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The tragedy of Java's success
As James Gosling set out to create the hugely popular Java programming language, he also created a monster, he said in interview with vnunet.com.
For as a Vice President with Sun Microsystems in charge of Java, he has little time to spend coding or working on the actual software:
"[My hands] both itch and I have this sense of tragedy. Because there are only 24 hours in a day. How do you ever decide what to do? There are all kinds of things that are crying out to be played with," Gosling says in the interview.
"But I sneak in a fair amount of coding. Mostly I do little things. Because getting on the critical line for any product is bad idea for me. I get pulled off to do other things, I can't make deadlines. I've done an application that I did a while a go for slide shows, for doing Power Point. But it's rather different than Power Point. I hack on that one a lot. Just for the hell of it."
Really, if it were up to Gosling, he would be working on 3D graphics. He true passion calls. The question is when the call will get loud enough for him to leave Sun. 
Gosling (right) last month at Java's 10th birthday party on Sun Microsystem's Santa Clara campus. Next to Gosling: Jonathan Schwartz (Chief Operating Officer) and Duke, the java mascotte.
An open source advocate loses his faith
A sense of realism seems to be settling down in the open source arena, as some of the gold diggers start to realise that the two words by themselves aren't magical. Nor will they "just" deliver sustainable businesses.
"Open source as a business model, in isolation, is pretty much unsustainable," Larry McVoy told Forbes.com. McVoy has been working with Likux since 1992 and currently is chief executive officer for BitMover, a developer of a software development tool for Linux called BitKeeper.
Although the application isn't open source, the company used to give its product away for free. But not for much longer: as of this June developers are charged a licence fee.
"We believe if we open sourced our product, we would be out of business in six months," McVoy told Forbes. "The bottom line is you have to build a financially sound company with a well-trained staff. And those staffers like their salaries. If everything is free, how can I make enough money to keep building that product for you and supporting you?"
Unfortunately for McVoy, his company's failure to make money from his product might say more about his business skills than it does about open source.
The secret behind creating a successful open source company isn't that much different from the secret behind creating an op open source company in general: offer better functionalities than the competition, good support, and in the case of open source: gather a community that is willing to help out with development.
Red Hat, Novell and MySQL will tell you that it isn't impossible.
McVoy seems to be on the right path to finding the answer however, he just needs a little more help. "Open source software is like handing you a doctor's bag and the architectural plans for a hospital and saying, 'Hey dude, if you have a heart attack, here are all the tools you need--and it's free' I'd rather pay someone to take care of me."
Just replace open source with "failed software."
The old world: a safe haven for hackers
European PC users have won the honourable title of caring the least about security. Data from CipherTrust shows that Europe leads the way in the number of zombie PCs: 26 per cent of all PCs infected are located there, followed by the US (20 per cent) and China (15 per cent).
Zombie PCs are computers that have been infected by a worm or virus and are at the control of hackers. They rent them out to send spam or launch DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.
It's an embarrassing result for Europe, especially because there are some simple ways to prevent your computer from being turned into a zombie. Praying is one of them, followed by running anti virus software, a firewall and staying up to date with the latest patches.
Oh, and don't open every email attachment that promises pictures of naked 16 year old girls.
Do you want some hype with your storage?
Somehow it appears that we have to care a great deal about the next generation of DVD disks. The Blu-ray vs. HD DVD was is in full swing as Iomega entered the stage with a disk that promises to store as much as 800 Gbytes – about 94 times as much as current generation DVDs and double the capacity of Blu-ray or HD-DVD.
Consumers need all this storage for our movies, claim the technologists behind all these standards. Never mind that a high definition movie fits nicely on any of the next generation disks.
Think bonus features, the marketing guys will argue. Ah, yes. The joy of watching the movie while you can hear the sound guys talk about the blasts and punches. Fascinating. 800 Gigs of sheer joy.
Forget all the talk about "user benefits". This discussion revolves around licence revenues and hardware sales. A new DVD standard means we all have to go out and buy new DVD players.
I don't blame Iomega for wanting to make a buck – they we hit relentlessly when the CD-rom burners made their Zip-drive business disappear and have been wandering ever since. Just don't expect me to embrace a standard that was created with financial health the optical storage industry in mind.
What can a software engineer learn from a real estate architect?
If architects would design buildings the way software architects create software, we would be in for a big mess with buildings crashing left and right just because you happen to open the wrong door at the wrong time.
How can we get some of the architectural expertise and apply it to software design? Start with the educational system, argues Oracle's Chief Security Officer Mary Ann Davidson in an interview with Computing.
