The Charms of Wikipedia - The New York Review of Books

Excerpt from a NYRB review/Wikipedia snapshot:

Nowadays there are rules and policy banners at every turn—there are strongly urged warnings and required tasks and normal procedures and notability guidelines and complex criteria for various decisions—a symptom of something called instruction creep: defined in Wikipedia as something that happens "when instructions increase in number and size over time until they are unmanageable." John Broughton's book, at a mere 477 pages, cuts through the creep. He's got a whole chapter on how to make better articles ("Don't Suppress or Separate Controversy") and one on "Handling Incivility and Personal Attacks."

Broughton advises that you shouldn't write a Wikipedia article about some idea or invention that you've personally come up with; that you should stay away from articles about things or people you really love or really hate; and that you shouldn't use the encyclopedia as a PR vehicle—for a new rock band, say, or an aspiring actress. Sometimes Broughton sounds like a freshman English comp teacher, a little too sure that there is one right and wrong way to do things: Strunk without White. But honestly, Wikipedia can be confusing, and you need that kind of confidence coming from a user's guide.

---

The Charms of Wikipedia - The New York Review of Books

Data Points on Googles Growth - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

A useful reality check -- see the full post for some contradictory data points

These kinds of reports and anecdotes can help us understand only part of what’s going on. Paid clicks, for instance, don’t take into account the price that advertisers pay for those clicks, which can ebb and flow based on a large number of variables. And search marketers tend to over-represent larger advertisers and under-represent the many smaller businesses that use search as a marketing tool, so their reports are far from definitive.

Investors who are making bets today based on those data points will have to wait until Google reports first-quarter earnings to find out how those bets turn out.

Data Points on Googles Growth - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Tech Beat Jotspot Returns As Google Sites: Wiki-Style Collaboration - BusinessWeek

Google Sites got turned on for my Google Apps service last night; stay tuned for impressions...

Ross Mayfield of Socialtext and Allen Stern of Center Networks both note, correctly, that the comparison to Sharepoint and Lotus Notes is a stretch at this point(which is why I said they “nominally” compare), though Mike Arrington at TechCrunch notes that Matthew Glotzbach, product management director at Google Enterprise, calls it a “Sharepoint killer.” Not just yet, but when it comes to software, you should never underestimate free and easy.

Tech Beat Jotspot Returns As Google Sites: Wiki-Style Collaboration - BusinessWeek

Television: Tomorrow’s Web | Big Think | BNET.com

Hmmm

Does TV have to be disrupted by the Web?  Yes. That is to say, maybe.  No, wait — TV will disrupt the Web.  So goes  The Revolution Will Be Televised, an essay by Michael Hirschorn in the March issue of the the Atlantic. It’s a must-read piece for those who think it’s a matter of time before the television industry gets whacked by the Web, just like newspapers and music before it.

Television: Tomorrow’s Web | Big Think | BNET.com

Yahoo’s Lousy Performance All Microsoft’s Fault | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

One for the industry history books...

Mounting shareholder discontent over Yahoo’s response to Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid has inspired a legal pig-pile on the Internet company. In an annual report filed yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo (YHOO) said the company has been named in seven shareholder lawsuits claiming it has mishandled its response to Microsoft’s (MSFT) offer. What an annoyance that must be, but not nearly as annoying as the offer that inspired it, which Yahoo memorializes in a section of the report entitled simply,

“Microsoft’s unsolicited acquisition proposal has created a distraction for our management and uncertainty that may adversely affect our business.”

Yahoo’s Lousy Performance All Microsoft’s Fault | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Novell profit tops Street; raises '08 revenue view | CNET News.com

An interesting NOVL reality check

Revenue rose to $230.9 million from $218.4 million a year ago. Analysts had been expecting revenue of $224.8 million.

Novell said Linux sales rose 65 percent to $28 million in the quarter.

Novell profit tops Street; raises '08 revenue view | CNET News.com

Sprint introduces the “Simply Everything We Can Do To Keep This Sucker Afloat” plan : Good Morning Silicon Valley

Sign of the telecom times

When its three major competitors in the wireless game started offering unlimited cell plans for a flat rate of $99.99 a month a week or so ago, Sprint Nextel, with a shrinking pile of chips, had the usual choices — fold, call or raise. Today it chose to raise, introducing a plan at the same price point called “Simply Everything,” which offers unlimited voice (like Verizon Wireless and AT&T) and messaging (like T-Mobile), but also unlimited data use, Web surfing, Sprint TV and Music, GPS and more.

Sprint introduces the “Simply Everything We Can Do To Keep This Sucker Afloat” plan : Good Morning Silicon Valley

Pattern Finder: Google Sites: The Thing That Makes Google Apps Take Off?

Guy Creese's take

While Google Sites is a huge improvement over Page Creator--and Google is saying it's the last missing component--I'm not convinced that this latest incarnation will be enough to get large enterprises to buy Google Apps. Google Apps has been a big success with small and medium size businesses who want to avoid paying for an IT staff for as long as they can. But the Fortune 500 companies I talk to are still nervous about the lack of some nuts and bolts features, such as 24/7 phone support, the inability to administer the system via roles, the rudimentary e-mail distribution list capabilities, and the lack of records management capabilities for documents and spreadsheets. These are non-glitzy requirements, but real requirements nevertheless.

So while Google continues to improve Google Apps from a user interface point-of-view, it hasn't improved the underlying data model--Google Apps still shows its consumer heritage. (E-mail distribution lists that contain other distribution lists have been around for 20 years--yet Google has yet to include that important enterprise feature). While that isn't hurting Google within the SMB space, it is within the larger enterprise space. The vendor race in the collaboration and content space continues.

Pattern Finder: Google Sites: The Thing That Makes Google Apps Take Off?

The Audacity of Data

Very timely article in The New Republic 

And, yet, it's not just the details of Obama's policies that suggest a behavioral approach. In some respects, the sensibility behind the behaviorist critique of economics is one shared by all the Obama wonks, whether they're domestic policy nerds or grizzled foreign policy hands. Despite Obama's reputation for grandiose rhetoric and utopian hope-mongering, the Obamanauts aren't radicals--far from it. They're pragmatists--people who, when an existing paradigm clashes with reality, opt to tweak that paradigm rather than replace it wholesale. As Thaler puts it, "Physics with friction is not as beautiful. But you need it to get rockets off the ground." It might as well be the motto for Obama's entire policy shop.

Read the full article, especially if you live in Ohio or Texas :)

The Audacity of Data

Google offers team Web site publishing service | Technology | Reuters

The Reuters perspective, from Eric Auchard

Google Sites is a stripped-down version of Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration software, which lets users inside an organization share documents and maintain calendars on secure Web sites, but is far more complex to set up and maintain.

Unlike SharePoint, which typically requires organizations to buy and maintain their own hardware and software at costs that can run from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to serve one hundred users, Google Sites is hosted on Google computers and is free to users of Google Apps, which the company offers at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft tools.

"We think this is SharePoint-like, but better," Girouard said in an interview.

Yeah, the battle is joined...

Google offers team Web site publishing service | Technology | Reuters

Google gets into Web site building biz - Boston.com [plus some impressions/projections]

Yet more press on Google Sites -- somebody at Google deserves a PR gold star; from what I've seen so far today, for example, there are more Google Sites stories than stories about the Microsoft (Windows Server 2008/Visual Studio 2008/SQL Server 2008) launch event yesterday

With only a few clicks, just about anyone will be able to quickly set up and update a Web site featuring a wide array of material, including pictures, calendars and video from Google Inc.'s YouTube subsidiary, said Dave Girouard, general manager of the division overseeing the new application.

"We are literally adding an edit button to the Web," Girouard said.

