster.com users with credible phishing mail that plants more malware on their machines.

Identity attack spreads; 1.6M records stolen from Monster.com

Skype Says Service Outage Was Caused by Massive Restarts - WSJ.com

The rest of the story... 

In an update to users on Skype's Heartbeat blog, employee Villu Arak said the disruption wasn't because of hackers or any other malicious activity. "The disruption was initiated by a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine software update," he wrote in the message, which was posted early Monday.

"The abnormally high number of restarts affected Skype's network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact," he said in the posting.

Skype Says Service Outage Was Caused by Massive Restarts - WSJ.com

Hewlett Introduces a Web Feature to Make Document Printing Mobile - New York Times

Also hoping to increase printer ink consumption... 

Hoping to alleviate a frustration of mobile computing, Hewlett-Packard has quietly introduced a free service designed to make it possible to print documents on any printer almost anywhere in the world. Cloudprint, which was developed over a period of several months by a small group of H.P. Labs researchers, makes it possible to share, store and print documents using a mobile phone.

Hewlett Introduces a Web Feature to Make Document Printing Mobile - New York Times

Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits - New York Times

Timely reality check -- see the full article for examples of dubious Wikipedia editing

WikiScanner is the work of Virgil Griffith, 24, a cognitive scientist who is a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Mr. Griffith, who spent two weeks this summer writing the software for the site, said he got interested in creating such a tool last year after hearing of members of Congress who were editing their own entries.

Mr. Griffith said he “was expecting a few people to get nailed pretty hard” after his service became public. “The yield, in terms of public relations disasters, is about what I expected.”

Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits - New York Times

I.B.M. and Sun to Cooperate in Technologies for Servers - New York Times

Strange days indeed 

Two longtime rivals in computing, I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems, plan to cooperate on server technologies, a move that could put pressure on their competitor Hewlett-Packard.

Sun’s chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, said the new “comprehensive relationship” brought “a tectonic shift in the market landscape.”

I suspect that's the way the AIX team sees it...

I.B.M. and Sun to Cooperate in Technologies for Servers - New York Times

Microsoft and Cisco: Collaborating for The Future of Technology

Hmm... 

On Monday, Aug. 20, Cisco Systems, Inc. Chairman and CEO John Chambers and Microsoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer will discuss the future of the technology industry and their shared vision for addressing today’s customer requirements. This site will be updated throughout the day with video clips, images and written transcript of the event.

Microsoft and Cisco: Collaborating for The Future of Technology

Error in Skype’s Software Shuts Down Phone Service - New York Times

Oops... 

The online telephone service Skype was not working for much of the day on Thursday, leaving its 220 million users, some of them small businesses that had given up their landlines, without a way to call colleagues, customers and friends.

Executives at Skype, a division of eBay that is based in Luxembourg, said its engineers worked throughout the day to bring the service back online. But they said that while they had pinpointed the source of the problem, they still did not know why it had resulted in a network failure, and they could not ensure that the service would be running smoothly again by Friday.

Error in Skype’s Software Shuts Down Phone Service - New York Times

Microsoft ups Hotmail storage to 5 GB - Yahoo! News

Timely reality check 

Microsoft's new limit, from 2 GB currently, will leapfrog Google Inc.'s nearly 3 GB. Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL e-mail services already include unlimited free storage.

Yahoo has the most active users in the United States among Web-based e-mail services, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Hotmail ranks second, followed by AOL at third and Google's Gmail at fourth.

Microsoft ups Hotmail storage to 5 GB - Yahoo! News

Sun, IBM Ink OS Deal - Yahoo! News

Strange days indeed -- note that this article is speculation in advance of the IBM/Sun briefing 

Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz and IBM hardware group chief Bill Zeitler will host the call, indicating that IBM may be ready to support Solaris on its Intel-based line of servers, which it calls System x and BladeCenter systems.

In fact, IBM has listed Solaris as one OS option for System X and BladeCenter systems on its Web site since May, according to the Internet Archive Web site.

It's a big step for IBM, since the company has historically been a major proponent of Linux.

The company, however, also sells the Windows OS on its Intel systems.

Sun, IBM Ink OS Deal - Yahoo! News

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Why there’s no “Microsoft” in Open XML

 See the post for screen shots

Here are a couple cool screenshots from Stephen McGibbon where he shows an OpenXML spreadsheet file created with Gnumeric (runs on Linux & Windows), and the file is then opened up in Numbers (Apple's new spreadsheet app for the Mac).

[...]

This is pretty cool as it shows how the Open XML formats allow you to communicate across multiple platforms without ever even using Microsoft technology. Of course we hope you still want to use Microsoft technology, but for reasons other than file formats (rich UI; powerful features; rich integration with backend data; etc.). By opening up the formats though, it means that those folks who choose to use our technology will be able to easily share their content with folks who make other choices; and that increase the value of Office for those customers.

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Why there’s no “Microsoft” in Open XML

Personal Technology | Walt Mossberg: Apple’s iWork Package Is Elegant but Wimpy Compared With Office

 Timely reality check; see the full review for more details (no WSJ subscription required)

My verdict: iWork ‘08 is a nice product, capable of turning out sophisticated and attractive word-processing, presentation and spreadsheet documents. It can even read Microsoft Office documents, whether created on the Mac or on Windows computers, and can save documents in Microsoft Office formats so they can be opened in Office on the Mac or on Windows.

