You may have seen Case Study Panelist Jon Amundson, City of Richland, at Nexus 09 this year. ImageSource would like to congratulate Jon and the City for winning both the ImageSource Customer Partner Award for the Biggest Return on Investment, as well as an InfoWorld 100 Award!

The InfoWorld 100 Awards recognize 100 IT organizations that have innovatively utilized different technologies through implementations and integrations to meet business goals. The City of Richland was recognized for its use of different technologies together, such as Oracle, ABBYY, Cardiff and ILINX. To read more about the InfoWorld 100 Awards, visit www.infoworld.com.

Nexus 10 is less than a year away! Registration is open and seating is limited! To reserve your spot at a discounted price of $195, visit www.NexusECM.com to register for Nexus 10. Use discount code NEXUS10SPL. After November 30th, the price goes up to $295!

To follow the latest information on Nexus, check us out on Twitter: @nexusecm

Kristina Parma
Corporate Communications Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

When people are in the job hunting process, we at ProTrain True North tell them to make sure to list their computer skills.  This way, prospective employers know that you meet the job qualifications quickly.

When reviewing resumes I see a lot of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, QuickBooks, and even the occasional Lotus or WordPerfect.  But something I heard on a CNET podcast shocked me and has shown me that one group of applications is sorely missing from this list on every resume:  GoogleDocs

A study from the market research firm IDC said that 19% of companies widely use Google Docs in the workplace.  Wow, 19%!  1 in every 5 companies use a software package that is not anywhere on any resume I have EVER seen in the past three years.  Everyone from laborers to professional level job seekers lacked this computer skill set on their resume.

Q: Why do I need Google Docs when I know Microsoft Word?

There are two very good reasons:

A1:  Because 1 out of 5 companies use it.

A2:  Because 1 out of 5 companies use it.

To slightly alter a quote from Kryten on the TV show Red dwarf, “I realize that, technically speaking, that’s only one” answer, “but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice.”

OK, there is a minor third reason.

A3:  Because Google Docs is not a replacement for Microsoft Word.  Google Docs is something you use in addition to Microsoft Word.  The biggest thing going for Google Docs is that it is collaborative.  It helps with productivity of groups or projects.

Communication and work flow is always a huge issue for companies. If a company you want to work for does not use Google Docs, you can impress them with a proposed solution of collaboration with a single one of your software skills.

If Google Docs is not on your resume, here is your action plan:

1)      Go to the website and see what it can do.  But be aware that the video is VERY cheesy.  http://docs.google.com

2)      Google (or Bing / Yahoo) what you can find out about it and how others are using it.

3)      Sign up for Google Docs. And play with it.

4)      Put it on your resume. Just knowing the software does not help.  You need to put it on your resume.

5)      Get someone else to sign up too and share documents.  (Collaborating with yourself is like playing chess with yourself.  It is possible, but not as fun.)

6)      Check out YouTube and other online tutorials.  Or sign up for a class.

7)      Figure out how you can apply it to your next job and how you could have used it with your previous job.

With a 1 in 5 chance of applying to a company that uses Google Docs, I suggest you play the odds.  And it is likely that other job seekers won’t.

Extra Information:

CNET podcast (Buzz Out Loud #1065)

The ICD story originates from InfoWorld.  “IDC surveyed 262 people, a significant number of whom are senior managers at various-sized businesses,…”

Even if IDC is off by fifty percent for some reason, 1 out of every 10 businesses using Google Docs is still huge.  My recommendation would still stand.

The InfoWorld (IW) survey methodology was to see a demo of the product conducted by each company via webex and interview with the company over the phone. While we appreciate the opportunity to participate in the survey the methodology limited what was considered for the survey.

There were three important aspects that were not covered:

1.    Security offered by the solution
2.    Security of the cloud offering
3.    Deployment & Management versus Demoability

Let us examine these one by one.

Security offered by the solution
First lets explore how easy is the solution to bypass? For example,
•    take Bit9 which does not offer memory protection, which means that a simple buffer overflow exploit will bypass the whitelisting solution.
•    Or take script authentication, i.e. ability to whitelist scripts and java etc. If a solution does not offer this you can run a script on the system and completely bypass the protection?
•    Or take protection of kernel components? If the solution does not whitelist kernel drivers and components you can bypass the solution by simply inserting a driver into the system
•    Can executables be whitelisted from a network share (required for most Windows Active Directory based deployments)?

Whitelisting is fundamentally different than black listing, in the sense that the whitelist needs to be complete for the system to function. Thus if you don’t have coverage for a particular type of executable the solution is easily compromised. While the report mentions that MFE application control is the only solution which offers scripting and buffer overflow protection, it fails to highlight: Coverage is not a feature it is important for security!

The other aspect which was not covered by the survey was self-integrity or protection of the system itself. If the solution becomes popular how well does it withstand against targeted attacks on itself. Can ill-intended administrators bypass the system?

As several of our customers have figured out for themselves the protection from our competitors is easily bypassed.

Security of the Cloud Offering
The assumption behind the report and several other reports is: “If its in the Bit9 cloud its good”. There are several things to point out here:

•    Cloud can only cover off the shelf binaries (script coverage is very sketchy). They don’t cover any custom software which is a large part of most enterprises

•    Secondly, by shifting the problem to the cloud, one has to ask the question how is the cloud info constructed and how safe is it to poisoning.

As discussed in the previous section most of these solutions don’t cover scripts so the cloud offerings are only for binaries and that too only for off the shelf binaries.

Let us focus on the second aspect. How secure is the cloud? Take Bit9 for example, they claim to have 7.5B files in the cloud. Who checked that these are from valid sources? Most of these are collected by crawling the web? If its on CNET it is secure? If it’s on download.com is it secure? Who checks whether its secure? Has this function been outsourced to a country in Eastern Europe or Asia?  7.5B files were verified?

Niel McDonald’s @ Gartner has an interesting blog article and discussion about the same http://blogs.gartner.com/neil_macdonald/2009/03/31/will-whitelisting-eliminate-the-need-for-antivirus/

If you look at MFE cloud technology, it has several dimensions along with the analysis is done. In addition it directly talks to publishers to ensure that the quality of data in the cloud is pristine. Most small vendors like Bit9, just don’t see enough data: domain registrations, spam addresses, firewall rules, endpoint’s pinging back, site advisor to have enough dimensions to correlate and produce high quality data.

The MFE Application Control will be integrated to the MFE Cloud. This was already demonstrated at FOCUS ’09 and is on the short term roadmap.

Deployment and Manageability vs Demoability

As with most lab surveys, this one does not cover the manageability and deploy-ability of the solution:
•    Can it scale to 100,000’s of desktops/servers

•    What are the breakage/failure rates

•    How much does it cost to operate and maintain

Can it scale to hundred’s of thousands of desktops? Most people who are familiar with EPO will understand that deploying at those scales is a very different ball game. You can’t keep 100,000 TCP connections open to your management sever, most boxes will die at 4000 open TCP connections. You have to deal with reporting and event-flood at that scale.

MFE Application Control is fully integrated into EPO and that is a BIG win. It uses the EPO plumbing to achieve scalability. The management architectures of the competitors architecturally will fail to scale to such numbers.

At one point in the report there is a mention of the memory protection provided by CoreTrace. Again memory protection is an interesting concept, for most solutions out require tuning to make it work. So question to ask is what % of your systems will it work? And the feature of killing running process if a buffer overflow is detected is it a good looking demo? But what are the failure rates: false positives and negatives?

How much does it cost to operated and maintain? Whitelisting is not a new concept. The problem has always been of management of the whitelist. MFE Application Control has a lot of investment and features which dramatically reduce this cost and make it a viable solution for enterprises.

Summary

The InfoWorld survey has evaluated some aspects of solutions, but in my opinion has not covered 3 very important topics: How secure is the solution?; How secure is the cloud?; and Deploy-ability of the solution?