A few quick impressions:

1. I was intrigued with JotSpot before Google acquired and took it dark for ~16 months -- the idea of using "the wiki way" with site design elements (such as forms/page templates and views) is empowering (e.g., see this report, if you're a Burton Group Collaboration and Content Strategies service customer)

2. I'm surprised Google is apparently striving to not use the w-word (wiki) in conjunction with Google Sites, and look forward to exploring Google Sites to see if any of the empowering JotSpot wiki-centric features have been eliminated

3. The timing of the Google Sites press blitz, coming a few days before Microsoft's annual SharePoint Conference, along with the press spin about Google Sites competing with SharePoint, warrants another PR gold star.

4. Google Sites, assuming it's reasonably robust, intuitive, and feature-rich, will significantly change the trajectory of Google Apps, making it applicable to a much wider range of collaboration and content management scenarios. I suspect this will be a bigger immediate-term competitive challenge for vendors other than Microsoft, e.g., smaller SaaS vendors specializing in basic site/list/apps/etc. as services, but the press will probably focus on the SharePoint competitive dimension, since it's a more compelling story line to speculate about the potential for a major Microsoft cashectomy (on SharePoint and Office). Note that SharePoint isn't just for enterprises anymore, as it's also the foundation for Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business, and part of Microsoft's expanding "software + services" Microsoft Online offering; I expect Google will attempt to compete with all but the on-premises (traditional software product) SharePoint customer scenarios.

5. The competitive landscape in this context is going to evolve very rapidly -- e.g., watch for more updates in this context next week, from the Microsoft SharePoint and MIX events.

6. On a related note, I'm starting to seriously wonder if robust off-line/disconnected usage scenarios, best exemplified today by IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Groove, are fading considerations in the post-90s. It'll be interesting to see if Google gets away with doing a Google Gears hand-wave on Google Sites, for users who need off-line support. Perhaps vendors such as Colligo, specializing in taking SharePoint apps and content off-line, will also find market opportunities with Google Sites.

Google gets into Web site building biz - Boston.com

IE is Still Beating Mozilla and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is Still Dead « KnowledgeForward

A timely reality check, the week before the introduction of IE8, from my Burton Group colleague Craig Roth; see the full post for stats and more insights

I just checked the most recent browser stats and, no surprise, IE is still keeping it’s grip on the browser “market” (can it be a market if it’s free?).  A browser study I did in 2005 of 217 organizations found that 89% had some form of IE (mostly IE6 at the time) as their desktop standard.  At the time 17% of respondents said they had considered changing their browser standard.  Corporations, governments, and non-profits also influence consumer browser habits since they create the majority of sites that consumers browse.

IE is Still Beating Mozilla and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is Still Dead « KnowledgeForward

Google Apps: Google Sites overview

Google overview of Google Sites -- see the page for more details, screen shots, etc.

Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.

Google Apps

Google Goes After Another Microsoft Cash Cow - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

It'll be interesting to see how Google Sites rates, compared with SharePoint and other incumbents

Google is adding a new front to its assault on Microsoft’s software applications business.

The Internet search giant on Wednesday is rolling out a rival to Microsoft’s SharePoint, a program used for collaboration among teams of workers. Google’s program, called Google Sites, will become part of the company’s applications suite, which includes e-mail, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Like other elements of Google Apps, it will be free and require no installation, maintenance or upgrades.

Google Goes After Another Microsoft Cash Cow - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

JotSpot reincarnated as Google Sites | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

More details on Google Sites

In October 2006, Google acquired JotSpot, a hosted wiki platform for building collaborative Web sites. Sixteen months later, which is like 10 years in Web time, Google is launching a revamped JotSpot as Google Sites.

Rafe Needleman at CNET Webware has a more in-depth post on how Google Sites works.

Curiously,

The term "wiki" has been banished from Googlespeak as the company tries to mainstream its collaborative applications. "There shouldn't be a distinction between wikis and sites," said product manager Scott Johnston. He hopes that the "edit button" becomes pervasive as the collaborative Web takes hold.

JotSpot reincarnated as Google Sites | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Google to Offer Health Records On the Web - WSJ.com

Interesting times

Google's initiative puts it in company with Internet rival Microsoft Corp. and Revolution Health Group LLC, led by America Online Inc. co-founder Steve Case, in launching sites for users to fill out and manage online profiles that are known as personal health records. The companies are seeking to get in on the ground floor as more health practitioners begin digitizing records. President Bush has called for most Americans to have access to electronic medical records by 2014, because of the potential to reduce health-care costs and prevent medical errors.

Google to Offer Health Records On the Web - WSJ.com

Google Plans to Unveil Data-Sharing Service - WSJ.com

JotSpot reappears -- after going dark upon Google's acquisition on 2006/10/31

Google Inc. today plans to introduce a service for creating Web sites that help colleagues share information with each other or people outside their organizations, in a further sortie into Microsoft Corp.'s core turf. The Google Sites service, which will replace an offering called Page Creator, is based on technology from a start-up called JotSpot that Google acquired in 2006. It allows individuals to create Web pages to share information, such as videos, presentations and document files. Google Sites will be available free to business users of Google's Apps suite of online services such as word processing.

Google Plans to Unveil Data-Sharing Service - WSJ.com

Microsoft Gets Record Fine and a Rebuke From Europe - New York Times

Next in line to feel the wrath of Neelie Kroes...

The commission’s willingness to enforce vigorously its interpretation of what constitutes unfair competition potentially raises the costs of running a successful business in Europe for many American companies. It might pose problems for companies like Apple, Intel and Qualcomm, whose market dominance in online music downloads, computer chips and mobile phone technology is also being scrutinized by the European Commission.

Google, which has a dominant share of the market for Internet search and its related advertising, also faces a tough examination of its proposed acquisition of Doubleclick, an Internet advertising company.

Microsoft Gets Record Fine and a Rebuke From Europe - New York Times

What the...? EU Fines Microsoft $1.3 Billion [Paul Thurrott]

The plot thickens -- see the full post for more context-setting

Microsoft says it is reviewing the EU's decision but notes that the European Commission (EC) said in October that Microsoft "was in full compliance with the 2004 decision, so these fines are about past issues that have been resolved." The EU's continued belligerence--EU regulators publicly mocked Microsoft's documentation publication and interoperability announcement last week before even reviewing what the company had done--is somewhat unsettling.

Even more unsettling, for Microsoft, is that the 2004 antitrust ruling is just one of three separate antitrust actions that the EU is considering against the company. It is separately conducting two other antitrust investigations against the company, involving product tying and Office document interoperability. Not coincidentally, Microsoft's interoperability announcement last week completely addresses the second of those two concerns. Given the EU's behavior with regards to Microsoft lately, however, it's unclear whether they'll see it that way.

What the...? EU Fines Microsoft $1.3 Billion

Congress Probes Case Of The Missing White House E-Mails -- E-Mail -- InformationWeek

Also see this post 

Taking a break from grilling pro baseball players, Congress on Tuesday held a hearing to try to get to the bottom of the growing scandal of the missing White House e-mail archives.

California Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, briefly outlined the ongoing saga of the White House e-mails in his opening statement, noting that the Bush administration in 2002 effectively dismantled the Automatic Records Management (ARM) System instituted by the Clinton administration in 1994.

Congress Probes Case Of The Missing White House E-Mails -- E-Mail -- InformationWeek

Collaborative Thinking: Economic Concerns Will Renew Interest In Web Conferencing

See this Mike Gotta post for more details 

Every so often, economic downturns, health-related outbreaks or acts of terrorism cause organizations to prioritize alternatives for corporate travel. Given growing energy costs and recession concerns, decision-makers are likely to "dust off" prior programs aimed at streamlining travel budgets. While there may not be as much waste in current travel programs, I suspect that we will see an upswing in web conferencing over the next several months.