But iWork simply isn’t as powerful or versatile as Microsoft Office, especially when it comes to word processing and spreadsheets. And it suffers from a design that places far more emphasis on making documents look beautiful than on the nuts and bolts of the actual process of writing and number-crunching.

Personal Technology | Walt Mossberg | AllThingsD

Google Begins to Distribute Sun's StarOffice Software - WSJ.com

Google is probably paying primarily for Google search features added to the version of StarOffice they're distributing.  I don't think this is going to have any discernible impact on Office market share, in any case. 

Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president in charge of software, said Google is paying Sun to distribute StarOffice, but declined to specify how much. Sun ordinarily charges $79 for StarOffice, for a version that comes with technical support and free updates.

Google's move elevates a battle over rival formats used to encode documents like spreadsheets and word-processing files that are created in suites of programs, such as StarOffice and Microsoft Office. The combatants include Microsoft and a group called the OpenDocument Format Alliance, whose members include Sun, Google and International Business Machines Corp.

Google Begins to Distribute Sun's StarOffice Software - WSJ.com

Citrix Systems » Citrix to Acquire XenSource

The virtualization dance floor is emptying... 

Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., a privately held leader in enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure solutions, for approximately $500 million in a combination of cash and stock, which includes the assumption of approximately $107 million in unvested stock options. This acquisition moves Citrix into adjacent server and desktop virtualization markets, expected by Citrix to grow to nearly $5 billion over the next four years. The combination of Citrix and XenSource brings together significant customer, technical, channel and go-to-market synergies. This will allow Citrix to extend its leadership in the broader Application Delivery Infrastructure market by adding key enabling technologies that make the end-to-end computing environment far more flexible, dynamic and responsive to business change. The acquisition will also strengthen each company’s strong partnership with Microsoft and commitment to the Windows platform.

Citrix Systems » Citrix to Acquire XenSource

Investors Flock to VMware on First Day of Trading - New York Times

More details 

The company hopes that the enthusiastic first-day reception in the stock market will also have strategic and marketing benefits. A valuable stock will give VMware the currency to make acquisitions, Diane Greene, the chief executive, said in an interview.

And EMC's view of the numbers:

And EMC, the big computer storage and software company, will continue to own 86 percent of VMware. It bought VMware for $635 million in cash in December 2003.

At a share price of $51, VMware is valued at about $19.5 billion. “It’s been a great investment,” said David Goulden, chief financial officer of EMC.

Investors Flock to VMware on First Day of Trading - New York Times

VMware rockets as market tumbles - The Boston Globe

Weird that more of the value hasn't been reflected in EMC's stock.  At market close yesterday, EMC (which retained 90% of VMWare's stock) mkt cap = $38.5B, while VMWare mkt cap = ~$16.8B.

Shares in software company VMware Inc. shot up 75.8 percent in their first day of trading yesterday, defying the overall market slide and notching the biggest opening-day gain of any stock in 2007.

The surge, coming on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.57 percent, gave a lift to the technology sector and to VMware's majority owner, EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, which spun off 10 percent of the company in a stock offering that raised about $1 billion.

It was the largest initial public offering in technology since Internet search provider Google Inc. went public three years ago.

VMware rockets as market tumbles - The Boston Globe

Cost of data breach at TJX soars to $256m - The Boston Globe

Check the full article for more details; it appears the number may go up further

TJX Cos. said its costs from the largest computer data breach in corporate history, in which thieves stole more than 45 million customer credit and debit card numbers, have ballooned to $256 million.

The figure is more than 10 times the roughly $25 million the Framingham retailer estimated just three months ago, though at the time it cautioned it didn't know the full extent of its exposure from the breach.

Cost of data breach at TJX soars to $256m - The Boston Globe

VMware Gives A Jolt to IPO Market - WSJ.com

Impressive...

Software company VMware Inc. delivered a heady lift to the IPO market Tuesday, gaining 86% on its opening trade.

The company opened at $54 on the New York Stock Exchange according to FactSet, up from its initial public offering price of $29. It sold 33 million shares at the high end of its $27 to $29 price range, which had already been raised $4 a share last week.

[...]

The company's preliminary results for the first half of 2007 project total revenue grew 95% to $555.5 million, while net income more than doubled to $75.3 million, compared to the same period a year ago.

Including an overallotment of five million shares that is expected to be sold after the IPO, EMC is selling just a 10% stake in VMware. EMC bought the software company for $625 million in 2004; at its IPO price, the market value of VMware is $10.9 billion [closer to $19B at the moment, and briefly above $20B earlier this morning...].

VMware Gives A Jolt to IPO Market - WSJ.com

Yahoo edges Google in U.S. user satisfaction survey - Yahoo! News

Interesting reality check 

Data from the University of Michigan American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) showed Yahoo had seen its customer satisfaction score rise 3.9 percent from a year ago to 79 out of 100 points, while Google's rating fell about 3.7 percent to 78 points.

