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The InformationWeek June 2007 Archive « May 2007 | Main | July 2007 » |
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My iPhone Diary: A Thrill-Packed Friday Night Search For Steve Jobs' Latest Brainchild
This journal of my Friday-night search for an iPhone has everything you look for in summer entertainment: suspense, fast driving, crime, sex, Eastern mysticism, finance, humor, and adventure.
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How iPhone May Change How We Carry Phones
Perhaps it's our Star Trek communicator roots, but North Americans are obsessed with clamshell designs. That may change dramatically if Apple's iPhone takes off with consumers.
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AMD Preps Barcelona Amid Clock-Speed Concerns
It's a good news, bad news kind of day for AMD. On the plus side, the scrappy semiconductor vendor is confirming it will ship its quad-core Barcelona processors in August. However, clock speeds of the initial crop won't exceed 2.0 GHz, which is well short of what many had expected for what'll mark the debut of AMD's new "10h" architecture.
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Should The iPhone Make Telcos Tremble In Fear?
The iPhone is a stylish gadget, but it kowtows to the established telecom industry, Slate Magazine argues. But Slate dangles an intriguing possibility as an afterthought: Is the iPhone a Trojan horse?
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Video: The Daily Show Looks At iPhone-Mania
Correspondent Rob Riggle will do anything to get his hands on an iPhone in this funny, raunchy short video.
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We Can't Stop Talking About The iPhone
There is no escape from the iPhone. I have never seen a consumer-electronics device dominate public discourse as much as this gadget. In my many years of writing about cell phones, I always thought the buzz surrounding the launch of the Motorola Razr was unique. But that was nothing compared to the iPhone.
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Getting My Hands On An iPhone -- I Hope
What are you doing this weekend? As I write this, it's Friday morning, and I'm hoping I'll be working this weekend, posting image galleries and writing reviews of the iPhone. Of course, to do that, I need to get my hands on an iPhone.
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Research: In-Building Wireless Coverage Critical
A report from ABI Research says that more work and important communications takes place indoors rather than out, and that propels the need for better wireless coverage inside.
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AT&T Boosts EDGE Speeds On iPhone Eve
First rumored a couple of weeks ago, it turns out that AT&T has indeed enhanced its EDGE network for faster speeds. Yesterday, on iPhone eve, users of AT&T's EDGE network began reporting significant improvements in speeds, up to 200 kilobits per second.
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Opening Up A Can Of Spam, I Mean Worms
When I wrote my story yesterday about a self-proclaimed anti-spam activist's feud with a company he accused of being a "spammer", I knew I was touching on a sensitive issue, but I didn't realize just how sensitive until today. Both sides took exception to the wording of passages in my story, particularly those that used the "s" word, and I'm sure that neither side will be looking to shake hands and laugh about this anytime soon.
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The 'Real Web' Kills The iPhone
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was so happy to show off the fact that the iPhone's browser lets users experience the "real" Internet that he forgot one important fact: The "real" Internet requires speed. As early reviews of the iPhone are pointing out in hordes, speed is one thing the iPhone doesn't have over AT&T's EDGE network.
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Meeting The Best Gadget-Makers In Second Life At Geek Meet
We're kicking off the new Geek Meet discussions in Second Life by meeting with the top gadgeteers in Second Life, the creators of the MystiTool, Calendar Cogs, Stats Collector, and Squawk tools.
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The Only Thing That Matters About The iPhone
Yes, there's a lot of hype about the iPhone. Yes, it's a very expensive piece of equipment. But neither of those things really matter. The only thing that really matters is: How good is it?
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Why Tainted Toothpaste Matters In The Outsourcing Discussion
As a talent war escalates in India, many companies are looking to China as the next big opportunity for offshore outsourcing. I have two words for you: tainted toothpaste.
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MP3.com Founder Michael Robertson Says iPhone Will Flop
"I think it's going to be a flop. It's beautiful, no doubt, but people need the tactile feedback of keys."--MP3.com, Linspire, and SIPphone founder Michael Robertson.
Who the heck is Robertson to speak? For those whose memory of the first Internet bubble is hazy--of the mid-1990s, like the '60s, one can say that if you remember them, you probably weren't there--Robertson reportedly walked away with $100 million when he sold MP3.com to Vivendi Universal in 2001.
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Nokia Looks To Ease The Cost Of Entry For Developers
For companies or individuals interested in developing for Nokia phones that don't necessarily have the resources to join Forum Nokia, a new opportunity has arisen. Today Nokia announced its Launchpad mobile software developer offering for the closet developer in everyone.
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InformationWeek Gets Voice In Second Life -- Sort Of
Recently, I checked on an obscure corner of my vast Second Life real-estate empire, and by gosh, voice is working there. I was excited -- I've been impatient to start incorporating voice into my regular Second Life usage.
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A Preview Of This Summer's Tech Toys
Perhaps it was because the humidity was so high in New York that it felt like I was swimming through Manhattan's streets, or perhaps it was because my thoughts were drifting longingly to summer vacations by the beach, or perhaps because my cell phone recently took a disastrous dip in the Atlantic Ocean -- but I couldn't help noticing a trend toward water-resistant technology at the Digital Experience press event last night.
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Why Apple-Style Secrecy Won't Work For Microsoft
One of the hallmarks of Apple's current cachet, along with pure stylishness, is its secrecy. Products don't get announced until very close to release date, features sometimes even later, and Apple's public relations department isn't exactly the most open. Apple's caginess certainly breeds intrigue, but it wouldn't work as a corporate policy at a place like Microsoft.
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Review Scorecard Reveals That EDGE May Ruin The iPhone
Are you desperate to see how well the iPhone is coming out in early reviews? Do you need a comprehensive scorecard? Well, look no more.
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Simple Web Design And Discoverability Are Keys To Mobile SEO
Now that the mobile Web is mainstream, everyone is launching mobile Web sites. The problem is no one seems to know how to drive traffic to them. As a result, mobile search engine optimization has emerged as a big topic for everyone from marketers to online editors and publishers. The mobile Web, though, is not as developed as the desktop Web and as a result, optimizing mobile sites for search is far from easy.
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Relaunching Our Discussion Group In Second Life
I'm very pleased to report that we're teaming up with one of the best virtual-worlds news blogs, Metaversed, to beef up our ongoing discussion group in Second Life.
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LinkedIn's Plan To Open Platform Is But A Step
Business social networking site LinkedIn is going to be following in the footsteps of Facebook by opening up APIs over the next several months. Facebook's move has bolstered already skyrocketing membership and led to a ton of new applications. But what does this big step mean for LinkedIn and for social networking in business? Just like everything else in the Enterprise 2.0 world, business social networks won't get used unless they can do something better than e-mail and other apps.
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T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home Service Graduates From Test Markets And Launches Nationally
Today marks the official national launch of T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home service, whereby subscribers can use their cell phones to roam between cellular and Wi-Fi networks for calls. Just who is this service for, and is it worth the $19.99 per month?
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Sprint All But Cans Nextel Identity
Sprint is launching a new marketing campaign, and it is all about speed. Conspicuously absent? Any real references to Nextel, which Sprint paid big bucks to merge with a couple of years ago. Does this spell the end of Nextel?
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How To Crash Windows Vista In 10 Seconds Or Less
Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system is a mighty paradox. On the one hand, it's more robust and feature-rich than any of its predecessors. For the most part, it's also more secure and is immune to many pretty sophisticated takedown attempts. But it's got one nasty Achilles' Heel, which'll enable you to crash the OS in under 10 seconds.
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Google Is The Top Mobile Web Site
According to new findings from researcher M:Metrics, Google is the top mobile Web site in terms of smartphone users in the U.S. and the U.K. Is anyone really surprised that Google is the top mobile site?
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iPhone Debate: Buy Or Wait?
Friday is almost upon us and there seems to be no way to avoid the absurd iPhone hype. Just this morning I received a pitch from VeriSign's PR agency, Weber Shandwick, that posed the question, "Will the iPhone crash the Internet?" (No, apparently. The question was just to get me to read the pitch.)
Resistance, it seems, it futile. So in the spirit of Stephen Colbert's Formidable Opponent segment, it's time to debate myself about the pros and cons of buying an iPhone. Feel free to join in.