"I would like to see university programmes certified so you couldn't get out until you could prove at least basic secure coding. You couldn't do that in civil engineering. Look at architects, for example. They can design the most amazing buildings, but they're also secure. I didn't walk into this building today and wonder if it was going to fall down."
Software companies are making progress here by the way, at least that's what Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told students at Stanford University earlier this month.
Mary Ann Davidson. Photo: Oracle
Sex hungry cop opened the door for Lexis Nexis hack
Over on the Security Watchdog Blog:
Sex hungry cop opened the door for Lexis Nexis hack
Nokia's useless non-phone
Phone maker Nokia has launched a Linux powered tablet-like device. The appliance is designed for browsing the internet and reading email. An on screen keyboard allows for text input.
It connects to the internet through a build in WiFi radio or uses to a mobile phone's data connection via Bluetooth. It however doesn't have a radio for cellular networks.
If it weren't running Linux, this would have been an utterly lame device. At least now it still some minor cool factor. It allows developers to create their own applications through the "Maemo" platform that Nokia created.
But I can't think of a single scenario where this device would come in and save the day, or at least where a PDA, smartphone or laptop wouldn't suffice.
So please tell me, dear readers, if you think the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is worth $350 - and if so what it would allow you to do that you can't do today.
Photo credit: Nokia
TiVo feels the free factor
TiVo has had to learn this the hard way: great technology by itself won't break through – you still have to give it away for free to get user adoption.
At least that's what appears to be the logical conclusion from an In-Stat study that saw 2004 shipments of personal video records (PVRs) surge by 147 percent to 11.4 million.
Increased consumer awareness is the driving force behind the rise, the researchers claim, but not without cable and satellite providers giving away the devices for free. And they also happen to have slashed the subscription costs for the devices.
A PVR automatically record television shows and allow consumers to easily skip commercials. It also lets users rewind a live television show, a much appreciated feature when Janet Jackson flashed a breast during the 2004 Super Bowl half time show (warning: link contains picture of covered nipple).
It’s the mobile phone all over again. No matter how great your technology is, it helps a lot to give away the required devices.
Microsoft opens the door for pirates
As Microsoft is readying its "Windows Genuine Advantage" technology that will prevent access to some updates for users of illegal copies of Windows, it turns out that there is a fairly easy way to circumvent the technology.
The technology requires users to run an application. After it has determined that you're using a legitimately licensed copy of Windows, you'll receive an authentication code. Enter the code in a form on the Microsoft website and your system is authorised for the rest of its life.
Now grab your notebooks: the workaround allows you use the authorisation code on any computer, just do it within a few hours, because the code expires "quickly", a Microsoft spokesperson told vnunet.com.
Because code has limited use (it expires), Microsoft doesn't plan to fix the workaround, he said.
Users however can circumvent the expiration time by setting changing the system time on their computer, claims security expert Debasis Mohanty in a posting on a security email list. Just make sure you write down when you requested the original authorisation code.
PalmSource CEO gone or not?
For a chief executive that was fired just last Sunday, PalmSource's David Nagel didn't mind taking the stage at the Palmsource Mobile Summit and Developer's Conference.
Nalgel's appearance was intended to send a message that all is well and that there is consistency in the company that is currently struggling for consistency.
"I didn't expect it to be like this," Nagel said as he walked on the stage. "No, not in that way," he was quick to add, referring to his recent resignation. Instead he explained that the event drew a crowd much larger than he had expected.
References to his departure were pasted throughout the opening keynote. But the company stayed numb on the reasons for the management overhaul. 
Apple and Intel's holy alliance
If the rumours are correct, Apple is about to swap chip suppliers from IBM to Intel. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription), the computer manufacturer is ready to sign an agreement.
The deal would be completely insignificant if this wouldn't involve Apple. The company claims only a tiny 2.3 percent market share of the desktop computer market. Intel would hardly notice the additional business.
For Apple however switching to Intel chips would allow the company access to faster processors using dual cores and higher clockspeeds.
The deal in theory could also open the door for Windows and OS X to jump platforms. If Apple certifies its OS X software to run on Intel chips, there is little that stops consumers form installing the operating system on a machine from Dell. Or Windows on an iMac.
It's a Pandora's Box that Apple might want to keep shut. The company differentiates itself with both the design of its hardware and the operating system, but not with the hardware components (which it purchases from third parties like IBM and ATI). I for one would happily save the $500 (roughly the price difference between a top of the line PC and Apple's iMac) if that means I have to buy a tower PC that I hide under the desk.