These are top of mind for every customer and should be included in any evaluation or comparison. As we have demonstrated several times in the field, MFE Application Control stands out as #1 as a deployable high security solution.

Op Infoworld een interessant overzicht van 9 gratis antivirusprogramma’s. Zo doet het nieuwe Microsoft Antivirus programma het kennelijk niet onverdienstelijk en ook het nog in beta-fase verkerende Panda Cloud Antivirus is veelbelovend. Al met al steeds minder reden om een commerciëel antiviruspakket aan te schaffen. In dat opzicht is het initiatief van Microsoft weer wat minder want als het net als Internet Explorer gratis meegeleverd wordt, gaan ongetwijfeld een aantal commerciële aanbieders het loodje leggen. Maar goed dan hebben de anti-kartel en dergelijke instellingen ook nog een poosje wat te doen. Vooralsnog hou ik voor de gratis antivirusprogramma’s het bij Avira Antivir, zeker nu ik weet hoe ik het nagscherm om zeep kan helpen. Daarnaast is Panda Cloud Antivirus zeker iets om in de gaten te houden.

We live in an, um, golden age of Apple gossip. Thanks to the blogosphere, a surging sea of sites cover an endless array of rumors about the company, from ones that are right on the money to ones that are partially right to ones that aren’t right at all. The conversation spawned by the scuttlebutt has helped many a site fill time during slow news days: No other company can set off a frenzy of speculation about matters as mundane as the quantity of USB ports a new machine might sport.

The sheer quantity of Apple scuttlebutt has never been higher. But the company has been a powerful engine for the rumor mill for as long as there’s been an Apple and tech journalists to cover it.  And Google Books’ recent addition of the entire run of InfoWorld provides us with the opportunity to revisit the first golden age of Apple rumors–which, uncoincidentally, ended when Steve Jobs was forced out of the company he cofounded in mid-1985.

Today’s InfoWorld may be a Web site for IT professionals, but in the early 1980s it was a weekly publication for microcomputer users, and its pages are as good a record as you’ll find of the era’s industry chatter–including lots and lots of stuff about Apple. So in this second installment in our once-in-awhile series on Apple rumors and predictions, we’ll check out tidbits from InfoWorld stories (1980-1985). My goal is not to mock, but simply to see what folks thought Apple would do, what they thought it meant…and whether any of it came to pass.

Ready? Swell. Return with us now to April of 1980. Jimmy Carter was President of the United States, only one Star Wars movie had been released, and tech nerds were already hungry for Apple scoops…

The Apple III Revealed

Untitled and unbylined story, April 14th, 1980

The earliest interesting Apple gossip I found in InfoWorld concerned the first machine the company released after the publication’s founding:

It appears that rumors concerning the eventual unveiling of the Apple III are getting closer to the mark, since sources in a position to know are increasingly agreeing. The word is that Apple will debut its new machine in May at the National Computer Conference, in Anaheim, California. Rumors about Apple’s activities have been confused both because Apple is currently working on more than one machine, and because the company has changed its mind about design goals several times. For example, at one time, the company was planning to use a custom-designed processor, but abandoned this idea in favor of the 6502C.

Tight-lipped, taciturn, closed-mouth, reticent–all appropriately describe Apple Computer’s policy regarding release of information about the company or its products. Rumor has it there is a sign in one of their lobbies stating, “Stop talking about business outside of business.” While other companies attempt to maintain secrecy, information leaks inevitable occur, but not so with Apple.

What happened? InfoWorld’s Apple III tipsters knew what they were talking about. This is also an early mention of Apple’s reputation for effective secrecy–although it’s a tad odd to give Apple credit for foiling leaks in a story which correctly quotes unnamed sources providing accurate information about the company’s plans.

Amazing Apple Mystery Machine

“Editorial,” by Richard Milewski, February 2nd, 1981

InfoWorld’s editor speculates about a secret Apple product:

Rumors have been circulating around Silicon Valley about a “new kind” of machine to be released in between the Apple III and the Apple IV. Speculation has centered around hand-held and small table-top machines that will compete with the latest offerings from Radio Shack. But events in and around Apple seem to suggest that Apple has chosen to leave the under $1000 market to others.

(snip)

The Apple mystery machine is likely to be entirely bus-less. Look for a design in which multiple Apple mystery machines, printers, disk storage devices, and other peripherals all communicate by a network protocol. For cost reasons, use of the Ethernet protocol is not likely, but an Ethernet interface peripheral likely is. The machine itself is likely to contain more than one processor, and the basic machine may not be user-programmable without additional hardware.

Does this presage Apple’s exit from the personal-computer market? Probably not.

What happened? By 1981, Apple was working on both the ill-fated Lisa and the Mac, and the machine described here is vague enough that it might have been either of them (or, for that matter, neither of them). In any event, Apple didn’t get out of the PC business (whew!) but didn’t turn its attention to handheld devices until it began work on the Newton in 1989.

Apple V Has a Nice Ring to It

“Inside Track,” by John C. Dvorak, November 8th, 1982

A pre-PC Magazine John Dvorak is already on the Apple beat:

Apple, meanwhile, is going to roll out the Lisa on January 19th, 1983. You heard it here first…There has been so much prepublicity for the name Lisa that the company may keep it! It will more than likely be called the Apple IV or Apple V, though.

(snip)

The product is pretty much what everyone thinks it is–a 68000 machine with a hi-resolution display, window and a mouse for cursor control.

What is interesting about the story is some of the infighting that has been happening at the company. I’ve been told that there is a battle royale going on between the MacIntosh group headed by Steve Jobs and the Lisa group (the Personal Office Systems division)..the Mac people think the Lisa will be overpriced and yet offer little advantage over the Mac.

What happened? Dvorak was right on the Lisa’s release date and right on what the machine was. And let’s give him partial credit for raising the possibility of it being named the Lisa even though he thought it probably wouldn’t be. He was also correct about squabbling between the Lisa and “MacIntosh” teams, and the Lisa did indeed turn out to be not much more than a much pricier Mac.

Hey, a Computer With a Handle is a Portable, Right?

“Inside Track,” by John C. Dvorak, February 14th, 1983

More early Mac tidbits (and commentary on Steve Jobs’ facial hair) from Dvorak:

I’ve been getting two rumors about MacIntosh, the low-end Lisa from Apple. One guy tells me it’s a portable and that Apple is working on a plasma display for the thing.

The latest gossip is that it isn’t a portable. In fact, I’m told that Steve Jobs isn’t sold on portables (hear that, Adam [Osborne]). This month someone will present to Jobs a proposal to come up with a portable.

“Inside Track” went to the latest Apple shareholders meeting to see the new nonmustachioed Steve Jobs. I tell you, without that hairy upper lip, he’s a dead ringer for Hugh Hefner. Now if he’d only take up pipe smoking.

What happened? In 1983, portable computers weren’t a well-defined category, and the Mac’s petite size, all-in-one case, and handle made it far more mobile than an Apple II or an IBM PC. But it didn’t have a plasma screen (offhand, the only computer I can remember with one was the Grid Compass). Apple didn’t release a true portable computer until the Macintosh Portable, years after Jobs left the company the first time. As for a cleanshaven, mid-1980s Jobs looking like Hef?

Judge for yourself. (I guess I sort of see it.)

The Apple Tax, Circa Early 1984

“Inside Track,” by John C. Dvorak, January 24th, 1984

Shortly after the announcement of the Macintosh, Dvorak says that Apple charges too much (sound familiar?) and compares its marketing and pricing strategy to that of other leading PC companies of the era:

What the automatic transmission did for the automobile is what is what the Macintosh concept will do for personal computers.

Note that I use the word concept. I think the Mac is a great computer, OK? But besides being easier to use, what does it do that a $1,500 Morrow Micro Decision can’t do? And no, I don’t own Morrow stock.

The fact of the matter is that we are living in a price-driven environment, and Apple continues to ignore the BSFD marketing maxim: benefits sell–features don’t.