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Early iPhone Review Confirms Keyboard Is Difficult To Use And EDGE Is Too Slow
While the iPhone may be the it gadget of 2007, it looks like the so-called "Jesus Phone" is far from perfect. NY Times columnist David Pogue published one of the first reviews to hit the Web and he confirms what many bloggers have long suspected: The virtual keyboard is difficult to use and AT&T's EDGE network is insanely slow.
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National ID Cards The 'Sleeper' Immigration Issue?
A largely overlooked section in the comprehensive immigration reform being debated in the Senate calls for the Social Security Administration to come up with fraud-resistant cards within two years to aid in electronic worker verification, possibly including biometric information. One top immigration scholar says this could be the "sleeper" issue of the debate, since it affects every U.S. employee.
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Gates' Legacy Also Transforms A City
After reading the articles on Bill Gates' legacy by my colleagues John Foley and John Soat, I have to add an aspect that they left out: the profound reshaping of Seattle that was a direct result of Microsoft's ascendance. Has any individual (well, pair of individuals, since you have to count Paul Allen in this calculation) ever had a more profound effect on a large American city?
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iPhone To Cost $2,000 To $6,000 Over Two Years
Wired has the breakdown: The 8-Gbyte iPhone for $599, plus $36 activation fee, plus $220 a month for the highest-priced, highest-usage plan. The 4-Gbyte iPhone with the basic plan, at $60 a month, adds up to about $2,000 over two years.
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Will The iPhone Support Microsoft Exchange?
For much of the last six months, bloggers and reporters operated under the assumption that the iPhone would not support major enterprise platforms like BlackBerry Enterprise Server or Microsoft Exchange. That may change tomorrow, though, if Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley is correct. According to her the iPhone will support Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.
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CIO Gregor Bailar Responds: It's Time To Give Back
Just heard back from outgoing Capital One CIO Gregor Bailar, who's departure I wrote about below and promised a response from the horse's mouth. Capital One, you may know, was the top company in the InformationWeek 500 list two years ago. Check out the last paragraph in Gregor's response about his insight into the future role of the CIO in this industry -- very interesting and right in line with some of my own previous postings...
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C'Mon, Apple, Give Us Mac Users Some Love
With iPhone hype building to a frenzy, Mac users are feeling neglected and unloved. I can't remember Apple's last interesting Mac announcement. Instead, Apple's been giving its love to the mobile phone crowd, and even Windows users.
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Lawrence Lessig Takes On An Even Bigger Problem
Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig has for a decade worked in the area of that great oxymoron, "intellectual property," but last week he announced that he will no longer focus on IP issues. He isn't leaving "the movement," he wrote in his blog, ". . . but I have come to believe that until a more fundamental problem is fixed, 'the movement' can't succeed either." The problem? The corruption of the political process by corporations
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A Cell Phone Is A Woman's Best Friend
If you believe a new study from Samsung, women use cell phones for more than just security reasons. Young women are super savvy at using all the facets of a mobile phone to enhance their lives. When women want to flirt, they'll send a text message. When they need to avoid a stalker, they will fake technical difficulties. And more than a handful said they wouldn't date a man who had a big, bulky cell phone. I guess size matters in more ways than one.
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Is Silence Golden?
Since a bunch of badly disguised radicals trespassed on a merchant ship and tossed some of its cargo into the waters of Boston Harbor, people have come up with imaginative ways to protest laws that they see as unfair, unjustified, or wrong.... OK, that's a pretty hokey opening. I apologize. But it was the best way I could think of to introduce the topic of the "Day of Silence" that is being held today by a group of U.S.-based Webcasters.
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Apple And AT&T Finally Announce iPhone Rate Plans
If you've been hankering for a hunk of hot Apple gadget love on Friday, but were waiting to find out just how much the service plan for the Apple iPhone will cost before committing, there is good news. Voice and data plans for the iPhone start at the reasonable price of $59.99 per month. But there's also a down side.
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Open Notebook, Open Sources: How The GPL Grew
I'd like to open my notebook to some revelations, comments, and maybe just plain trivia discovered in the pursuit of news on open source. For example, EnterpriseDB, which has billed itself as a replacement for Oracle databases, just replaced an Oracle system at FTD, the floral delivery service. And I thought "replacing Oracle" was just a clever marketing line from Andy Astor.
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Rebutting The iPhone Critics
Daring Fireball has been doing some deliciously vicious rebutting of negative reporting on the iPhone. Here, he goes after an article in the New York Times.
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AMD's Phenom Quad-Cores Pegged For November Debut
Now comes renewed word that AMD's quad-core Phenom desktop processor line is poised to hit the market in November. The news, circulating in stories out of Taipei this weekend, isn't actually anything new--AMD publicly copped to a planned 2H 2007 introduction back in May. But it is stoking industry interest in what looms as a new round in the architectural wars, between AMD's impressive "10h" design and Intel's equally strong "Core" families.
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Novelist Michael Chabon, Winner Of The Pulitzer Prize, Credits Mac Software
Michael Chabon concludes his latest novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by naming his Mac writing software, DevonThink Pro and Nisus Writer Express. I can't recall ever seeing another a novelist credit their writing software in the afterword to a novel.
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Book A Meeting, Get A Free iPhone
It's easy. Grab 10 or more of your closest friends and reserve some time at a little place on the waterfront outside of Los Angeles airport.
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Good Gets A Little Web 2.0 With Latest Upgrade
Mobile e-mail solution maker Good Technology today announced the latest version of its mobile business solution, Good Messaging 5. I was able to get a sneak peek of Good 5 a few weeks ago, and it looks like Good is ready for Web 2.0. Or at least moving in that direction.
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Alaskans Out In The Cold On iPhone
Alaskans won't be able to get the iPhone because of Apple's contractual obligations with carrier AT&T, reports the Alaska Daily News. The paper goes on to suggest ... well .. lying is such an ugly word, isn't it?
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Taking A Break This Summer? Or Taking The Laptop?
Sunglasses, check. Bathing suit, check. Camera, check. Laptop—that's a double negative.
Yes, I'm doing that increasingly rare thing: having an untethered, nontech vacation. No electronic leash for me for the next two weeks. I'm even leaving my cell phone at home (what the heck, it wouldn't work where we're going anyway).
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E-Mail Feud Between The Video Rental Store And Lawyer Takes A Sad Turn
Travis J. I. Corcoran, who's been posting e-mails in a feud with attorney Robert Tourtelot, says he's going to stop now, after being informed that Tourtelot, who's advancing in years, may not be in possession of all his faculties:
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The iPhone Is Not A Smartphone, And Nokia Knows IT
On the heels of last week's news that Nokia is selling its E and N series devices through Dell's Web site, today Nokia made its enterprise phones much more widely available. Nokia is partnering with a number of distribution channels to push its Wi-Fi-enabled E61i and E65 to business users. But this tactic won't affect iPhone sales come Friday.
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802.11n Products Officially Being Tested By The Wi-Fi Alliance
It looks like 802.11n Draft 2.0 products are yet another step closer to being officially recognized by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The WFA has begun the certification process to test 802.11n products, and expects to slap its nifty new logo on Draft 2.0 equipment in time for it hit store shelves later this summer.
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What We Think Of Bill Gates
He's analytical, driven, calculating, irritable, confident, inquisitive, opportunistic, boyish, wealthy, generous, smart, and competitive. Microsoft's cofounder and chairman has been called many things, some flattering, others unprintable.
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Free VoIP For Your Windows Mobile Smartphone
Fring, the free mobile VoIP service that works just like Skype, is now available for Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6 smartphones. Get ready for some free mobile phone calls.
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Hilarious E-Mail Feud Between Video Rental Store And Lawyer
A spelling-impaired attorney sends bullying e-mails to a DVD-rental outfit. and the target of the e-mails posts the exchange for our reading pleasure.
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Simplifying Web Searching From The Mac
The delightful Merlin Mann posts a one-minute video tutorial on using Sogudi to simplify searches from Safari using keywords. Keyword searches are great little time-savers, available from just about any browser and operating system.
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Will Widgets Make The Mobile Web Better?
The iPhone holds two big promises for the mobile Web. The first is that users will begin to rely on it as much as they currently do the desktop Web. And the second is that widgets will be the answer where previous attempts to improve mobile usability, like WAP, failed.
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How Do IT Workers Know How To Act?
Figuring out what IT workers should look at, shouldn?t look at, and what liability lies in between is not as easy as it, uh, looks.