Analysts were quick to refute the report. Apple is just out to put some pressure on IBM, which has been slow to pump up the speed on its Power line of processors. Besides switching platforms isn't a trivial move. It requires recoding and could break compatibility of existing third party applications.
Palmsource gets a taste of crisis management
You know a company is in deep trouble when its chief executive leaves on the eve of its annual developers conference.
While the Palmsource website still states that David Nagel will deliver the opening keynote at its developers conference on Tuesday in San Jose, California, the CEO left the company last weekend.
Palmsource develops the Palm OS software that runs on PalmOne's handheld computers and the Treo mobile phone. The software has lost most of the momentum that it had during the era when PDAs were hot. These days few people want to carry around a bulky device containing their calendar and address book.
The downfall in Palm OS's popularity caused Sony to stop making Palm OS handhelds altogether. Currently PalmOne is the only serious customer for the software company. Unless you want to count those utterly useless and unfashionable PDA watches that Fossil produces as a viable PDA offering.
Palmsource naturally will stress that there is nothing to worry about at tomorrow's event. But you just know that the @#%@ has hit the fan when a CEO leaves on such short notice.
Photo Credit: (c) PalmSource. David Nagel during happier times.
Ask Jeeves has an internet vision
Ask Jeeves has bought Excite Europe from Tiscali. The agreement marks the continuing advancement of the search engine and underscores its ambition to become a for real player in the worldwide search market.
Jeeves itself was bought by IAC just recently. IAC operates web properties including Expedia (which it is in the process of spinning off), Hotels.com and evite.com.
Ask Jeeves traditionally has been trailing behind much larger search parties likes Google, Yahoo and MSN. The company however is on of the few internet portals that owns its own search technology, putting it in a good position to compete. The deal further bolsters IAC's position on the internet. The portal could become the bridgehead for IAC's plethora of websites to conquer Europe.
Googles makes translations look easy
You don't need to know anything about a language to translate it, Google showed today (Thursday) at Google Factory Day, a press event on the company's campus in Mountain View, CA.
The company's research arm has come up with a technology that does translations for foreign language documents, based entirely on a computer analysis of that language. The research project uses a set of identical documents, one for each language, and through a analysis determines what's the best way to do the actual translation. The result, as the picture below shows, is more accurate then current generation technologies.
Meet Google Earth (videoblog)
Google on Thursday gave a first public preview of Google Earth. The application lets users fly over satelite images of the world. It has a huge wow-factor, letting you fly over the Grand Canyon or check out that hotel that you are looking to book. On stage at the Google Factory Day at the company's headquarters, Google founder Sergey Brin gave a live demonstration of the technology that will be available in the next weeks.
Watch the movie: google_earth2.wmv (3.8 Mb)
Google founder Sergey Brin
Walmart concedes to the power of the start-up
Walmart isn’t just known for its low prices. The company has a dark side, critics claim, that makes it liable for putting many small business out of business. Nobody can compete with the world’s largest retailer, the theory goes, partly because they pay minimum wage discriminate against women and offer lousy benefits.
Tonight there must be many a party among these critics, as Walmart has ceded the online DVD rental business to Netflix. The retail giant has decided to stop offering DVD rentals by mail for a monthly flat fee and instead recommends current subscribers to use the services of Netflix.
Netflix has been struggling since Walmart launched its DVD rental offering in 2003, and the company still has a long way to go. Blockbuster, the largest movie rental chain in the US, is stil determined to beat Netflix. In response to the Netflix-Walmart pact the company promised a switching bonus of two free months of subscriptions plus a free DVD.
Google loses its secret sauce
Literally that is (the headline). Google's executive chef Charlie Ayers is leaving the company. The former chef for the Grateful Dead is about to launch a restaurant chain in Silicon Valley that focuses on healthy food.
Ayers lead a team of about 80 chefs at the search giant. He and his team are credited with Google's success as much as the original search algorithm. The chef took the corporate meal to a new level with his Arabian squash casserole and crab mole tamalon.
Free or subsidised meals are part of the Silicon Valley mythology as much as the venture capital investors on Sand Hill Road. Since young technology companies are mostly staffed by single 30-something year olds, providing free meals is a proven way to get people to work overtime.
Apple polishes up OS X Tiger
Apple has released a 37 Mb patch
for its recently launched OS X 10.4 operating system.
Apple applied its marketing filter to the update in way that raises the bar
on avoiding calling things by their name.