While Google remains the dominant Web search engine, Yahoo's Internet presence is gaining user approval for its network of Web sites, e-mail, social networks and other features, according to the survey.

Yahoo edges Google in U.S. user satisfaction survey - Yahoo! News

BBC NEWS | Business | Share sale values VMware at $11bn

 Not a bad ROI for something EMC paid $625M in early 2004

The hotly-awaited flotation of software maker VMware has valued the company at $11bn (£5.5bn).

BBC NEWS | Business | Share sale values VMware at $11bn

Dr. Google and Dr. Microsoft - New York Times

Another context in which Google and Microsoft are competing in ways that others can't match. 

Google executives would not comment on the prototype, other than to say the company plans to experiment and see what people want. “We’ll make mistakes and it will be a long-range march,” said Adam Bosworth, a vice president of engineering and leader of the health team. “But it’s also true that some of what we’re doing is expensive, and for Google it’s not.”

At Microsoft, the long-term goal is similarly ambitious. “It will take grand scale to solve these problems like the data storage, software and networking needed to handle vast amounts of personal health and medical information,” said Steve Shihadeh, general manager of Microsoft’s health solutions group. “So there are not many companies that can do this.”

Dr. Google and Dr. Microsoft - New York Times

Google Pack Adds StarOffice

Go figure... 

StarOffice 8 is a full-featured office suite that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing. It has support for most Microsoft Office formats (except for the formats introduced in Office 2007), but it can also export documents as PDF out of the box. The software normally costs $70, but it's available for free in Google Pack. It's worth noting that StarOffice has a huge installer (more than 140 MB), so you should download it only if you have a fast Internet connection.

Google Pack Adds StarOffice

Names in the News Get a Way to Respond - New York Times

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out 

Josh Cohen, the business product manager for Google News, said the feature is consistent with the company’s mission to bring as many news sources online as possible. He said the company would not edit any comments from sources.

Google characterized this as an experiment. Media professionals characterized it less charitably as an effort by engineers who do not understand the impracticalities of such a project on a large scale — for instance, how do you verify a source’s identity or screen for inaccurate statements? — and the potential sensory-deadening impact of long-winded statements.

Names in the News Get a Way to Respond - New York Times

Xbox 360 Out of Order? For Loyalists, No Worries - New York Times

Timely snapshot 

The $12.5 billion console and video game business is up for grabs this year. On the console side, Nintendo is off to an unexpectedly strong start with its Wii, a game system that makes its players get up off the couch and move their bodies to direct action.

[...]

Microsoft, which has 57 percent of the market, has declined to say what is causing some of its Xbox 360 to stop working, or how many machines have been affected. It has set aside $1.1 billion for repairs, a figure that suggests to industry analysts that the problem could affect a third of the 11.6 million 360s already in the hands of consumers.

That's compared to ~28% for Nintendo and ~14% for Sony, according to the article.

Xbox 360 Out of Order? For Loyalists, No Worries - New York Times

Windows Live SkyDrive Launched - Enters a Crowded Online Storage Market

Looks like a market segment on the verge of some major consolidation...

Currently SkyDrive competes with a host of other online storage solutions, including Omnidrive, Steekr, XDrive, box.net and others. Many of these startups attempt to differentiate themselves by offering 'value add' services such as social networking functionality (e.g. Myfabrik), APIs and partnerships with other web 2.0 services (e.g. Omnidrive). Some also focus on specific parts of online storage - e.g. Egnyte is focused on collaborative document sharing. Also a lot of the so-called WebOS startups offer online storage as a key part of their package. Finally, social networking services such as Twango, recently acquired by Nokia, have online storage as an essential part of their make-up.

Windows Live SkyDrive Launched - Enters a Crowded Online Storage Market

Mark Logic CEO Blog: The Price of Inxight: $76M

FYI

The acquisition was an all cash transaction of approximately $76 million. Of the total purchase price, $6.5 million was placed in an escrow account to satisfy potential claims under warranties and indemnities in the agreement. Provided there are no such claims, the amount will be paid on October 3, 2008.

Mark Logic CEO Blog: The Price of Inxight: $76M

Pay for More Gmail Storage

See this post for more details on Google's current storage fee structure 

So the good news is that you have more storage options: Picasa Web costs much less, you can upgrade your Gmail storage in case you run out of space and GDrive is closer. The bad news is that others offer better prices: Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage for free, Flickr gives you unlimited storage for $25 a year and Microsoft's SkyDrive is already here.

Pay for More Gmail Storage

FT.com / Companies / Telecoms - New strategy helps Vonage halve losses

See the article for more details 

In the latest period it cut its marketing spending to $68m, or 33 per cent of revenues, from $90m, or 62 per cent, a year earlier. Inevitably the lower marketing spending took a toll on subscriber growth.

Vonage added just 57,000 net subscribers in the latest period compared with 166,000 in the first quarter and ended the second quarter with 2.45m subscriber lines. Overall, Vonage spent $287 to gain each new customer in the second quarter, but Mr Citron said customer acquisition costs fell to $260 per subscriber in the final month of the quarter – similar to the year ago figure.

Meanwhile, closer to home, I had a scary Vonage moment yesterday: I checked my Vonage voicemail and, instead of hearing the voicemail menu, I heard somebody else's call, loud and clear; they apparently couldn't hear me.  Not good...