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Brits Choose Their Mobile Phones Over 1 Million Pounds
OK, it's official. You can tell mobile phones have become embedded in the very fabric of our existence when not even the jingle jangle of cold, hard cash will pry them from our hands. Carphone Warehouse's Mobile Life survey confirms this and a few other interesting tidbits about the importance of mobile phones.
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Apple Offers Web Video Tour Of The iPhone
It's just one week until the launch of the iPhone and to mark the final seven days of waiting, Apple has released a Web-based "guided tour" designed to further whet the appetites of Macheads around the world.
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What's All The BREW-Ha-Ha?
Last minute happenings at BREW include Javaground's announcement that its application allows developers to port Java into BREW and the ITC's spoil-sport ruling that it will not stay the ban it levied against Qualcomm.
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Video: Stephen Colbert On E-Mail Etiquette
The late-night mock shock jock interviews Will Schwalbe, co-author of Send: The Essential Guide To E-Mail For Office And Home. "I spend most of my time e-mailing drunk. ... Could that come back and bite me in the *** one day?"
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SAP Isn't About Easy; It's About Regimentation
Kimberly-Clark's experience with its three-year, $100 million SAP rollout -- plus $17 million for user training -- is hardly big news. But it underscores something I've thought for a long time: the decision to move to SAP has little or nothing to do with making it easier for employees to perform better in the real world.
On the contrary, it has everything to do with B-school egghead theories about making business operations fit together like Lego blocks, regardless of the human cost.
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Virtual Goods Are A Coming Big Business
A VC principal writes that merchants are making big money in virtual worlds -- over $1.5 billion annually and growing. Virtual goods helps buyers express themselves, and increase satisfaction with whatever game, service or virtual world they're using.
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GPS Apps Lead The Way At BREW
One thing there is no shortage of at the BREW conference in San Diego is GPS and LBS offerings. Meet six companies who want to make sure you never have to rely on a gas station attendant for directions again.
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Do Software Makers Have to Protect Rivals?
In "Microsoft Search Compromise Could Hinder Innovation," Boston University law professor Keith Hylton raised the issue of how the government's case against Microsoft appears to have expanded antitrust law to include an obligation on the part of software companies to protect rivals.
This is not an endorsement of Microsoft's behavior or criticism of Google's complaint about how Vista handles search. Rather, it's an observation about the possible direction of future antitrust lawsuits.
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How To Set Up A Multi-Monitor Display On The Mac (With A Useful Tip For Windows And Linux Users)
I'm coming to you now from a desktop with three displays: A 24" iMac display, 19" LCD external monitor, and 12" internal PowerBook display. It's ridiculous -- my desk looks like it belongs to the Biggest Nerd In The Universe.
Continue reading "How To Set Up A Multi-Monitor Display On The Mac (With A Useful Tip For Windows And Linux Users)..."
What Secret Does Your Laptop Hold?
What do you have on your laptop that you might not want anyone else to see?
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Qualcomm Wants To Foster Better Relationships Between Hardware OEMs And Developers
While Qualcomm is not exactly trying to be a matchmaker like your Aunt Tilly, it hopes the new BREW Client 4-Series developer tools will help hardware manufacturers and developers work together better. The end goal? Cooler stuff for mobile phones that is easier to make and costs less.
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Beware Of Sticky Fingers When BlackBerrys Handle State Secrets
We're not at war with France, at least not the last time I checked, but that doesn't mean that the French want their state secrets coursing through the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, courtesy of French government officials addicted to les BlackBerrys. Sure, BlackBerrys come with built-in encryption, but is that enough when you really, really don't want anyone to get their hands on the information you're carrying around?
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The Most Hated Words On The Internet
"Blog," "netiquette," "cookie," and "wiki" are among the most hated words on the Internet, according to a British poll.
Ventrilo Harassment Exposed
What happens when your MMORPG is hijacked by a player with a headset, chat software, and a whole lot of attitude? Duke Nukem, for starters.
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What Can Real-World Businesses Do To Succeed In Second Life?
I'm wrapping up an article I've been struggling with for months, about how real-life businesses succeed in Second Life. It's a tough article to do because I think the overwhelming majority of real-life businesses that move into Second Life are failures.
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iPhone Backlash Misses the Point
Fake Steve Jobs is not someone to suffer indignity lightly. And lately he's had plenty to wax indignant about. We refer, natch, to the media backlash that has risen to a veritable tide of negativity in advance of the iPhone launch a mere 9 days away (and no, I am not blogging from a sleeping bag in front of my local AT&T Wireless store).
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iPhone Will Not Offer The Full Web
Forget all the hype we've heard. It seems that the iPhone will not offer the full Web, after all. At least not according to Apple's developer specifications.
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Qualcomm Wants Marketers To Take Mobile Content Off-Deck
Qualcomm has embraced off-deck mobile content and entered the mobile marketing game. Today Qualcomm announced a new service, called BREW BrandXtend Signature Solution, designed to let major brands take their mobile content directly to their customers. As marketers embrace the third screen, many now want to bypass the carriers and . Earlier this month Sprite announced what may be the boldest example of this yet, a new mobile social networking service called the Sprite Yard. In order to better get a handle on Qualcomm's move into direct mobile marketing, I sat down with Mitch Oliver, VP of Solutions & Marketing, Qualcomm Internet Services.
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Barack Obama Campaign Goes Mobile For Election 2008
The campaign of Democrtaic presidential candidate Barack Obama has embraced the third screen as a way to rally support and organize volunteers. Looks like Election 2008 is going mobile.
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AT&T Launches Video Sharing Service, But Not For The iPhone
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson yesterday at the NXTcomm conference showed off AT&T's new video sharing service. The "first-ever service" in the U.S. allows users to share live video over their cell phones while talking. While this is cool, guess what, it won't work on the iPhone. And this video service is way too expensive.
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WiMax To Replace Wi-Fi And 3G For The Enterprise?
The study about mobile WiMax, which was conducted by Motorola, found that 49% of respondents said they would use it to surf the Internet or read email. On top of that, 45% of enterprise users would use it for work-related purposes. But just how important is the ubiquity of wireless coverage?
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Qualcomm Offers Companies The Chance To Market, Sell Services Off-Deck
In the first of what is sure to be a flurry of news from the BREW conference in San Diego this week, Qualcomm has announced its BREW BrandXtend Signature Solution. The offering is aimed at brands looking to make their products available to mobile users both on- and off-deck. Will companies take a sip of this new brew?
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Enterprise 2.0 In Action At Enterprise 2.0
I came to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston this week expecting to hear about all the challenges companies are having proving the value of collaborative technologies to their employees and how they were trying to get pilot projects off the ground and what vendors are doing to sell tools like blogs, wikis, and mash-up engines. What I didn't anticipate is that I'd see innovative uses of collaborative technology right here at the show. Exhibit one: Morgan Stanley.
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How Do You Keep Work From Taking Over Your Life?
Blogger Dave Taylor describes a major lifestyle change -- he's shutting off his cell phone and computer at 5 p.m. on weekdays, and all weekend, too.
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YouTube, You Screwed?
More businesses want to get involved with YouTube. It's young, it's hip, it's "Web 2.0." But don't mistake YouTube for child's play. As a Pittsburgh law firm is learning, there can be ugly repercussions to posting video for the whole world to see.
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Bye-Bye E62, We Hardly Knew You
AT&T is sending the E62 out to the smartphone retirement village. That's right, the smartphone that was destined to kill the BlackBerry is now nothing more than a memory in the minds of mobile geeks and abandoned enterprise users. What happened?
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Mobility And Enterprise 2.0: Are These Two Ready To Play Together?
I just returned from a panel on business mobility at Enteprise 2.0 called "Integrating the Mobile Worker." Everyone there seemed eager to learn one thing: Is business mobility ready for Enterprise 2.0? The answer: You'd better make sure all those Enterprise 2.0 applications can work on smartphones.
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My Macs And Treo Hate Me
I've been having a terrible time getting my iCal calendars moved from the colossal iMac to the wee-small PowerBook and getting them to sync with my Palm Treo 650. I was eventually able to move the calendars, but syncing still has me stumped.
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Will Enterprise 2.0 Kill Corporate E-Mail?
One of the themes that emerged during this morning's keynote sessions at Enterprise 2.0 was how Web 2.0 technologies act as new communications tools. Some technologists (including a few of the speakers this morning) suggest that Web 2.0 could kill e-mail for consumers. Could technologies like social networks, blogs, Skype, and IM kill e-mail for businesses as well?
