Microsoft is splitting out its earnings in a very strange way, throwing sales of the Zune (pictured above) Windows CE and Windows Mobile in with Xbox sales. Similarly, sales of Microsoft's CRM and ERP suites are thrown in with Office sales.

It is however, safe to assume that Office accounts for the majority of the $4.8bn that the business division sold (and the $3.4bn in profits that it got from those). Similarly, Windows Server sales are the driving force behind the "server" division. SQL Server after all doesn't run on Linux, HP UX or Solaris.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has repeatedly called Google a one trick pony that has failed to succeed anywhere outside its search advertising business. Microsoft however is only doing slightly better. It has built a successful business for its Office and Windows (and Windows Server) software, but the online and gaming groups are still hurting, despite large investments.

Another one of Microsoft's great successes

Earnhardt however must be doubting that statement (thank goodness!), because he continues his blog posting questioning if the company should open up more. If it should, for instance, provide a blogging platform for all its employees.

The answer to that question can only be a resounding: Duh! I can't believe that companies are even asking that question in 2007.

If you're restricting what your employees blog about, you're essentially saying that you don't trust them. But don't you also trust that they won't harm the company when they talk about it during the weekend and at night when they aren't at work?

Of course things will go wrong. Employees will make stupid mistakes and they will write things that might make you decide to fire those employees. But again, wouldn't that employee be making the same comments in public before? Blogs just do a better job at exposing those people, but it doesn't turn your number one workers into a secret exposing devil.

What exactly is Cisco afraid of? That its carefully crafted PR strategy is undercut by Cisco employees giving honest facts? Doesn't that say more about the (perceived) honesty in your PR strategy than it does about your employees?

Cisco coined the phrase "the participation age", but for some reason Earnhardt claims that for Cisco is enough to just talk and not participate.

So is Vista a useless update? At work we're still running Windows XP, mainly because several of our applications won't support Vista or Internet Explorer 7. Having run the operating system on a home computer for several months now, I can hardly say that it wows me. The user interface is pretty. It is slightly easier to find documents and applications than it was in Windows XP. But the nicest feature by far is the deep sleep mode that drastically shortens the boot-time.

If shaving off the odd minute from the boot-time is your best feature, something is severely wrong.

Microsoft will tell you that Vista is all about security. But security is a checkbox item: essential to have but mostly a pain in the behind when it's flawed. Secondly, most users are confident that they are safe online until they catch a virus. Security doesn't drive sales.

A second sales pitch would talk up Vista's multi media capabilities. We have yet to see applications that use the stunning graphics that Windows Vista supposedly should offer. And a Netgear media adapter that is supposed to play content from the PC on the stereo won't function, even though both Vista and the device are supposed to support the same industry standard.

Lastly, I'm pissed off that my cell phone won't synchronize with Vista's bundled calendar and address book applications. Syncing requiresOutlook 2007 - for some reason Vista doesn't support Outlook 2003. But I certainly won't shell out  $500 for Office 2007. Instead I downloaded OpenOffice and increasingly find myself using Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

Now that I think of it, Linux should be well equipped to perform all the tasks that are currently performed on my computer. Perhaps it's time to create a Linux partition.

At first glance they may not be any. Torvalds certainly doesn't rank very high on the Forbes list, and neither does GPL and GNU inventor Richard Stallman, or Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik

But 40 years from now, Bill Gates and all the other Microsoft billionaires may very well proof to be an abnormality, a footnote in history: in the early days of the IT industry, companies were able to artificially lock in users, forcing them to buy all software from a single vendor. This allowed them to create an illegal monopoly that had to be broken open by force. Consequently open standards emerged that prevented a repeat of the monopoly nightmares.

And as the link above points out, open source is today is powering the ideas of the latest generation of billionaires. Just look at Youtube and Google. But then open source is like air for the world's economy. You shouldn't notice it when it's there, but will dearly miss it if it isn't.

Matt Szulik - not a billionaire, but influential nonetheless.

Adobe has been beating its marketing drum for its Apollo technology since early this year. But following the Dojo release, Apollo looks mostly like a bloated attempt to squeeze more software revenues out of develops by creating a new platform.