What irks me about all this is that I’m rooting for Apple to have a hit, and I do like the Mac. The simple truth is that people want single-board computers to sell for less than $2,000, and they want free software. That’s all there is to it. Osborne knew this, KayPro knows this, IBM knows this, Morrow knows this, everyone knows it except Apple.

So here is the scenario: There will be a surge of interest in the Mac from people like myself who collect hardware. Then it will begin to get used in the office in a cult fashion, similar to the Apple II phenomenon. Unfortunately, it took years before the big Apple II surge took place. Apple can’t afford to wait that long. IBM has a similar machine in the wings and so do the Japanese.

What happened? Osborne was bankrupt when this was written; Kaypro went bankrupt in 1992; IBM divested itself of its PC business in 2004; Morrow went bankrupt in 1986. Apple? Still in business, still catching flack for charging too much.

Dvorak’s forecast of the Mac’s sales trajectory was pretty accurate, except that it turned out that Apple was able to wait until the Mac got some traction. I’m not sure what the Mac-like computers were from IBM (unless Dvorak was referring to Windows 1.0) and the Japanese, though.

If Woz Says It, It Must be True

“16-Bit Apple IIx Alive and Well,” by Christine McGeever, November 19th, 1984

An InfoWorld reporter gets a scoop from a source within Apple who’s in a position to know–and who’s even willing to be quoted on the record:

In an exclusive interview with InfoWorld, Apple Computer co-founder Stephen Wozniak confirmed that work has begun on the next generation Apple II machine, dubbed the IIx. The computer, which won’t be available until 1986, may be targeted towards business users and won’t compete with sales of the IIc, according to Wozniak.Wozniak says the 16-bit machine will have some of the features of the portable IIc, such as a built-in disk drive, and some of the features of the IIe, such as expandable memory and add-on slots. It will also use Apple’s ProDOS operating system. A prototype of the computer has been built, and Wozniak reportedly has one in his office.

(snip)

The IIx has not been a secret Apple project, although it has frequently been rumored to be canceled or suspended.

What happened? The Apple IIx was real–but that’s not the same thing as really being released. Wozniak and others within the company grappled with technical gremlins. This Apple IIx history says it was killed by technical gremlins, but it also says that the project was killed in March 1984, months before the InfoWorld story appeared. I’m guessing that it was at least kind of alive when InfoWorld wrote about it, though, given that other computer magazines also thought it was extant at the same time. Or perhaps the late-1984 incarnation of the IIx was the machine that shipped in 1986 as the IIGS.

Lisa to Disappear, Macs to Multiply

“From the News Desk,” Michael McCarthy, December 3rd, 1984

InfoWorld thinks that the Lisa has a dicey future, and then crams an amazing quantity of rumors into one paragraph:

Our tip two weeks ago that Apple is planning to drop the Lisa line in 1985 really stirred things up. At a scheduled meeting with financial analysts, Steve Jobs and John Sculley specifically denied the claim both to the analysts and to our reporter. Lisa won’t be going away, they insisted…Denials notwithstanding, analysts and observers continue to find the idea of Apple dropping Lisa very plausible. Sources inside Apple tell us the big cheeses there have been holding meetings all week after reading our Lisa item, which also mentioned the 16-bit Apple IIx that Stephen Wozniak told us he was starting on. Seems that everyone’s mad at everyone else, and that Woz’s IIx project may be sacrificed to propitiate the gods at Apple.

As long as we’re at Apple, let’s review our files for the week’s collection of unsubstantiated rumors. There are enough rumored new Macintoshes to sell out the Highland Games: the color Mac, the Unix Mac, the flat-screen Mac, the Mac with the 8-1/2-by-11-inch full-page screen, and the souped-up, faster processor Mac, which may or may not be a multitasking, multiuser Mac…the color Mac, some say, may be introduced at Comdex. Others say it will be introduced at the annual meeting in January, and still others say technical difficulties mean no color for many moons to come.

What happened? Some tips are dead on–Apple discontinued the Lisa in April of 1985. Everything else mentioned in the story came to be, but it took a long time. Apple didn’t release color Macs until imany moons later, when it shipped the Macintosh II (which was also the first faster-processor Mac) in 1987; it released the first Mac flavor of Unix in 1988; it released a full-page portrait display for modular Macs in 1989. As far as I can remember the first flat-screen Mac that wasn’t a laptop was 1997’s Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh.

Apple II Forever, or at Least Until 1993

“Apple II Shakes Controversy,” an interview with Del Yocam, April 15th, 1985

InfoWorld interviews Del Yocam, head of Apple’s Apple II division, and quotes him as saying:

We really believe the Apple II can live forever…between 60 percent and 80 percent of all microcomputer users may never need any more than 8-bit technology…there are certainly those out there who feel we need to have 16-bit microprocessors, so we are certainly looking at that seriously.

What happened? Apple discontinued the 8-bit Apple IIe in 1993, ending an amazing long run given that the rest of the industry had long ago moved to 16-bit CPUs. Along the way, the company introduced one 16-bit Apple II model, the IIGS, but it died a few months before the IIe did. As for 60 to 80 percent of computer users “never” needing anything better than 8-bit technology–when was the last time you saw a computer that had fewer than 32 bits?

At Least He Lost the Bowtie and Suspenders

“Shuffle Could Aid Apple,” by Jim Forbes, June 24th, 1985

As John Sculley forces Steve Jobs out of Apple’s leadership, an anonymous source at the company says it’s no great loss:

I think Apple is moving from one phase of its life to the next. I don’t know how the image of a leader clad in a bow tie, jeans, and suspenders would help us in the coming years.

What happened? For more than a decade, Apple tried multiple other leadership images: a would-be visionary/ex-sugar-water salesman, a hard-working German guy,  and a cost-cutting chip-industry executive. Then it went back to Steve Jobs (sans foppish duds), whose image remains one of the most potent marketing tools in the history of tech.

Remember the GE Macintosh? Okay, How About the AT&T Macintosh?

Inside Track, by John C. Dvorak, July 15th, 1985

Dvorak discusses early rumors about an Apple buyout (a meme that wouldn’t really heat up until the mid-1990s):

A few weeks ago I was told that General Electric’s Geisco Division was making overtures to buy Apple Computer lock, stock, and (apple) barrel. Those rumors persist with a twist. First of all, I’m told that the AT&T buyout rumors were initiated by a large shareholder to keep the stock high so that the Geisco bid would be high enough for some people to make some money. Geisco, on the other hand, wants to keep the stock depressed so that it can get a good deal. These could, of course, all be bunk rumors to keep Apple stock from falling through the floor.

What happened? As of the last time I checked, Apple remained an independent company. Neither GE nor AT&T is in the PC business, unless you count the modern-day AT&T’s recent foray into netbook retailing. Which doesn’t mean that GE didn’t think about trying to buy Apple in 1985. And Dvorak said he heard the AT&T rumor was spurious.

Steve Jobs in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!

“News Desk,” edited by Michael McCarthy, June 29th, 1985

A story about the Apple II ends with an aside about Jobs’ extracurricular interests:

Meanwhile, someone often accused of overlooking the Apple II is reported by the local press to be asking NASA for a seat on a future space shuttle flight. Apple chairman Steven P. Jobs is said to be a real space buff.

What happened? The idea of Steve Jobs in zero gravity is kind of entertaining, but he’s remained earthbound. In 2007, Charles Simonyi, the father of Microsoft Office, became the first space-tourist computer billionaire.

The Fondly-Remembered Pseudo-Tramiel Era

“Apple Without Jobs” by Jim Forbes, September 30th, 1985

More speculation on post-Jobs Apple, plus exciting news about a machine in the works:

Sculley will also force line managers in Apple’s Production Operations division to be more concerned with procurement and quality control issues. A horizontally integrated Apple could resemble Jack Tramiel’s Atari, the vice president said. One possible Sculley project, expected in 1987, is a small, portable personal workstation, originally developed by the Apple II group, described by one Apple source as a second-generation Dynabook. The machine will accept bit-mapped graphic images over telecommunications lines, said Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple’s director of product development. Such a workstation would overcome some of the current limitations of videotext, seen as a key element in bringing computers into the home.