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Mobile Web Browser Wars Heat Up With Addition Of Revised Opera Mini
Unlike the regular Web browsers (you know, IE, Firefox, Safari), mobile Web browsers aren't really in a pitched "war" for market share. I say it's high time they had a war of their very own, though, and Opera is firing the first shot with its newly revised Mini 4 Web browser. Does Opera sing high notes, or fall flat?
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All Knowledge Is Social At Enterprise 2.0
I am at the Enterprise 2.0 conference today in Boston. Enterprise 2.0 is a relatively new term -- it was first coined in March last year. But it has captured the imaginations of technologists and vendors around the world in just 15 months and gone memetic. But what does Enterprise 2.0 really mean for businesses?
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Dell's Mobile Phone Strategy: Selling High-End Nokia Devices
This isn't quite the line of thinking people had in mind a few months ago when tossing around the idea of Dell entering the smartphone business. Dell's small business Web site is now selling unlocked E and N series Nokia phones. If you ask me, the deal is better for Nokia than for Dell.
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Microsoft Freshman Course: How To Monetize Patents
I watched Microsoft as a leading-edge company make has-beens out of those who couldn't keep up with its frenetic pace of Windows development. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 spring to mind. Now Microsoft, a little longer in the tooth itself, has found a way to make has-beens out of a new set of companies -- those that agree to pay Microsoft royalties on open source code.
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Enterprise 2.0--Changing Corporate Culture Before Changing The Tech
At the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston this week I quickly caught on that this business/technology move isn't so much about the tech behind it but about harnessing what evangelists call the 'collective intelligence.' What they're getting at is that blogs and wikis aren't just cool and fun, they could help smart employees who are never heard find a corporate voice.
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Why Doesn't Wi-Fi Work On Many Corporate Campuses?
While some Wi-Fi evangelists wax poetic about the potential of muni Wi-Fi and free broadband wireless for the masses, I have a much simpler question: Why is Wi-Fi access on most corporate campuses so bad? Corporate Wi-Fi has been around now for five to six years in most work environments, but it's far from usable most of the time. Coverage is often lousy (why is there access in some cubes but not in that corner where you always have that annoying weekly staff meeting) and sometimes it's just impossible to get on. Why can't corporate Wi-Fi, you know, just work?
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Yahoo CEO Out: Does This Mean Panama Is A Flop?
Yahoo CEO Terry Semel resigned today in a move that sent shockwaves through the Web. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang will replace Semel at the top spot. Despite Semel's best efforts -- buying Overture and building Panama -- Yahoo hasn't been able to keep up with Google in terms of search or online ad growth. Today's announcement opens up plenty of new questions.
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Connecting My Wee Small PowerBook To My Colossal iMac
I got the wee, small PowerBook home Saturday, and began to explore options for connecting it to the colossal iMac. I want to use the same keyboard and mouse to control both machines. Turns out there are several says of doing that, all of them pretty easy.
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'Sicko' On Google Video
Michael Moore's latest film Sicko has appeared online. My wife and I watched it in its entirety on Google Video last night. It has been removed since then, though it's no doubt still available on various file sharing networks.
I'm tempted to send Mr. Moore a check for the $20 we won't be spending at the movie theater this summer, but to do so would be to shortchange him.
Sicko is a profoundly compelling film and if it has the effect on the rest of America that it had on me, Mr. Moore will have done this country a far greater service than can be paid back in dollars.
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The H-1B Debate: Beneath The Policy, The Personal
I've spent the last few weeks researching an article on H-1B visas, and it's been both illuminating and painful to dig underneath the press releases of high-tech firms, lobbying groups, and politicians and talk to the individuals directly affected by how many H-1B visas are issued -- and how many of those guest workers actually get green cards.
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The Only Way Ahead For WiMax
While I had my head down cranking out a feature on Intel's ultra-mobile future last week, Sprint Nextel chairman and CEO Gary Forsee for the first time raised doubts about the future of Sprint's WiMax network project. According to the Wall Street Journal, it appears that a spin-off or a joint venture of some kind with Clearwire could be in the offing, which could well be the only way that WiMax will actually get off the ground in this country.
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Microsoft Launches MSN Mobile Portal For Cell Phones
In a bid to remain competitive with other mobile portals, Microsoft launched its new MSN Mobile portal to make it easier for people to find the information they want or need. I took a quick look at it on my phone and it offers similar functionality as the other mobile portals offered by Google, Yahoo, and Ask. Is Microsoft breaking any new ground here?
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Mark/Space Responds To My Complaints About Its Mac Synching Software
Mark/Space, the company that makes the Missing Synch software that -- among other things -- synchs Palm handhelds to the Mac, took issue with my complaints about its licensing and customer service.
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iPhone Battery Life Details Emerge
Apple made some more info about the iPhone public today and the news is encouraging. Apple has upgraded the touchscreen to a scratch-resistant glass surface, and the battery will provide up to 8 hours of talk time. That's much better than the rumored 40 minutes of talk time we saw a couple of months ago.
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Will The iPhone Make Consumers Abandon Their Carriers?
Just how powerful a pull will the iPhone be for AT&T? It's hard to say. According to a report in today's Wall Street Journal, just because someone knows about the iPhone doesn't mean they'll buy it. But it seems some carriers' subscribers may be more vulnerable for poaching than others.
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Why Stock Exchanges Choose AMD
AMD issued a news release earlier this week saying that many leading stock exchanges are using its dual-core Opteron processors in their data centers to conduct billions of daily transactions. The next step for these stock exchanges is the transition to quad-core processors, which will require upgrades and careful planning to avoid downtime.
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Hanging With The Grown-Ups
A close friend recently sent me an invitation to join a new search service called Spock, which has generated a bit of buzz. Besides the lure of the name itself (OK, I admit it, I was a Trekkie in a previous life), I was attracted by the idea of a new search engine that uses tags and other strategies to pull in information about people, eliminate duplicate information, and pull it all together in a profile page. But not all the buzz has been favorable -- especially for us XX-chromosome types.
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AT&T To Skip WiMax For LTE?
At the Wireless Communications Association conference this week, AT&T VP of government solutions for mobility Chris Hill said that AT&T is probably going to pick Long Term Evolution, or LTE, for its next-generation, high-speed network technology. Is WiMax out of the picture for AT&T, and how will enterprise users be affected?
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European Operators: Apple Is 'Unbelievably Arrogant'
Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart wrote on Monday that Apple is having a tough time finding a network operator partner to carry the iPhone in Europe. The reason? Apple's outrageous demands and insistence on absolute control over the iPhone. The net result might force Apple to adopt a retail distribution model if it hopes to sell the iPhone in Europe.
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We're All In The Same Bloat
Bloatware -- sometimes called craplets -- is that ugly build-up of annoying code you find on new PCs -- demoware, trial applications and sign-ups, and marketing cruft that you have to deal with when you're setting up a new computer. Apple ridiculed PC bloatware in one of its spot-on "I'm-a-Mac-and-I'm-a-PC" ads. And in their latest newsletter, the guys at PC Pitstop say it's getting worse.
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CIO Dossier: Ben Holder, Unifi
Challenge: Add even more complexity to an already complex IT role by taking on telecom cost-reduction project.
Solution: A call to arms, CIO Nation! Ben?s got his own ideas but let's get him some additional CIO input.
Ben Holder, CIO of Unifi, a textile manufacturer located in Greensboro, N.C., is in the discovery phase of overhauling the telecom bill-paying and management systems at the company. Not traditionally an IT operation at many companies, telecom is yet another part of the business where many CIOs are starting to insert themselves. Here?s what?s going on with Ben and how CIOs can help?
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Sprint Might Spin Off WiMax. Does This Mean Sprint Has Second Thoughts?
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sprint might spin off its WiMax unit. The spinoff could be part of a deal to form a joint venture with Craig McCaw's Clearwire, which currently has about 258,000 fixed WiMax customers in 38 U.S. markets. Would a spinoff mean that Sprint doesn't really believe in WiMax?
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The iPhone Could Kill The Mobile Streaming Video Market
Get ready for this week's edition of the analyst hockey stick. According to the latest report from Research and Markets, the U.S. market for paid mobile video services is just bustin' at the seams, with growth expected to go from $180 million in 2006 to $10.2 billion in 2012. Are they serious?