Essentially, Dojo requires a 300KB download that will be delivered in an intuitive way. Developers add a few lines of code (more if they require granular customization) and their application receives offline capabilities. Furthermore, the user experience is essentially the same for both the online and offline application.

With Apollo, developers have to create an entirely new application that users access as a regular application. The Ebay auction tool that the company has been showing off for instance doesn't look anything like the user interface on the Ebay.com website.

Users furthermore don't have a clear incentive to download a special runtime engine (6MB for the Windows version) that allows Apollo applications to function.

Looks like open source wins again.

Google is a valuable brand and the company will probably be able to expand to numerous online markets. But don't overestimate the stretch and flexibility of its brand.

Google's brand has proven a failure in conquering the online email or messaging markets in a way that resembles its search success. And let's not forget that until the Youtube acquisition, Google Video was left in the shadow of a start-up company.

Next year the study should factor in a firm's track record in expanding to new markets. That will cause Microsoft to plunge into a deep hole (it's still a two-trick pony that relies on Windows and Office), while a firm like Cisco should rank much higher.

It was a time when the Russian president refused to get off an airplane during an official visit to Ireland. After waiting for several hours, the hosts were told that the president was "unwell". It was generally accepted that he was drunk at the time, as well as during many other public appearances.

Good times.

Some commenters argued that Dell has every right to give away virtual trees, and we couldn't agree more. But Dell crosses a line when it starts portraying a virtual promotion as somehow being environmentally friendly.

As the 'Watts up with that' blog pointed out: " Maybe [Al] Gore will fly in on his private jet to make a 'virtual appearance' to preach to the faithful."

UPDATE:
Commenter "Honey" from our Friday post has a picture from the actual party here. At the Dell party he/she pointed out the hypocrisy of marketing virtual tree planting as environmentally friendly, and now seems to have been permanently banned from Dell's Second Life island.

view from the top... not so pretty

Dell's second life pavilion, the day after the party

You can argue that handing out free virtual trees helps with Dell's image, just like handing out free T-shirts at a trade show makes for very happy goody hunters.

But labeling this marketing stunt as environmentally friendly is utter nonsense, if not just plain deceptive. It has nothing to do with planning a real tree. The Second Life trees don't offer any benefit to the environment. In fact, they increase the demand on Second Life's servers, thereby increasing their power consumption and growing the carbon footprint of this virtual world.

Making things worse, Dell is throwing an Earth Day party this Sunday. Soliciting users to further increase the load on Second Life servers... isn't that as helpful for the environment as staging a drive in protest?

Don't get me wrong. Dell has every right to throw Second Life parties and the company deserves praise for setting up genuine customer conversations through its Direct2Dell blog and IdeaStorm. But the Second Life tree planning initiative has nothing to do with the environment.

If we are to believe the site, Michael Dell owns a total of five computers. In addition to a laptop and desktop systems at home, he also uses laptop for mobile gaming, travelling and a business desktop system.

Except for the Ubuntu system, all other computers are running Windows Vista Ultimate. Still, 20 per cent desktop share would be a decent target.

The challenge however is competing with Linux and open source software. Microsoft largely sees those applications as cheap competitors, but believes that few consumers care about (or think that they should care about) open standards. So faces with a $0 competitor, Microsoft can only follow with a price drop.

The move raises some ethical monopoly questions. The company after all is using the monopoly margins that it makes on Windows in the developed world, to give away software for (nearly) free elsewhere. This would be clearly illegal within a single market, but anti trust law doesn't cross borders.

All is not lost for the open source movement however. A growing number of governments is warming up to the idea that open source helps to build a local information technology economy, where Microsoft software will only create an IT services economy.

If a nation is dying of thirst, you can ship them bottled water or teach them how to dig a well. Microsoft is clearly in the bottled water business, and just launched a new low end brand.