What happened? I can’t speak to whether Sculley imposed an organizational structure on Apple similar to that favored by the father of the Commodore 64, but I’m glad that Apple showed more staying power than Tramiel-era Atari ever did. As far as I know, the machine described by Jean-LouisGassée never amounted to anything–but if Apple had released it, it sounds like it could have pre-empted the whole darn World Wide Web. (Side note: Can you imagine, even for a millisecond, anyone at today’s Apple discussing a device planned for release in 2011?)

Steve Jobs: A Hard Habit to Break

“The Last Steve Jobs Column–Honest,” by John C. Dvorak, October 7th, 1985

Dvorak says he’s swearing off writing about Apple’s founder, after one final column on the possibility of competition between Apple and Jobs’ new company, NeXT:

And does Apple seriously think Jobs will be competition? Who is Apple kidding? Talk to the real man behind the Macintosh, Jef Raskin, and you’ll get a different picture of Jobs. According to Raskin, Jobs “fought against the design of the Macintosh for two years.” And Jobs was the promoter of the Lisa until it began to flop. So what’s he going to do on his own? Spend a lot of money, that’s all.

(snip)

Maybe when the smoke clears, we will have heard the last from Steve Jobs a guru, seer, visionary, and hapless victim, too. He’ll just be that rich guy in the big house in Woodside. He’ll go the way of the pet rock, electric carving knives, silly putty, Tiny Tim, and the three-tone paint job. Let’s hope so.

What happened? Dvorak–who, despite the column’s title, is still writing Steve Jobs columns a quarter-century later–was right that NeXT involved spending a lot of money without ever providing serious competition to Apple. How about Jobs going the way of the Pet Rock? Er, Dvorak didn’t say it would happen–just that it might, and that he hoped it would. That’s not inaccurate, technically!

Okay, that’s it for now. I could go on, but Sculley-era Apple gossip has its own distinct character, and probably deserves its own story at some point.

Conclusions for now? InfoWorld reported on some rumors that didn’t turn into fact, and sometimes provided analysis that was iffy at the time and wonderfully goofy in retrospect. But it got a decent amount of stuff right, and it presented rumor as rumor rather than fact. And some of the stuff it wrote about that never came to be stemmed from the tendency of multiple Apple bigwigs to blab about unreleased products. Not perfect, but not bad–especially compared to some of the sites that cover the descendants of the gizmos that Apple was making a quarter-century ago.

(Postscript/needless full disclosure: I worked at InfoWorld from 1992 until 1994, and freelanced for it for a few years beyond that. You can find everything I wrote for it at Google Books, but it doesn’t make for particularly entertaining reading.)

More Cupertino-based nostalgia:

GigaOm’s Mobilize is live streaming right now (19,000 viewers), so if you can’t be there, tune in at http://www.livestream.com/gigaomtv.  If you can be there, drop by the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco where close to 1000 industry execs are discussing the future of the mobile web. Great networking with Accenture, Adobe, Adaptive Path, AllThingsD.com, Ars Technica, Benchmark Capital, Business Week, CBS Market Watch, Cisco, CNET, Economist, Engadget, Finanical Times, Flixster, Forbes, Foundation Capital, French Maid TV, frog design, GameFly, GDGT.com, Geek Sugar, GetJar, Gizmodo, Google, Granite Ventures, Handango, HP, InfoWorld, Intel, InterWest Partners, Khosla Ventures,LG Mobile, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mashable, Mayfield Fund, mig33, Mobile Monday, MEF, MobiTV, Moconews, MocoSpace, Motorola, Mozes, NATPE, NYT, Nielsen, Nokia, Opus Capital, Palm, PayPal, PC World, Qualcomm, Samsung, SF Chronicle, SJ Merc, Scobleizer, Sony Ericsson, SVB Capital, Sprint, Sun, TechCrunch, Thom Weisel, T-Mobile, USVP, Ubergizmo,  USA Today, Venrock, Venture Beat, Verizon, WSJ, WF, Wired, Y!, Zannel, ZDNet and others.

Om Malik opened the conference.  His research venture, GigaOM Pro, which provides subscribers research on-demand, reports that the US is on track to produce by end of 2009:  280mm wireless subscribers, $160B in service revenues, $45B of that in data revenues, 2.3T minutes of voice use and 1.7T text messages, translating to $160 per subscriber of data plan spending per year and 829 minutes per user.  A huge opportunity.

MONETIZING MOBILE APPS

Raven Zachary, Small Society
Considering Apple’s event yesterday it seemed fitting to have Raven lead with the first panel who advises companies like ZipCar and Whole Foods on their mobile strategies, and is known well to these parts as one of the pied pipers of iPhoneDevCamp – Seeing more carriers wanting to have their own app store, look at Verizon with VDC, it makes sense, they have the billing relationship with the end user.  Vodafone ramping up too.

Mark Curtis, Flirtomatic
There’s been a dramatic rise in popularity of the freemium model, free monetize with ad network although CPCs and CPMs have come way down in this economy, belive in time mobile ad marketplace will be massive.  See freemium as a walk in the park, every now and then you’ll want an ice cream, it’s nice to have the option.  At Flirtomatic, have had great success selling users greater visibility on site, they’re willing to pay if there profile will be seen by more women, experiencing 4x the CPMs from user-based ads.

Mark Jacobstein, iSkoot
There used to be enormous expenses associated with porting/QA of mobile games.  Focusing just on iPhone makes things easier, and yet for all it does so well (powerful SDK, screen real estate) there is so much that iPhone doesn’t do.  iPhone can’t multitask, apps don’t run in the background.  Few client based apps like time-wasting games.  Not going to make much selling a $2 app, money is in client/server services, free to end user like Skype (big applause from panel). MMS limitations, photos via SMS from a friend are sent with password and link – that’s a huge turnoff.  Mobile increases web engagement, those that access sites via phone are twice as engaged.  Developers now building in social context/gifting of virtual goods into game mechanics to take advantage of in-app commerce.

Dorrian Porter, Mozes
Most marketers not sure what to do with the mobile consumer, have yet to see mobile as a point of inspiration for impulse buy.  Most market with voice and SMS.  (Recently became a huge fan of SMS, now can text kids whenever he wants.) Mozes focuses on the browser-based experience.  There are SMS limitations to web-clipping

Adam Zbar, Zannel
ATT networks are slammed with data.  Will see services becoming more interoperable than islands.  Carriers for the longest time wanted to be entertainment companies and content creators, now some like Comcast are starting to see themselves more as a distribution platform – good for the developer community.

LOCATION:  CONTEXT IS MONEY
4000 LBS apps today, a small % but impressive considering 18 months ago there were only 5 LBS apps in the world.

