Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Wolfram Alpha May Trump Google

See the full article for more details

Everybody at Wolfram Research characterized the new engine as something complementary to, and not in competition with, Google. (In short: Google uses elaborate means to find you the right Web pages, while Wolfram amasses databases and deploys myriad equations to compute answers for you.)

But that peaceable dynamic changed yesterday when Google announced a data-crunching service of its own, even as Wolfram was giving a demo of his new tool at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. With the new Google service--which is starting in a limited way, with data from the Census and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics--you can do things like enter "unemployment New York" and get a historical chart of that rate, and click to compare the rate of other states and the U.S.

Hmm – finding answers instead of Web pages…

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Wolfram Alpha May Trump Google

Platformonomics - Notes from the Super Heavyweight Bout

A timely reality check from Charles Fitzgerald – read the full post.  The final paragraph:

Microsoft certainly benefited from having a long time window and multiple product cycles to invest in new businesses like the enterprise and entertainment.  Google's window may have been much shorter (and in general I believe Google has followed the Microsoft arc albeit much more compressed.  To prepare for their next act I suggest they "lawyer-up").  They have a great franchise, but they didn't build any new franchises during the land grab.  So they're still fundamentally a one-trick pony.

Platformonomics - Notes from the Super Heavyweight Bout

vowe dot net :: What's happening in Lotus land?

Another timely reality check from Volker Weber

edbrill.com, a private web site, has turned into the only IBM channel that keeps pushing the Notes message. Yes, there are more Lotus blogs and quite a few good ones, but they are not effective. The official IBM/Lotus sites are boring corporate sites that fail to get any excitement across.

But what is the audience of edbrill.com? I may be wrong, but I think it is read by the Lotus faithful for encouragement and morale, and by a few Microserfs for amusement.

I can only admire Ed for what he is doing. But you need more than one man, or a dozen, to win this. If you want to break out of this cycle, you need to do something radically different. Something visible and dazzling.

vowe dot net :: What's happening in Lotus land?

Time Warner Expects to Spin Off AOL - NYTimes.com

The former AOL Time Warner prepares to spin off both AOL and Time; maybe they will rename what’s left “Warner”. Also see “When in Doubt, Spin It Out” for related analysis of both AOL and Skype.

In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner said it was nearing a decision to spin off America Online, and put an end to the travails that began with the merger in 2000 of the two companies, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value.

“Although the company’s board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner’s stockholders, in one or a series of transactions,” the company said in the filing.

Time Warner Expects to Spin Off AOL - NYTimes.com

U.S. Needs to Clarify Cyberwar Plans, Panel Says - NYTimes.com

Disconcerting

The United States has no clear military policy about how the nation might respond to a cyberattack on its communications, financial or power networks, a panel of scientists and policy advisers warned Wednesday, and the country needs to clarify both its offensive capabilities and how it would respond to such attacks.

U.S. Needs to Clarify Cyberwar Plans, Panel Says - NYTimes.com

Tools to sort through the chaos of Twitter - The Boston Globe

See the full article for some Twitter tool tips

None of this is likely to excite my teen, but what do kids know? Research firm ComScore recently found that Twitter is most popular among those ages 45 to 54. Clearly, this is one Internet innovation that's wasted on the young.

Tools to sort through the chaos of Twitter - The Boston Globe

DVR kill the TV-ad star? | The revolution that wasn't | The Economist

A timely TV reality check

“For quite a few years people thought it was going to mean the demise of the television business,” says Alan Wurtzel, president of research at NBC, an American broadcast network. Yet DVRs turn out to have done little damage. Indeed, DVRs (also known as personal video recorders, or PVRs) may even have protected television and made it more conservative.

[…]

Families with DVRs seem to spend 15-20% of their viewing time watching pre-recorded shows, and skip only about half of all advertisements. This means only about 5% of television is time-shifted and less than 3% of all advertisements are skipped. Mitigating that loss, people with DVRs watch more television.

DVR kill the TV-ad star? | The revolution that wasn't | The Economist

Twitter users not sticking around: Nielsen by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

See the full article for more details

More than 60 percent of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research released on Tuesday.

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty," said David Martin, Nielsen Online's vice president for primary research.

Twitter users not sticking around: Nielsen by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

Internet abuzz with swine flu chatter by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

Is this progress?…

"Overheard in a bar: Swine flu is the new Susan Boyle. Still chuckling but I'm not sure why," tweeted a Twitter user by the online name CBCType."

Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who became a sensation after appearing on a television program "Britain's Got Talent," was the hottest topic on Twitter before being bumped from the throne by swine flu.

Internet abuzz with swine flu chatter by AFP: Yahoo! Tech

FT.com / Companies / Technology - Software sales fall by a third at SAP

A stark sign of the times

SAP, the world’s largest maker of business software, on Wednesday painted a bleak picture of corporate spending on information technology when it said that sales of new software fell by a third in the first quarter of the year.

The Walldorf-based company said software sales – an indicator of follow-on sales from upgrades and maintenance – dropped 33 per cent to €418m, while software and maintenance revenues were flat at €1.74bn.

FT.com / Companies / Technology - Software sales fall by a third at SAP

U.S. Opens Inquiry Into Google Books Deal - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog. More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement.

The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department.

U.S. Opens Inquiry Into Google Books Deal - NYTimes.com

Facebook Lets Others Tap Its Information Stream - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Also see the privacy post below…

On Monday, it was Facebook’s turn to make a move in its evolving chess match with Twitter, the rapidly growing micro-blogging service.

The company announced the Facebook Open Stream API, a program that will allow third-party developers to create applications that pull in Facebook “streams” -– the current of status updates, photos and links that members see when they visit the service.

Now we can expect to see a flowering of third-party programs for Facebook for computers and mobile phones, much like programs like Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck are favorites for heavy users of Twitter.

Facebook Lets Others Tap Its Information Stream - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Microsoft Online Services Available for Purchase Worldwide: Accenture, Avanade and EDS, an HP company, each sign Microsoft Online Services agreements; more than 4,000 partners signed on globally.

A significant milestone for Microsoft BPOS; see the full press release for more details

Microsoft Corp. today announced that organizations of all sizes can purchase the Business Productivity Online Suite, a part of Microsoft Online Services. The suite or its individual services, including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting can be purchased by businesses in 19 countries worldwide. The Business Productivity Online Deskless Worker Suite, a low-cost version for occasional users, is also available for purchase. Also starting today, Microsoft is offering a 25 percent discount on the Business Productivity Online Suite to customers who purchase it by the end of June 2009. More information about the services and global availability can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/online.

Microsoft Online Services Available for Purchase Worldwide: Accenture, Avanade and EDS, an HP company, each sign Microsoft Online Services agreements; more than 4,000 partners signed on globally.

In Cyberweapons Race, Questions Linger Over U.S. Offensive Capability - Series - NYTimes.com

Read the full article…

Over the decades, a number of limits on action have been accepted — if not always practiced. One is the prohibition against assassinating government leaders. Another is avoiding attacks aimed at civilians. Yet in the cyberworld, where the most vulnerable targets are civilian, there are no such rules or understandings. If a military base is attacked, would it be a proportional, legitimate response to bring down the attacker’s power grid if that would also shut down its hospital systems, its air traffic control system or its banking system?

“We don’t have that for cyber yet,” one senior Defense Department official said, “and that’s a little bit dangerous.”