FT.com / Companies / Telecoms - New strategy helps Vonage halve losses

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Windows Live SkyDrive - storage in the cloud

More SkyDrive details 

Windows Live SkyDrive (formerly Windows Live Folders) announced a new beta release with several new features. The beta is currently open to users in the USA, UK, and India.

Windows Live SkyDrive provides 500MB of online storage. You can save files in private or public folders. The public folders can be open to anyone or just selected people in your Contacts. You can set permissions for each user such as ; read only, add, delete, or edit.

Remember when 500 meg seemed like a lot of storage?...

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Windows Live SkyDrive - storage in the cloud

Trends: EMC and X-Hive: A major shift in the industry?

 Imho: yes (a major shift)...

Coming on the heels of the recent Tridion acquisition by SDL, which validated the role of XML and content component management in translation, this move highlights the value of XML as an information management tool, moves content component management (CCM) fully into the realm of the enterprise, and increases the functionality of search through XQuery. This also changes the CCM market dynamics, where currently the key players are small companies that provide good solutions, to one where there is now a "heavy" Tier 1/Enterprise competitor in town.

Trends: EMC and X-Hive: A major shift in the industry?

» Microsoft’s renamed Windows Live SkyDrive service gets a refresh | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

 I'll be psyched if this is a clean superset of FolderShare

Microsoft announced its rebranding plans on August 9. The company also refreshed and added some features of the SkyDrive service. Microsoft tweaked the SkyDrive user interface; added the ability to drag and drop single files or multiple files for upload; provided a new “thumbnails view”; and introduced an area designed to show other customers’ SkyDrive folders visited recently.

[...]

Looks like Google didn’t take the SkyDrive announcement lightly. At the end of the day on August 9, Google unveiled details of its own cloud-storage offering, which will be priced starting at $20 a year for 6 GB of storage.

» Microsoft’s renamed Windows Live SkyDrive service gets a refresh | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: What is Web 3.0?

See the full post for context and (as usual) insightful analysis 

In the mind of the Googleplex, the generations of the web proceed something like this:

Web 1.0: web as extension of PC hard drive

Web 2.0: web as application platform complementing PC operating system and hard drive

Web 3.0: web as universal computing grid replacing PC operating system and hard drive

Web 4.0: web as artificial intelligence complementing human race

Web 5.0: web as artificial intelligence supplanting human race

I agree with Carr's definition:

Web 3.0 involves the disintegration of digital data and software into modular components that, through the use of simple tools, can be reintegrated into new applications or functions on the fly by either machines or people.

In my perspective, Web n+1 is thus a very powerful and flexible content management system that has more in common with DBMS++ than it does some kind of recycled AI magic.  XQuery will have a pivotal role in the transformation to Web n+1.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: What is Web 3.0?

A $99 Desktop Comes With Software, Backup and Too Many Catches | Personal Technology | Walt Mossberg | AllThingsD

Walt Mossberg reviews the Zonbu, and finds it not quite ready for prime time; see the link below for the full article (no wsj.com subscription required). 

For just $99, you can now buy a desktop computer that’s preloaded with full versions of 20 popular types of software. This computer comes with free, automatic, online backup of your files, and a design that cuts energy use way below that of a standard computer.

It gets better. This new PC, called Zonbu, from a new company of the same name, automatically receives free updates of its software when new versions come out. It doesn’t require antivirus or other security programs because it runs on the Linux operating system, which has attracted very few viruses or spyware programs. And it takes up almost no room — it’s a tiny little box.

A $99 Desktop Comes With Software, Backup and Too Many Catches | Personal Technology | Walt Mossberg | AllThingsD

IBM and Novell Join Forces to Support Growing Demand for Open Source

WAS CE is the version based on IBM's Gluecode acquisition, and support is subscription-based from IBM. 

At the opening of the LinuxWorld/Next Generation Data Center trade show in San Francisco, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Novell today announced a new agreement to join forces to capture a larger piece of the growing open source application server market. Under the agreement, Novell will deliver and support WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) as part of SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server, making it the industry's most comprehensive open source-based server offering.

In other IBM/Novell partnership news:

IBM has partnered with Novell to launch the Open Collaboration Client, a single Eclipse-based package that offers the business communication of Lotus Notes, the instant messaging and collaboration of Lotus Sametime, and the word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation alternative of IBM Productivity tools.

IBM and Novell Join Forces to Support Growing Demand for Open Source

How Apple Nurtured Fake Steve - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Plausible... 

Why doesn’t Apple advertise in Forbes, or provide its reporters access to its chief executive? One could trace the ill will back to Forbes’s misguided December 1996 cover on then-Apple chief executive Gil Amelio –- which predicted that a visionary Mr. Amelio would revitalize the company by purchasing the Be operating system. The article was published about a week before Apple instead bought Steve Jobs’s startup NeXT, triggering the sequence of events that would lead to Mr. Amelio’s ouster and Apple’s new golden era.

In the process, Apple, which hated the cover, excommunicated Forbes and its reporters, leaving them to linger on the periphery. And what do you do when you’re out in the cold and there’s a fun party inside? You lob water balloons through the window.