KEYNOTE:  Innovation on Android – Introducing MotoBlur
Dr. Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola
Number of mobile users doubled between 2008-9 from 10.8mm to 22mm devices accessing daily.  20% access web via mobile device.  Going from 1:1 SMS to 1:Many Social collaboration.  Ubiquitous availability of wireless broadband.  Rapid expansion.  Mobilizing the internet is the single biggest opportunity today.  Netbooks, eBooks, gaming devices, smartphones.  Smartphones being the backbone where mobilization will occur. Broadband definition – minimum 500kb data connectivity to mulitple users without regard of location.  What makes a smartphone – larger high-res display, anytime anywhere broadband connectivity, over the air updates (key), rich media, voice quality, coverage, multi-thread, multitasking operating system.  Android gives us a platform to mobilize the internet, enhance consumer experience, mulitple simultaneous transaction, competitive differentiation, Motorola supporting development of Android, have put meaningful resources behind the Android ecosystem, consumers overwhelmed by options.  Half of US mobile traffic is 180mm social networkers, will grow to 800mm (Gartner).   Aggregate media, music, address books, email addresses.  MotoBlur service allows your entire life to exist on a single stream, enables you to focus on being social, syncs contacts, posts, media, photos, FB, Twitter, Myspace, Gmail, Y!, corporate email customized on home screen and integrated deep into corners of device, so consumer can focus on being social not on how its sent.  Have it all one finger swipe away.  Widgets:  Social status, happenings (feeds, tweets, updates), messages, weather, Android marketplace and browser.  Create rich text email.  Easy to navigate streams, syncing push contacts into address book photos, birthdates. Integrates contact info through device, receive a call and caller’s profile info pops onscreen, get turn by turn direction to where they are, and it’s worry free – phone can be found by GPS in case its off on a cab ride without you – remote wipe – wipes device but keeps data in the cloud, set up once, good to go.  Phone as primary computer device, if it doesn’t fit in your pocket, the consumer won’t use it.  price points and memory costs are drivers to computing becoming mobile.  Regarding palm, it’s not a zero sum game, all boats float, with 300mm smartphones, its the biggest technology opportunity there is, MotoBlur will eventually evolve, this is just the starting point, the first step in a long journey.   Motorola is excited to integrate location, social graph and web info in an easily digestible way, Motorola does both sw and hw and can decide how to integrate, solve problems and deliver experience that simplifies life, health, fitness, media, build trust to share info, no rationale for 4G if its not for multimedia.

Cole Brodman, T-Mobile
Watch for Cliq with MotoBlur in time for the holidays, next chapter in Android innovation, open highly customizable platform, inviting 3P innovation to the network, first phone with social skills, always on connection, glance on the go, network can handle the traffic, T-Mobile has invested $9B in last 4y, has 200mm US customers with 3G coverage, T-Mobile customers text more than anyone in the world started with Sidekick, connected socializers 30-somethings like to stay in touch, have lead the smartphone adoption. T-Mobile will have product out in time for holidays with the best value, coverage, must have alwayson devices, Cliq in two colors white and titanium, with google browser, video capture.

(Very cool demo – if only iPhone would push birthday reminders to home screen when turned on, and autoemailed birthday wishes)

Andy Rubin, Google
Smartphone is a communications device first and voice device second, data differentiates the smartphone but still need voice to carry it around with you at all time, interface with mobile internet, as powerful as a desktop PC from 15 years ago, internet is the destination, the window to the world, now cloud computing, network connected devices, we’re all personally participating in the ecosystem, what is good for the internet is good for Google, the bigger the base the better it is for Google’s primary ad business, the modern os brings the webto people’s pockets.  As for Palm and Symbian, let the best OS win.  Regarding which came first Android or iPhone OS – os developers have long history and have worked everywhere, who knows which came first, the important thing is that they came together to develop an open system.  Moving web forward as a platform, modern browsers more capable with HTML 5.

ULTRABAND:  Fast Platform for Innovation
How will we be at 100mbps or 1gbps wireless broadband by 2012.  In 1991 Xerox ParC stated its vision for pervasive computing.  18 years later still discussing what broadband is, what bandwidth is needed to be broadband, always there, omnipresent, delivering compelling user experiences at the speed of thought, a world in which the consumer knows that they desire it and suddenly it’s there.

Phil Asmundson, Deloitte
Exciting time for mobile, phones are our remote control to the world, look out 5-10y, fundamental changes to the marketplace, will find that apps that require ultraband eat up spectrum, as we watch video, primary entertainment devices for the millennials and gen xers, mobile mobile and fixed mobile still dont play with each other, two separate worlds, need to play together, cause of spectrum issues.  (Chetan Sharma:  The term smartphone will be an oxymoron in 5 years)  There is an innovation iceberg, the more broadband you provide, the more they’ll use, sw is driving the market, advances far faster than hw, then there are FCC challenges around spectrum, cells are going to be gone, need something more powerful than finite spectrum.  SW is driving force for mobile, need more partnerships, not one company can do it alone.  carriers rpus will increase, innovation cycle will advance, great new world coming sooner than you think.

Ken Denman, Openwave Systems
An all IP world is slave to consumer experience, beyond phones and smartphones there is a data tsunami coming, all things non-phones, all connected devices including things not mobile, appliances, cars , netbooks, wonderful soup coming up, exciting times, the key enabler is all IP environment, convergence will absolutely happen with mobile as the default.  Ethernet will appear to have more relevance.  There will be tiering of price around bundled services for a particular experience like Kindle.    As market evolves and consumers get snappy apps they may not have a problem with price tiering.  Offloading of multiple networks is key middleware solution, #1 RFP of CXOs.

Abhi Ingle, ATT
Increasing speeds and feeds with wireless broadband, 5y widely deployed LTE 100mbps, 10y fungibility of networks become more transparent switching the networks, evolve beyond cell tower, go way beyond phones to connected devices, internet of things, explosion of innovation, ATT Austin lab, connectivity extend to things never even imagined before, connected 30-somethings used to cloud computing environments, ATT has 38 data centers for cloud computing alone, powerful networks.  You need massive amounts of capital to achieve 1gbps, there is not enough spectrum to achieve those speeds, need capital, spectrum and transformation of network, unimaginable costs ($100B?).  One approach is to blend the networks, make it transparent to end user.

Rick Keith, Motorola
Underlying principle of delivery of apps (Twitter, FB), what is broadband relative to those apps, taking experience already familiar with moving to airwaves, to that thing previously known as cell phone, broadband is a marketing term, we’ve had wimax since 2007, for Pakistan and Brazil its the first connection ever had to home, what is broadband to them is not broadband to us.  Its an issue of latency, needs to be a subsecond from send to receive, must be snappy, cost doesn’t stop at capex, there is enormous operating expense as well. Hybrid networks need be transparent to user, right now if you have Boingo can use ATT wireless at airport, that doesn’t make sense.  Must be a bridge service.

THE NETBOOKS & ULTRAPORTABLE BOOM

Mark Spoonauer, LAPTOP Magazine
1 of 5 pcs sold are netbooks, not funny Apple yesterday showing pocket ripping from Dell Inspiron not fitting, netbooks outgrowing notebooks 2:1.  Cheap notebooks have existed before, small, easy to carry, low cost, voting with dollars due to economy, is there a cannibalization threat, netbook integrated broadband 3g attaching $60 fee to go unlimited data makes it not a low cost, carriers need to subsidize netbooks to take off

Noury Al-Khaledy, Intel

Price point needed for internet use, compact, companion, evolving of the mobile web, different form factors and uses, dependent on different devices for different needs, infrastructure to provide bandwidth is key, bill monthly per user or per device, majority shipping are wifi, open econsystem platform, battery life better and better CPU not draining battery, netbooks with 8hrs, sw ecosystem will grow,chrome runs best on pc, better battery life, integration, lower power, new processors handle full flash.