In Cyberweapons Race, Questions Linger Over U.S. Offensive Capability - Series - NYTimes.com

Do You Know Where Your Data Is? - WSJ.com

A timely Bruce Schneier reality check; see the full article 

These issues are not identical. RealAge is hiding what it does with your data. Google is trying to both assure you that your data is safe and duck any responsibility when it's not. Facebook wants to market a democracy but run a dictatorship. But they all involve trying to deceive the customer.

Cloud computing services like Google Docs, and social networking sites like RealAge and Facebook, bring with them significant privacy and security risks over and above traditional computing models. Unlike data on my own computer, which I can protect to whatever level I believe prudent, I have no control over any of theses sites, nor any real knowledge of how these companies protect my privacy and security. I have to trust them.

This may be fine -- the advantages might very well outweigh the risks -- but users often can't weigh the trade-offs because these companies are going out of their way to hide the risks.

Do You Know Where Your Data Is? - WSJ.com

Swine flu: Twitter's power to misinform - By Evgeny Morozov | Net Effect

Sign of the times – see the full post for more context-setting

Thus, Unlike basic internet search -- which has been already been nicely used by Google to track emerging flu epidemics -- Twitter seems to have introduced too much noise into the process: as opposed to search requests which are generally motivated only by a desire to learn more about a given subject, too many Twitter conversations about swine flu seem to be motivated by desires to fit in, do what one's friends do (i.e. tweet about it) or simply gain more popularity.

Swine flu: Twitter's power to misinform - By Evgeny Morozov | Net Effect

Yahoo Hires Adobe Vet Lamkin to Run Communications and Communities Unit, as Dietzen Moves to Strategy Post | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

More Zimbra management team changes

Perhaps the most important change to occur is the replacement this week of SVP Scott Dietzen–who been in charge of all communications and communities products at Yahoo (YHOO)–with former Adobe Systems (ADBE) exec Bryan Lamkin, several sources said.

[…]

Dietzen–who sources said is more entrepreneurial than managerial and did not want to lead such a big organization at the Internet giant–will become VP of strategy in the move. Many said they expect he will eventually leave Yahoo to try his hand at another start-up.

Yahoo Hires Adobe Vet Lamkin to Run Communications and Communities Unit, as Dietzen Moves to Strategy Post | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Oracle's surprising takeover of Sun | Mr Ellison helps himself | The Economist

See the full article for more analysis

Finally, the takeover is also a defensive move. Oracle did not want to let IBM get its hands on Java and Solaris, and felt it had to react to what looks more and more like a thorough restructuring of the computer industry. Since the early 1990s the industry has resembled a cake made of horizontal layers of technology, with each layer dominated by a few companies. Cisco, for instance, provided most of the networking gear. Sun and HP sold servers. Oracle was the leader in databases. IBM’s mainstay was services. SAP, a German giant, ruled in business software.

This structure is now collapsing as the industry’s heavyweights move into each other’s layers. HP bulked up its services division by buying EDS, for example, and has also moved more into networking. Cisco will soon start selling servers, and has formed an alliance with several smaller hardware and software firms to build, in effect, a data centre in a box. The industry is, in other words, going back to its past, when it was dominated by a few integrated companies that tried to do it all.

Oracle's surprising takeover of Sun | Mr Ellison helps himself | The Economist

Ferris: More About Lotus Composite Applications

Another timely reality check from Nick Shelness – his summary:

What concerns Ferris is that:

• While composite applications can add value to Notes applications by allowing end users to interact with data in multiple Notes and non-Notes repositories, there is very little (if any) additional Notes functionality being delivered to Notes developers. Does this mean that IBM views Notes/Domino as a “legacy environment,” rather than as a first-level RAD platform? IBM says one thing, and then appears to do another (first Workplace, now Component Applications).
• Notes development for Notes client and browser access was once unified — a Notes Navigator, View, Form, etc., had a similar Notes client and a Web manifestation. Yes some tailoring, by adding HTML fragments, was possible, but this was icing and not cake. IBM has now fragmented Notes/Domino development with separate approaches for Notes clients (Composite Applications) and the Web (Xpages). Ferris believes that if IBM wishes to signal that Notes/Domino is not a “legacy environment” ripe for replacement by Microsoft offerings, it urgently needs a road map that describes how it will reunify Notes/Domino development for Notes Clients and the Web, and then execute to it.
• At one point Lotus Notes/Domino possessed many advantages over Microsoft Outlook/Exchange/SharePoint; for example, shared-nothing redundancy, rapid email dial-tone after a failure, etc. Microsoft has now caught up, and in some areas surpassed Lotus. The two areas in which Lotus still possesses an advantage are: the ability to take documents offline and resynchronize them at a later date (SharePoint currently lacks such a facility), and RAD. IBM needs to bolster this RAD capability if it wishes to protect its Notes/Domino franchise.

Via Duffbert, where there’s an interesting comment thread on the topic

More About Lotus Composite Applications

In Defense of Baby Shaking on the iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Interesting times…

I’m troubled by the way Apple caved into pressure here. Of course this application is deeply offensive, with no redeeming value except to people who like to play gross games or have twisted senses of humor.

But as I wrote in February, the App Store is coming to resemble a bookstore. The applications available there can have political, social or literary content. And we know that one person’s manifesto is another’s heresy, and that your masterpiece may well be trash to me.

Do we want Apple to be able to block applications that include praises for the Palm Pre or criticisms of the salary of Steve Jobs?

In Defense of Baby Shaking on the iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

FT.com / Companies / Technology - Oracle faces culture shock in Sun’s open-source world

More speculation on ORCL/JAVA details:

Most observers do not expect the hard-headed Mr Ellison to see it this way. Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust expert, says there is a chance that anti-trust authorities will force him to divest MySQL, but adds: “I think he wins any way you cut it. If he keeps it, he kills it: if he spins it off, who wants it without the top developers anymore?”

There are some potential limits. Mitch Kapor, a leading figure in the open-source world, points out that MySQL has a life beyond Oracle’s control: the software has already been “forked”, meaning alternative open-source versions have been created that are outside Oracle’s control.

[…]

Yet maintaining Java’s openness, while at the same time directing its future development, will be a delicate balancing act, requiring the exercise of what Bill Whyman, an analyst at ISI, calls “soft power” – not Mr Ellison’s strength.

“We always wanted Java’s evolution to be participatory, but fully open would compromise compatibility,” says Bill Joy, the Sun co-founder and former chief scientist. “I believe Oracle shares these values, so am not concerned.”

FT.com / Companies / Technology - Oracle faces culture shock in Sun’s open-source world

Why I Am Obsessed With Twitter - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

See the full post for a positive Twitter perspective

It’s official. The Oprah effect has worked its magic on Twitter.

Since Oprah Winfrey’s first on-air tweet Friday, traffic to Twitter has jumped 43 percent, according to Hitwise, a Web tracker. And Ryan Block, former editor in chief of Engadget, estimated that more than a million new users joined after Ms. Winfrey called attention to the microblogging service.

Why I Am Obsessed With Twitter - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

What Annoys Me About Twitter - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A timely reality check; see the full article for more details

It appears to be Twitter Day here at The New York Times. My search shows 32 references to the short message service so far today, not including this post. (Earth Day, however, still warrants twice as much coverage.) Among the Times’s takes on Tweeting:

Maureen Dowd sneers that she “would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account.”

Jenna Wortham explains that she is a “fascinated voyeur, transfixed by the streams of bursts, musings, insights and complaints unfurling before my eyes.”