On its website the company claims that it "again" has released the
most advanced operating system. Given the number of wrinkles that required
ironing out "at last" would have been be more accurate. It sounds
Orwellian at least. All of Apple's operating systems are advanced, some are
just more advanced than others?
In continuing with its euphemistic language, Apple explains on its website
that the patch fixes problems in a slew of applications such as Safar and iDVD
that could make them "unexpectedly quit" (in real world language:
crash).
The patch by the way isn't a patch but an "update".
Apple's website mentions a total of 35 flaws... excuse me: issues, in its
operating system that are fixed in this update.
And it even gets users additional Address Book, Flight Tracker, Phone Book
and World Clock widgets.
Kudos for Apple for fixing the issues in OS X 10.4 Tiger issues so quickly.
But if it took only so little time, why couldn't the company have shipped
its product without the flaws to begin with? Any beta testing process should
include testing for certified graphics cards, for example. Judging by the fact
that the vendor felt obligated to distribute update drivers for cards, this
part of hardware testing wasn't done properly.
But then no software is released without any flaws. Not even Apple's.
The long road to Xbox 360
Microsoft's marketing department is getting ready to go into overdrive. Not only is the software vendor slowly turning up the noise around the upcoming version of its Longhorn operating system (which won't hit stores until late 2006), the company is also gearing up for a big launch for its Xbox 360 late 2005.
Although the device isn't expected in stores until the end of this year (the exact launch date hasn't yet been revealed), Microsoft will start giving away some units as early as August 28. The contest will give away an Xbox every ten minutes for a period of nine weeks – making for a total of 9072 free Xbox computers to hit the streets prior to the launch.
If you can't wait and fear you won't be lucky enough to get your hands on one of the consoles, scavenge Craigslist and eBay. As some of the units are sure to end up there.
Tabs coming to internet explorer
In its race to catch up with Firefox, the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 will support tabs, the browser developers write on the IEBlog.
Tabs allow users to open a web page inside the current window without losing the webpage they are viewing.
Since Microsoft so far has touted the release as a security upgrade – not as a way to catch up with Firefox – the team instantly jumps into the defensive mode. Tabs aren't a Firefox innovation, they point out on the IEBlog. Excel and Visual Studio have them and Word almost got them. And security is still their first priority.
What they really are saying is that Internet Explorers still won't innovate. Just don't call it catching up.
Tiger full steam ahead
A Florida judge has told internet shop TigerDirect to get real, and denied its claim for a preliminary injunction against Apple's Tiger Operating System for violations of a trademark in the name Tiger.
The online store was sobbing over the fact that it had dropped down the list of search results at search enginges because Apple's Tiger was… well… more interesting to most web citizens than the online store. But a trademark apparently doesn't guarantee you a top three result with Google.
In the case Apple pointed to over 200 companies that use the word Tiger in a registered trademark.
Most people would argue that this case was lost from the beginning. But the online electronics store got a fair share of publicity, and it never hurts to file a lawsuit on the eve of a major launch. The other party might just settle.
A Boston wine party?
It isn’t often that a Supreme Court ruling gets so much attention. The United States’ highest judicial institution has ruled that New York and Michigan can’t block out-of state vineyards from doing business directly with consumers if they allow in-state winemakers to do so.
Judging from the attention this story is getting, we are on the verge of a wine selling - if not online wine selling - revolution. But don’t get your hopes up. This ruling applies only to vineyards wanting to do direct sales. That is a big deal indeed for small wineries that make a living from selling their bottles in tasting rooms, shipping a box and signing up tourists for tasting clubs. But will it fundamentally change the wine business?
It won't accoriding to the world's largest online wine seller Wine.com.
"This is blown way out of proportion," Russ Fradin, senior vice president of business development for Wine.com told Silicon Valley Sleuth.
"This has nothing to do with us. It's a very overblown media thing," said Fradin.
Online retails can already ship wine across states, provided they have the required licences. A total of 37 states allow for the shipping of wine, the other ones, including Pennsylvania, Alabama and Georgia ban it altogether. The ruling doesn’t change anything about that.
The whole case by itself is as useful for online shoppers as it would be to order your milk directly from the farm. OK, slightly more useful than that, but a far cry from an online wine shopping revolution.
What the ruling does say however is that it’s illegal for any of the 51 states to discriminate between in-state and out-of-state sellers. And in today’s age of ecommerce that might turn out to be a pretty important precedent.
Why should McNealy and Ballmer play nicely together (videoblog)
The legal settlement between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft last year was about more than the 1.95 billion dollars that Microsoft paid. The two companies also started working on making their products work better together. At a press conference today (Friday) Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer gave an update on the collaboration efforts. Watch the video to see the two executives explain why they are doing this.
