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Andreessen joins HP board
In a move that will come as a surprise to many, serial entrepreneur and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen has been appointed to HP's board of directors.
Andreessen, who is also chairman of social network platform provider Ning, will be HP's eleventh director, and is believed to have been brought on board to help HP boost its software presence.
More recently he founded Andreessen Horowitz, a tech venture capital firm, and some may see the move to a big corporate like HP as a strange one for the internet maverick. At Netscape, Andreessen co-authored Mosaic, the first widely used web browser which ultimately went the way of the dodo after a much publicised battle with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
"Marc Andreessen is a software pioneer whose leadership has helped shape the internet," said HP chairman and chief executive, Mark Hurd. "Marc's entrepreneurial background and industry expertise will be a welcome addition to the HP board of directors."
Sarah Palin puts herself on eBay
No matter if you like or loath Sarah Palin you have to acknowledge she has a knack for putting herself in the limelight.
Her latest wheeze is to auction herself off on eBay, and it seems to be working. Palin has put up an offer of dinner for four people with her, for a maximum of four hours. The offer has excited a lot of interest, and with eight days to go the bidding was up to $38,000 on Friday.
Now before you think that this is just another way to raise funds it should be pointed out that she's not keeping the money. It's all going to Ride 2 recovery, a charity for disabled members of the military.
Nevertheless, with her Twittering, regular Facebook posts (which show a stronger grasp of issues than we've seen when she opens her mouth) and now eBay it seems clean that this is one Republican who does get technology.
Microsoft talking points against Linux leaked
Point of sale material for staff selling the new range of Windows 7 PCs to combat buyers' interest in Linux has been leaked online.
The materials, sent to staff at Best Buy, are to be studied by staff who earn the right to buy a copy of Windows 7 for $10. One staff member has leaked the material to computing blog Overclock.net.
"So I work at Best Buy (insert boos and hisses) and I was doing some Microsoft ExpertZone training," the source said.
"Well, the new one for Windows 7 allows me to get a $10 retail copy of Windows 7 after completing the courses. So I figured I'd get it and sell it for a quick buck. Now, during my training modules, a 'Linux vs Windows 7' module appeared."
The training materials make a number of statements that are being strongly disputed by the open source community.
For example, Microsoft says that Linux systems have poor compatibility with printers, scanners and multimedia devices and don't support many games or popular messaging services.
It also asserts that Linux systems are difficult to maintain and update with software patches, and that Linux tutorials are almost non-existent.
Most contentiously of all, the materials state that Windows is, from a security standpoint, safer for users than Linux systems. The rationale for this is that users can't set parental locks on Linux systems and that security updates may not appear quickly.
Incidentally, today's Patch Tuesday from Microsoft included fixes for TCP vulnerabilities that were identified over two years ago and published last year.
eBay set to offload Skype today
eBay is expected to announce today that it is selling popular VoIP telephony service Skype to a group of private investors, according to a New York Times report yesterday citing people "briefed on the company's plans".
eBay bought Skype in 2005 in a deal which eventually cost the online auctions giant over $3 billion, beating off rival bids from Google and Yahoo. However, the firm was soon forced to concede that the internet telephony service was a poor fit with its main business.
In April, eBay announced plans to IPO Skype in the first half of 2010, but just last month The New York Times reported eBay was in discussions with Google about offloading Skype, although the search giant was said to have walked away from the deal.
The new reports don't disclose a price but say that Skype will be sold to an investment group including Andreesen Horowitz, a VC firm headed up by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.
eBay could be happy to offload Skype given it has also been locked in a legal dispute with Skype's founders for the past few months. If not resolved, the dispute could force the company to replace the technology at the heart of the popular internet telephony service.
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