(picture above: solar project to power up to 30 workstations at a school in South Africa's KwaZulu-Nathal region)

But except for the purpose of hype debunking, why would now be the time for the Web2.0 bubble to burst? The Web1.0 bubble burst because entrepreneurs had lied to investors about their growth and customer base and because investors failed to see that a two year growth trend couldn’t be extrapolated into a larger trend for the overall economy. This fueled a mad rush on talent, equipment and office space that snowballed out of control.

Current web2.0 startups rarely have VC funding, and we haven't seen a single Web2.0 firm go public. Investors aren't fighting for investment opportunities, because except for Myspace and Youtube, the returns have been abysmal. Development meanwhile is done with worldwide teams of a few dozen people, as evidenced by a continuing number of vacancies in the Silicon Valley real estate market.

It doesn't seem that Linkedin or Facebook need to be afraid of In-Stat's doomsday scenario. But then, it wouldn't hurt any Web2.0 service to be profitable either.

Currently UMPCs are useless toys that fruitlessly attempts to cram Windows XP onto a 480 by 800 pixel screen and suck their battery dry in a mere 2.5 hours.

Intel would have done a great job if it had attempted to create a device that is worse than a laptop and cellphone at all levels. The chipmaker keeps insisting that isn't the case: it didn't create a Frankstein device, it just attempted to design something cool and fell short on all levels.

UMPC: now running Vista. (photoshop image - actual units won't ship until later this year)

This image replaces another pic that featured an Uren CARPC. Thank you JKK for pointing out the error.

I'm sure that we'll run into some minor bugs in the near future, but it looks like we're at least 95 per cent there.

That also means that we no longer will be posting all our videos on this blog, but the content remains largely the same: short news items that capture major developments and players in the field of high tech.

Problem is that Intel is withholding so many details, that the above paragraph could be used to proof or disproof anything and everything.

The mention of application specific accelerators for high performance applications however could lead some to speculate that the architecture targets the scientific computing area that Intel is currently addressing with its Itanium.

But then again, graphics chips do a pretty good job at heavy number crunching. The one thing therefore doesn't exclude the other. For it just means that Intel has declared open season on Larrabee specs.

The delay only served to support Apple Insider's theories, and instantly gives birth to a few new ones. Should we believe Apple's explanation for the delay that is pointing to iPhone issues? Did OS X 10.5 run into some serious trouble? Is the iPhone delay just a way to cover up the fact that Apple is working on some last minute additions to OS X 10.5?

Surely the Mac rumour blogs will help us add numerous additional theories and baseless gossip. We won't know for sure what really happened until the WWDC this summer.

In this case, the administration is under fire for an alleged plan to fire all attorney generals and/or retaliating against attorney generals who didn't dance to Bush' tune.

When Bush was hit by the terrorist attacks of September 11, he allegedly wanted to make sure that his following years as president would help him build a legacy as one of the US' greatest presidents. If public opinion provide any measure, he will go down into history as one of the worst. The "accidental loss" of some email will only further tarnish his image.

• Because Google's efforts to grow its revenue outside the advertising space are so far have been an epic failure. The company still makes about 99 per cent of all its revenues from advertising. Acquiring Doubleclick is grab for market share.

• Because all of Google's competitors were in the market for the Doubleclick. Reportedly Google won a week long bidding war against Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL. Especially Microsoft could have profited from a good advertising platform, given its fruitless efforts to grow in the advertising space so far. Sometimes competing means that you have to deprive your rivals of a tasty snack.

• Because Google's success has been linked to it being a text advertising firm, while Doubleclick is kind in managing banner ad campaigns. Google single-handedly created the text advertising category. It's pretty hard to convince advertisers that you do banner ads too once you've got the image of being the king of text ads.

• Because Google has too much cash (about $10bn of it). Shareholders don't want Google to have its money sit in a savings account accruing interest.
   

• Doubleclick has some very large clients like Johnson & Johnson, Proctor and Gamble and Unilever that currently don't advertising heavily through Google's network. This deal allows Google to grow its customer base.

A half second wait time is fine on a computer, but if you press the "hang up" button on a phone, you want it to respond instantaneously. Just ask Windows Mobile users if that is available from Redmond, and they'll instantly tell you that it isn't. Several Linux vendors also have been working for years to fine-tune the open source operating system to run on mobile devices. While they claim to be making progress, we're still waiting for the first real device.