What Annoys Me About Twitter - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

IPhone Sales Push Up Apple’s Profits - NYTimes.com

Looks like anticipatory marketing to me – for a larger form-factor iPod/iPhone device

Apple watchers anticipate that the company will unveil new iPhones at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June and perhaps a tablet device later in the year. Discussing rumors that the company would develop a so-called netbook — a small, low-cost laptop with limited features — Mr. Cook expressed little interest.

“When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens,” he said. “And just not a consumer experience, and not something that we would put the Mac brand on, quite frankly.”

Mr. Cook also said that the iPod Touch or iPhone were worthy alternatives to “small computers that do browsing and e-mail.”

IPhone Sales Push Up Apple’s Profits - NYTimes.com

Advertising - TiVo Promotes Ads It Hopes You’ll Talk To, Not Zap - NYTimes.com

Interesting times – see the full article for details

The company that attacked television advertising is trying to resuscitate it.

TiVo, which allows viewers to digitally record programs and fast-forward through ads, is trying to sell ad spaces on its screens.

Advertising - TiVo Promotes Ads It Hopes You’ll Talk To, Not Zap - NYTimes.com

Paid to Pitch: Product Reviews By Bloggers Draw Scrutiny - WSJ.com

Blurring boundaries

Companies see the freebies and payments to bloggers as a cheap way to boost brand buzz during the recession. But site visitors often don't realize they're reading a promotional pitch. Not all bloggers make clear that they are being compensated to talk up products, if they disclose it at all.

The Internet is becoming so rife with paid blogging that the Federal Trade Commission, which guards against false advertisements, is examining whether it should police bloggers. As it updates nearly 30-year-old advertising guidelines, the FTC is proposing that bloggers, and online marketers and companies that compensate them, be held liable for misleading claims. A decision from the commission is expected this summer. If it approves the guidelines, violations could spur investigations that in turn force bloggers to discontinue deceptive practices. If the deceptions don't stop, the FTC may require companies to repay customers.

Paid to Pitch: Product Reviews By Bloggers Draw Scrutiny - WSJ.com

VMware's Rapid Growth Starts to Stall - WSJ.com

Hmm

Years of growth came to an abrupt halt in the first quarter for VMware Inc., as license revenue for its new software fell for the first time, leading to weak sales growth and a forecast of worse results in the current quarter.

VMware, based in Palo Alto., Calif., said customers remain interested in its virtualization software -- which allows one computer to run multiple operating systems --because of its cost-cutting potential. But Paul Maritz, chief executive officer, said "customers are reducing IT purchases in order to preserve cash." VMware said second-quarter revenue "will be flat or even down."

VMware's Rapid Growth Starts to Stall - WSJ.com

IBM puts Oracle to the sword with EnterpriseDB | The Open Road - CNET News

Hmm…

The bigger news, however, may be IBM's partnership with EnterpriseDB, the commercial backer of the open-source PostgreSQL database, to embed EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Advanced Server technology into IBM's DB2 9.7 database product. EnterpriseDB's technology basically allows applications written for the Oracle database to run on EnterpriseDB's PostgreSQL...and now IBM's DB2.

In other words, through this partnership with EnterpriseDB, IBM has gained the ability to easily migrate customers from Oracle to DB2--seamlessly, painlessly, freely.

IBM puts Oracle to the sword with EnterpriseDB | The Open Road - CNET News

Official Google Blog: Search for "me" on Google

Google goes more social – also see this related NYT story 

To give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name, we've begun to show Google profile results at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. These results offer abbreviated information from user-created Google profiles and a link to the full profiles. We've also added links so it's easy to search for the same name on MySpace, Facebook, Classmates and LinkedIn.

Official Google Blog: Search for "me" on Google

Spreadtweet Makes Twitter Look Like Excel - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times…

Not only is it a clever way to dodge the boss, but Spreadtweet is also a clean, efficient way to send and receive tweets. I use it at home, because its text-only, small-font interface fits each tweet onto one fake row of Excel. I can scan dozens of tweets more quickly than I could with more graphics-happy tools like Digsby or TweetDeck.

Spreadtweet Makes Twitter Look Like Excel - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Is Oracle serious about hardware? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

See the full post for more speculation

Enterprise Irregular Anshu Sharma mentioned on our group mailing list that Oracle may have valued Sun’s hardware business at zero. Yup. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Sharma notes:

• Oracle keeps all software parts of Sun.
• Sells off or shuts down hardware business with bad margins. Perhaps Oracle partner HP would want a few chunks. EMC may want some storage lines. And any chip maker would want the Sparc intellectual property. If the market rebounds private equity may be interested. 
• Oracle would hang on to a few hardware lines to build its uber-database-data center machine. 
• The HP Exadata machine with Oracle keeps going.

Is Oracle serious about hardware? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Microsoft | $7.4 billion Oracle-Sun deal shines light on changing tech world | Seattle Times Newspaper

It’ll be interesting to revisit this observation in a year or two…

A person familiar with IBM's position said the company isn't likely to rebid for Sun. IBM's chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, even threw some competitive dirt on the deal during a conference call to discuss IBM's earnings Monday.

"Oracle and Sun have been partnering for two decades — and what's the result?" Loughridge said. "As I look at this and ask myself, 'What's really changed,' I think, 'nothing.' "

Microsoft | $7.4 billion Oracle-Sun deal shines light on changing tech world | Seattle Times Newspaper

In Sun, Oracle Sees a Software Gem - NYTimes.com

Interesting spin

Executives from the two companies pointed repeatedly to the benefits of this “systems” approach, combining software and hardware. Yet while Sun makes most of its revenue from selling computers, Oracle executives emphasized that they did not regard Sun as a hardware company, which suggests owning factories and large capital investments.

Safra Catz, Oracle’s president, called Sun a “modern technology company” that “outsources nearly all the manufacturing, assembly and servicing of its hardware.”

In Sun, Oracle Sees a Software Gem - NYTimes.com

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - WSJ.com

More on Oracle’s acquisitive ways…

Oracle's Fusion Middleware business is based on Sun's Java language and software, and Oracle said it could now ensure continued investment in the technology. It will also acquire the Solaris operating system, the leading platform for its database business, which is its largest.

Oracle has a history of acquisitions, having made more than 260 deals valued at over $50.5 billion since July 1992, according to FactSet Research. This is Oracle's largest deal since acquiring BEA Systems for $8 billion a year ago.

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - WSJ.com

Oracle to Buy Sun

Official press release – via Sun’s site; excerpt:

"We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined," said Oracle President Safra Catz.

Oracle to Buy Sun

Content Server Error

I’ll have to create a new “irony” post category for this one; here’s what I currently see when I attempt to view the Oracle/Sun press release

Content Server Request Failed

Server is too busy to handle request.

Content Server Error

Customer and Partner Letter | Oracle and Sun

More details – excerpt from the Oracle customer letter:

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms, and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.

Our customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk, and cost by delivering a highly-optimized standards-based product stack. Oracle plans to deliver these benefits by offering a broad range of products, including servers and storage, with all the integrated pieces: hardware operating system, database, middleware and applications. We plan to preserve and enhance investments made by our customers, while we continue to work with our partners to provide customers with choice.

I don’t think the Oracle-from-the-bare-metal-up part of the story will play out – the opportunity costs with strategic partners such as HP is too high, and Sun’s one-time position as a hardware/OS leader has faded over the years

Customer and Partner Letter | Oracle and Sun

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - NYTimes.com

More ORCL/JAVA details

A Oracle-Sun deal disrupts the traditional relationships formed between some of the technology industry’s largest players.