Collaborative Thinking: Economic Concerns Will Renew Interest In Web Conferencing

Microsoft | Microsoft launching Windows Server 2008 | Seattle Times Newspaper

A major Microsoft milestone, albeit also one a long time coming

Microsoft is celebrating the release of a new version of one of its most successful products outside of the desktop Windows and Office one-two punch.

Windows Server 2008, which is being feted in a series of launch events starting in Los Angeles today, is the flagship product of Microsoft's long-term effort to build a presence in the lucrative market for software that businesses run behind the scenes.

Microsoft | Microsoft launching Windows Server 2008 | Seattle Times Newspaper

When will iTunes replace Wal-Mart as No. 1 music retailer? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Impressive...

Apple's iTunes will likely whip past Wal-Mart Stores to become the largest U.S. music retailer sometime this year.

The NPD Group issued a report Tuesday that said Apple had outpaced Best Buy and Target to become the No. 2 U.S. music retailer. Unless the downward trend in CD sales suddenly reverses, Apple will be No. 1, said Russ Crupnick, the NPD Group's president of Music.

When will iTunes replace Wal-Mart as No. 1 music retailer? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

EU Fines Microsoft $1.35 Billion Over Antitrust Ruling - WSJ.com

I wonder if the timing for this has anything to do with the ISO Open XML ballot resolution meeting in Geneva this week...

The European Commission Wednesday fined Microsoft Corp. a record €899 million, or $1.35 billion, for failing to comply with the commission's 2004 antitrust ruling.

The commission said that, until Oct. 22, 2007, Microsoft had charged "unreasonable prices for access to interface documentation for work group servers."

EU Fines Microsoft $1.35 Billion Over Antitrust Ruling - WSJ.com

I.B.M. Plans $15 Billion Share Buyback - New York Times

Interesting times

News of the planned repurchase, equivalent to about 10 percent of the market capitalization of I.B.M., pushed the stock market higher. The company’s shares rose $4.30, to $114.38.

I.B.M. Plans $15 Billion Share Buyback - New York Times

A Highflier Loses Altitude as Google’s Clicks Go Flat - New York Times

Hmm...

Are Internet users clicking on fewer Google ads and putting the company’s growth prospects at risk?

Those questions are weighing on investors, who have cut the value of Google shares by 38 percent since they peaked at $747.24 in early November.

A Highflier Loses Altitude as Google’s Clicks Go Flat - New York Times

Official Google Blog: A renewed wish for open document standards

See the full post for more context-setting -- another vote for unification...

We join the ODF Alliance and many other experts in our belief that OOXML doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard. (An overview of our findings and sample technical issues unresolved are posted here.)
As ISO Member bodies around the world work on possible revisions of their vote previously submitted, the deadline of March 30th approaches fast. I invite you to pay close attention, and heed the call of many for unification of OOXML into ODF. A document standards decision may not matter to you today, but as someone who relies on constant access to editable documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it may matter immensely in the near future.

Official Google Blog: A renewed wish for open document standards

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Social networking goes to war

Another timely reality check from Nicholas Carr

One thing that Talbot doesn't mention in his otherwise excellent article is the fact that cheap, simple web-based systems are also easily available to insurgent and guerrilla forces. It's clear, for example, that insurgents are already using online mapping tools, like Google Earth, to target attacks and missiles, and other web-based social-networking and data-management tools are well-suited to the kind of real-time information sharing that armies can use to plan and coordinate their actions. Because they're cheap and easy to deploy - and in many cases freely available over the web - the tools of what might be called social warmaking represent a two-edged sword for large, modern armies. They can provide a powerful new way to share tactical information, but they also tend to level the battlefield.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Social networking goes to war

Microsoft Watch - Developer - Adobe Points AIR Gun at Microsoft

Timely Joe Wilcox reality check; read the full article for more context-setting

From MIX08, the major battle ahead will be between entrenched Flash and newcomer Silverlight. Flex and AIR, along with products like Adobe Media Player, support Flash. But the war will be won on different turf: Broader developer toolsets and supporting server software. Expression Studio and Visual Studio 2008 are two products enjoined. Of course, they will be used separately, but Microsoft has created integration points for designers and developers that make Expression and Visual Studio much better together.

Microsoft Watch - Developer - Adobe Points AIR Gun at Microsoft

The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required - New York Times

And imagine it free, and on the web -- see the full article for details

Imagine the Book of All Species: a single volume made up of one-page descriptions of every species known to science. On one page is the blue-footed booby. On another, the Douglas fir. Another, the oyster mushroom. If you owned the Book of All Species, you would need quite a bookshelf to hold it. Just to cover the 1.8 million known species, the book would have to be more than 300 feet long. And you’d have to be ready to expand the bookshelf strikingly, because scientists estimate there are 10 times more species waiting to be discovered.

The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required - New York Times

I.B.M. to Introduce a Notably Improved Mainframe - New York Times

More on IBM's mainframe mission

The stakes are high. Though the sales of mainframes account for less than 4 percent of I.B.M.’s revenue, the sales of mainframe software, storage and services are a big, profitable business. The overall business dependent on mainframes represents about 25 percent of company revenue and nearly half of its profit, said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

I.B.M. to Introduce a Notably Improved Mainframe - New York Times

New IBM Mainframe Is Seen Lifting Sales - WSJ.com

Strange days indeed

A decade ago, technology savants considered mainframe computers dinosaurs that would inevitably be replaced by rafts of cheaper computer servers based on commodity microprocessors. But IBM, which has driven competitors from the mainframe market, has managed to keep many customers in sectors like banking, airlines and government agencies. These users are reluctant to drop the company's mainframes, which are based on a proprietary operating system, because it would force them to rewrite millions of lines of software code that was developed for earlier generations of the high-priced, reliable machines.

IBM executives predict that the new Z10 mainframe, which goes on sale today with a base price of $1 million, may even take away some market share from low-end servers. The company says customers can consolidate computing jobs on the mainframe, which the company says is more energy efficient and takes less floor space in crowded corporate computer rooms.

New IBM Mainframe Is Seen Lifting Sales - WSJ.com

FCC chief says Net providers can't block access 'arbitrarily' - The Boston Globe

Glad to see this

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin warned yesterday that Internet service providers can't block consumers from using lawful Internet activities in the name of providing better service.

"While networks may have legitimate network issues and practices," Martin said, "that does not mean that they can arbitrarily block access to certain network services."

FCC chief says Net providers can't block access 'arbitrarily' - The Boston Globe

Pakistan's Censors Target YouTube, Trigger Brief World-Wide Outage - WSJ.com

Oops...

PTCL is Pakistan's largest telecommunications company, and controls the vast majority of the nation's network infrastructure. According to several people familiar with the matter, the company only meant to block YouTube within Pakistan. But erroneous handling of PTCL's routers inadvertently brought YouTube down, according to an explanation offered by two people with knowledge of the situation in Pakistan.

PTCL was simply trying to block traffic from YouTube to Pakistan, a process commonly known as "black holing," according to these people. The instructions sent out across PTCL's network were meant to apply only to traffic within Pakistan. But somehow that message started getting replicated on the Internet world-wide, and other Internet service providers started experiencing trouble accessing the site.

Pakistan's Censors Target YouTube, Trigger Brief World-Wide Outage - WSJ.com

BBC NEWS | Technology | Adobe merge on and offline worlds

Another AIR snapshot

The BBC is also building prototype applications with AIR.

"The nice thing about it is that it works on all the different platforms - Mac, PC and eventually Linux," said John O'Donovan, chief architect in the BBC's Future Media and Technology Journalism division.

The corporation is currently building prototype versions of several applications such as the news ticker, which displays headlines on a desktop, and mini Motty, which provides desktop football commentary.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Adobe merge on and offline worlds

Microsoft | Microsoft finally pulls plug on HD DVD | Seattle Times Newspaper

Game over for HD DVD

Microsoft said it will stop making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 video-game system after Toshiba ceded the high-definition video format battle to Sony's Blu-ray.