Watch the video: sunmsft_0002.wmv (5.9 Mb)
Sun & Microsoft's photo-op – but where's the news?
One year and one month after Sun and Microsoft announced their landmark settlement, their chief executives Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer took the stage this morning in Palo Alto, California, to underline their ongoing collaboration.
The two vendors showed off a single sign-on technology that allows for interoperability between Liberty and WS-* standards. Although the Sun-Microsoft collaboration aims to go much deeper in the future, today's announcement is pretty much possible through the identity meta system that Microsoft showed off on Thursday at the Digital Identity World conference in San Francisco.
Today's gettogether between the two companies isn't much more than a nice photo-op. Single sign-on between .Net and Liberty? It might be nice and usable technology, but do we really need McNeally and Ballmer to come out and show this?
Not really, one industry analyst at the event told vnunet.com. But the companies haven't had much to show for their collaboration. A photo-op was called for, and is what we got.
Xbox 360, my precious
Not even the eye of Sauron could stop the Xbox juggernaut launching its latest weapon in the highly competitive gaming market.
Officially launched at a glittering MTV event in the US, a galacticos of stars turned up to see Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood and a whole host of A-list celebs come to covet the precious.
Tonight on MTV at 20.00 GMT, UK gamers will be able to watch the official unveiling of the 360.
For a full spec go here: www.flatscreens.biz
Pic credit flatscreens.biz
vnunet.com: Microsoft unveils next-gen Xbox
Steve Ballmer on security (Videoblog)
Having the largest installed base in the OS market, suffering from security holes and being the number one target by hackers has helped Microsoft to create mechanisms to create better code, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told students at the Stanford Business School today. Watch the video below to see if his point makes any sense.
Watch the video: steveballmer_security.wmv (2.0 Mb)
What if Ballmer never would have started working at Microsoft? (Videoblog)
If Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer wouldn't have joined Microsoft, he now probably would be selling insurance, he told students at the Stanford Business School.
In the video below Ballmer talks about what he thinks of doing when he retires twelve years from now - 61 is a good age to retire he said.
Watch the video: ballmer_motivation2.avi
Microsoft is hiring (Steve Ballmer @ Stanford videoblog)
Looking for a job? Just send an email to Microsoft's top recruiter at steveb@micrsoft.com, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told students at the Stanford Business School.
Watch the video: steveballmer_closing.avi
Fiorina resurfaces wiser but still her optimistic self
One of the world's former most powerful women in business, Carly Fiorina made a first public appearance before an audience of 14,500 students at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University this week.
Her usual upbeat self, Fiorina made jokes about her ouster. "I've been working on my résumé," she said according to a transcript of the speech from which the San Jose Mercury News quoted. "I've been lining up my references. I bought a new interview suit. If there are any recruiters here, I'll be free around 11."
Fiorina talked about the harsh times she had as a woman in business – in the 80's her boss at AT&T introduced her to a client as the company's "token bimbo." Later colleagues arranged a business lunch in a strip club.
But did that turn Fiorina into a bitter woman?
"I lost my job in the most public way possible, and the press had a field day with it all over the world. And guess what? I'm still here. I am at peace and my soul is intact.''
If Fiorina survived the back stabbing world of business, she might just do well in the even worse world of politics. If the rumours are right, she is considering such a move.
Wouldn't it be fun it the 2008 presidential elections pitched Hillary Clinton against Fiorina?
Click here for more excerpts from Fiorina's commencement.
Fiorina last January at CES in Las Vegas.
Microsoft: your new best friend for online identities
Microsoft on Thursday will unveil a new internet identity system in a keynote presentation at the Digital Identity World Conference in San Francisco. Think Passport 2.0, Hailstorm 3.0, whatever you want to call it. Your guess is as good as mine.
Except that this time there appear to be none of the scary Microsoft attempts at world domination that overshadowed some of the company's earlier initiatives (according to some critics at least).
In a presentation today (Tuesday) at the Digital ID World conference in San Francisco, Microsoft's architect of identity Kim Cameron laid out the ground work for the new identity scheme.
With the abundance of phishing attacks going on, the world of online identity is in need of an overhaul.
"The ad hoc nature of the internet identity patchwork can not withstand the ongoing assault of professional attackers," Cameron said.
"What we've done is teach our world […] to indiscriminately put their credentials and personal identifying information into almost any form that appears on the screen. And then we me make fun of them for being subject to phishing [attacks]."