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Google Might Take A Transparency Lesson From Itself
Google's been in the doghouse recently with privacy. Last week, watchdog group Privacy International ranked Google last among its peers in privacy, while Google simultaneously tried to quell European Union concerns that the company's data retention policies didn't meet EU rules to delete unneeded data by saying it would anonymize data after 18 months. Meanwhile, the company's under heat for street-level maps that have caught people urinating in bushes and showing a little too much thong.
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Hummer Cell Phone Misses The Point
Yes, you read that correctly. A cell phone from Hummer, the ultra-SUV brand, is about to hit the market. It comes in the same garish yellow that's probably blinded you when one of the trucks roars past on the highway. It is lacking the most important feature, however: A rugged form factor. That means it is no good for field force workers.
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iPhone Will Be Available At 6 p.m. 'Local Time,' But Shortages Likely
If you're really interested in picking up an iPhone on the 29th, be prepared for long waits and possible disappointment. The iPhone won't go on sale until 6 p.m. local time, and lines will likely start forming early (like, Oh-Dark-Thirty early). Not only that, but a supply chain expert expects shortages to leave some empty-handed for up to eight weeks.
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Syncing The Palm Treo With The Mac: Like Hitting Your Thumb With A Hammer, But Without The Fun Parts
A couple of days back, I was assigned a new PowerBook notebook from my company's IT department. Moving data, apps, and settings to my new machine has been pretty simple, except for one thing: I can't get the bloody Treo to sync with the Mac.
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I'm In Love With My New, Wee Mac
My employers here at CMP Technology got tired of listening to me beg and threaten to hold my breath until my face turned blue, and they got me a PowerBook to replace my ThinkPad running Windows. When they delivered it, I was startled that it had a wee-small 12-inch display.
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Google, Intel Going Green Spotlights Energy Cost Concerns
Lest you think that the recent rush, led by Google and Intel, to embrace green-computing concerns marks the re-emergence of some kind of touchy-feely, 1960s-style environmentally conscious lifestyle, think again. True, it is the 40th anniversary of the famous (infamous? iconic? overhyped? hard to remember?) "Summer of Love." But what's really going on here boils down to simple concerns about the almighty dollar: Running racks of blade servers is expensive, and users aren't interesting in paying high energy tabs anymore.
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At Apple's WWDC: Thoughts On Finder And Other Matters
Continuing my thoughts on Steve Jobs' keynote at the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference: One of the items that many Mac users have wanted is for Apple to "Fix the Finder." Unfortunately, like any wish list from a large group of people, you end up with a list that is essentially infinite in length, and impossible to implement within the millennium. That's not to say that Apple has been completely deaf to these wishes. So, yes, there have been Finder changes in Leopard, although I doubt that the "Death to the Finder" crowd will find this to be the Finder they dream of.
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More On The Value of Younger IT Folks
Following on the previous entry about BNSF's legacy migration, here's a reader's post from back in February on Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog that underscores the shift in the hierarchy of value within IT. The CIO doesn't always have the best answers, there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between age/experience and intelligence/talent, and it's a CIO like Jeff Campbell at BNSF who recognizes that that'll be the greatest asset to their company moving forward...
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Microsoft Lets A Wizard Help Sell More Dynamics
After a year of educating its partners on the benefits of Dynamics, Microsoft is extending the accounting and CRM business software to more customers with the help of a third-party IT integrator called Wizard ...pointy hat and wand not included.
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Google Mobile Search Ads Coming Sooner Than You Think
It looks like mobile search ads could soon take off in what is arguable the world's most advanced wireless market, South Korea. Looks like mobile search advertising is on its way.
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Mossberg Is Mixed On The iPhone And Its Onscreen Keypad
Earlier this week, technology columnist Walter Mossberg pulled out his iPhone at The Chronicle of Higher Education's President's Forum. The iPhone even stole the show at a conference of academic administrators. But, even more important, Mossberg gave a possible preview of his upcoming review.
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There Will Be No Real Third-Party Application Development On The iPhone
After the Jobsnote at WWDC on Monday, almost everyone (including yours truly) thought that the iPhone would be open to third-party applications. But in the last two days, close scrutiny of Jobs' announcement has led some experts to conclude that the iPhone will not be anywhere near as open as we first thought.
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700-MHz Winds Start To Shift
As the Senate Commerce Committee prepares to hold hearings tomorrow on the upcoming auction of 700-MHz spectrum, the issue of how to carve up and sell off this extremely valuable slice of airwaves is finally making the leap from the tech press to the mainstream of D.C. politics (though not to the MSM, natch). The latest salvo comes from Sen. John Kerry, who yesterday sent a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin calling for a set of rules that will open up the auction to new competitors beyond the cable and telecom incumbents that currently control something like 96% of all broadband access in this country.
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What's Really Behind Apple's Decision To Bring Safari To Windows?
Readers had a lot to say about why Apple decided to port its Safari browser to Windows. Readers said iPhone users will need to use Safari to sync with PCs running Windows and suggested that Apple is doing the whole thing as a marketing move.
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Jobs Sees iPhone Future In Real-World Web Browsing
Forget all my bitching about the iPhone and its lack of a hard keypad. At his WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs has insured the long-term consumer (though not business) success of his still-unlaunched-yet-super-successful mobile device.
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App Virtualization: It's Got Management Potential
Operating system virtualization has continued to get a lot of attention at the end-user level — especially with the recent announcements of Parallels Desktop 3.0 for the Mac and VMWare’s Fusion, which also allows Mac users to run Windows applications. But virtualizing operating systems is only one way to do it. Altiris made some news last week with an update to its Software Virtualization Solution (SVS). SVS virtualizes the application, not the OS -- an approach that has real management potential.
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Apple Preps The iPhone Faithful With E-Mail
If you registered with Apple or AT&T to "find out more" about the iPhone, you likely received the mass e-mail that includes a number of steps to take to prepare for the iPhone's arrival on June 29. Perhaps the most interesting is that it states an iTunes account will be required to set up the phone. It also details how the iPhone will sync with your Apple or Windows machine all smartphone-style.
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Early Adopters Scream: I Want My Converged Handset!
Okay, that may not be the sexiest rallying cry ever uttered, but In-Stat insists that the early adopter crowd in the U.S. wants Wi-Fi on board whatever device replaces their current phone. The impetus behind the demand? Techies want to be able to take advantage of VoIP services. Do businesses fall into that mix?
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At Apple's WWDC: Keynote Speakers Are Being Careful
For anyone expecting truly radical, groundbreaking features out of the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference Keynote, it would be correct to say they were...disappointed. It was a somewhat muted keynote compared with some other ones, with most of the features Steve Jobs talked about being things he'd talked about last year. However, I think it would be a bit of an exaggeration to say it was a complete failure, or the worst keynote ever.
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Tony's Dead, And The iPhone's, Uhh, Not
So, after two days of pondering over, and digesting blog rants about, the Sopranos finale (for the record: I actually thought the ending was pretty cool, Journey song aside, and yes, I do think it indicated Tony S. getting clipped), I've resurfaced to find that … the iPhone is not the Coolest Thing on Earth after all. (There's also no Easter Bunny, but I got over that oh, a couple of years ago.)
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Leopard Proves Mac OS X Is A Mashup
Take one part Spotlight, two parts iChat, a dash of Dashboard, and mix well with Core Animation. If Apple's developers are this creative, think of what the rest of us could do.
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Mobile Phones Not As Addictive As Advertised
At least not according to a recent Harris poll. Eighty-one percent of U.S. adults still have a landline in their homes (and that landline in most cases isn't VoIP). What happened to the mobile and IP telephony revolution?
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India Talent Shortage Reaches Tipping Point
For any business that doesn't already have its foot in the door in India, it may be too late. The IT talent shortage there has hit a tipping point, and I predict that before long, only the in-crowd will be assured good access to top talent. That means big companies with strong ties to established service providers.
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RIM To Update Pearl, Release EV-DO Version
Business users looking to add some sexy swag to their briefcases will have more options from RIM later this year. The company is reportedly looking to launch a new version of the Pearl smartphone, which will include EV-DO wireless data and will still shave a few millimeters from its waistline. Verizon Wireless and Sprint business users who felt left out when the original Pearl was released on T-Mobile and then AT&T can commence celebrating now.
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Windows Users Don't Care About Safari
Will Windows users switch to Safari? The new version has some intriguing features, but there are already several great browsers for Windows. Fortunately for Apple, it doesn't have to win a lot of market share for Safari on Windows to be a winner.