Microsoft said Saturday it would continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players.

A spokeswoman told Bloomberg News the company also will cut the price of players remaining in stock by more than half, to $49.

Microsoft | Microsoft finally pulls plug on HD DVD | Seattle Times Newspaper

Vision evolves, but $100 laptop is still the goal - The Boston Globe

Excerpt from interview in yesterday's Boston Globe:

Q. The laptop sells for $188. You still say you'll get it down to $100, and then even cheaper. How?

A. [Nicholas Negroponte:] The way you get down to $100 is by integration. There are 900 pieces in that machine. You want to get it down to 50. That's the big barrier. Then I'd like to go one step further, and the one step further is to bring the price to zero. Our goal has to be the zero-dollar laptop. Give One, Get One generated about 100,000 zero-dollar laptops. Somebody else paid for them, but from the recipient's point of view, that's zero.

Vision evolves, but $100 laptop is still the goal - The Boston Globe

Microsoft Joins Forces With SAP America for Healthcare IT: Market strategy launched for Microsoft-based SAP solutions in the healthcare industry.

Hmm...

Today from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2008 Conference & Exhibition, Microsoft Corp. announced it has signed a joint marketing agreement with SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG, through which the companies have agreed to work together to deliver solutions that meet the unique needs of the healthcare industry. The companies’ collaboration will seek to help healthcare organizations increase operational efficiency and reduce costs using software to automate and streamline processes that are today often manual or based on cumbersome legacy technology. The companies will focus their healthcare collaboration activities in the United States.

Microsoft Joins Forces With SAP America for Healthcare IT: Market strategy launched for Microsoft-based SAP solutions in the healthcare industry.

Microsoft readies Silverlight 2 beta | InfoWorld

Meanwhile, in the broader Adobe AIR competitive landscape...

Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, provided a list of features planned for Silverlight 2 and the beta in his blog. A Microsoft representative subsequently described the blog as the most detail provided to date on Silverlight 2.

With the Silverlight platform, Microsoft is expected to battle Adobe and its popular Flash technology in the RIA space. Microsoft's Mix08 conference in Las Vegas in two weeks seems like the obvious place to introduce the beta as Silverlight was the star attraction at the Mix07 conference last year. The Microsoft representative would not comment on whether this would actually be the case but did acknowledge plans to ship the beta during the first quarter of this year. 

Microsoft readies Silverlight 2 beta | InfoWorld | News | 2008-02-22 | By Paul Krill

Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web - New York Times

More on AIR, which launches today; see the full article for more context, including a competitive landscape summary

Adobe sees AIR as a major advance that builds on its Flash multimedia software. Flash is the engine behind Web animations, e-commerce sites and many streaming videos. It is, the company says, the most ubiquitous software on earth, residing on almost all Internet-connected personal computers.

But most people may never know AIR is there. Applications will look and run the same whether the user is at his desk or his portable computer, and soon when using a mobile device or at an Internet kiosk. Applications will increasingly be built with routine access to all the Web’s information, and a user’s files will be accessible whether at home or traveling.

AIR is intended to help software developers create applications that exist in part on a user’s PC or smartphone and in part on servers reachable through the Internet.

Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web - New York Times

Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize - New York Times

A timely reality check

Of the many landmarks along a journalist’s career, two are among those that stand out: winning an award and making the government back down. Last week, Joshua Micah Marshall achieved both.

[...]

Mr. Marshall does not belong to any traditional news organization. Instead, he is creating his own. His Web site, Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com), is the first Internet-only news operation to receive the Polk (though in 2003, an award for Internet reporting was given to the Center for Public Integrity), and certainly one of the most influential political blogs in the country.

Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize - New York Times

EBay bypasses the browser - The Boston Globe

A sign of the times?

EBay is one of several companies, including Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Nickelodeon and Salesforce.com Inc., that have created downloadable, desktop versions of their Web sites using software developed by Adobe Systems Inc.

Adobe is launching the application, called AIR, on Monday. Adobe says AIR will allow any company with a Web site to inhabit a permanent spot on people's desktops.

EBay bypasses the browser - The Boston Globe

Business & Technology | Running out of gas? | Seattle Times Newspaper

Read this article for a stark reality check

Bill Reinert, who helped design Toyota's Prius hybrid, hovers in a helicopter 1,000 feet over Fort McMurray, Alberta.

On this clear November morning, he's craning for a look at one of the world's largest petroleum reserves where there's not an oil well in sight.

Instead, in a two-mile-wide pit below, trucks head to refineries with loads of sand weighing more than Boeing 747s. Yellow flames shoot skyward as 900-degree heat liquefies any embedded petroleum.

On a related note, in today's Boston Globe:

Gas costs force Americans to cut back on driving

Business & Technology | Running out of gas? | Seattle Times Newspaper

Re: [IP] Are Google/MSFT bound by HIPAA?

More on Google, Microsoft, and HIPAA, from David Farber's IP list

The upshot is that Google and Microsoft, not being "covered entities," are absolutely *not* bound by HIPAA. If they have signed a Business Associate Agreement with a covered entity, they may be bound by that agreement to apply similar standards to that entity's data in the context of that engagement, but that's as close as it gets.

[IP] Are Google/MSFT bound by HIPAA?

Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey - New York Times

A timely reality check -- read the entire article 

Microsoft does business software well. Approximately half its revenue comes from business customers for its e-mail infrastructure, database systems, developer tools, Office productivity applications and other mainstays. It has also assembled, through acquisitions, a fledgling line of enterprise software that it calls Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft would like Dynamics to be viewed as competing head to head with the No. 2 name in enterprise software, Oracle, or the No. 1, SAP of Germany. For the moment, however, Microsoft Dynamics’ parity with those big names is nothing more than wishful aspiration.

Professor Cusumano has a suggestion: Rather than acquire Yahoo, Microsoft should pursue SAP.

Or maybe Microsoft should exploit its financial leverage and buy both Yahoo! and SAP.

Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey - New York Times

Social slowdown hitting Piczo hard | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

A couple data points doesn't make a trend, but...

Life is getting more difficult for social-networking sites.

At the same time Facebook's traffic appears to have reached a plateau, News.com has learned that Piczo, a networking site that caters to teenage girls and was much written about in 2006, has seen layoffs, executive departures, high employee turnover, and a shrinking audience in the past five months.

Social slowdown hitting Piczo hard | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Microsoft President on Micro-Hoo: We Can Do It - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Interesting times

Mr. Johnson also said that one of the significant integration challenges facing the companies, their different technology infrastructures, was not insurmountable. Microsoft has already acquired companies based on open-source technologies, he said, and it hasn’t always felt a need to migrate those companies to Microsoft technology. “We would work closely with Yahoo! engineers to make pragmatic platform and integration methodology decisions as appropriate, prioritizing above all how those decisions would impact customers,” he said.

Microsoft President on Micro-Hoo: We Can Do It - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Karen Hobert's Connecting Dots: When will they learn? [Book recommendation: "Where Have All the Emails Gone?"]

Review of a timely and scary book (good read, scary topic); see Karen's post for more details

Politics aside, "Where Have All the EMails Gone?" is an good case study of what not to do if you want to keep e-mail secure, auditable, and recoverable. The book is an easy read and is peppered with repeated disclaimers of political bias by proving that this problem is non-partisan having started in a Democratic White House and has come to our attention in a Republican White House.

Check out the companion web site  and think about reading the book -- it's a useful survey of some important email market dynamics, and also an objective (and mostly nonpartisan) assessment of what appears to be incredibly bad IT policy within the White House. 

A quote from p. 176:

If you take away anything at all from this book, please make it this -- email in the White House needs to be fixed.  Not because we want to give Congress a bigger stick with which to beat on Presidents, but because some really bad things could happen if it's not fixed.