Oracle, for example, has long-standing partnerships with Sun’s rivals, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell. These sellers of server computers work to fine tune Oracle’s database and business software for their computers.

I.B.M., which competes against Oracle in the software market, also comes under new threats with the deal.

My $.02:

• We probably haven’t seen the final chapter in this story yet – it’d make more sense for Oracle to sell off Sun’s hardware business, for example (and HP would be the most logical choice, given the existing HP/Oracle hardware relationship)
• This is an ominous development for IBM, and it’ll be interesting to see if Oracle truly liberates Java and OpenOffice.org

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - NYTimes.com

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - WSJ.com

Hah – definitely a game-changer

Oracle Corp. will buy Sun Microsystems Inc. for $5.6 billion excluding cash and debt, calling Sun's Java "the most important software" it has ever acquired.

Earlier this month, Sun's talks to sell itself to International Business Machines Corp. unraveled, raising new questions about the prospects for the company and Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, who has been under pressure to come up with an alternative for the struggling computer maker.

Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems - WSJ.com

Business & Technology | Amazon says Kindle sales top its 'most optimistic' projections | Seattle Times Newspaper

Impressive, especially given the state of the economy

"Kindle sales have exceeded our most optimistic expectations," Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos wrote shareholders in a letter filed with regulators today.

Although Amazon does not release Kindle sales figures, a couple of analysts have estimated that the device and book downloads could generate between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion by 2010.

Business & Technology | Amazon says Kindle sales top its 'most optimistic' projections | Seattle Times Newspaper

Gmail now knows who you want to e-mail | Webware - CNET

See the full post for details

Google's Gmail Labs has just rolled out a useful, but mildly creepy feature that gives you suggestions on who you should e-mail based on previous conversations. So, if you've had threads going with a group of people, it will recommend some of those folks once you've added at least two addresses in the recipients field. Best part is, they don't even have to be in a group of contacts you've created in Gmail's contacts manager.

Gmail now knows who you want to e-mail | Webware - CNET

With Oprah Onboard, Twitter Grows - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

Some power users, like Andrew Davis, chief strategy officer for TippingPoint Labs, an online marketing company, worry that Twitter’s potential to transform how millions of people communicate online is diminishing as more people use it.

“When someone like Oprah, who is a very smart businesswoman, sees that a new media platform is worthy of her engaging on it, it signifies a real sea change,” he said. “The mega-celebrity marketing machine that is Oprah seems like the next level of adoption.”

Mr. Davis said the service was overflowing with messages, known as tweets, making it hard to filter out the important ones. Indeed, within moments of Ms. Winfrey’s first post, thousands of tweets began flowing through the system each second, welcoming the media mogul to the service.

“People can no longer digest the content,” Mr. Davis said. “You start to think, what am I really getting out of this service?”

With Oprah Onboard, Twitter Grows - NYTimes.com

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Hashmobs

New term of the day – see the full post for context

Hashmobs solve both problems by transferring the flashmob concept into a purely realtime environment. A hashmob is a virtual mob that exists entirely within the Twitter realtime stream. It derives its name not from any kind of illicit pipeweed but from the "hashtags" that are commonly used to categorize tweets. Hashtags take the form of a hash sign, ie, #, in front of a word or word-portmanteau, eg, #obama or #obamadog. The members of a hashmob gather, virtually, around a particular hashtag by labeling each of their tweets with said hashtag and then following the resulting hashtag tweet stream. Hashmobbers don't have to subject themselves to the weather, and they don't actually have to be in proximity to any other physical being. A hashmob is a purely avatarian mob, though it is every bit as prone to the rapid cultivation of mass hysteria as a nonavatarian mob.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Hashmobs

Ferris: LotusLive Has Different On-Prem vs. Extranet Platforms

Another timely LotusLive reality check from Nick Shelness; see the full post

Thus it remains to be seen which of the following customers want:

• A seamless choice between functionally identical on-premise and cloud-based services as is the case with Microsoft’s on-premise server and online service offerings, and IBM’s Domino server and LotusLive Notes service, or
• A wholly new and functionally different offering on-premise and online. This will be the case with IBM’s on-premise servers (Domino, Sametime, QuickR, Connections), and LotusLive Engage.

The jury will be out for some time on this one.

It looks like at least some parts of the jury won’t be out for long; e.g., see this Forrester post: Exchange 2010: Tier Your Workforce, Split Your Domain, Save Money – an excerpt:

Exchange 2010 is the first product that Microsoft has engineered to run as well in the cloud as on-premise. That means it will be easier to split your domain and run a single managed environment (meaning one admin console, one archiving management tool set, one legal hold implementation, one message filtering solution) across an on-premise and cloud-based implementation.

And that means a Fortune-class company can keep its high-volume mailboxes on-premise while taking advantages of the higher degree of automation, direct-attached storage, and new functionality of Exchange 2010. But it can also move occasional users that can get by with a small mailbox and Web email client (which they are probably using at home anyway) to a cloud provider (Microsoft itself, or a provider like USA.NET, AT&T, or LiveOffice.com).

That approach won’t be as practical, for organizations that have to contend with different sets of capabilities, user experience models, and third-party tools, for on-prem and online users.

LotusLive Has Different On-Prem vs. Extranet Platforms

Ferris: About LotusLive

Yeah, remember AT&T Network Notes – that’s probably a good analogy, in terms of the initial-hype-to-eventual-reality index… See the full post for more details.

The key message is that LotusLive is a brand and not a product, and that the LotusLive brand will be applied to both an initial, and an expanding and evolving, set of products. The technology that will form the basis of some of these LotusLive products already exists in Lotus on-premise offerings, and some of these on-premise offerings (Notes/Domino, Sametime, QuickR) are already capable of multitenanted deployment (remember AT&T Network Notes!).

About LotusLive

Antitrust-shy IBM closed to fresh Sun talks • Channel Register

I don’t think that should be future-tense, conditional – i.e., I think the scrutiny happened anyway

So much for playing hardball: IBM is apparently not interested in resuming talks to purchase Sun Microsystems, following their recent break down.

IBM is believed to be concerned about the level of scrutiny a potential acquisition of its smaller hardware and software rival might would draw from regulators.

Antitrust-shy IBM closed to fresh Sun talks • Channel Register

Modest 6% Growth in Revenue for Google - NYTimes.com

Interesting times for Google

The clearest sign of change may be that for the first time in its history, Google’s work force shrank. The company ended the quarter with 20,164 employees, down 58 workers from the end of the year. The decline may be modest, but it is a sharp contrast from just 18 months ago, when Google added more than 2,100 employees in a single quarter.

Google’s rate of growth has slowed in an equally stark fashion as a result of the recession and of Google’s own vast size. Revenue in the first quarter rose just 6 percent to $5.51 billion from $5.2 billion a year ago. First quarter growth was 42 percent in 2008 and 63 percent in 2007.

Modest 6% Growth in Revenue for Google - NYTimes.com

Deal Brings TV Shows and Movies to YouTube - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

But while YouTube, along with other new media properties like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, is seen as leading the challenge against traditional media companies, the company itself is struggling to profit from its digital popularity.

This month, Credit Suisse published a detailed analysis of YouTube’s business, estimating that the site will lose approximately $470 million in 2009, as the costs of bandwidth and storage to stream more than 5 billion clips a month far exceed the revenue YouTube earns from advertising.