And than Apple isn't just building a Unix based mobile phone. It is aiming to redefine the smart phone category. Today it admitted that it bit off a bit more than it could chew, luckily is seems to be just a small bit.

There is no running away from the iPhone monster

But that isn't bad, he stresses. "We’re designing Windows Server virtualization to scale up to 64 processors, which I'm proud to say is something no other vendor’s product supports" (emphasis by me).  Bear in mind that the current Windows Server 2003 already supports up to 64 processors. Neil is strictly referring to Viridian's performance issues - not those of Longhorn server.

True, VMWare only supports up to 16 CPUs. But Novell's SLES 10 with Xen support for instance has been tested to run on as many as 1024 CPUs and is actively deployed on systems with 512 processors. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (also with Xen) advertises an "unlimited" number of processors.

Solaris 10 has been supporting virtualization for several years now. The largest box that it  runs on is Sun's E25K featuring 72 dual core processors. It will run on bigger boxes, it's just that Sun isn't making any bigger ones at this point.

Microsoft is finding out that building scalable systems is hard to do. But just because Microsoft is running into those walls today, doesn't mean that the rest of the industry hasn't already solved those problems years ago.

Via: Emerging Earth

The emulation route would be a much safer road. Except that it's much easier to block a software application than it is to detect a BIOS that has been tinkered with.

That creates an opportunity for hackers and malware writers looking to expand their businesses beyond botnets, identity theft and holding data hostage. Surely these nice gentlemen will be able to create a single application that supports most Dell, HP and Acer systems? Plenty of consumers will be happy to shell out say $40 for a tool that lets them get their hands on a $400 application.

Pirates allowed Chinese consumers to purchase Vista before the official launch

The two are directly related. AMD's earnings this quarter will miss analyst expectations by more than $200m because its profit margins have been sliced by its price war with Intel. By cutting expenses and lowering prices on the same day, the firm is signalling that it is digging in for a long winter.

It was clearly AMD's turn to respond. Intel over the past months has been gaining market share, partly because it is already shipping 65 nm quad core server chips where AMD won't release theirs until later this year.

But if AMD's boasting about its upcoming 65nm chips carries any weight, it soon will become Intel's turn to respond.

Palm's Linux phone will target so-called prosumers (professional consumers), while Windows powered models will target enterprises.

But while this marks a big score for Linux on the mobile phone, open source enthusiasts have reason for concern. Palm sees its Linux platform as a competitive advantage over the competition and therefore is likely to hide key innovations in the source code. For starters, Palm has already said that it won't license the software to fellow phone makers.

If even has a little Tux button! (thanks to the wonders of photoshop)

There are plenty of arguments against those walled gardens and the seemingly needless barriers that they put up against interoperability. But at the defense mechanisms that keep users from exchanging messages between AOL IM and Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk also seem to have succeeded at keeping out most spammers.

Similarly, text message spam is nowhere near the levels that email spam has achieved. But before you seek refuge with alternate media, ask yourself the question if you are willing to concede victory to the spammers.

Zango earlier this year announced a legal settlement with the FTC over its past wrongs. As part of the deal, Zango promised to ensure that its software wouldn’t get installed without the user's permission and that it would provide clearer disclosures to users.

As multiple security researchers have noticed since, very little has changed. Most notably, botnet operators continue to install Zango on the computers of unsuspecting end users without their permission.

Zango's violations of the FTC settlement have been well documented, but the company still found it necessary to remove references to these missteps from its Wikipedia page.

Zango is trying its hardest to rid itself of the image that it’s a malware pusher. Apparently changing factual statements in its Wikipedia entry is part of that strategy, together with hiring a PR firm that attempted to position the company's founder as a pundit in the field of "not pissing off" your users.

Some free advice to Zango: if you don't want to be called a criminal, get your hand out of the cookie jar before you start complaining.