Migration from Notes/Domino to Outlook/Exchange in the midst of a war, Karl Rove's habit of losing Blackberry devices, and much more -- quite a story.

Karen Hobert's Connecting Dots: When will they learn?

Tractions garners KMWorld award for 4th straight year - Providence Business News

Congrats to the gang at Traction Software.

For the fourth year in a row, Traction Software Inc. has been named to KMWorld Magazine’s list of 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management.

The Providence-based company, founded in 1996, provides business and government organizations with wiki and blog software that allows groups and teams to communicate more effectively. Its TeamPage software creates a secure communications hub for business information and working communications, making it easier to collect organize, link and share sources of information in context over time.

I consider TeamPage the market-leading beyond-the-basics collaborative hypertext solution; it's a compelling example of the power of moving beyond files, to a world of hypertext information items/content components

Tractions garners KMWorld award for 4th straight year - Providence Business News

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Borg makes nice with open source. Oh please.

FSJ is always a bit over the top, but read this full post; it's a very timely reality check

In case you haven't seen it, the Borg announced today it would do all sorts of things to play nice with open source. This is nothing new -- Microsoft has been doing this Eddie Haskell "interoperability" shtick for a while now -- but today's announcement is significant for one reason, and it's simply this: The Borg are no longer scared of the freetards, and no longer view them as a threat. Marketwatch has a story here. Money quote in that story comes from noted freetard Matt Asay: "It's a good indication of Microsoft's self-confidence that it feels it can open up what effectively are its crown jewels and not lobotomize the company at the same time."

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Borg makes nice with open source. Oh please.

EMC Acquisition Shows It Wants to be a Cloudmaster - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

The plot thickens...

Pi has always been elusive about what it is up to, other than to say it’s working on personal information management tools for the Web-based world. It doesn’t yet have a product, and when I talked to Mr. Maritz this evening as he was about to get on a plane in Boston (EMC is based in Hopkinton, Mass.), he was not saying precisely what Pi would offer or when.

Still, it seems to be a Web-based alternative to parts or all of Microsoft’s Office programs. Some variation on Google Apps, perhaps?

EMC Acquisition Shows It Wants to be a Cloudmaster - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

New From Google: “Google Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen” | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

A timely reality check

As the World Privacy Forum pointed out yesterday, companies like Google are not governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA. “Don’t assume your medical records are protected no matter where they are: HIPAA privacy protections generally do not follow the health-care files,” the WPF warned. “HIPAA’s protections generally do not ‘travel’ with or follow a medical record that is disclosed to a third party outside the health-care treatment and payment system. … After you have disclosed your health care information to a PHR (Personal Health Records) outside the privacy protections of the health care system (HIPAA), your information can be used or redisclosed by the PHR in ways that would not be permitted for the same information if held by your doctor or health plan.

New From Google: “Google Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen” | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Former Softie Maritz to head cloud computing at EMC | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Yeah, maybe the Boston Globe headline --  "EMC to Acquire Software Developer" should be considered more about the individual (Maritz) than the company (Pi); tbd...

(Meanwhile, for those for whom “Paul Maritz” isn’t a familiar name, here’s his bio from the Pi site:

“Paul spent 14 years working at Microsoft from 1986 to 2000. During that period he managed the development and marketing of System Software Products (including Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows 2000), Development Tools (Visual Studio) and Databases Products (SQL Server), and the complete Office and Exchange Product Lines. At Microsoft, Paul served as a member of the Executive Committee that managed the overall company. Prior to joining Microsoft, Paul spent 5 years working at Intel Corporation. “)

Former Softie Maritz to head cloud computing at EMC | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Business & Technology | Maritz to head EMC initiative | Seattle Times Newspaper

More on Maritz

Paul Maritz, a former high-ranking Microsoft executive, is becoming president of EMC's Cloud computing initiative, which competes directly with Microsoft.

The Zimbabwe native, a central figure in Microsoft's meteoric rise in the late 1990s, has been working with startups and engaged in philanthropy over the past seven years

Business & Technology | Maritz to head EMC initiative | Seattle Times Newspaper

Microsoft ups free online storage to 5GB | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

A timely snapshot

Microsoft's hard drive in the cloud is now a reality.

On Thursday, Microsoft removed the beta tag from the Windows Live SkyDrive service. More importantly, it upped the amount of free online storage to 5GB, giving users roughly the same amount of storage that comes on a new Eee PC. That's up from a recent cap of 1GB.

Microsoft ups free online storage to 5GB | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

Microsoft finally learning to let 'X' talk to 'Y' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Yup...

First, Ray Ozzie's fingerprints are all over this document. The Wizard of Oz, Microsoft's chief software architect, may be among the savviest technologists alive today, and it's been interesting to watch him navigate a huge, resistant bureaucracy. Since Ozzie's arrival after Microsoft acquired his company in April 2005, he's attempted with limited success to engineer a revolution from within.

[...]

Maybe it's because Ozzie is at heart the developer, par excellence, that he's pushed for a more pragmatic way to satisfy customer demands. He understands that the trend in software development is toward more composite applications. That is, programs built with feeds or the ability to be built using other apps. Along with data portability, these attributes now appear near the top of user wish lists.

Microsoft finally learning to let 'X' talk to 'Y' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Technology Review: TR10: Offline Web Applications

imho Notes and Groove are the only (beyond-messaging) apps that robustly and seamlessly support disconnected mode today; it'll be interesting to see if AIR, Gears, and other approaches are widely successful

[...] But cloud computing has drawbacks: users give up the ability to save data to their own hard drives, to drag and drop items between applications, and to receive notifications, such as appointment reminders, when the browser window is closed.

So while many companies have rushed to send users to the clouds, Lynch and his team have been planning the return trip. With the system they're developing, the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), programmers can use Web technologies to build desktop applications that people can run online or off.

Technology Review: TR10: Offline Web Applications

A Method for Critical Data Theft - New York Times

Yikes

A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks.

The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover. Encryption software is widely used by companies and government agencies, notably in portable computers that are especially susceptible to theft.

A Method for Critical Data Theft - New York Times

EMC to acquire software developer - The Boston Globe

Hmm...

Data storage vendor EMC Corp. yesterday agreed to acquire Pi Corp., a privately held developer of software and services to help individuals sort through and share increasing volumes of data.

[...]

Once the transaction is completed by the end of next month, Pi's founder and chief executive, Paul Maritz, will become president and general manager of EMC's newly formed Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division. Maritz spent 14 years with Microsoft Corp. and served as a member of Microsoft's executive committee before founding Pi.

EMC to acquire software developer - The Boston Globe

Microsoft lifts veil on software's inner works - The Boston Globe

Check the full article for what imho is a fairly balanced recap of yesterday's Microsoft announcement

Microsoft Corp. says it will publish more information about how its products work, a move that will help competitors do a better job of building Microsoft-compatible software products.

It's a major shift for Microsoft. The company's Windows software holds a global monopoly on desktop computer operating system software and its Office program is just as dominant in the office productivity software market. Microsoft has maintained its hold partly by limiting access to vital technical information on how its software works, thus making it harder for rivals to build competing products.

Microsoft lifts veil on software's inner works - The Boston Globe

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain - New York Times

A timely reality check

THE prototypical computer whiz of popular imagination — pasty, geeky, male — has failed to live up to his reputation.

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain - New York Times

Cisco's new networks: Highways, airports, and city streets | Green Tech blog - CNET News.com

Cool...

Cisco Systems' new market is urban management.

The router and switch kings are teaming up with cities like Seoul, Lisbon, Madrid, San Francisco and Hamburg, Germany, on energy efficiency experiments. It will then take the successful ones and export them around the world.