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Who Will Lead The Way To FMC? The Enterprise, Or The Consumer?
Well, that depends a little bit on how you look at the entire picture. Informa Telecoms & Media is forecasting that there will be 170 million fixed mobile convergence subscribers by 2012. While 145 million of them will be consumers, Informa believes that enterprises will adopt more readily, and push for more advanced services.
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Apple's Home Page Goes On Safari
Leave it to Apple to revamp its own Web site to fit its new attitude on browsers.
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Two Ways Of Running Windows Software On The Mac
On the heels of Parallels releasing the upgraded version of its software for running Windows on the Mac, VMware introduced Beta 4 of Fusion software that does the same thing.
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Don't Shut Off Vista UAC, There's A Better Way
One of the most annoying things about Microsoft Windows Vista is User Account Control and all the warnings it pops up to ask if you just did something you really wanted to do. Like, either (a) it wasn't you who pressed the Enter key, but the ghost of your grandfather standing at your shoulder, or (b) you really are too stupid to be trusted to know you want to install a program or open an attachment. The temptation is strong to turn off UAC warnings by disabling the controls, but that causes more problems, like making it even more difficult to do some things in Vista. Fortunately, there's a better way.
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How Happy Are You With Your Salary?
I got an interesting piece of information last week. Alan Paller of the SANS Institute tells me people who see their salaries increasing each year are more satisfied with their salaries than those who are paid well but who don't see it getting any better.
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Jobs Promises iPhone Will Bring Web 2.0 To Mobile
Steve Jobs today in his keynote (or is it Jobsnote) at WWDC in San Francisco talked up the iPhone as a truly mobile Web 2.0 solution. Jobs said that the power of the "full" Safari browser on the iPhone lets developers design and use real, Web 2.0 applications like widgets. That's right, third-party developers will be able to make applications for the iPhone. But just how easy will it be? Is this real or just more of the reality distortion field?
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CIO Dossier: Jeff Campbell, BNSF Railway
Challenge: Convert bloated, NATURAL-based, legacy transportation-support system to Web-based front end without breaking the bank or working through the decade
Solution: Hand it off to a couple of 20-something brainiacs who did it in several weeks for one-fifth the cost.
For this week?s CIO Nation Dossier, I spoke with BNSF Railway CIO Jeff Campbell about a project that blew my hair back. For years, BNSF had been pondering how to modernize its legacy transportation-support system and give it an online front-end that would make it more accessible, flexible, upgradeable, and cheaper to maintain. Here?s the amazing story of how they did it ? and how it can be a lesson for any CIO wrestling with the legacy monster?
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Travel Problems? Blame Technology
It was just our luck: We got caught in the worst travel delay nightmare of the year. My family was flying from all over the United States to Washington, D.C., for a funeral. Although long expected, such things are never easy; on top of the emotional turmoil, of course, we were all wrestling with the many logistical issues: securing baby sitters and animal sitters, putting off pending work and social commitments, and -- not least -- scrambling to secure flights at the last minute. And that's when everything blew up in our faces.
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Wireless Industry Responds Strongly To The ITC/Qualcomm Ban
The U.S. International Trade Commission sure kicked up a lot of dust in the wireless industry last week with its ruling against Qualcomm. The ruling, which bans Qualcomm from importing certain chips that infringe upon a Broadcom patent, drew reactions from the CTIA, analysts, phone manufacturers and wireless network operators alike. While some surprising companies came to Qualcomm's defense, an old foe took another shot across its bow.
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Will "Gandolf" Wield Its Magic And Save Palm?
Gadget rumor sites were all alight over the past few days showing off spy shots of a supposed new device from Palm. Dubbed "Gandolf" (minus the robe, hat and staff), the new device is definitely a departure for Palm in that it looks nothing like a Treo. But that's not necessarily a good thing.
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Will The Lack Of GPS On The iPhone Make Its Version Of Google Maps Useless?
The iPhone is the gift that just keeps on giving. This weekend, just when you thought it was safe to go to the beach or have a BBQ, an AT&T manual for the iPhone was leaked. The leaked manual supposedly details all the features of the iPhone. But one feature -- the lack of GPS -- is sending some Mac fans into a frenzy.
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Apple WWDC: iPhone Manual Leaked On Eve Of Conference
The big iPhone news circulating on the Web this weekend is a leaked AT&T manual. The "iPhone Sales Training Workbook" is intended to teach cellphone-store employees how to tout the phone's features and overcome customer objections. The manual's very existence raises an interesting question: Why would they have to "sell" the phone? Reading the paeans from Apple's supporters, I would have thought it was self-evident that the iPhone would fly off stores shelves, obsoleting all communications devices which sullied the ether before its universally acclaimed arrival.
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Mac Security: Deal Or No Deal?
True of false: when you use the Mac platform, you never have to worry about security again.
At the risk of offending all the Mac zealots out there, the answer is a resounding false.
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Is Threatening Universities An Appropriate Use of Congressmens' Time?
This country is bogged down in an unwinnable war, health care is a problem that desperately needs the best solutions we can devise, and the yahoos are taking to the streets over immigration policy. So what are our representatives in Congress doing about these problems? Don't ask. They're too busy trying figure out a way to punish universities for allowing some students to use their campus networks for file-swapping, apparently at the behest of Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other major influence-peddlers in the entertainment industry.
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First Glance: New Parallels Windows-On-Mac Software Is Surprisingly Confusing
I gave the new version of Parallels a short workout today. The software, which runs Windows on Intel Macs, is a powerful upgrade to the previous version. But it was also disappointingly confusing to figure out.
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On ZFS As The Default File System In Leopard
I don't care what Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said, or how the Mac community interprets what he said, the idea that ZFS will be the default, boot FS in Leopard makes no sense.
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3G iPhone To Ship By Year's End?
I don't know who kickstarted the iPhone rumor mill today, but it's cranked and running at fever-pitch. The latest iPhone tidbit claims that a 3G model will ship by the end of this year. That's right, there could be a 3G iPhone in the U.S. market just in time for the holidays.
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AT&T May Lock iPhone Customers To Just The iPhone
Earlier this week we heard rumors that the iPhone may require special contracts. And then there were rumors that the iPhone might be available as a pre-paid device as well. Now it looks like the iPhone will not have a removable SIM card. Don't believe me? Then go to the forums. One of the big questions on Mac forums this week centers around the iPhone and its removable SIM card (or lack thereof). In the last few days many have suggested that the iPhone will be locked -- sending potential iPhone customers into a tizzy. Does this mean that the iPhone could be as locked down as a CDMA phone?
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Apply Mysteriously Changes iPhone TV Ads, Deletes Contract Reference
In checking the TV ads posted to Apple's site, the initial versions had language at the bottom of the commercials stating "Minimum 2-year contract required." The ads have been updated and no longer include that disclaimer, reviving hope that the iPhone will be available without a contract.
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ITC Kicks Qualcomm Where It Hurts
Qualcomm's business centers on its 3G wireless technology and the patents pertaining to that technology. Qualcomm has been tangling with Broadcom and Nokia over some of those patents. Yesterday, the International Trade Commission sided with Broadcom and banned certain Qualcomm-manufactured devices and circuits from entering the U.S. that use technology patented by Broadcom. If upheld, the potential fallout for the entire wireless industry is enormous.
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Google Pitch For Lifting H-1B Visa Limits Heralds 'In-Sourcing' Surge
Having winnowed the domestic pool of highly experienced IT and engineering talent by hounding thousands out of the business through years of layoffs and false complaints about the math-smarts of American students, big business has hit on the latest tack for controlling high-tech labor costs: In-source the jobs it was previously outsourcing, by getting the government to lift the cap on H-1B visas.
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Give Me Your Tired, Your Not-So-Poor...
Immigration is a topic that has occupied the American mind since a group of English settlers had their visas stamped at Jamestown, VA, in 1607. However, while a great deal of the debate in the past centered around the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" who were the majority of those searching for a place in the United States, some of today's arguments concern a less desperate group: highly skilled workers, many of them in the IT field.
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Palm Is Trying To Have Its Cake And Eat It, Too, With The Foleo
For whatever reason, I just can't get Palm's Foleo out of my head. Frankly, I still don't know what Palm intends this device to be -- is it a low-cost Linux notebook or a smartphone companion? Or none of the above?
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iPhone To Impact Smartphone Use?