How Apple Nurtured Fake Steve - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Blockbuster Acquires Movielink - New York Times

The WSJ quotes someone close to the deal saying it was < $20M. 

The video rental chain Blockbuster said yesterday that it had acquired the Internet movie provider Movielink to offer video downloading services to customers.

Blockbuster is also acquiring rights to show the films of Movie- link’s owners, which include Warner Brothers Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures, it said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Blockbuster Acquires Movielink - New York Times

Wal-Mart taps Facebook for back-to-school sales | CNET News.com

Strange days indeed 

The world's largest retailer on Wednesday is launching the "Roommate Style Match" group on Facebook, a social-networking site that has millions of college-age users, in the hopes of grabbing a larger chunk of back-to-school shopping dollars.

Facebook users who join the Wal-Mart group will be able to take a quiz to determine their decorating style and get a list of "recommended products" they can buy at Wal-Mart to mesh their style with their roommate's.

Wal-Mart taps Facebook for back-to-school sales | CNET News.com

Burton Group courts enterprise IT buyers with extra savings | Tekrati Analyst Firm News

If you've ever been interested in learning more about Burton Group, this would be a good offer to consider: 

Burton Group, a US-based IT research firm focused on enterprise infrastructure technologies, today launched a program encouraging IT organizations to drop a single-user seat from their Gartner, Forrester or other research provider contract. The "Drop a Seat" program lets first-time clients subscribe to a standard Burton Group research service -- which includes enterprise-wide access -- for the price they currently pay for just one user to access a competitor service.

More details, quoted from a BG press release:

Burton Group’s research and advisory services focus on the technical analysis of infrastructure technologies. The six areas of practice are security and risk management, identity management and privacy, application platforms, network and telecom infrastructure, collaboration and content management, and the newest addition, data center strategies.

"We want to make it easier, not harder, for enterprise customers to put our research to good use," said Jamie Lewis, Burton Group CEO and research chair. "The combination of our in-depth research focus, architectural approach, and flexible pricing model makes our services more effective for enterprise IT customers who need actionable advice. With this program, we’re encouraging new customers to compare us to market incumbents like Gartner and Forrester because we’re confident they’ll like what they see."

For more details: http://www.dropaseat.com

Burton Group courts enterprise IT buyers with extra savings | Tekrati Analyst Firm News

Google News Adds Comments

Interesting model -- see the full post for analysis 

Google News is useful if you want to read all the related articles in a single view and to get an unbiased overview of the most important stories, but it lacks interactivity and user participation. To change this, the news site will allow comments, but only from people involved in a story.

We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

Google News Adds Comments

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : iWork ‘08 supports the Open XML formats

Another timely reality check from Microsoft's Brian Jones; see the full post for the list referenced below. 

I talked the other week about how the iPhone supports the Open XML formats. It's pretty incredible to see such a huge uptake in applications that support the format, given that the standard was finalized less than 9 months ago. The traditional applications such as Microsoft Office, Open Office, and even Corel Office either already have support or have announced that they will.

Today Apple released iWork '08, which is a suite of three Mac applications called Keynote, Pages and Numbers (similar to PowerPoint, Word/Publisher, and Excel). This suite reads the Office Open XML files with very high fidelity. So this adds to the growing list of implementations of the Office Open XML standard.

I think the OpenXMLCommunity.org folks are pulling together a list of all the applications that currently support Open XML. Here's the list I have currently , but I'm sure I've missed some (I've started to lose track).

BTW in case you're wondering: iWork 08 is not bundled with the new iMacs; a 30-day trial license is, but iWork lists for $79 ($99 for a Family pack that can be installed on up to 5 Macs in a household).  iLife 08, however, is bundled with the new iMacs.

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : iWork ‘08 supports the Open XML formats

The iPhone Is Not a Smart Phone

Timely Paul Thurrott reality check 

I've been testing Apple's hype-tacular iPhone since the company released it to the public in a media orgy on June 29. And although some of what the iPhone does is truly fantastic, none of the demo-friendly technology Apple employed in the device is particularly compelling for business users. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the iPhone isn't a smart phone at all, at least not in the conventional sense. Instead, you might think of it as the cell phone equivalent of the Media Center PC you might put in your den. Sure, it's superficially similar to the PCs you use for work. But you really just use the Media Center PC, like the iPhone, for fun, and not for work. If that's not obvious to you, please read on.

(Complimentary registration annoyingly required for the full review)

The iPhone Is Not a Smart Phone

ENT News Online | News: Microsoft Web Server Threatens Open Source Leader

 I expect IIS7 will add more Microsoft momentum in this context

Microsoft's Web server, Internet Information Server (IIS), continues to gain against longtime leader Apache, and could end up surpassing it if current trends continue.

According to the tracking site Netcraft, IIS spike in usage to 34.2 percent in August, while open source Apache dipped to 48.4 percent. That represents a jump of 2.3 million sites for IIS, and a decline of 991,000, Netcraft reported.

ENT News Online | News: Microsoft Web Server Threatens Open Source Leader

Technology Review: Money Trouble in Second Life

It seems Second life is becoming a higher-fidelity model of the real world every day... 