For one, Cameron offered the most honest explanation yet of why Microsoft's Passport service failed at selling its authentication service to third party e-commerce services, but can be used for Microsoft services without any problem:
"[Users] want to have a relationship with Microsoft within a context that makes sense to them. [Passport] is fine within their relationship with Microsoft. It's not fine in their relationship with Amazon or Ebay."
The ugly version says that Passport failed because nobody trusted Microsoft with their information. The company would collect your and mine credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers and act as a broker whenever we needed them online. Buy a book at Amazon? Passport hands over all the required information. But online shops also saw another monopoly on the horizon. If Microsoft would end up owning all the user data in the world, they would star charging Amazon for it. It would be a Microsoft monopoly that nobody needed.
Microsoft suddenly seems to have turned into this heaven of common sense. Cameron claimed that the Bluetooth wireless technology is "designed wrong" because it constantly transmits a signal, turning the owner of a Bluetooth device into a beacon. RFID suffers from the same problems. A RFID tag in a passport for instance could be used by terrorists who use the chip to identify Americans.
"RFID is fine for a can of beans, but its not suitable to be impregnated into our children," he said. "We have designed all this technology in a very naive way."
We'll have to wait until Thursday before Microsoft unwraps its new identity plans, but so far it looks good.
Btw, Cameron has defined seven laws for online identity service. More info here and on his weblog
Microsoft's architect of identity Kim Cameron speaking at the Digital Identity World conference in San Francisco earlier today.
Apple OS X Tiger? Just don't do it
The more time we get to use Apple's OS X 10.4 Tiger, the stronger the call gets for users to leave the software for what it is.
The new Dashboard application exposes users open to a vulnerability that downloads and installs malicious software by just visiting a website. (Linked site facing heavy traffic – do not open this link if you're running OS X 10.4 Tiger.) They still have to activate the "widget" but whoever wants to claim that won't happen should just look at the success of phishing scams or email viruses.
Dashboard is a platform on which applications like the calculator or a stock price ticker run. Dashboard combines a lot of the former "Sherlock" applications: dictionary, yellow pages, etc. Third party developers too can develop applications of widgets, and so could virus writers.
Infoworld's Tom Yager has one word for OS X 10.4 software: Ugly. The test lab engineer ran into severe problems when he tried to upgrade a Powerbook with the new operating system.
The greatest operating system ever - to use Steve Jobs hype language - proves that Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on rushing products to market. The "wait until service pack one" rule applies just as well to Tiger, claims Yager.
Top that off with a slew of networking issues, and you have industry analysts backing Yager up.
This is a major dent in Apple's reputation of delivering software without any headaches. It might at least stop current Windows users who were thinking of kicking the tires of the "best operating system ever".
A crack shows in Salesforce.com's success machine
Salesforce.com executive Pat Sueltz seems to have left the company. The voicemail for the executive in charge of marketing, technology research and development and systems engineering states that Sueltz is out of the office and won't check voicemail or email.
Sueltz gave up a position with Sun Microsystems 14 months ago, where she headed up the services organisation.
A clash of personalities is most likely the reason for Sueltz' departure. Salesforce.com's chief executive Mark Benioff apparently wasn't happy with Sueltz' performance. And in a company where the chief's charisma is the main foundation, Benioff has a firm grip on the company's operations.
Sueltz has a strong track record. At Sun Microsystems she succeeded at growing the services business. She still has contact with her former Sun colleagues including chief executive Scott McNealy, she told me recently. The server vendor has struggled to replace Sueltz. The current manager of the unit is already the second after Sueltz left.
Photo credit: Sun Microsystems.
Another Longhorn innovation: the blue screen goes red
Microsoft has come up with yet another innovation for the upcoming version of Windows codenamed Longhorn. The infamous blue screen of death has changed colours… it now turns red, and misspells the word "exectuion"
Steve Jobs didn't see this one coming when he claimed that OS X was far ahead of Microsoft. The crash screen in OS X hasn't seen any innovation in years, still instructing users in a dozen languages to hold their power button for a few seconds. I've had the displeasure of seeing that message several times unfortunately.
Click the picture for a larger version
Picture source: Michael Kaplan's blog.
Pot/kettle/black
It's rare that a press release sparks actual laughter in the office but Microsoft's latest venture on intellectual property theft was one of the funniest things to have come out of the company since Steve Ballmer strutted his funky stuff in the now infamous Developer Dance.
But few would argue that Microsoft is whiter than white when it comes to IP disputes. The company has paid out millions of dollars in cases where it has allegedly used others' technology under disputed terms. Plenty of companies claim that after showing Microsoft their technology the Redmond machine thanked them, sent them on their way and then put something similar in its own offerings.