Deal Brings TV Shows and Movies to YouTube - NYTimes.com

Twitter Gets the Oprah Treatment - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

What else can be said?…

The woman who can single-handedly send a new product or book flying off the shelves has just joined Twitter. She has not yet written a tweet, but more than 30,000 followers have already signed up to follow her every 140-character thought, and the number is growing. Rumor has it she will write her first tweet on Friday, when she is dedicating her show to Twitter. (It airs at 4 p.m. Eastern time — check your local listings here for details on viewing the show in your area.)

Twitter Gets the Oprah Treatment - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The big company and the cloud

Nick Carr (author of The Big Switch) on the McKinsey cloud research:

The real opportunity that the cloud offers large companies today is as a supplement or complement to their in-house operations rather than as a complete replacement. The cloud model offers a way to gain access to additional computing and storage capacity, particularly to cover fluctuations in demand or carry out a short-term data-crunching exercise, without having to make capital investments in new equipment or hire more workers. The cloud also, of course, provides a way to tap into powerful software-as-a-service applications that can provide substantial savings, not only in equipment and labor but in licensing and maintenance fees, over the cost of installing an in-house application. (The McKinsey analysis ignores those opportunities.)

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The big company and the cloud

The Failure of #amazonfail « Clay Shirky

An outstanding essay from Clay Shirky – read the full post.  Excerpt:

Though the #amazonfail event is important for several reasons, I can’t write about it dispassionately, because I was an enthusiastic participant in its use on Sunday. I was wrong, because I believed things that weren’t true. As bad as that was, though, far worse is the retrofitting of alternate rationales to continue to view Amazon with suspicion, rationales that would not have provoked the outrage we felt had they been all we were asked to react to in the first place.

The Failure of #amazonfail « Clay Shirky

Sun ready to resume IBM takeover talks: report

How considerate of Sun…

Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O) would be willing to resume takeover talks with International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) if IBM made a stronger commitment to closing a deal, Bloomberg said, citing two people familiar with the matter.

But there were no discussions as of Wednesday and each company is waiting for the other to make a move, the sources told the agency.

Sun ready to resume IBM takeover talks: report

IBM Should Ditch Lotus | BNET Technology Blog | BNET

An interesting reality check (via Duffbert, who added insights here); see the full post for more details

The problem for IBM isn’t the quality of its products, or the impressive amount of research it puts into adapting Web-based collaboration for the enterprise (IBM doesn’t break out its research budget by category, but reports an annual R&D budget in excess of $6 billion on research and development). The problem, rather, is its corporate approach to piecing together application suites to suit its own goals rather than customer needs — never mind its clear lack of Web savvy.

(I’ll resist the temptation to add my $.02, since I don’t want to spend the day engaged in blogosphere spats…)

IBM Should Ditch Lotus | BNET Technology Blog | BNET

All That Twitters Isn't Gold: A Popular Web Application in Search of a Business Plan - Knowledge@Wharton

More Twitter analysis – see the full article for details; excerpt:

But Wharton faculty argue that Twitter's best future may be as part of a larger service. Indeed, Facebook and Twitter have already partially integrated their services; Twitterers who also use the Facebook service can have their Tweets delivered as Facebook status updates. Salesforce.com, which makes on-demand customer relationship management software, has integrated Twitter into its application. And Matwyshyn says Twitter would make a lot of sense as part of Google's Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Twitter, however, may turn out a lot like ICQ, Fader suggests. An instant messaging service, ICQ garnered 13 million users in just 18 months and AOL pounced to expand its customer base. "ICQ is a perfect analogy for Twitter. You do one cute thing you couldn't do before, but it can't stand alone," says Fader. "I'm not knocking ICQ: Those guys made a lot of money for their idea."

All That Twitters Isn't Gold: A Popular Web Application in Search of a Business Plan - Knowledge@Wharton

When Cloud Computing Doesn’t Make Sense - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

On a related note, see this week’s InformationWeek cover story, Why 'Private Cloud' Computing Is Real -- And Worth Considering 

The McKinsey study, “Clearing the Air on Cloud Computing,” concludes that outsourcing a typical corporate data center to a cloud service would more than double the cost. Its study uses Amazon.com’s Web service offering as the price of outsourced cloud computing, since its service is the best-known and it publishes its costs. On that basis, according to McKinsey, the total cost of the data center functions would be $366 a month per unit of computing output, compared with $150 a month for the conventional data center.

“The industry has assumed the financial benefits of cloud computing and, in our view, that’s a faulty assumption,” said Will Forrest, a principal at McKinsey, who led the study.

When Cloud Computing Doesn’t Make Sense - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Dell Still Struggles; H.P. and Acer Grow - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

See the full article for more stats

In the United States, Apple’s shipments fell 1.2 percent from the same period a year ago. As a result, Apple’s market share fell to 7.4 percent from 7.6 percent, IDC said. (Apple’s worldwide sales are not big enough to be tracked by IDC.)

Broadly, IDC reported that the personal computer industry was showing somewhat more resilience during this downturn than it had during past downturns. Overall PC shipments fell 7.1 percent compared with the same quarter a year ago (not including x86 servers). It would have been worse, IDC said, but for one key growing business: mini notebooks (or netbooks, if you prefer).

Dell Still Struggles; H.P. and Acer Grow - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

CNN acquires leading Twitter account | Digital Media - CNET News

Sign of the times…

CNN gained nearly a million Twitter followers on Wednesday when it acquired the @cnnbrk Twitter account.

The account, the largest on Twitter with more than 947,000 followers, had been maintained and nurtured by James Cox. CNN did not disclose financial details of the acquisition, probably because rules at the microblogging site prohibit the selling of Twitter accounts.

The acquisition comes as the race to 1 million Twitter followers heats up. As of Wednesday afternoon, Ashton Kutcher was in second place with 917,000 followers, followed closely by Britney Spears, who has about 913,000 followers.

CNN acquires leading Twitter account | Digital Media - CNET News

A Video Prank at Domino’s Damages Its Brand - NYTimes.com

Another social media reality check; read the full article for details

In social media, “if you think it’s not going to spread, that’s when it gets bigger,” said Scott Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of the social-media marketing firm Lotame. “We realized that when many of the comments and questions in Twitter were, ‘What is Domino’s doing about it’ ” Mr. McIntyre said. “Well, we were doing and saying things, but they weren’t being covered in Twitter.”

By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening.

“It elevated to a point where just responding isn’t good enough,” Mr. McIntyre said.

A Video Prank at Domino’s Damages Its Brand - NYTimes.com

Twitter Spreads Scoops — and Falsehoods - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

My $.02: the entire Twitter #amazonfail incident is a multifaceted and ominous example of what can happen when micro-blogging information access isn’t combined with information quality and information literacy.  See the full NYT blog post for more details.

The Twitterati have long marveled at how effective the micro-blogging service is at spreading the news, 140 characters at a time. The crash of a US Airways Airbus in the Hudson in January is Exhibit 1, but there are many other examples.

Not surprisingly, Twitter is equally efficient at spreading misinformation.

Over the weekend, Amazon faced a Twitter-driven storm of criticism after gay-themed books disappeared from its sales rankings, leading to accusations of bigotry and censorship. Somewhere along the way, a hacker claimed responsibility for the incident and posted a description of how he did it. Pretty quickly the claims were reverberating through the Twittersphere, where plenty of people, though by no means all, took the claims at face value.

Twitter Spreads Scoops — and Falsehoods - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Will JoltID Turn EBay’ Dream of Skype IPO Into a Nightmare?