There's a long line of avatars waiting to use the automatic-teller machines for Ginko Financial, a virtual bank in the online game Second Life. For more than a week, account holders have been demanding their money back in what some folks are calling a bank run.

Set off by high interest rates and a recent ban on in-game gambling, the bank run could ultimately have a major effect on the game's economy. The theft of approximately $12,000 from the Second Life World Stock Exchange doesn't help matters either.

Technology Review: Money Trouble in Second Life

Business Technology : The Real Web 2.0 Winner: Cisco

Cisco rides another wave 

Most businesses are searching for a way to profit from Web 2.0-style technologies, such as collaboration tools and online video. One company has apparently figured it out: Cisco Systems.

The networking giant reported an 18% jump in revenue and a 25% jump in net income today, largely on the strength of its core networking equipment, which companies are buying in order to support their Web 2.0 initiatives.

Business Technology : The Real Web 2.0 Winner: Cisco

Apple Refreshes Its iMac Lineup - WSJ.com

Interesting reality check dimension 

In its third quarter, Apple executives said Mac unit shipments growth of 33% was more than twice the overall rate of personal computer sales growth. As a result, Macintosh's world-wide market share set a recent high of 3% market share, up from 2.5% in December.

The gains are credited to the so-called "halo effect" produced by the company's popular iPod digital music player. Analysts say the success of the iPod has translated into increased sales of Mac computers, which carry higher margins.

Apple Refreshes Its iMac Lineup - WSJ.com

Apple unveils new iMacs, updated apps | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Okay, I admit the new iMacs look great, and I'd love to have one to explore. 

I still find it weird, however, to see Apple also introducing a spreadsheet application; strange days indeed...

But Jobs then plunged into the new version of iWork, Apple's productivity suite. Keynote, the presentation application, comes with several new themes and better support for manipulating photos to serve as background for a slide. Pages, the word processing application, also received updated templates.

But the big part of the new iWork suite is a spreadsheet application called Numbers. Numbers is designed to work with Keynote and Pages, allowing people to drop in pictures, graphs and photos alongside spreadsheet tables. You can also import and export with Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.

iWork '08 costs $79 and is available today.

Apple unveils new iMacs, updated apps | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Buy.com launches Garage Sale service on Facebook - Yahoo! News

I imagine eBay can't be far behind (unless they have to negotiate patents etc.)

Online shopping site Buy.com said on Tuesday it has launched a new shopping service named Garage Sale for users of online social networking sites such as Facebook.com.

With the new service -- which allows users to bypass online auction and sales sites and to sell goods directly from a profile page -- Buy.com hopes to attract business away from larger rival eBay Inc.

Buy.com launches Garage Sale service on Facebook - Yahoo! News

Using LINQ to XML (and how to build a custom RSS Feed Reader with it) - ScottGu's Blog

Timely snapshot 

LINQ to XML provides a really powerful way to efficiently query, filter, and shape/transform XML data.  You can use it both against local XML content, as well as remote XML feeds.  You can use it to easily transform XML data into .NET objects and collections that you can further manipulate and transfer across your application.

LINQ to XML uses the same core LINQ query syntax and concepts that LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Objects, LINQ to SharePoint, LINQ to Amazon, LINQ to NHibernate, etc. use when querying data.

One major open question: how do LINQ to XML and XQuery relate, over time?

Using LINQ to XML (and how to build a custom RSS Feed Reader with it) - ScottGu's Blog

Microsoft Lowers Price of Xbox 360 by $50

 Game console competition intensifies

Microsoft Corp. today kicked off the greatest holiday lineup in video game history by announcing it will reduce the estimated retail price (ERP) of Xbox 360™ by $50 (U.S.) beginning Aug. 8. Soon to follow, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) will release its blockbuster video game title “Madden NFL 08” on Aug. 14. “Madden NFL Football,” one of the most important mass-appeal franchises in video games, was the top-selling game of 2006 and is the top-selling franchise of the past 10 years. Only Xbox 360 offers a console for all interests and budgets.

Microsoft Lowers Price of Xbox 360 by $50: Price drop coincides with release of “Madden NFL 08” on Xbox 360, one of many titles that make up the greatest holiday lineup in video game history.

$1.5 Billion Verdict Against Microsoft Is Set Aside - New York Times

Interesting reality check  

Judge Rudi Brewster of United States District Court in San Diego wrote in a 43-page order that the jury’s damage award in February could not stand because one of the two patents was not infringed by Microsoft.

He also noted that ownership of the second disputed patent was questionable, and a retrial may be needed to resolve that matter.

Alcatel-Lucent immediately said it intended to appeal the ruling. “This reversal of the judge’s own pretrial and post-trial rulings is shocking and disturbing, especially since — after a three-week trial and four days of careful deliberation — the jury unanimously agreed with us,” said Mary Lou Ambrus, a company spokeswoman.

$1.5 Billion Verdict Against Microsoft Is Set Aside - New York Times

Internet-based PAC driving Democratic push - The Boston Globe

Timely snapshot 

The new headquarters of ActBlue, with its tangled cords, leftover Deval Patrick signs, and 20-somethings tapping on white MacBook laptops, is what a political campaign would look like if it shared space with a dot-com start-up.