--

An example of Zango's whitewashing: left before, right after. Changes are marked in red in both cases (on the left these amount to deletions by Zango, on the right red marks Zango's additions)

Vonage last May underwent a disastrous IPO. It stock price currently trades at about $3.37 (down from $17 at the time of the IPO) and the company has a market capitalization of $522m. Based on its earnings of $372.71 for all of 2006, Vonage currently would have a price/earnings ratio of 1.40. (a p/e ratio however requires 4 quarters of data. Vonage has only been listed for the past 3 quarters).

P/E ratios are a strong indicator of investor confidence and normally run in the double digits: Microsoft's is 23.79; Google's 47.44 and Cisco's 29.28. Even a troubled company like Telecom Italia is still trading at a P/E ratio of 16.09.

Signs from the investment community don't come any clearer. This company need a miracle to survive.

Is this another sign that good karma goes a long way? Vonage's founder was forced to settle charges with the SEC for his role in fraud involving the Nasdaq Small Order Execution System. Vonage also on multiple occasions has been found to be a major supporter of spyware and adware applications.

They all received the virus through their malware submission channels. As F-Secure shows on its blog, the author describes the malware as an "ipodlinux" virus and indicates that it affects Linux. The malware author is merely an attention seeker, but the security vendors blow this thing way out of proportion.

Symantec, Kasperksy and F-Secure all advertise the pest as an iPod virus. But as if they know that they are engaging in baseless fear mongering, they quickly disclose the fact that this virus is utterly useless and harmless, and has as much to do with the iPod as weapons of mass destruction did with invasion of Iraq.

But why then make all this noise about an iPod virus, if isn't?

Blogs from security vendors used to be a trustworthy source of news where fine security researchers would apply their expert filters to weed out the hoaxes from the genuine threats. As the iPod dud indicates, getting attention has taken over from doing a good job.

(the story's source is someone's "wife's uncle" which always triggers a dozen hoax alarms, but in this case we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt)

Calling this an iPod virus therefore is like installing Windows on a Mac (through Bootcamp or Parallels) and arguing that Macs are now vulnerable to the animated cursor flaw. Kaspersky Labs is a fine security research outlet, but in this case they seem to be crying wolf.

Why would users want to install Linux on an iPod in the first place? Excellent question. Running Linux on in iPod allows you to develop custom applications. After you're done installing the operating system, you'll be able access both Linux and the existing configuration.

Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:14:29 -0500
From: "United Hackers" <united_against_islam@mail.com>
Subject: [Full-disclosure] The Cyber war on Iran
  _      _____   ___    ____  _  __
| | /| / / _ | / _ \  / __ \/ |/ / 
| |/ |/ / __ |/ , _/ / /_/ /    / 
|__/|__/_/ |_/_/|_|  \____/_/|_/   

    _______  ___   _  __
   /  _/ _ \/ _ | / |/ /
_/ // , _/ __ |/    /
/___/_/|_/_/ |_/_/|_/

Hackers United against the Threat of Islam
-----------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     ANTI-MUSLIM LEAGUE
-----------------------------------------

April 04, 2007, 2100Z

We, the Hackers United against the Threat of Islam to the Freedom of Thought and Peace are hereby declaring open war against the evils of Islam. The axis of evil must be stopped and destroyed. The United States of America is planning a demonstration of military force against the evil nation of Iran. As of the moment of this announcement, a Cyber War has been declared against Iran. We do this to assit the United States of America in their war against the evils of Islam.

The first operation in this war was the secretive Operation Screaming Eagle. This has been an ongoing preparation for battle, mapping out critical Internet infrastructure to the Nation of Iran, as well as determining passwords, access codes and vulnerable attack vectors for gaining access to Iranian systems, including routers and servers. Many Iranian machines have backdoors installed, and many routers have been broken into had have had their login security mechanisms comprimised.

At dawn of April 06, 2007, the Hackers United against the Threat of Islam shall initiate the largest, multinational, coordinated attack against a nation's infrastructure ever witnessed. Hackers from the United States of America, Great Britain, Norway, France, Italy, Brazil, Germany and Russia will launch attacks against Iran's infrastructure, disabling all IP-based communication and facilitating attacks against their terrorist targets.