To give Microsoft its due it seems to be trying at least a bit to share some of its own intellectual property with other companies. But to paint itself as the saintly guardian of IP? Give me a break.
Silicon Valley strengthens its lead as hotbed for technology
San Francisco has won the right to host the new Californian embryonic stem cell research centre.
The city had to compete with San Diego, Sacramento and several other places for the right to host the top notch research facility.
The city will give researchers free access to an office on the second floor in San Francisco's "South of Market" neighbourhood, above a bookstore and across the street from the SBC Park baseball stadium. The city offered $17 million in perks.
California voters last year approved a measure that earmarked $3 billion over the next 10 ten years to be spent on embryonic stem cell research. The move followed a decision by the Bush administration to tightly monitor and restrict federally funded stem cell research.
Stem cells are believed to hold the key to curing many illnesses. But the research is controversial because it requires researchers to kill human embryos.
The establishment of the institute will further strengthen the position of the San Francisco Bay Area as a leader in technology research. In addition to hardware and software industry, the area houses many biotechnology companies and gave birth to Genentech, the world's first commercial biotechnology institute.
The Best Reason Yet to Support Stem Cell Research according to artist Hans Phingers
Sneaky Sods
With the outbreak of the latest blaster worm you sometimes can't help but feel desperate about the future of computer security. Users still open attachments, and a test by Verisign earlier this week showed that 66 percent of 272 people asked would give out their passwords for a $3 Starbucks coupon.
Yesterday I received an AOL instant message from a PR manager at a major search engine. "Hey check out this", the message read. In it was a link to a file "minicop.exe" that was hosted on some website (although the user never saw the web site, he just downloaded file).
The thing is, the PR manager never contacts me via IM, and within seconds after sending the message she logged off.
My virus scanner didn't spot any malicious code in the file, but I don't dare to open it. I don't believe she sent me the message, and I'm sure the file contains some kind of malware. Call me paranoid, but today you have to be paranoid on the internet. I also fear that there are plenty of people that would open the file and get infected.
We can plug all the security holes in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux that we can find, yet hackers will always find a way to penetrate our defences.
Or perhaps this is just another fact of life that we have to put up with – homes are being burglarised, cars get stolen and computer get hacked?
PalmOne's sorry attempt at an iPod killer
You can't help but feel sorry for PalmOne these days. The company that is the largest maker of Palm OS equipped personal digital assistants (PDAs) just lost its position as largest PDA seller to Blackberry. And now the company plans to launch a $499 device.
The LiveDrive Mobile Manager device will feature a 4 Gb hard drive as well as radios for WiFi and Bluetooth wireless networks. You'll probably get a full colour display with it, so in addition to listening to music, you can also use it to watch pictures.
Start the comparison where you want. Looking for 4Gb of memory? The iPod mini gets you there for $199. Want to view your pictures? The 30 Gb iPod photo does it for $349 And you'll even get the status that comes with having white ear buds.
A personal electronic organiser? A $99 smartphone is all you need.
The new device comes closest to competing with HP's iPaq series of PDAs. The 4700 series for instance sells for around $599 and has similar features (except for the hard drive). But it does run Windows and is cleverly targeted at enterprises who use them for service workers and other professional services (and who prefer Windows over Palm OS because it's easier to plug into their existing systems).
PalmOne is going after consumers who, apart from a brief love affair with PDAs during the dotcom boom, have turned their backs on the devices.
The PalmOne Treo got rave reviews, but couldn't prevent BlackBerry from surpassing PalmOne in market share.
Busy morning at IBM
The news that IBM is making a round of redundancies in Europe will have spoiled many a morning across the country. We'll know more details after a company webcast at 1pm today.
Until then IBM's keeping mum. This morning's call to IBM's usually friendly press officer didn't get anywhere: we were told mechanically that the extension's message box was "full" and to please call back later.
We suspect that the ringer is turned off; everyone and his dog must have been calling since the news broke.
Judging by the stink Amicus is raising, Britain is likely to bear the brunt of any job cuts. There's a simple reason for this: it's easier to fire people here than almost anywhere else in Western Europe.
Shutting down a factory is cheap and easy in the UK compared to the continent. France employment law is famously strict and the Germans aren't far behind in making it very tricky to get rid of people.
Maybe those voicemail messages won't be cleared at all.
Microsoft's IP sharing: a capitalist answer to open source
Microsoft today unveiled a new business unit that will sell licences to some of its intellectual property (IP) to startup companies.