ActBlue is in fact both -- an Internet-based political action committee that is quietly becoming one of the biggest forces in Democratic politics. Its founders aim for nothing short of revolution, and they are already partway there.

Internet-based PAC driving Democratic push - The Boston Globe

Dude, I Work for Friggin Forbes Magazine. Have You Heard of It?

 Alas, I suspect this is on-target

FSJ brought to you by Forbes?

Seems it’s not Apple that’s jumped the shark, as Forbes recently suggested, but its fake founder.

Consider:

1.  FSJ hosted at forbes.com?  I expect that will result in some radical content changes.

2.  There's now an entity to sue, for the truly out-there posts.  (I suspect the forbes.com-hosted version of the blog also won't have history prior to the re-hosting...)

Oh well; it was fun while it lasted (most of the time...).

Dude, I Work for Friggin Forbes Magazine. Have You Heard of It? | Digital Daily | John Paczkowski | AllThingsD

Bloggers Consider Forming Labor Union - washingtonpost.com

 Go figure...

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

Bloggers Consider Forming Labor Union - washingtonpost.com

The Trial of Fake Steve Jobs - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

The post that led to Lyons' confession -- see the link below for evidence etc. 

At the defense table: Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes and the author of (among other things) the controversial 2005 Forbes cover story “Attack of the Blogs,” which argued that the Internet is plagued by anonymous bloggers who can libel companies without being held accountable. Hmm.

The Trial of Fake Steve Jobs - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Fake Steve Jobs Comes To Forbes.com - Forbes.com

Not entirely encouraging... 

"From Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart, satire has spoken truth to power as well as amused," said Forbes.com Editor Paul Maidment. "Fake Steve Jobs will add a different voice to Forbes.com, but one that is in the Forbes tradition for both."

Fake Steve Jobs Comes To Forbes.com - Forbes.com

BBC NEWS | Technology | Fake Steve Jobs blogger unmasked

That should increase traffic at the Forbes site about a zillion-fold... 

After months of speculation, the New York Times reported that the writer was Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at business magazine Forbes.

Despite the unmasking, the diary will continue but on the Forbes website.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Fake Steve Jobs blogger unmasked

Groundbreaking Digital Experience for Endeavour Shuttle Launch

 Definitely worth a look

For the first time, people around the world can view 3-D images of the space shuttle Endeavour and surrounding buildings at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before it launches into space, through a collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and NASA. Microsoft^® Live Labs and NASA developed the environments using hundreds of photographs and a photo-imaging technology called Photosynth™. Photosynth uses hundreds of standard digital camera images to construct a 3-D view of an environment that can be navigated and explored in a highly intuitive manner.

Groundbreaking Digital Experience for Endeavour Shuttle Launch: Microsoft’s Photosynth 3-D imagery gives people around the world unprecedented views of the shuttle vehicle and its launchpad.

‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean - New York Times

Finally... 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine who lives near Boston, has been quietly enjoying the attention.

“I’m stunned that it’s taken this long,” said Mr. Lyons, 46, when a reporter interrupted his vacation in Maine on Sunday to ask him about Fake Steve. “I have not been that good at keeping it a secret. I’ve been sort of waiting for this call for months.”

Nobody took me up on my bet that it was Kara Swisher...

‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean - New York Times

Goodbye to Newspapers? - The New York Review of Books

A timely reality check from The New York Review of Books -- see the full article for a review of two recent, related books and perspectives on Internet news (of which, according to an estimate in one of the reviewed books, ~80% originates in newspapers) and blogs. 

The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins. It has lost too much public respect. Courts that once treated it like a sleeping tiger now taunt it with insolent subpoenas and put in jail reporters who refuse to play ball with prosecutors. It is abused relentlessly on talk radio and in Internet blogs. It is easily bullied into acquiescing in the designs of a presidential propaganda machine determined to dominate the news.

Its advertising and circulation are being drained away by the Internet, and its owners seem stricken by a failure of the entrepreneurial imagination needed to prosper in the electronic age. Surveys showing that more and more young people get their news from television and computers breed a melancholy sense that the press is yesteryear's thing, a horse-drawn buggy on an eight-lane interstate.

Weirdly, I subscribe to the dead-tree edition of the NYRB, but I'd missed this article until I ran across a reference in Greg Lloyd's blog

Goodbye to Newspapers? - The New York Review of Books

Playground Networking, Now Online - washingtonpost.com

Scary... 

These days, it's little brother who's watching.

Younger and younger children want their share of the social networking craze, but popular Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook are reserved for older crowds. So sites are now aiming at children 14 and under, with online worlds where their animated personas can play games, chat with others their age and even engage in adultlike activities such as e-commerce.

Playground Networking, Now Online - washingtonpost.com

Embracing the CableCard - Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog#more-325

 Check this post for an update on CableCard progress.

Oh, hallelujah and praise be to the F.C.C. On July 1, a new F.C.C ruling went into effect. It says that, as this Times article puts it, “cable companies now have to supply set-top boxes that come with a removable CableCard.”

Haven’t heard of the CableCard? No wonder. The cable companies are, in general, doing everything they can to conceal its existence from you.