Islam must be stopped. And the Hackers United against the Threat of Islam are there to do the job.

Shout outs to everyone united against Islam. We stand together to face this threat to humanity.

--
Update:
Nothing has happened. These guys are all talk

Everybody gets to be a big boy from behind a keyboard

Microsoft unveiled its "Express Upgrade Program" last October. Consumers who purchased a Windows XP systems between 26 October and 15 March were offered a free or discounted upgrade to Windows Vista. (In essence, Windows XP Home buyers receive a 50 per cent discount off the retail Vista price. All other systems are entitled to a free upgrade, but have to pay a shipping and handling fee.) Such programs intend to prevent a sales slowdown ahead of major new product introductions.

Moduslink amassed an impressive collection of user complaints. Shortly after the launch of Windows Vista, the website for the service was brought to a screeching halt by high traffic volumes. Requests to the help desk meanwhile went unanswered.

Moduslink's public relations department succeed to contribute to the mess. When we first contacted the company, a spokesperson flat out denied that it had anything to do with the upgrade service. A few days later the same person admitted to the problems, complaining that help desk staff received a large volume of questions unrelated to the upgrade service.

But any such suggestion is based on wishful thinking rather than facts. An Intel spokesperson was quick to point out that all of the currently shipping systems run Windows. Mandriva also is just one of many Linux distributions that are certified for Intel's OLPC competitor.

Mandriva's participation in the project is about as intensive as that of the audience at a sport match. They are there and are part of the experience, but their influence is limited.

Sending out a press release to trumpet that might seem slightly out of place. And if you do, you want to make sure that you correctly state your involvement.

PS. Mandriva didn't respond to a request for comment in time for this story's posting.

Mandriva on the Classmate: so far in Photoshop only

You won't hear the company deny the criticism on its recycling programme much. Perhaps that's because Apple is one of the few companies that charges consumers when they want to recycle used up gear.

As to the toxic materials, its all about reference and priorities. Greenpeace values the fact that Dell has committed to a 2009 deadline to phase out brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Apple shares the general goal, but won't commit to a fixed date. The same goes for PVCs. The problem isn't so much that Apple (or Dell) wants to keep using the materials, but they don't have any alternative.

The only alternative for BFRs is an increased fire hazard. Now that would make for really bad headlines. Just ask Dell.

The ball python is non-venomous. It is actually a shy kind of snake that prefers to hide in a dark place, rolled up in a ball. Kaiser was retrieved at 10:45PM on Monday.

The question now becomes if consumers will adopt the new model. Do they really care about DRM? Or do they just complain about it out of principle, but will they falter when they are faced with the consequences (higher prices).

If consumers shun the DRM-free music in favour of the less expensive protected kind, Apple and record labels can credibly claim that the public is only paying lip service to the anti-DRM lobby. If consumers do adopt the new format, Apple and EMI have succeeded in raising digital music download prices while meeting customer demands.

We've had debates about DRM for decades. How we can let market forces determine to what extent consumers are willing to pay for their ideals.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group

We met Jeremy last Thursday at the annual Media Summit for the Press Club of California. At the time he was hiding behind his notebook, doing exactly what he now will now longer do: blog.

The timing is suspicious though – his posting went up mere hours before April Fools.

"Project EcoBox taps into natural sunlight as a free source of light while its solar panels provide sufficient power for the mission-critical hot tub, executive office technology, as well as the revolutionary new Wolf® 30" Double Easy-Bake[tm] convection oven announced earlier today. It can be easily transported using common shipping methods, and can withstand natural disasters including earthquakes, tornadoes, and executive tirades.

[…]

Strong but slender, EcoBox shipping containers can be wedged into small plots and stacked up to 9 units high — sufficient to not only move executive management out of the building, but middle management as well!

The project is a pun on Sun Microsystems' Project Blackbox and its eco projects. First unveiled last year, Black Box uses a standard shipping container to house a data center. Sun targets the systems at firm's with rapidly rising demands for CPU power.