In San Francisco, for instance, Cisco has rigged up a municipal bus with wireless Internet access so commuters can get their e-mail, browse the Web, or get information on when their connecting bus or train is coming in. The idea is to make public transportation more attractive and popular, which in turn reduces carbon dioxide emissions by getting people to stop taking their cars as much.

Cisco's new networks: Highways, airports, and city streets | Green Tech blog - CNET News.com

Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Hmm...

For 18 months, Google has been working to come up with a product offering and a strategy in the promising field of consumer health information. Until now, the search giant hasn’t had anything to show for its labors other than bumps along the way — delays and a management change.

But on Thursday, Google’s technology for personal health records, which is still in development, is getting a big endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic. The big medical center is beginning a pilot project to link the health information for some of its patients with Google personal health records.

Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Price May Be Steep, But Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

See the full review for details; also see the recent BW cover story on the X300

I am writing these words on a new laptop computer that packs a full-size screen and keyboard into a body that’s quite thin and light. And it has a solid-state drive with no moving parts instead of a hard disk.

But this isn’t the much-touted Apple MacBook Air, introduced last month with all those qualities. Instead, it’s a new ThinkPad from Lenovo, the X300. While the two machines are both impressive products, they are different in key respects.

Price May Be Steep, But Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Technology Review: Applying Theory at Microsoft

Check the full article for details

Before she was recruited by Microsoft Research, Jennifer Chayes was a professor of mathematics at UCLA. Although mystified at the time as to what the software giant might want with her heavily theoretical work, Chayes has gone on to do research that has wide-reaching applications on the Internet, including search, keyword advertising, recommendation systems, and social networks. Having previously cofounded the Microsoft Research Theory Group, Chayes is now managing director of the Microsoft Research New England lab, which will open in Cambridge, MA, in July. Technology Review recently asked Chayes about the transformation her work has undergone, and how she might carry her research forward in the new lab.

Technology Review: Applying Theory at Microsoft

At Toy Fair, Kids' Play Gets Wired - washingtonpost.com

Yikes

Fact: Kids create more than 100,000 avatars each day in virtual communities such as Habbo and Club Penguin.

That startling statistic has broad implications for how kids play and what the $22 billion toy industry wants to sell them to play with. More and more, when kids "go outside to play," they're really venturing forth into increasingly sophisticated online neighborhoods, and manufacturers want a piece of that action.

At Toy Fair, Kids' Play Gets Wired - washingtonpost.com

Burton Group Institute: Boston workshops on SharePoint and SOA during early April

See the workshop page for details

Burton Group Institute is coming to Boston, on April 1 and 2, 2008 offering four all-day in-depth workshops. Attend one or two workshops and hear Burton Group analysts and consultants present real-world insight on SharePoint or SOA. Join us at the Four Seasons Boston for two days of education, insight and networking. Register now to take advantage of the Early Bird discount!

Burton Group Institute

They’re Working on Their Own, Just Side by Side - New York Times

A timely snapshot

CONTEMPLATING his career path a couple of years ago, a young computer programmer named Brad Neuberg faced a modern predicament. “It seemed I could either have a job, which would give me structure and community,” he said, “or I could be freelance and have freedom and independence. Why couldn’t I have both?”

As someone used to hacking out solutions, Mr. Neuberg took action. He created a word — coworking, eliminating the hyphen — and rented space in a building, starting a movement.

They’re Working on Their Own, Just Side by Side - New York Times

Judge Shuts Down Web Site Specializing in Leaks - New York Times

A timely reminder that 1) information literacy is your friend, and 2) verba volant; scripta manent (often translated as "The spoken word evaporates; the written word remains")

In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet era, a federal judge in San Francisco on Friday ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to disclosing confidential information.

The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments. It has posted documents said to show the rules of engagement for American troops in Iraq, a military manual for the operation of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has called corporate waste and wrongdoing.

Judge Shuts Down Web Site Specializing in Leaks - New York Times

Gates on Yahoo: It's the people | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

The heart of the matter

"Yahoo wants to do breakthrough software," Gates told CNET News.com. "The engineers there want to compete very effectively against Google or any other thing that comes along, so I don't think there is really a different culture."

But, he hinted that the company might have made itself less attractive had it continued down the path championed by former CEO Terry Semel.

"If Yahoo had gone the direction of just being a media company and not said that software innovation was important to them then no, there wouldn't be that intersection because we're about breakthrough software," Gates said. "Jerry Yang to his credit has kept a lot of very top engineers that have been just doing their work and improving those things. That's why we see the combination as so powerful."

Gates on Yahoo: It's the people | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

With Earnings Up 38%, H.P. Raises Its Forecast - New York Times

It's still a bit weird to see HP described as "the world's largest technology company"...

Nevertheless, Mr. Hurd raised his forecast for the full year. The company estimated that second-quarter revenue would be as much as $27.9 billion, and full-year revenue would be about $114 billion — increases of about 9 percent in each case over the year-earlier period. Previously, H.P. projected sales for the 2008 fiscal year would be $111.5 billion.

H.P., the world’s largest technology company, is considered a bellwether for the tech sector, if not the economy as a whole, because its revenues are evenly balanced between consumers, small business and large enterprises, with its overseas business accounting for 70 percent of its revenue.

With Earnings Up 38%, H.P. Raises Its Forecast - New York Times

Microsoft Said to Plan Proxy Fight for Yahoo - New York Times

More speculation on Microsoft's next steps (no subscription required for this article)

The aggressive tactic is part of the hard-nosed takeover campaign that Microsoft began two weeks ago. Unless Yahoo quickly reverses course and enters into merger talks, Microsoft will seek to nominate a slate of directors to Yahoo’s board by March 13, the deadline for nominations.

Microsoft Said to Plan Proxy Fight for Yahoo - New York Times

Microsoft Hires Proxy Grp To Help Oust Yahoo Bd - WSJ.com

I guess that's why it's called "hostile"...

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is getting ready to take its bid for Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) right to the Web portal's shareholders, even as analysts wait for a higher offer.

Separately, Yahoo Inc. adopted new severance packages that protect employees in the event of a Microsoft takeover.

Microsoft has hired proxy solicitation group Innisfree M&A Inc. to help oust Yahoo's 10-member board, all of whom are up for re-election this year.

Article - WSJ.com

Wii Fit, Other Innovations Unveiled - WSJ.com

Somehow I suspect I won't have to nag my kids to follow this exercise routine...

Nintendo plans to announce today that it will ship a new exercise product on May 19 in the U.S. called Wii Fit that comes with a weight-and-motion sensing device called the Wii Balance Board.

In another move, Nintendo will launch a new online service in the U.S. on May 12 called WiiWare that will allow game publishers to distribute new titles over the Internet directly to users instead of on discs. For games distributed over WiiWare, game makers won't need any approval from Nintendo, though they must get their games rated by an industry rating system.

I was in NYC last weekend and dropped in on both the Apple store and Nintendo World; both were packed...

Wii Fit, Other Innovations Unveiled - WSJ.com

Cellphone firms offer flat-rate call plans - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA Inc., three of the top four US mobile phone carriers, revealed flat-rate subscriptions for unlimited wireless calls, intensifying pressure on Sprint Nextel Corp.

Verizon Wireless parent Verizon Communications Inc. fell the most in almost six years in New York trading after the mobile carrier disclosed a plan to give users unlimited calling time for $99.99 a month. AT&T unveiled an identical service, and T-Mobile offered unlimited text messages and calls for the same price.

Cellphone firms offer flat-rate call plans - The Boston Globe

Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds) - Joel on Software

A very timely reality check -- read the full post

[...] A normal programmer would conclude that Office’s binary file formats:

• are deliberately obfuscated
• are the product of a demented Borg mind
• were created by insanely bad programmers
• and are impossible to read or create correctly.

You’d be wrong on all four counts. With a little bit of digging, I’ll show you how those file formats got so unbelievably complicated, why it doesn’t reflect bad programming on Microsoft’s part, and what you can do to work around it.

Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds) - Joel on Software

Cutting Back On Expenses In Geneva… A Beginners Guide : Oliver Bell’s weblog

A handy reference from Oliver Bell; see the full post for details

Things are getting more exciting as we get closer to the Ballot Resolution Meeting for DIS29500 (OpenXML) in Geneva.

I thought it might be useful to look at a few of the terms that have become part of the generic standards lexicon during this process and see if I can define them a little for the more curious among you.

This might be really important as Geneva approaches, being able to speak the relevant lingo opens up access to a whole range of events that various third parties appear to be running alongside the BRM, mostly with the goal of influencing the outcome of the meeting to suit whatever agenda the hosting party has.

Cutting Back On Expenses In Geneva… A Beginners Guide : Oliver Bell’s weblog

Microsoft Gives Students Access to Technical Software at No Charge to Inspire Success and Make a Difference

See the full press release for the (long...) list of products to be made freely available to students

The Microsoft DreamSpark student program (http://channel8.msdn.com) makes available, at no charge, a broad range of development and design software for download. The program is now available to more than 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. Broad global coverage, as well as an expansion of the program to high school students around the world, potentially reaching up to 1 billion students worldwide, will continue throughout the next year. Gates will share details with students and faculty at Stanford University as part of a U.S. and Canada college tour that kicks off today.

“We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth,” Gates said. “Microsoft DreamSpark provides professional-level tools that we hope will inspire students to explore the power of software and encourage them to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs.”

Microsoft Gives Students Access to Technical Software at No Charge to Inspire Success and Make a Difference: DreamSpark offers millions of students access to professional-grade software developer and designer tools.

Patterns: A Video Game, an M.R.I. and What Men’s Brains Do - New York Times

Somehow this doesn't strike me as surprising...

Why does it often seem that men enjoy playing video games more than women? Perhaps because they do.

A new study finds that when men play the games, a part of the brain involved in feelings of reward and addiction becomes much more activated than it does in women.

Patterns: A Video Game, an M.R.I. and What Men’s Brains Do - New York Times

Gates:Microsoft Not Negotiating Higher Buyout Offer For Yahoo - WSJ.com

A time for big decisions

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is not privately haggling with Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) over the software maker's rejected $31-per-share buyout offer for the slumping Internet pioneer, Bill Gates said in an interview.

"We sent them a letter and said we think that's a fair offer. There's nothing that's gone on other than us stating that we think it's a fair offer," the Microsoft chairman said Monday. "They should take a hard look at it."

Article - WSJ.com

Google; AT&T shocked by iPhone usage | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

A timely reality check

AppleInsider reports that Google has seen 50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset. They were so shocked, in fact, that they suspected that they had made an error tabulating their data.

According to the Financial Times Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations, said that if other handset manufacturers follow in Apple’s footsteps and make Web access easier on their handsets the number of mobile searches could outpace fixed internet search “within the next several years.”

Google; AT&T shocked by iPhone usage | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

Of All the Hurdles to a Merger, View on Technology Is the Highest - New York Times

Code culture clash

Yahoo principally uses FreeBSD, which is well regarded for its stability and its strong security.

Yahoo also uses the Java programming language as well as the PHP scripting language, which is widely accepted as a tool for rapidly building and maintaining the dynamic Web pages that are at the heart of its many Web services. Indeed, the creator of the PHP language, Rasmus Lerdorf, is an infrastructure architecture engineer at Yahoo.

Finally, Yahoo relies heavily on a parallel programming tool that will take a program that is written for one computer and extend it to run on hundreds. This allows Yahoo to scale up the power of a search engine algorithm, for example. (The program was invented at Google, but Yahoo uses an open-source version called Hadoop.) Microsoft uses its own competing system, developed in its research labs, called Dryad.

Of All the Hurdles to a Merger, View on Technology Is the Highest - New York Times

IBM's Lotus takes aim at Office market - The Boston Globe

IBM plays offense

Rhodin's betting that Symphony will help IBM pry loose millions of dollars now being spent on Microsoft Office. He wants customers to spend it instead on Lotus Notes and Domino, and on an array of collaboration and social networking products unveiled by Lotus over the past year.

"It's freeing up money in people's budgets to spend on innovative new ideas, as opposed to continuing to pay for old ideas," Rhodin said.

IBM's Lotus takes aim at Office market - The Boston Globe

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google's footprint

Another good reason to subscribe to Harper's

In its March issue, Harper's publishes one section of the official blueprints of the site plan for Google's giant The Dalles data center on the banks of the Columbia River in Oregon. (The project goes by the codename 02 on the plan.) Some stats: The warehouses holding the computers are each 68,680 square feet, while the attached cooling stations are 18,800 square feet. The blueprint also shows an administration building and a sizable "transient employee dormitory."

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google's footprint

BBC NEWS | Americas | Machines 'to match man by 2029'

See the full article for a handy list of "challenges facing humanity"...

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the Sun - New York Times

Bright ideas...

“A solar cell is just a big specialized chip, so everything we’ve learned about making chips applies,” says Paul Saffo, an associate engineering professor at Stanford and a longtime observer of Silicon Valley.

Financial opportunity also drives innovators to exploit the solar field. “This is the biggest market Silicon Valley has ever looked at,” says T. J. Rogers, the chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor, which is part-owner of the SunPower Corporation, a maker of solar cells in San Jose, Calif.

Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the Sun - New York Times

Amazons S3 Cloud Has a Dark Lining for Startups - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Oops...

A few days after the BlackBerry e-mail system’s latest downtime, Amazon is giving companies another reason to worry about outsourcing company-critical functions.

Amazon’s S3 service, which offers cheap, accessible Web storage for hundreds of thousands of companies, went down this morning at around 7:30 a.m. Eastern time and is only now slowly creeping back up, delivering high error rates, according to various bloggers and posters on Web forums.

Amazons S3 Cloud Has a Dark Lining for Startups - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Plan B | PBS

Read the full post for more speculation and some Google gPhone updates.

But what if Microsoft wasn't serious about its offer? Well then things start to get REALLY interesting.

Certainly Microsoft's offer for Yahoo has thrown that company and several others into a tizzy. Yahoo can't be getting much work done, that's for sure. And if you believe the press reports, AOL and News Corp have been dragged into the strategizing, too, and are subject to disruption. For Yahoo, as the primary target, overall efficiency in the company will have dropped instantly by 20 percent just because people will be talking at the watercooler rather than doing their work. And Yahoo wasn't a very efficient place to begin with. This alone has some value for Microsoft, where I will guarantee you the distraction is far less.

Screwing with the minds of Yahoo has value to Microsoft and screwing with AOL and News Corp, too, well that's just a bonus.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Plan B | PBS

Redmond Channel Partner Online | News: Microsoft Open Source Project To Enable OOXML Conversion

On the road to interoperability...

Microsoft today launched an open source software project on the SourceForge site, aimed at developing conversion tools that will translate Microsoft Office binary files to Office Open XML (OOXML) file formats. According to Vijay Rajagopalan, principal architect in the Interoperability & Platform Strategy group at Microsoft, initial work will focus on a Word conversion solution, with Excel and PowerPoint file formats to be addressed starting in the spring.

Redmond Channel Partner Online | News: Microsoft Open Source Project To Enable OOXML Conversion

Red Hat's JBoss dons BlackTie to target BEA Tuxedo - Yahoo! News

Strange days indeed

JBoss, the open source middleware company purchased by Red Hat in April 2006, already had built its reputation by commoditizing the Java-based application server market once dominated by BEA's WebLogic, which soon will become an Oracle product once the software vendor completes its purchase of BEA.