You betcha. But not in the way you might suspect. Rather than cannibalize sales of smartphones, Arm's CEO Warren East believes the iPhone will trigger widespread usage of smartphones and other converged devices. His prediction? Smartphone sales will double this year -- to nearly 200 million -- if the iPhone is a hit.
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Research: iPhone Will Be A Big, Big Seller
Analyst firms may not agree on exactly how many iPhones Apple will sell this year, but they all seem to agree that the number will be a big one. We're talking more than 3 million by the end of 2007, which eclipses Jobs' hoped-for number of 1 million by a mile. But just who is it that's interested?
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Sprint Launches Mobile Shopping Tool
Mobile commerce is back in the news thanks to an announcement from Sprint. Yesterday at the Mobile Marketing Forum, Laura Marriott pointed out to me that mobile commerce is the next big phase for mobile marketing. Today Sprint announced a new service that combines product and price search with location. Is the future of mobile commerce bricks 'n text?
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First Impression: Camino 1.5 Is A Sleek, Fast Mac Browser
I've been working today on a review of the recently released version 1.5 of the Camino Mac Web browser. So far, I'm impressed. It's lightweight, sleek and fast, and fixes a lot of the user interface clumsiness that's kept me off Camino in the past.
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Did Incompetent IT Nearly Send Substitute Teacher To Prison?
A Connecticut substitute teacher could go free after being convicted on charges that she exposed her kids to online pornography. She says out-of-control spyware is to blame. If that's true, she took the fall for an incompetent IT department.
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Cyberwinter? Here's What It Means To Commercial IT
The recent distributed denial-of-service blitz that has paralyzed parts of Estonia's government and commercial Web sites over the past month has spawned a lot of talk of "cyberwinters" and "cyberterrorism." While what happened to Estonia is unusual in its scope and focus, and is possibly the first publicized attack on a country's cyberinfrastructure, it's not necessarily a bellwether of trends to come.
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Will The iPhone Be Locked To Expensive AT&T Contracts?
It looks like AT&T's and Apple's talking points for the iPhone are now up on the Web. The document reveals just who can buy the iPhone and what you have to do to get your hands on it. But it also raises lots of new questions.
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Kudos For Straight Talk On Airline's Tech Integration Problems
In an environment where most CIOs have their own PR handlers and their IT organizations can do no wrong, it's refreshing to get some straight talk from US Airways about its tech integration problems following its merger with America West. US Airways' sales and marketing VP, H. Travis Christ, comes off as more sinner than savior in this missive to frequent flyers.
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Take 5: Mobile Marketing Goes Mainstream
Today I sat down briefly with Laura Marriott, executive director, Mobile Marketing Association, at the Mobile Marketing Forum. We spoke about mobile marketing and how it's evolving. If you think mobile marketing is only something for companies in Japan and Europe, think again.
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I Wish More CIOs Were Like This...
...at least when it comes to candor. An online letter recently sent to US Airways frequent flyers explaining some of the IT-related problems customers have been experiencing since the merger with America West is chock-full of frank mea culpas that you don't see coming from many businesses these days, much less a major airline. It's clear in the letter that frustration over problems in integrating the two airlines' reservation systems is percolating, as CIO Joe Beery says he'd like "to be buried in a kiosk."
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Say Ha-Ha To Lala, iPod-Only Streaming Service
I couldn't get on Lala, the new music-streaming service that's so popular one day after its launch that it's apparently down. No matter; the idea of a service which combines the worst features of the defunct mp3.com business model with a lock-in to Steve Jobs's proprietary (yep, that's the word for it) iPod platform isn't the service from which I want to be getting my dinosaur rock tunes.
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Sprite Launches Its Own Mobile Social Network As A Marketing Tool For Teens
Soft drink brand Sprite announced today at the Mobile Marketing Forum 2007 conference in New York plans to launch a mobile social networking platform for the U.S. market. Looks like some marketers are putting some money where their mouth is when it comes to long-term customer engagement. Or is this just some crazy dot-com-like spending?
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Adobe Updates Acrobat And Reader For Vista
I am extremely pleased to announce that something I wrote has been rendered obsolete. At the end of April I shared my pain over Adobe Reader's problems with Vista. Yesterday Adobe released the promised updates to its Acrobat 8 and Reader products that are supposed to resolve the problems I (and many others, to be sure) discovered.
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Will Mobile Video-Sharing Services Take Off?
AT&T will be launching its Video Sharing service this summer. The services are being pitched to consumers rather than enterprises right now. This is unfortunate. The enterprise uses of shared video are practically unlimited.
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Ask.com Relaunches, But Is Mum On Mobile Component
Ask.com (you know, that other search site) relaunched itself yesterday with much hullabaloo, crowing about its new design, new algorithms, and customizable home page. In combing the official press release, the word "mobile" doesn't appear once. Does Ask not care about the growing importance of mobile search?
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I've Been Spoofed! The 'Mitch Wagner' Posting In The Second Citizen Forums Isn't Me
A friend from Second Life IM'd me this evening, wanting to know if I posted messages to the Second Citizen forums saying how much I hate "newbs." Because I am always alert, I responded: "Huh?"
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A One-Day Lesson In Telepresence Basics
For my first telepresence experience, I entered what looked like an ordinary meeting room, with ordinary people sitting at ordinary tables. The people were 5,489 miles away, but their video images were life-sized, realistic -- and a little bit creepy.
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Search Is Driving Mobile Web Growth In The U.S.
Use of the mobile Web in the U.S. continues to grow, despite all the criticisms from bloggers and wireless insiders. According to the latest findings, the U.S. is now second only to the U.K. in terms of mobile Web use. What's driving all this growth?
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Apple MacBook Pro Laptops Push Santa Rosa Platform
Leave it to Apple to steal everybody's thunder. For most of this year, it's been the hard-keypad-less iPhone which has stolen attention away from Web-surfing smartphones you can actually buy now. Today, Apple has shifted the spotlight away from some Intel teasers out of Computex in Taiwan, and gotten us all talking about its new Macbook Pro laptops, which use the Santa Rosa platform Intel was emphasizing at its Spring Analyst Meeting in New York last month.
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How Far Should We Trust Online Reviews?
What do you want first, the good or the bad news?
With the goal of ending this editor's note in an upbeat way, let's start with the, er, less reassuring results of a recent undercover investigation by Daily Tech about whether Internet sites that routinely evaluated hardware were accepting payola in exchange for reviews.
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Phoenix CIO Breakfast Is Set For July 31
I couldn't book something in Death Valley on July 31, so I had to settle for the cooler climes of Phoenix -- but if you're a CIO from the greater Phoenix area (or happen to be visiting that day), I invite you to join me and up to eight CIOs for the first in this season's series of informal CIO Nation Breakfasts.
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Will A Private Avaya Have What It Takes To Battle Cisco?
Avaya late yesterday said it has agreed to be acquired by two private equity firms -- Silver Lake and TPG Capital -- for $8.2 billion. Now that it looks like Avaya will go private, will the company be better positioned to compete with Cisco for the future of the IP telephony business?
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Did Verizon Wireless Force Amp'd Mobile To Declare Bankruptcy?
Maybe. Staci Kramer at mocoNews.net points out that the carrier may have played a hand in the event. Verizon Wireless -- Amp'd Mobile's host carrier -- reportedly played a key role in Amp'd Mobile's decision to file. Is this real or is this just Amp'd trying to spin the story?
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The More UMPCs Shrink, The More They Stay The Same
Ultra-mobile PCs are a category in search of a definition. Microsoft tried to nail it down last year with "Origami," a spec for a keyboardless device, that was pretty much laughed out of the park. But that didn't kill interest in small devices. And as today's introduction of a new "reference design" for a UMPC by VIA, the chipset and CPU maker, shows, while the devices are staying small, their usefulness is getting bigger.
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Microsoft And HTC Develop New Touch Screen Technology To Fend Off The iPhone
High Tech Computer Corp. today unveiled its newest smartphone, the HTC Touch. The Touch is similar in many respects to other HTC Windows Mobile-powered smartphones with one major exception. HTC has added a new three-dimensional user interface that employs what it calls TouchFLO touch screen technology. The UI lets users sweep their fingers around the screen to access applications and control the device. Sounds strangely similar to the UI on another soon-to-be-released device you may have heard of...
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Is AT&T Enhancing Its Edge Network For The iPhone?