The plot thickens – see the full post for more details

Unfortunately, there are some problems eBay will need to address in order to make this IPO happen.  Lately, there have been rumors of a buyout offer coming from the founders Niklas Zennstrom & Janus Friis, along with a consortium of buyout funds that includes KKR, Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus. That news comes after JoltID, a company controlled by Niklas and Janus sued Skype over issue of core P2P technology. Skype/EBay later filed a counter suit. Having followed Skype for a long time, I know for sure that this is a big deal and any plans of an IPO can be derailed by this litigation.

In a post back in 2006, I had pointed out that this core technology wasn’t part of the Skype-eBay transaction.

Will JoltID Turn EBay’ Dream of Skype IPO Into a Nightmare?

Spam E-mails Killing the Environment, McAfee Report Says by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Creative “green” marketing award candidate…

"When you look at it from an individual user perspective you're only talking about 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per spam message," said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee's Avert Labs, in a telephone interview. "When you extrapolate the math out to the larger numbers, it definitely is significant."

The McAfee report, which was written by consulting company ICF International, said the estimated 62 trillion spam e-mail that get sent each year consume 33 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power 2.4 million homes. In addition, spam e-mail releases as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as 3.1 million cars consuming 2 billion gallons of gasoline.

Spam E-mails Killing the Environment, McAfee Report Says by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

Hackers grabbed more than 285M records in 2008 by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Check the full article for more details

Hackers made off with at least 285 million electronic records in 2008, more than in the four previous years combined, according to a new study that shows identity thieves are getting better at exploiting careless mistakes that leave companies vulnerable to attack.

The number comes from a study of 90 data breaches investigated by Verizon Communications Inc., which is hired to do a post-mortem on most big computer intrusions.

Hackers grabbed more than 285M records in 2008 by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Project California: a Data Center Virtualization Server - UCS (Unified Computing System) by Silvano Gai, Tommi Salli, Roger Andersson (Book) in Engineering

A new self-published book by Cisco employees -- that will probably be very popular with Cisco competitors

This book contains a detailed description of Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) a Data Center Server designed for virtualized applications, with large memory footprint and Unified I/O.

Project California: a Data Center Virtualization Server - UCS (Unified Computing System) by Silvano Gai, Tommi Salli, Roger Andersson (Book) in Engineering

Business & Technology | Former P-I journalists launch online news site | Seattle Times Newspaper

Another journalism sign of the times…

Laid-off Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalists today launched a nonprofit online news site, Seattlepostglobe.org.

Former P-I reporter Kery Murakami — "I guess I'm the publisher" — said he and a half-dozen other former P-I journalists form the core staff, but more than 20 other reporters, photographers and editors have said they intend to contribute.

[…]

Part of the new site's purpose is to give former P-I journalists both hope and an outlet, Murakami said. "We want them to know that it's not over, that you can still write for us, even if you have to get a job at Wal-Mart," he said.

Business & Technology | Former P-I journalists launch online news site | Seattle Times Newspaper

Use of Web Tracking Tool Raises Privacy Issue in Britain - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

The European Commission threatened Britain with sanctions on Tuesday for allowing an Internet service provider to use a new advertising technology to track the Web movements of customers.

The European telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, said that use of a tracking tool created by Phorm violated European privacy laws. The country’s largest service provider, BT, acknowledged last April that it used the tool without customers’ consent in 2006 and 2007, Ms. Reding said.

Use of Web Tracking Tool Raises Privacy Issue in Britain - NYTimes.com

EBay plans initial offering for Skype unit - The Boston Globe

An interesting negotiating tactic (with Skype’s co-founders, who reportedly want to acquire the company back from eBay)

EBay Inc., operator of the most-visited US e-commerce site, is planning an initial public offering for its Skype unit, which it bought in 2005 for $2.6 billion.

The IPO is slated for the first half of 2010, though the timing will depend on market conditions, the San Jose, Calif., company said yesterday in a statement. EBay wrote down the value of the acquisition to $1.2 billion in 2007.

EBay plans initial offering for Skype unit - The Boston Globe

Business & Technology | Fast-growing Twitter tormented by a worm | Seattle Times Newspaper

Growing pains…

An obnoxious computer program that barged into Twitter's mishmash of Internet chatter served as another reminder of the challenges facing the rapidly growing service.

The nettlesome program, known as a worm, targeted Twitter's network with four different attacks starting early Saturday and ending early Monday, according to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

The worm was set up to promote a Twitter knockoff, StalkDaily.com. It displayed unwanted messages on infected Twitter accounts, urging people to visit the Web site.

Business & Technology | Fast-growing Twitter tormented by a worm | Seattle Times Newspaper

Finding Utility in the Jumble of Tweeted Thoughts - NYTimes.com

A timely Twitter reality check – read the full article for details

Individually, many of those 140-character “tweets” seem inane.

But taken collectively, the stream of messages can turn Twitter into a surprisingly useful tool for solving problems and providing insights into the digital mood. By tapping into the world’s collective brain, researchers of all kinds have found that if they make the effort to dig through the mundane comments, the live conversations offer an early glimpse into public sentiment — and even help them shape it.

Finding Utility in the Jumble of Tweeted Thoughts - NYTimes.com

EBay Unloads StumbleUpon - WSJ.com

Looks like a new trading pattern for eBay

EBay Inc. has sold recommendation engine StumbleUpon, a move likely to heighten speculation the struggling e-commerce giant may soon move to unload Internet-telephony unit Skype.

EBay, which bought StumbleUpon two years ago for $75 million, said it had become apparent there are few long-term, strategic synergies between StumbleUpon and eBay's other units. The San Jose, Calif., company didn't disclose how much it sold StumbleUpon for.

EBay Unloads StumbleUpon - WSJ.com

Wikipedia for Spies: The CIA Discovers Web 2.0 - TIME

Sign of the times

There's a quiet revolution underway at the CIA and its sister agencies. A new generation of analysts, determined to drag their Cold War–era colleagues into the world of Web 2.0 information-sharing, have created Intellipedia, a classified version of Wikipedia they say is transforming the way U.S. spy agencies handle top-secret information by fostering collaboration across Washington and around the world. Rolled out in 2006 to skeptical veterans at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Intellipedia has grown to a 900,000-page magnum opus of espionage, handling some 100,000 user accounts and 5,000 page edits a day, according to the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Wikipedia for Spies: The CIA Discovers Web 2.0 - TIME

Sun exec slams Google over App Engine's Java support

Maybe Sun would be okay with it if Google promised to keep it suffixed “Beta” indefinitely?…

Google Inc. committed a major transgression by only including support for a subset of Java classes in its cloud-based App Engine development platform, according to Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s chief open-source officer.

"Whether you agree with Sun policing it or not, Java compatibility has served us all very well for over a decade," Phipps wrote in a blog post on Saturday. "That includes being sure as a developer that all core classes are present on all platforms. Creating subsets of the core classes in the Java platform was forbidden for a really good reason, and it's wanton and irresponsible to casually flaunt the rules."

Sun exec slams Google over App Engine's Java support

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google in the middle

Another insightful post from Nicholas Carr; read the full post for analysis of the consequences, e.g., for newspaper publishers

For much of the first decade of the Web's existence, we were told that the Web, by efficiently connecting buyer and seller, or provider and user, would destroy middlemen. Middlemen were friction, and the Web was a friction-removing machine.