Now JBoss aims to go after the Tuxedo install base, which Sacha Labourey, vice president of engineering middleware at Red Hat JBoss, said represents "tens of millions" of dollars in revenue opportunity. "BlackTie is about helping companies migrate away from one of the key legacy lock-ins out there, Tuxedo," he said.

Red Hat's JBoss dons BlackTie to target BEA Tuxedo - Yahoo! News

Steven Levy - Microsoft Plays The Underdog - washingtonpost.com

See the full article for background/context-setting

All of this is like one of those optical illusions that your mind perceives as one picture until someone points out that there's a totally different way of looking at the image. Depending on the market that people consider, the takeover is either an egregious boost to Microsoft's power or a tonic to Google's excessive search share. The lesson seems to be that technology companies -- once valiant defenders of the idea that the government should keep its hands off this dynamic marketplace -- are eager to see regulators jump in to temper a runaway market leader. Unless, of course, the company is that leader.

Steven Levy - Microsoft Plays The Underdog - washingtonpost.com

Toshiba's HD-DVD going the way of Betamax | Technology | Reuters

Sony wins a key contest (unlike the Betamax history...)

The high-definition DVD format war has turned into a format death watch.

Toshiba is expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format in the coming weeks, after a rash of retail defections that followed Warner Home Video's stunning announcement in early January that it would support only Sony's rival Blu-ray Disc format after May.

Toshiba's HD-DVD going the way of Betamax | Technology | Reuters

Judge says use of MySpace may violate a court order | CNET News.com

A timely reality check

In one of the first rulings of its kind, a Staten Island judge has said that a teenage girl could be charged with violating a restraining order by using MySpace.com to reach out to people she was told not to contact.

Judge says use of MySpace may violate a court order | CNET News.com

SCO Gets Up to $100 Million Financing - WSJ.com

Not happy news for Novell

SCO Group Inc. said private equity firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners and partners in the Middle East will provide up to $100 million to finance SCO's efforts to go private and get out of bankruptcy.

The move gives Stephen Norris, whose namesake founder was a co-founder of private equity giant The Carlyle Group, a controlling interest in SCO, which now has a platform to continue its court battle with Novell Inc. over royalties from the Unix server operating system, SCO's main business.

SCO Gets Up to $100 Million Financing - WSJ.com

EMC deal could bring SAP software to smaller firms - The Boston Globe

Interesting times...

A possible deal between EMC Corp. of Hopkinton and German software giant SAP AG could make it easier for small- and medium-size companies to obtain advanced business-management services over the Internet. Specialists say the proposed service could open a big new market for EMC, the world's leading maker of high-end data storage gear. But they say the plan is fraught with challenges - especially for SAP.

Doug Merritt, president of SAP Labs North America, told Reuters news service on Wednesday that his company and EMC were discussing a plan to host SAP's software on the Internet.

EMC deal could bring SAP software to smaller firms - The Boston Globe

A Little Piece of Microsoft Aids Small Business - New York Times

David Pogue on old and new Microsoft modus operandi -- apparently he doesn't realize, in this instance, the new (Office Live Small Business) is built on the old (SharePoint -- not really so old in the grand scheme of things)...

Now, plenty of companies sell similar services individually: Web hosting, for example, or online marketing. But Microsoft claims to have no competition for Office Live’s concept. Nobody else offers a complete one-stop self-contained unified Internet toolkit for small businesses — especially not at these prices.

The result is exciting for two reasons. First, Office Live Small Business gives the nation’s 25 million small businesses a chance to use the same online tools as the big boys.

Second, Office Live Small Business has all the hallmarks of a start-up: innovative, focused, fast-moving, game-changing, quick to respond to customer feedback and nimble in recovering from mistakes. When was the last time anyone described Microsoft that way?

A Little Piece of Microsoft Aids Small Business - New York Times

Sun Hasnt Set - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

See the full post for more context-setting

The company has evoked skepticism for years by arguing that it can grow by giving away software. Despite the fact that Java runs on a vast number of cellphones it is still an indirect generator of revenue. The argument is that more cellphones creates the need for more centralized computing hardware in cellphone companies.

On Wednesday, Mr. Schwartz acknowledged that Open Office — the freely distributed Sun office productivity software which he said is now being used by one hundred million PC users — is still largely a branding exercise.

However, he said that Sun’s recent acquisition of MySQL, an open source database program, has a more direct revenue impact on the company. Fifty to seventy thousand copies of the open source database are downloaded each day, and each one of those downloads is likely to be someone who will need to purchase a computer to run the database software.

Sun Hasnt Set - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Little Room for Yahoo to Maneuver - New York Times

Looks like endgame soon

Since Microsoft first made public its buyout offer on Feb. 1, Yahoo has held talks with several potential partners, including Google, the News Corporation and Time Warner’s AOL unit, about an alternate deal that would keep Yahoo out of the hands of the software giant.

While some of those conversations continue, no deal has emerged and a growing chorus of analysts and investors say it is improbable that anyone will come up with an offer that is more attractive to Yahoo shareholders than Microsoft’s, which was originally valued at $31 a share.

Little Room for Yahoo to Maneuver - New York Times

Microsoft Plans To Shuffle Posts In Mobile Push - WSJ.com

Some significant org changes at Microsoft

Microsoft Corp. today plans to announce the replacement of the head of its mobile-phone group as part of a broader executive reshuffling, people familiar with the matter said.

Under the plan, which includes promotions for more than 10 executives and the departure of others, the Redmond, Wash., software maker will name Andrew Lees, currently a corporate vice president at the company's server and tools group, to lead its mobile-communications business, which makes software for mobile phones, one person familiar with the situation said. He will become a senior vice president.

The existing head of the mobile-communications unit, Pieter Knook, will retire from Microsoft, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Knook, a senior vice president, joined Microsoft in 1990 and has served in a variety of roles, including president of Microsoft's Asia operations

Microsoft Plans To Shuffle Posts In Mobile Push - WSJ.com

Big Update for Vista Leaves Little Changed For Mainstream Users | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Walt Mossberg on Vista SP1

However, based on my tests of Vista SP1, I believe that for most average consumers, it will likely be a nonevent, and for others it will be disappointing. Many of its benefits are aimed at corporations and power users, or are under-the-hood fixes that are hard to discern. For mainstream users, it adds no significant, visible features to Vista, and changes little or nothing about the way the operating system looks and works.

Also, SP1 doesn’t resolve some of the most annoying flaws in Vista, including slow start-ups and reboots, and a security system that nags you too much and requires add-on anti-virus software. I guess these problems will either never be fixed fully or will have to wait for SP2.

I suspect many of his concerns will not be fully addressed until "Windows 7"

Big Update for Vista Leaves Little Changed For Mainstream Users | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Google's Android Makes Its Public Debut - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

A timely reality check; see the full article for a screen shot slide show

The Mobile World Congress became the coming-out party for Google's Android OS as four mobile processor vendors showed off pre-production devices running versions of Android.

[...]

The biggest surprise of the demos was how well Android runs on slow devices. TI showed Android on a Motorola Q-like QWERTY handheld with their 200 Mhz OMAP 850 platform, where the user interface felt smooth and fast, even with little Apple-like animated transitions between screens.

Google's Android Makes Its Public Debut - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Novell Delivers Open Collaboration with SiteScape Acquisition

This is a strong combination; see the full press release for details

Novell today announced it has acquired SiteScape, a leader in open source team collaboration, extending Novell's leadership in, and commitment to, innovative and open collaboration solutions. SiteScape, the founder of the ICEcore open source collaboration project, brings impressive team workspace and real-time collaboration capabilities to Novell – key components of a broad unified communications and collaboration strategy. The melding of the two firms creates the industry's clear leader in open, enterprise-strength collaboration and social networking offerings, giving customers powerful, flexible ways to integrate new communications technologies into their environment and drive employee productivity and business innovation.

Novell Delivers Open Collaboration with SiteScape Acquisition