According to an internal operations employee, AT&T decided that it had better get its data network in tip-top shape for the iPhone launch. As such, it is working to improve coverage, latency, and throughput in its Edge systems. AT&T is calling the upgrade Operation Fine Edge. I'd say AT&T is walking the razor's edge here. While it will dampen the sting of not having 3G in the iPhone just a little, Edge is still limited by comparison. And, um, does this mean that AT&T's Edge network hasn't been providing the best possible service?
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AT&T CEO Stephenson Says Wireless Is The Company's Core. And The iPhone Is Big, Too
AT&T's new CEO Randall Stephenson gave telecom blogger Om Malik some insight into the new AT&T and its plans. According to Stephenson, wireless will be central to AT&T's future. Oh, and that iPhone is gonna be big, too.
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Open Source's Rod Johnson: No Nuclear Winter Pending On Patents
Judging by the reaction to Microsoft's patent assertions, open source advocates have been put on the defensive. But Rod Johnson, the developer of the popular Java framework, Spring, hasn't been thrown for a loss. "Open source is entrenched. Customers and software companies have too much at stake" to be swayed by Microsoft's saber rattling, he says.
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Will Terrorists Use Google Earth?
Does Google Earth provide too much information? Could it become a tool of terrorists? Last month, I asked if the CIA would eventually censor Google Earth. Now we discover that the suspects being held for the JFK terror plot supposedly referenced Google Maps as a part of the supposed plan.
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DRM: A Half-Step Forward, More Steps Back
Apple came through on schedule last week and began selling DRM-free music files from EMI. It turns out this isn't a giant leap forward, more like a timid half-step, because they aren't really the clean files you probably hoped for. And far from leading in a seismic shift to respect for users by the music industry, it was a half-step forward that has been mostly obliterated by a massive rush backwards by the industry in recent days. So the entertainment-prevention industry continues its self-destructive course despite Apple's feint toward DRM removal.
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Take 5: Why Did Amp'd Mobile Fail?
MVNO Amp'd Mobile today announced they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. I guess it is time to review my analysis of the MVNO market from last week.
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Does Customer Service Still Exist?
In recent blog entries, I've shared horror stories about customer service from the likes of Lowe's and Home Depot, as well as CompUSA, HP, and others. Reader responses indicate I'm far from alone in my customer service frustrations.
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Forget Security 3.0. What Will Security 4.0 Look Like?
Believe it or not, people already are starting to ask this question as it becomes painfully obvious that today's teens, whose dexterous thumbs have grown up tapping away on cell phone keypads as they check out the latest action on MySpace or YouTube, will be part of the workforce before you know it.
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The First Eight Things I Plan To Do With An iPhone When I Get My Hands On One
That's right, despite all the questions and criticisms I have thrown at the iPhone, I, too, am anxious (bordering on desperate) to get my hands on one. Now that we know that the iPhone will ship on June 29, I only have to wait 25 more days (or longer) to get my hands on an honest-to-goodness iPhone. But, given that the waiting lists are supposedly huge, I might have to wait a week or two longer. Regardless, I already know what I plan to do with my iPhone once I get it.
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iPhone Launch Commercial Raises Some Questions For Apple
Apple has confirmed that its uber-cool iPhone will go on sale on June 29, at $500 or $600 a pop (depending on the model). It's also released three TV commercials, which began airing Sunday night, on 60 Minutes. So, of course, I've got a bunch of additional iPhone questions Steve Jobs doesn't want you to ask.
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On Microsoft's Boring Names For Business Apps
Microsoft's been getting funky recently with the names of its consumer software -- see Vista, Silverlight, Popfly, and Zune. But as it proved today at its annual TechEd conference for the IT crowd, business apps are getting the short end of the stick on the name front, despite their cool code names.
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iTunes Plus: DRM-Free, But Invades Your Privacy
This one hurts. Last week, Apple launched its iTunes Plus music store, selling higher quality audio tracks from EMI for $1.29 without digital rights management. Aside from the extra $0.30, there's another, higher cost that isn't mentioned. Each song purchased from iTunes and iTunes Plus is permanently tagged with the purchaser's name and email address. Users are outraged, and I don't blame them.
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Palm Finally Sells Itself...To Bono
The speculation that Palm might sell itself several months ago to an investment company or competitor has finally run its course. This morning, Palm announced that it has brought on private equity firm Elevation Parters (you know, the one founded by U2's Bono) to help run the business for $325 million. Elevation gets 25% ownership of Palm for its money, as well as two seats on the board. Is this the precursor to a brighter future at Palm?
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"Die Hard" 4 Opening Teaches An Important Lesson In Second Life Marketing. Yippee-Ki-Yay
Bruce Willis didn't have many interesting answers during a news conference in Second Life to promote the fourth Die Hard. But many of the questions were refreshingly weird. And the event taught an important lesson in using Second Life for marketing.
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How Is Porn Like The Mainstream Press?
What do purveyors of dirty pictures have in common with journalists? Answer: They're both getting screwed by the Internet. The New York Times turned up the apparent fact that the two professions are bedfellows of a sort, in its weekend story "For Pornographers, Internet's Virtues Turn To Vices."
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Everything Slow Is Fast Again
The arguments are as long-lived as they are useless. Could the 1958 Yankees beat the 1918 White Sox? Would Spiderman beat Batman? Who's the better heavyweight, Muhammad Ali or Jack Johnson? Which computer is faster, a 1986 Macintosh Plus running System 6.0.8 on an 8MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, or a 2007 PC running Windows XP Pro SP2 on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with two cores, each running at 2.4GHz? Oh, wait, here's a guy who has the answer to that one -- and it may surprise you.
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Another Incident Of Dumb Cops Arresting A Guy For Using An Open Wi-Fi Connection
A Michigan cop, who'd obviously been hit over the head with a billy club one time too many, levied criminal charges against a man who used an open, public Wi-Fi network outside the cafe that was running it.
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Google's Mathematical Limit
How high can Google count? Very high it turns out, but there is a limit. Using the Google search box as a calculator, Google's ceiling appears to be 2.00135558564^1023, which Google says equals 1.79769313 × 10^308.
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Why Google Gears Is Good News, Bad News For Microsoft
Google Gears, Google's new JavaScript API to help Web apps work offline, is certainly an intriguing concept. As recognition that people aren't always online, it will also surely be paraded by Redmond as validation of Microsoft's vision that the future of software covers the desktop, the Internet, and particularly, a combination of the two. But it's not all gravy. Google Gears gives browser apps persistance, long the sole bailiwick of the desktop client.
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GPLv3 No Longer Has Novell Worried About Linux Licensing
Who elected Richard Stallman king of the free software world? (Okay, he did.) With the GPLv3 license on the cusp of adoption, the Free Software Foundation president is again hitting the virtual stump to promise that he won't quit revising the license until all software is free, free as in beer. Meanwhile, Novell, which heretofore had been worried about GPLv3, now says on its blog that there's no problem. So which is it?
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Google Street View Backlash Is Silly
With the launch of Google Maps Street View come the inevitable backlash stories. The New York Times has an article today that describes how a "Google map service can zoom in so closely on buildings that it has caused Ms. Kalin-Casey and others to complain to the company and on blogs."
This description comes from the caption to a photograph of Ms. Kalin-Casey and her cat Monty.
Note the irony: Ms. Kalin-Casey's complaint is that Google photographed her cat.
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What Is Mobile Social Networking?
Someone earlier today asked me for a list of the top mobile social networking sites. This prompted a deeper question on my part. Exactly what is mobile social networking?
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Where Is the Mobile Enterprise Market Heading?
As the number of mobile employees continues to climb, keeping them in the loop is increasingly important. It's also increasingly easier. With the proliferation of wireless broadband services and the continual onslaught of new enterprise devices and software services, there's nowhere for the market to go but up.
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Bill Gates And Steve Jobs Reveal Secret Marriage At D: All Things Digital Conference
Well, not exactly. But Bill G. and Steve were far more amiable than anyone expected they would be this week at the D: All Things Digital conference. Check out this set of video highlights from their conversation.
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And You Thought the iPhone Was Expensive? Nokia Bows $940 Phone
When you look at the new Nokia 8600 Luna luxury phone, you can tell the higher-ups at Nokia let the design team flex a little bit of its creative muscle. It uses a smoked-glass sheathe to hide the keypad. Yes, glass. It also features a gorgeous QVGA display. It's a beautiful phone, no doubt. Too bad its features aren't more impressive than any $100 off-the-shelf feature phone. But hey, beauty comes at a price.
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