LOCATION, MEDIA & MONEY:  The Next Enablers

Len Lauer, Qualcomm
Qualcomm is starting with Smartbooks moving to broader consumer electronics category.  Problem with netbooks is that they don’t last all day.  Want a Smartbook that lasts all day, always on, email pushed, no need for fan to cool off, very sleek design.   (Three kids (18/16/13) and three netbooks not enough) Right now Smartbooks do not have full support of office environment, Microsoft not porting XP86 yet.  Adding connectivity to everything.  Amazon Kindle makes network connectivity invisible, built into price of book.  Opportunity of machine to machine.  Smart Grid technology, energy companies putting in mobile radio into thermostat in home, intelligence in smart cars where to recharge, digital cameras, navigation devices.  Lots of opportunities.  US/Europe carriers embracing machine to machine arpu higher, Verizon, ATT, Sprint, T-Mobile.  Start out with thin file apps without user involvement (not large PPT decks or media files) 4-5% royalty rate on CDMA for 3G (830mm of 4B are 3G, 3.25% royalty rate for 4G when LTE comes out.)  Interconnectivity multimode when not connected on 4G still get 3G, voice will run out on 3G til 2020.  Rate needs to come down from $60 for mass adoption, balance economics, higher cost of bandwidth costs.  Amount of data being consumed going up.  Qualcomm helping operators with network offload, Media FLO sits on its own network.  Data traffic up 400%, half from video streaming.  FLO is 1:Many, can push out top ten YouTube videos over broadcast/datacast network, or P2P if two are within a kilometer to have handsets talk to each other and send info to each other different spectrum band, low power and fast – new radio technology – going point to point via phones.  Longer R&D project.  Can also get it on to cable networks to offload but need to manage interference.  Media Flo $10-15/month subscription – 15 channels of linear feeds – Qualcomm pays for content from ESPN..  (CDN offload)  700mhz auction 10 years to get that spectrum out.  Think about lots of devices in your home being connected should be P2P, better to manage on a licensed spectrum basis.  Where its most populated is where its free – Korea, Japan, China – 45% devices watching tv.  Italy, Germany, US not hitting expectations, Qualcomm doesn’t have nationwide network yet, need to be on more devices, expand next year, platform capability not just restricted to mobile devices, should be on other consumer electronics like MP3, live tv in car (on fridge?).  Launching with AudioVox this month for cars, rear screen videos in cars will go live tv.  Watch for MP3 device with FLO coming out soon.

INNOVATION THROUGH OBSERVATION & DESIGN

Denise Gershbein, frog design
Take products from strategy to market, brand, design, physical, digital.  Augmented reality has a lot to do with context that’s the moment when you move from looking down at a device toward holding up a lens to the world.  Likes Evernote.  Looks to Twitter for creative sources, inspiration, follows interesting people.  Envisioning LTE 4G, look at parallel and analogous paths make meaning out of cultural chaos so you can meet the market.  Arthur C Clark, Childhood’s End – getting into one universal consciusness.  What does it mean that you can be connected and have access to knowledge at the same time.

Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path
Observational research can be misused to dictate design and not room for innovation.  Design is a greater differentiator to stand out in crowded marketplace.  Integration of mobile platforms into larger universe as barriers to technologies and networks breakdown will start seeing new opportunities to be exploited for services to work across platforms.  Uncovering patterns in people’s behavior and psych, extend beyond how they interact with your product.  Be inspired by things beyond the technology space.

Crysta Metcalf, Motorola
Team tying different devices to each other, tying mobile device to tv.  Looking at how you would use mobile device in social tv experience.

Prashant Agarwal, Fjord
Noone has cracked mobile marketing yet.  Context is huge.  My phone knows my tweets, contacts..  Best experience is Amazon Kindle, get it, turn it on and there is nothing else to do except buy books.  Last time you bought a phone, just to get voice is not that simple.

Robin Boyar, thinktank research and strategy
Don’t always have a pencil but always have your phone.  Mobile device can monitor your health, use as tool to make life easier, better.  Young kids aren’t using smartphones, using the free feature phones.  Apps need to match 30y+ audience who own the smartphones.  How do you beat Apple at its game – recognize how to make user experience easier and cooler – build the brand experience – with Apple have extended relationship with them via iTunes, the store.  Used to head up research for gaming company, to get holistic view need all stakeholders in the focus group. If 7 year old and 70 year old gets it, you have a great product.

CARRIER PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVOLVING MOBILE ECOSYSTEM

Cole Brodman, T-Mobile
Social communications root of T-Mobile.  Largest per user text base than any other carriers in the world – 600 messages per user per month – more texting than calls.  Update FB status many times a week.  (Om asks if its possible we one day see voice as an add-on)  Android 10,000 apps, average T-Mobile user 40 apps per user in last 11 months.  Abundance use of apps.   Front home screen always on with context and location so info is relevant is very powerful, allows user to act quickly without logging in to web page.  Too many apps, over 60,000 apps, only a few make money.  Google working on how to make apps more discoverable as app store inventory grows.  T-Mobile to use retail footprint, 1700 stores, sales reps can aid discovery.  Paid and new apps, categorizing and merchandising stores need to be improved.  Once they discover an app make it easier to recommend to friends and family, word of mouth is key.  Not setting up T-Mobile app store, working with Android for an open marketplace but playing a role in discovery, and of course improve ways for app developers to leverage carrier billing, make it more frictionless, to pay with one click, next accelerant for app store consumption.  Phone company has to evolve from closed telco mindset to open web-based infrastructures to allow more rapid development to get things to market, allow application innovation.   T-Mobile is a communications company, it’s what occurs on the desktop, internet, devices we haven’t even thought of yet, need to breakdown the way we’ve traditionally gone to market.  Mobile internet 3-5y from today, starts with ubiquitous wireless broadband network $9B investment in 3G married with increasingly open operating systems, open APIs, increases in memory, battery life, processing power.   Front screen access mashed up with location and context, social graph, offer smarter network in the future, won’t have to keep re-entering data.  Likes Android as the first one to live up to expectations – open to carriers, manufacturing partners, developers to innovate.  Give consumers opportunity to personalize and customize, make it their own.  Apple viewpoint – everything is the same.  (Om – PCs guys don’t make that much money, Mac guys makes lots of money on same product) Consumers will have viable choices, different price points.  Customization without fragmentation.  That’s the work the ecosystem needs to do.  (Om – problem with iPhone is ATT network)  T-Mobile network will hold up, existing customers over-consume, set us up for increased capacity to handle increased consumption.  No announced plans for LTE in US, but its a natural migration, T-Mobile International leader in LTE early on. Thoughts on VOIP – not a threat, wireless pricing will continue to evolve, future consumption is moving away from voice, can only talk so much, first carrier to launch voice over wifi, concern so far has been quality, 3G not built for latency needed for VOIP.  Forgone conclusion, matter of timing, T-Mobile has embraced voice apps in Android market.  Front counter for services, thoughts on DRM – makes it easier if there is no DRM, important to share with others (limit time-sharing), leans toward a DRM-free world to allow sharing, subscription models naturally fit that way consumers want to consume media vs. transactional formats.

FACEBOOK PHONE AND SOCIAL MOBILE

Frank Meehan, INQ Mobile
GSM Wolrd Congress winner of best handsets designed around Skype and Facebook.  Carrier developed phone that aloowed you to make Skype calls.  Old voice and text handset manufacturers are stuck  - got to be fast, stay ahead, have to be able to put next FB on your phone quickly.  Brand naming has to be cool and catchy, need great distribution, retail, marketing – Apple does it very well, not many others.  Nokia is a very big company, they’ll fight their way back, what’s going to happen operators are keen to differentiate, each carrier has segmented behind a handset, INQ gives operator great customization.  Sony Ericcson and Nokia nder $200 feature phone market are competitors – boring, dull, most users don’t get data, INQ phones very easy.  INQ is now also moving into Android.  Android phones has struggled to compete on networks that carry iPhone.  User experience has to be better to get that iPhone out of user’s hand.  Need a hit handset every year.  Owner of INQ is investor in Spotify, Meehan sits on board of Spotify, huge in Europe.  (Om: $50 Peek email device, BB for everyone) Location not there yet but coming.  iPhone sells well to 35y+ who buys Macs.  But iPod market is under 35y, sell INQ phones to that market.