The software maker launched the programme to generate additional revenue from its IP portfolio, but is also eager to point out that this will help the overall software industry.
By working with venture capital investors, Microsoft expects to find new applications for its technologies that it hadn't thought of. The company's press release mentioned Inrix, a company that specialises in the prediction of traffic patterns. Inrix will use some Microsoft machine learning technology to improve traffic information services.
As an example of how the programme works, he pointed to a small company called Inrix. Microsoft has sold a licence for a machine learning technology to the start-up that specialises in the prediction of traffic patterns. Inrix will use the technology to improve traffic information services.
But Microsoft isn't just out to make some money. The programme is also aimed to show that there are alternatives to open source when it comes to "sharing" IP.
"IP is a currency. IP is valuable in the software space. We don't think giving it away is using the right approach. Especially is you have very innovative technologies that consumers value," David Kaefer, a Microsoft director of business development told vnunet.com.
The big spyware conspiracy
Until virus authors realised that they could use their malware to create zombie PCs to send out spam email, there was no real incentive to create a virus other than fame and bragging rights.There even used to be a persistent rumour that anti virus companies secretly created the virusses that they blocked to sustain their businesses.
Similarly, I suspect that the makers of spam filtering software have ties to the Chinese companies that try to sell me V!agra. No spam – no filtering business. Conspiracies all around, right?
At least there now is some proof that supports my theory. Those pesky makers of spyware and adware are supported by companies that we all know and deal with: American Express, Sprint PCS, Disney, Expedia have blood on their hands, Harvard University law student Ben Edelman, told Cnet. Edelman has researched and publicized findings on how spyware and adware programs work.
Sometimes a little cynisms can be a healthy treat. Although I admit that I sometimes I overdose on it.
A dark Wednesday
Four years ago, Intel popped the internet bubble when it fired 5,500 employees on a Friday in March 2001. Within days Cisco, Compaq and Texas Instruments followed the chipmaker's lead.
Intel was the first technology company to announce mass layoffs - until then only dotcoms with worthless business plans pulled this trick. That Friday I attended a pink slip party in San Francisco – another relic of the dotcom age. Pink slip parties were organised by a website that doesn't exist anymore, and were aimed to help laid off high tech workers to find new jobs.
I was reminded of that Friday today when IBM said today it would fire up to 13,000 employees. Because also today analyst firm IDC lowered its forecast for IT spending in 2005. Europe and Japan aren't performing as well as predicted earlier.
Is this a trend or are it two independent, unrelated incidents?
We'll see over time. But rest assured that my predictions are wrong most of the time. I ended second in the last two football (soccer) pools I played in.
The OS doesn't matter (Sun Labs Day)
Looking at the picture below you'll see three calculator windows: a Windows XP version, one for Linux and one for OS X.
The applications run on OS X. Well, they don't run on OS X. They are displayed on a computer running OS X. The actual applications (including the OS X calculator) run on a server somewhere on an off-site location.
Sun Microsystems unveiled the technology dubbed Project Chameleon at its Sun Labs Day last week in Mountain View, CA. It is the first time that applications are delivered to a remote desktop in their own windows. Alternative solutions such as VNC present the user with an entire desktop. Or the application is delivered in a browser window. Chameleon is a more elegant way of delivering applications through an application service provider (ASP) model.
The technology paves the way for software to be made available as a true rental service. Think getting you text editor or photo editing software through you DSL provider– and let them worry about updating and patching.
The technology requires a small java based application on the client and a special server application. But the original software remains untouched – up to and including the graphical appearance of the window itself, as the demo showed.
Alottacomputa (Sun Labs Day)
It might not seem like a bit unit (see picture below), but this computer is probably the "densest" system ever build for parallel calculations. A single system holds up to 14 of the boards, each containing 64 CPUs that in turn have 64 processor cores. That makes for 57,344 processors. It is capable of 14 trillion operations per second.
Sun showed off its Project Colonoy at the Sun Labs Day in Mountain View, CA last week. The system is build to do "cellular automata".
This system might some day allow traffic managers to do real time backup predictions. You enter all the streets, driveways, curves, highways and on and off ramps into a system, add the traffic patterns of the day (either real time or average loads). And then it gets interesting: you have an accident on Main Street with all lanes blocked? Enter it into the system and it will tell you how best to reroute traffic.
Other applications for the Colony (not to be confused with super computers like IBM's Blue Gene) can be found in weather forecasting, simulating the airflow around objects (for car designers) or predictions around the growth of cells and how they affect their neighbours.
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