We were misinformed. The Web didn't kill mediators. It made them stronger. The way a company makes big money on the Web is by skimming little bits of money off a huge number of transactions, with each click counting as a transaction. (Think trillions of transactions.) The reality of the web is hypermediation, and Google, with its search and search-ad monopolies, is the king of the hypermediators.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google in the middle

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » The Sun Also Sets - Cringely on technology

A timely Cringely snapshot – read the full post 

Schwartz and Sun have a pretty high opinion of themselves despite years of losses.  So they walked away from IBM’s last offer.  But don’t expect them to stay away for long.  There simply isn’t another buyer for the whole thing and Sun doesn’t have the patience to cut itself into pieces.

And the real price IBM will be paying is at least $2 billion less than you read in the newspaper, because Sun – like a lot of tech companies – has profits stashed overseas that it has been unable to bring back.

IBM knows how to play that game, too.

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » The Sun Also Sets - Cringely on technology

Technology Review: Gmail Sidesteps the App Store

See the full article for more details on this HTML 5-enabled theme

More significant than the interface, however, is the underlying technology that enables it. Google took advantage of features of the browsers running on both platforms to create a Web application that looks and feels like one that has been downloaded onto the device. Representatives from Google claim that this is just the beginning. The company hopes that the new mobile Gmail will kick-start a trend in mobile Web apps with developers using the Internet to build and deploy more powerful applications.

According to some analysts, this approach to mobile development could have large implications for the way that developers distribute their software and the way that people buy it. It's even possible that more-powerful mobile Web apps could undercut some of the business of Apple's App Store, says Chetan Sharma, an analyst who runs his own consulting firm in Issaquah, WA.

Technology Review: Gmail Sidesteps the App Store

Electronic health records raise doubt - The Boston Globe

See the full article for a timely record-keeping reality check

DeBronkart eventually discovered the problem: Some of the information in his Google Health record was drawn from billing records, which sometimes reflect imprecise information plugged into codes required by insurers. Google Health and others in the fast-growing personal health record business say they are offering a revolutionary tool to help patients navigate a fragmented healthcare system, but some doctors fear that inaccurate information from billing data could lead to improper treatment.

Electronic health records raise doubt - The Boston Globe

AP source: Spies compromised US electric grid by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Yikes

Spies hacked into the U.S. electric grid and left behind computer programs that would let them disrupt service, exposing potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities in key pieces of national infrastructure, a former U.S. government official said Wednesday.

The intrusions were discovered after electric companies gave the government permission to audit their systems, the ex-official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

AP source: Spies compromised US electric grid by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Distracting are Social Media Tools?

Hmm – see the full post for more details

On the surface, it seems like tags should be helpful, Budiu said, since they increase a user's engagement with an article. In addition to reading, the user considers what tags to give it and enters them. It sounds similar to highlighting key passages of a textbook, or making notes in the margin. So why should they reduce recall?

Budiu found that adding tags cut into the time that each user spent actually reading an article in the first place. In other words, paying attention to tags came at the cost of paying attention to the text.

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Distracting are Social Media Tools?

What Could Microsoft Want With a Chip Guy? - Digits - WSJ

Interesting times…

It’s not too surprising that microprocessor guru Marc Tremblay has decided to leave Sun Microsystems, which was experiencing challenges and executive departures well before the brouhaha over stalled takeover talks with IBM. More intriguing is the fact that he is going to Microsoft, which is not exactly a center of chip design.

Tremblay, in an email, referred questions to a spokeswoman for Microsoft. She could only provide a statement with a few boiler-plate facts about his new job: He will hold the title of distinguished engineer in the “strategic software/silicon architectures” group under Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer.

What Could Microsoft Want With a Chip Guy? - Digits - WSJ

Skype moves in on cellphone industry - The Boston Globe

I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the iPhone is not a great phone…

Skype makes software for Wi-Fi-equipped smartphones using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system, but like Windows Mobile, the software has never caught fire. Two other iPhone programs, Nimbuzz and Fring, also enable Wi-Fi calls over the Skype network; neither has gained much traction. But since Skype unveiled its software for the Wi-Fi-capable iPhone nine days ago, customers have downloaded more than 2 million copies of the free program. That means about 12 percent of the world's 17 million iPhone users downloaded Skype in less than two weeks.

Skype moves in on cellphone industry - The Boston Globe

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spam overwhelms e-mail messages

See the full article for more scary stats

More than 97% of all e-mails sent over the net are unwanted, according to a Microsoft security report.

The e-mails are dominated by spam adverts for drugs, and general product pitches and often have malicious attachments.

The report found that the global ratio of infected machines was 8.6 for every 1,000 uninfected machines.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Spam overwhelms e-mail messages

Twitter Traffic Explodes...And Not Being Driven by the Usual Suspects! (comScore Voices)

More Twitter stats; see the full article for additional details

Over the past several months, we at comScore have watched how quickly traffic to Twitter has exploded. Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago. The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors. U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.

Twitter Traffic Explodes...And Not Being Driven by the Usual Suspects! (comScore Voices)

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Ashton Kutcher first with 1 Million followers on Twitter

Still waiting for meme-burst on this one…

Twitter traffic is exploding. Ashton Kutcher @aplusk will likely be the first Twitter user to have 1 Million followers. When I first wrote about Celebs on Twitter two weeks ago Ashton Kutcher had 521,469 followers. Today he has 753,168. At this rate he will have 1M followers by April 21st. ComScore says “Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% versus a year ago.”. Only Facebook, MySpace, Napster, and a few others have seen growth rates like Twitter.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Ashton Kutcher first with 1 Million followers on Twitter

Google Insists It’s a Friend to Newspapers - NYTimes.com

Nothing like a friendly monopolist…  See the full article for more details.

In his speech, Mr. Schmidt encouraged publishers to create more personalized news products that could be delivered effectively on the Web, cellphones and other devices. “We think we can build a business — again, with you guys — with significant advertising resources, where the advertising is targeted to the content,” he said. He acknowledged that many publishers were increasingly thinking about charging for their content, and said he expected the newspaper industry to eventually resemble television, where some content was free, some was purchased by subscription and some was paid for every time it was viewed. But he said he expected that advertising would remain the leading revenue model in online media.

Google Insists It’s a Friend to Newspapers - NYTimes.com

Windows IT Pro: Windows Kicks Linux Out of Netbook Market

A timely market dynamics reality check; see the full article for more details

It's official: Windows dominates the netbook market, too. Just a year after the netbook phenomenon threatened to provide Linux with an inroad to the lucrative consumer market, Windows now dominates that market. A year ago, Windows accounted for less than 10 percent of the netbook market. But today, market researchers at NPD say Windows ships on a whopping 96 percent of netbooks.

[…]

But it's even worse for Linux than is immediately obvious. Not only are consumers overwhelmingly choosing Windows, but those who do get a Linux-based netbook are four times more likely to return it to the store than those who get a device running Windows

Windows Kicks Linux Out of Netbook Market

Data Center Strategies: IBM and Sun: On Again, Off Again Relationship

See the full post for some insights from Burton Group Research Director Drue Reeves (preview: Dell and Cisco top his list)

Personally, I don't think we've heard the end of this deal. IBM really doesn't want Sun to fall into HP, Dell, or Cisco's hands. Sun really doesn't want to go-it-alone until another suitor arrives.

Last time I posted a blog on this deal, I described what this meant for other server vendors in this market. Given this situation, let's do that again.

I continue to believe a joint HP/Oracle deal would make the most sense, but whoever ends up acquiring and dismantling Sun is going to have to first get over having to give a big cash pay-out to the Sun senior management team that dragged the company into its precarious present position

Data Center Strategies: IBM and Sun: On Again, Off Again Relationship

Some Pirates Won’t Watch Illegal ‘Wolverine’ - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Nice spin attempt…

Some movie blogs, such as Ain’t It Cool News, are refusing to run reviews of the raw footage, while some members in the BitTorrent community, where illicit copies are circulating, are encouraging each other to see the movie when it opens in May.