JUST A BROWSER OR FUTURE OF MOBILE OS

Jon von Tetzchner, Opera Software
Browser has potential to be a unifying force to deploy across wide range of mobile devices without having to create a whole bunch of native apps.  80% of phones not running OS, thus web is natural choice for these phones, HTML 5 local storage and drag and drop, deliver rich app experience.  Browser started as a document viewer, then added Java, developers moving faster than that, now running applications.  Scalable vector graphics is coming in the browser.  Microsoft held the browser market back for years.  If doing it web-based, it will run everywhere.  Widget is a web app running in a separate window, can run everywhere, PC, Wii, TVs, media players. Webkit vs Opera mini.  Opera Unite service – there is just one web, see all devices working together.  People haven’t really taken to MMS, hard to get photos over to PC, bluetooth is a hurdle.Opera 10 downloaded 10mm times in the first week.  More than 700ees in 10 countries.  Still focus on the end-user, make peoples lives easier, FF, rewind, speed dial..people expect that, now 40mm active users.  In some countries, #1.  Touch based gestures, mouse gestures very popular.  Take pride on running on 10 year old PCs.  Core of the browser hasn’t changed.  Apps will be web-based, more power to play with.

INVESTMENT OUTLOOK:  THE VC PANEL

Lawrence Aragon, Venture Capital Journal
Panel raised $2B need to invest.  Seed and Series A not looking good for 2009.

Mitch Lasky, Benchmark Capital
Infatuated by iPhone comes out of being burnt.  App store has been great for developers and Apple but not venture, opportunity to aggregate market share hasn’t materialized, will soon be back in multi-platform world, will need to be on more than just iPhone.  Would invest in a company contingent on partnering with carrier.  Did 200,000 store keeping units serving global wireless market.  Now 27,000 games on iPhone, noone can make money.  Don’t mind high-friction environment. ARPU has been flat at $50 for years.  Will see higher RPUs when virtual goods comes to iphone apps.  ATT $18B to built out network to support data consumption.  Network build out is a significant issue.

Dixon Doll, DCM
Portfolio includes mig 33.  Series B in mig33 last mobile investment, in the midst of a Series A not announced.  Can’t justify monetization on advertising – wont get VCs excited.  Must look beyond US, US carriers at best are 3rd best in the world, lots of innovation in China and Japan.  Cynical about business model where carrier determines outcome of business, better to create competitive environment, e.g. MLB.com doing well with its subscription on multiplatforms, competitive dynamic is useful.  Economist talks about innovative mobile apps:  augmented reality.  DC does not understand job creation role of the VCs.  Primitive emerging market nations live off their mobile phones, creating microeconomies, money transfer payments exciting new applications.

Rob Coneybeer, Shasta Ventures
Portfolio includes Eye-Fi.  Prefer companies that don’t require carrier relationship, then can focus on value of partnership instead of imbalance of power.  When both parties have alternatives, its best.  People get hung up on ARPUs, want revenues higher than cost, voice down, data up, wave of growth around the corner, some new business models of advertising and promotion enabled by location and intent, can be explosive, developers can write to a platform without talking to carriers to see if it will go on a deck.  New features (accelerometers, touch screens) to get to a multibillion dollar industry.  Seek to build a portfolio of 25 exciting companies.  Plays Foursquare, gaming + location drives explosive adoption.

Bob Borchers, Opus Capital
(Fmr Apple iPhone exec) Portfolio includes Eye-Fi.  Mobile startups don’t require as much capital as before.  Can easily get fulfillment on your own, may need capital for awareness.  Venture community is so burned by the 500 feature phones they tried, soured on the space.  Many have great proof of concept. iPhone 2+ years old and App Store 1 year old.  Traditional carrier-focused metrics voice RPU, data RPU may be $50, other ecosystems $80 ARPUs on iPhone apps.  All do seed deal, have to have money to add people, need capital to keep company going.

John Balen, Canaan Partners
Last Series A India mobile company.  Series A is down because the whole market is down.  Seeing now an upswing in deals.  Activity level will rise in 2010.  Coming out of recession.  Every web app has to have mobile window because browser is so prevalent.  Not everything is showing up as mobile, might be categorized as web app.  Change is happening.  Need leverage with carrier.  Carriers operate differently abroad.  iPhone best over the top payment system and the outsourcing of cell phone business.  Watch the unbundling of what a cell phone company is.  Disaggregation of cell phones towers.  Win-win for consumer.  Happened in India even with low RPUs.  Augmented reality is next.  New ventures around location, cameras..

No me considero un fanático de la Mac; digo, sinceramente, la prefiero sobre Windows, pero entiendo que no es perfecta. De hecho, el hardware, dado algunas excepciones, no es muy diferente de una HP o Dell. La tarjeta de video, el disco duro, la pantalla, etc. son básicamente iguales en todas las computadoras para usuarios normales en el mercado. Lo que realmente hace diferente a una Mac de cualquier otra PC es el software. Y es en este tema donde los debates florecen.

He desarrollado software en el ambiente de Windows al igual que la Mac, y soy de la posición de que cada persona debe escoger el SO con el que mejor se acomode a sus propias preferencias y circunstancias. Pero son artículos como el escrito por Randall C. Kennedy en Infoworld que convierten lo que podría ser un debate inteligente y maduro, a uno lleno de fanáticos empleando tácticas de datos corrompidos e información errónea.

Me permito presentarle los puntos expuesto en dicho artículo, que implican que Apple le “robó” ideas a Microsoft y las implementó en Snow Leopard. Cada punto será seguido de mi opinión al respecto.

64 bits: ¡Por fin! Apple se convierte a 64 bits — ¿y qué? Como un usuario de Windows, he estado viviendo la vida de 64 bits por más de tres años. Vista fue el primer SO popular que entrego una experiencia de 64 bits viable, y Windows 7 lo ha llevado más allá haciéndolo el preferido para usuarios de negocios.

Mac OS ha sido de 64 bits desde la introducción de la G5 en 2003. Lo que se propone en Snow Leopard es que ahora no sólo el SO es de 64 bits, sino también las aplicaciones que incluye: Mail, Safari, iCal, etc. De hecho, Mac OS desde siempre ha dado soporte nativo para correr software de 64 y 32 bits al mismo tiempo, así el usuario no tiene que preocuparse de ver cuál software funcionará con su sistema. Y no sé a qué se refiere el autor con que Windows es una “experiencia de 64 bits viable”, cuando, por el hecho de tener que vender dos sistemas diferentes dependiendo si el sistema es de 64 o 32 bits, Microsoft mismo tiene que explicartelo antes de comprar.

Integración del Dock con Exposé: Esto es una broma, ¿verdad? ¿Debo entender que Apple apenas está implementando esta funcionalidad? Microsoft ha estado ofreciendo esto (también conocido como Prevista en Miniatura) por años, y Windows 7 ha llevado esto un paso más allá con Aero Peek, Shake, y Snap. Suena como que la copiadora de Apple sufrió un atajo de papel con esta — o tal vez se ha quedado en uno de los famosos bucles infinitos de Mac OS X.

Prevista en Miniatura no es para nada lo mismo que Integración del Dock con Exposé. El primero es la prevista de un documento en Windows Explorer introducido en Vista, que sólo ha estado en el mercado por 2 años. Dicha funcionalidad ha estado en Mac OS X desde 2005. Año en el cual Exposé fue también introducido, funcionalidad que se rumora fue copiada para Vista en la interfaz de cambio de ventanas. La funcionalidad al que el autor se debe estar refiriendo es el de sólo ver las ventanas de una aplicación al presionar el botón respectivo en el Dock. Y, sí, Windows 7 tiene una funcionalidad parecida a ésta (aunque utiliza previstas, en vez de las ventanas mismas). Si gusta especular quién le copió a quién, perfecto, pero comparemos manzanas con manzanas, por favor. Y, francamente, si vamos a comenzar a mencionar bugs famosos, no olvidemos La Pantalla Azul de la Muerte, que aún sale en Vista:

Prevista PDF Expandida: Si esto constituye una “funcionalidad”, entonces ¡Apple debe estar realmente apremiante! Digo, Windows ha podido crear previstas de PDF — por medio de instalar un modulo ifilter — desde el debut de Búsqueda de Escritorio antes de Vista. De hecho, la habilidad de transparentemente prever contenido de tercer-partido ha sido parte de la experiencia Windows desde hace años. Así que, mientras estoy feliz de ver que Apple finalmente esté arreglando sus asuntos con PDF (parece ser que el visor ya reemplaza Adobe Reader en varias tareas), estoy sorprendido de que esto haya sido un problema. Que proveen un visor de XPS gratis con Mac OS y a lo mejor me emociono.