I received a letter from Comcast this week informing me that the price of its DVR service is going to $12.95 (from $9.95)/month due to "... the increased investments we're making in the technology."  With Verizon recently ripping up the edge of my front yard to install fiber, and with options such as CableCard-extended PCs now available, I plan to do regular comparison shopping -- I'm very tired of being extorted in the one-cable-box-per-device zone.

Embracing the CableCard - Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog#more-325

My Zonbu has landed « Real life with the Zonbu Mini-PC

Interesting blog about experience with super-green PC Zonbu 

First impressions - wow. Its hard to convey how small and light the thing is until you turn it over in your hands. With its silver heat sink and black accents it looks very modern and attractive.

It has a very minimal shipping box that mirrors the colors of the unit (so the large sides and grey and the small sides are black) and the egg-crate inside is made of recyclable material. There is not much surplus packing material, which is nice and eco-friendly.

My Zonbu has landed « Real life with the Zonbu Mini-PC

» A (Microsoft) Code Name a Day: Confucius | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

 Handy to, e.g., check prices at Amazon.com while you're in a store with your mobile phone...

Microsoft code name of the day: Confucius

Best guess on what it is: A Windows Live service that is an offshoot of Windows Live Barcode. Confucius allows cell-phone users to send two-dimensional barcode information between cell phones or between cell phones and Web sites, allowing users to save keystrokes.

» A (Microsoft) Code Name a Day: Confucius | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

» Could Windows Home Server be Microsoft’s iPhone? | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Kind of a weird comparison, but a timely reality check.  I've been using WHS RTM bits for a couple weeks and am eager to buy a WHS box when they ship. I'm also looking forward to exploring WHS add-on apps/tools/services/etc.; I expect there's going to be a vibrant market for WHS home/SOHO scenarios. 

Run down the check list:

• Relatively quiet development period, followed by short and seemingly successful beta. Check
• A product that users actually want and understand. Check
• Potentially cool form factors. Check

» Could Windows Home Server be Microsoft’s iPhone? | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Please Don't Steal This Web Content - New York Times

More content value-chain stimulus/response... 

VanFossen isn't referring to the kind of plagiarism in which a lazy college student copies sections of a book or another paper. This is automated digital plagiarism in which software bots can copy thousands of blog posts per hour and publish them verbatim onto Web sites on which contextual ads next to them can generate money for the site owner.

Such Web sites are known among Web publishers as "scraper sites" because they effectively scrape the content off blogs, usually through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other feeds on which those blogs are sent.

Please Don't Steal This Web Content - New York Times

Tough Delay for Big Game by Take-Two - New York Times

 Strange days indeed, when a single game delay can alter the game device market dynamics

In late September, Microsoft plans to release the holiday season’s other widely anticipated game, Halo. But that game is designed to be played exclusively on the 360. Sony does not have an exclusive title that is quite so widely anticipated, making Grand Theft Auto even more important to the prospects of the PlayStation 3, said Evan Wilson, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.

“This is very bad for Sony and its ability to sell PlayStation hardware,” Mr. Wilson said. He added that Sony’s loss could mean some gains for the Wii, which is not scheduled to get a version of Grand Theft Auto IV. And he said it could mean good news for other software makers, like Electronic Arts and Activision, that will not have to compete with Grand Theft Auto for consumer attention.

Tough Delay for Big Game by Take-Two - New York Times

Dell to Pay $340 Million To Buy ASAP Software - WSJ.com

Interesting co-opetition shift for Dell 

Dell Inc., moving to bolster its software and services offerings as its rivals also build up their software businesses, said it would acquire software maker ASAP Software Inc. for $340 million, the largest acquisition in its history.

ASAP, Buffalo Grove, Ill., makes software that helps companies manage licensing and compliance. The 600-person company is a unit of office products supplier Corporate Express NV of the Netherlands. Dell said the acquisition would strengthen its software business by helping simplify software management for its corporate, government and institutional customers.

Dell to Pay $340 Million To Buy ASAP Software - WSJ.com

Microsoft Cuts China Price For Windows Vista To Beat Pirates - WSJ.com

 Playing to win long-term...

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) slashed the price on its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, in a bid to lure buyers away from pirated versions of the software.

From Aug. 1, Microsoft cut its retail price for the Vista Home Basic package to CNY499 ($66) from CNY1,521, and for the Vista Home Premium package to CNY899 from CNY1802, the company said in a statement.

The reduction will allow more household customers "to enjoy the legal version of Windows Vista," Microsoft said.

Article - WSJ.com

AOL Loses Subscribers, And Ad Growth Drops - washingtonpost.com

More painful transitions for AOL 

Ad growth remained too meager to fully offset declines in subscription revenue, which continued to plummet, as expected, after last August's strategy shift. AOL had 10.9 million U.S. subscribers paying for Internet access as of June 30, a 59 percent drop from its peak of 26.7 million in September 2002.

[...]

Overall revenue at AOL dropped 38 percent, to $1.3 billion. AOL accounts for 11 percent of Time Warner's revenue, about half of the 20 percent it had contributed until last June.

AOL Loses Subscribers, And Ad Growth Drops - washingtonpost.com