For example, one commentator on Releaselog, a popular blog among the file-sharing community, wrote : “i think it’s worthy of being seen the right way in the theatre. everyone should support this movie and help it get a massive take making it look like the leak actually helped it.” A commentator on SuperHeroHype, a forum geared toward comic book fans, wrote: “The workprint did nothing but make me want to see the final completed version even more.”

… but the bottom line remains:

It’s hard to tell how exactly the premature distribution will affect the film’s performance in the long run. As my colleague Brian Stelter pointed out, online viewers make up a tiny percentage of the total audience. Either way, the troubling and costly leak is likely to provide fresh ammunition to the crackdown on digital piracy of content.

Some Pirates Won’t Watch Illegal ‘Wolverine’ - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Wall Street Journal, AP take aim at Google | Digital Media - CNET News

See the full article for more details

There's tough talk coming from managers at The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press that include threats of legal challenges and even name calling.

"There is no doubt that certain Web sites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet," Robert Thomson, the Journal's editor, was quoted in Australian newspaper The Australian on Monday. "It's certainly true that readers have been socialized--wrongly I believe--that much content should be free...And there is no doubt that's in the interest of aggregators like Google who have profited from that mistaken perception. And they have little incentive to recognize the value they are trading on that's created by others."

Wall Street Journal, AP take aim at Google | Digital Media - CNET News

Bloggers rally to back paper - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times…

Nearly 20 bloggers launched a "blog rally" to support The Boston Globe and seek ideas to help the financially struggling newspaper, threatened with a shutdown by its owner, The New York Times Co.

(Twitter-Aid can’t be far behind)

Bloggers rally to back paper - The Boston Globe

The Messaging is The Medium: survey results are in • The Register

See the full article for more details

Figure 1: The relative importance of various email/messaging platforms to corporates

Despite attempts to refresh the Lotus brand with a combination of new Notes and Domino releases as well as a plethora of related products such as Sametime, Quickr, Connections and Symphony, it looks as if the ‘legacy’ tag is still hanging round IBM’s neck like a millstone. Compared with Microsoft, it also happens to score very low on the ‘becoming important to us’ rating as, indeed, do GroupWise and ‘other’. It’s dangerous to draw conclusions from such slight signals, but the signs at the moment bode ill for anyone other than Microsoft.

The Messaging is The Medium: survey results are in • The Register

Business & Technology | Cisco takes bold action amid a down economy | Seattle Times Newspaper

See the full article for a timely Cisco snapshot

Cisco has not been spared by the recession. Its profit declined 27 percent in its last quarter, which ended in late January, and it reported flat earnings in the previous period. It is slashing more than $1 billion in expenses, partly by cutting back on travel and freezing hiring.

Yet it also has $29.5 billion in cash and investments, a solid reputation, a network of product re-sellers and thousands of sales employees — assets that the company hopes to exploit.

Business & Technology | Cisco takes bold action amid a down economy | Seattle Times Newspaper

I.B.M. Withdraws $7 Billion Offer for Sun Microsystems - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

Since last year, Sun executives had been meeting with potential buyers. I.B.M. stepped up, seeing an opportunity to add to its large software business, acquire valuable researchers and consolidate the market for data center hardware.

In their talks, I.B.M. and Sun had a contract to deal with each other exclusively. Now Sun is free to pursue other suitors, including I.B.M. rivals like H.P. and Cisco Systems. Cisco recently entered the market for server computers.

I.B.M. Withdraws $7 Billion Offer for Sun Microsystems - NYTimes.com

IBM Talks Teeter as Sun Board Splits - WSJ.com

About to join the Jerry Yang club?…

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, said the Sun "board is going to have a lot of explaining to do if they turned down an offer of $9.40 a share," noting Sun's recent stock lows and the deteriorating outlook for tech spending. He added that the public disclosure of the talks with IBM "casts uncertainty among customers about Sun's future."

In Silicon Valley, rivals poked fun at IBM for pursuing the fading company. But IBM -- whose earnings have grown $5 billion since 2004 to $12.34 billion last year -- has been outpacing most of Silicon Valley recently, and would stand to leverage Sun into even more gains. Adding Sun's $13 billion in sales would put IBM neck-and-neck with Hewlett-Packard Co. as the world's largest information-technology purveyor, with combined revenues of $117 billion and 41% of the $50 billion server market.

IBM Talks Teeter as Sun Board Splits - WSJ.com

IBM-Sun merger said to be in doubt - The Boston Globe

The plot thickens…

IBM Corp. over the weekend withdrew its offer to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. for about $7 billion, clouding the prospects for a deal that would have shaken up the computing industry.

Talks were in the final stages, but IBM took its offer off the table after Sun terminated IBM's status as its exclusive negotiating partner, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity. One of the people said the two sides were still meeting yesterday.

IBM-Sun merger said to be in doubt - The Boston Globe

Official Google Blog: 5 years of Gmail

Maybe in another five years or so Google will also remove the “beta” suffix…

Today's email problems are different than the problems people had five years ago, and Gmail's most demanding users continue to push it to its limits. We're getting more mail and communicating in more ways than ever before. Web browsers are getting faster and offering functionality that people could only dream of in 2004. We expect the changes over the next five years to be even more radical than those of the past five.

Official Google Blog: 5 years of Gmail

Business & Technology | YouTube set to lose $470M; most ad spots going unsold | Seattle Times Newspaper

See the full article for more speculative analysis

For a site that generates as much online traffic as YouTube, it would seem a no-brainer that profit is streaming in.

But according to a Credit Suisse analyst, the most popular video Web site — owned by the richest Web site Google — will lose $470 million this year because it sells advertising only on a fraction of its pages.

Business & Technology | YouTube set to lose $470M; most ad spots going unsold | Seattle Times Newspaper

Google Claims Orphan Books, Raising Alarm in Academia - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for more details.

Now millions of orphan books may get a new legal guardian. Google has been scanning the pages of those books and others as part of its plan to bring a digital library and bookstore, unprecedented in scope, to computer screens across the United States.

But a growing chorus is complaining that a far-reaching settlement of a suit brought against Google by publishers and authors is about to grant the company too much power over orphan works.

[…]

Proceeds from the program, including advertising revenue from Google’s book search service, will be split; Google will take 37 percent, and authors and publishers will share the rest. Google will also help set up a Book Rights Registry, run by authors and publishers, to administer rights and distribute payments.

Google Claims Orphan Books, Raising Alarm in Academia - NYTimes.com

Times Co. threatens to shut Globe; seeks $20m in cuts from unions - The Boston Globe

Another sad sign of the Times

The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut The Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said yesterday.

[…]

The newspaper industry, which had already been struggling as readers and advertisers moved to the Internet, has been hard hit by the recession, and the Globe is no exception. The newspaper's advertising revenues have declined sharply in recent years; once robustly profitable, it is now losing money.

This week, the Globe newsroom completed cutting the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs. But the deteriorating economy has made the Globe's financial outlook much worse. Management told union leaders Thursday that the Globe will lose $85 million in 2009 unless serious cutbacks are made, according to a Globe employee briefed on the discussions. Last year the paper lost an estimated $50 million, the employee said.

Times Co. threatens to shut Globe; seeks $20m in cuts from unions - The Boston Globe