Realmente intenté encontrar algo con lo que estoy de acuerdo en este punto, pero no pude. Hemos podido ver nativamente archivos PDF en Mac OS desde 2004, y para mí ha sido un substituto para Adobe Reader desde entonces. No es una funcionalidad del SO si es necesario instalar módulos adicionales; dando a luz el fanatismo del autor. Una instalación limpia de Windows (sin aplicaciones adicionales como Adobe Reader), en este momento, no puede leer un archivo PDF, el cual es un estándar internacional… punto. En vez de crear uno, Microsoft comenzó a promover su propio protocolo, XPS, para reemplazar a PDF. Siendo justos, XPS es un protocolo gratis y ya es considerado estándar pero, el problema de ver archivos PDF nativamente no ha sido resuelto y hay otro más formato en el mundo con el que tenemos que lidiar. No me debió sorprender, dado la historia de la empresa.

Y si para esas vamos, que Microsoft provee un servidor de Web y SSH (estándares internacionales, que Mac OS trae pre-instalado) en Windows 7 y a lo mejor me emociono.

Quicktime Pro: ¿Pueden creer que Apple solía cobrar por esto? Supongo que ya tomaron conciencia, con Microsoft entregando otra excelente iteración de su aplicación Movie Maker. ¡Buena reacción, Apple!

Quicktime Pro = tocador/exportador de películas. Movie Maker = creador de películas. Diferencias entre la versión estándar (dícese, gratis) de Quicktime y la versión Pro, entre otras, es que éste último puede exportar películas a formatos avanzados como H.264 y edición básica de video. Usuarios normales no tenían necesidad de usar la versión Pro; si necesitan editar video, iMovie es preferible (y también viene pre-instalado). El hecho de que ahora la versión Pro es estándar sólo añade funcionalidades que probablemente muchas personas ni se darán cuenta que tienen en Snow Leopard. Y por cierto, he utilizado Movie Maker, y no es “excelente”. La funcionalidad que provee está a años luz de la sofisticación que es iMovie.

El autor tiene uno de dos problemas. O está ejercitando pobremente su lado sarcástico y el artículo es sólo una increiblemente mala broma. O no leyó que Snow Leopard es sólo una iteración de Leopard, y así como Windows 7 lo es para Vista. Realmente espero, por la dignidad del autor, que sea la primera alternativa.

Y, no me malinterpreten: Windows 7 es una iteración necesaria para Vista, y tiene sus fortalezas, así como Snow Leopard tiene sus debilidades. Pero, insisto, si vamos a compararlos, seamos maduros y leamos antes de hablar.

These are some of the blogs I regularly read…

Life in the Cloud, ElasticVapor, by Reuven Cohen

Reuven Cohen - ENOMALY

Reuven Cohen

Founder Enomaly

Cloudcamp

Cloud Interoperability Forum

Cloud Interop Magazine.

Known to many in India. Conducted cloudcamp in Bangalore on March 29, 2009.

CloudCamp

“CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged you to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.”

*******************************************

Cloud Computing, David Linthicum

Davic Linthicum, Infoworld

David S. Linthicum works for Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC. He is an internationally recognized industry expert and thought leader, and the author and coauthor of 13 books on computing, including the best-selling “Enterprise Application Integration” (Addison Wesley). Dave keynotes at many leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, Web 2.0, and enterprise architecture, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio shows as a computing expert.

This is one his blog that I read twice:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/busted-three-myths-cloud-computing-098

*******************************************

Om Malik, Gigaom, For almost all of us, no introduction required about Om Malik and Gigaom.

Om Malik, Gigaom

Gigaom is one of the top 10000 sites in the world with about 70% viewership in USA and 20% in India.

Om Malik has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist covering technology and business news. He was a Writer at Red Herring during its glory days, then went on to be part of the founding team of Forbes.com as a Senior Editor. Most recently, he was a Senior Writer for Business 2.0, covering telecom and broadband stories.

Best of the WEB FOR TECHNOLOGY NEWS! MOST IMPORTANT NEWS!!

Personally his blog, business strategy is an inspiration to me.  Gigaom: Committed Expertise and BEYOND IT.

Malick.Md.PMP

You’ve heard from us about the free, 30-day trial PathView download, and the unique value of testing, troubleshooting, monitoring and reporting on hundreds of network paths in a distributed application environment.

But, we’re not alone. Others are singing PathView’s praises too. Gary from Trail Networks, Inc.  calls PathView a “must have network management and troubleshooting tool” and says that, “One of the best features of the tool is the capability of giving you visibility into your Service Providers cloud and making sure they are meeting your requirements.” Read more at InfoWorld Discussions – http://bit.ly/Icr1P.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Gary!

I got my splendid, brand new MacBook Pro 15″ last week. Of course I was super excited and all that, and I quickly realized what an amazing piece of machinery I had bought. Still, it’s always nice to get confirmation on your beliefs

Tom Yager writes at infoworld.com about all the great features of the 15″ MacBook Pro and calls it “The best laptop money can buy“! Link to the article HERE!

If you don’t feel like reading the article, here’s the bottom line found on the webpage:

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is faster, runs longer on a charge, doubles the memory capacity, and adds an SD card slot. It also has a gorgeous wide-gamut display and a lower price. In short, the quintessential commercial notebook is now even better.

Pretty good, huh?

Both have been making tremendous strides, trying to position themselves to gain serious market share. How are they fairing? What are their features? What advances are they making? And how do they compare to each other?

InfoWorld has taken the time to lab test both sets of products, and have delivered their opinion in this article on Windows 7 vs. Linux.

Deze blogposting verscheen ook op infoworld.nl. In een vorige posting op Infoworld.nl ging het over de juridische aspecten van een (eventuele) ontslagprocedure en waar zoal op te letten. In deze column over ontslag werd aangestipt dat begeleiding bij het zoeken naar een nieuwe werksituatie in je exit pakket kan zitten. Deze zogenaamde Outplacement Services zijn erg populair in deze crisistijd. Maar waar nu op te letten bij het aangaan van een outplacementtraject met een bureau? Hoe nu te kiezen? Wat is de procedure?

Maarten ter Braak is een oude rot in het vak van outplacement begeleiding, sinds 1993. Hij was ondermeer voorzitter van NOBOL, de branche organisatie voor outplacement, loopbaanbegeleiding en coaching, en is na de verkoop van zijn eigen outplacementbureau partner bij Elffers & Partners in Haarlem.Maarten ter Braak onderscheidt vier fases in een outplacement procedure:

1. de Oriëntatiefase
2. de Persoongerichte fase
3. de Marktfase
4. de Voorbereidsfase voor de nieuwe baan

We gaan het hier hebben over de oriëntatiefase en hoe je een outplacement-adviseur of -bureau kunt kiezen. In de oriëntatiefase wordt besproken wat de redenen voor outplacement zijn en welke afspraken er met de werkgever zijn gemaakt. De cliënt wordt geïnformeerd over de inhoud van de begeleiding en afhankelijk van zijn of haar specifieke wensen wordt een op de persoon toegespitst traject uitgezet. Tijdens deze fase wordt er ook een outplacement contract met een bureau aangegaan. Belangrijk is je te realiseren is dat, hoewel het bureau de rekening aan jouw (oud-) werkgever stuurt, het bureau jou als zijn cliënt beschouwt. Dat betekent onder meer dat hij alleen met jouw toestemming aan je voormalige werkgever mag rapporteren.

Binnen de oriëntatiefase krijg je als outplacement-kandidaat vaak de mogelijkheid om, binnen een door je (ex) werkgever aangegeven kader, een keuze te maken uit een aantal outplacement adviseurs, maar soms mag je zelf helemaal bepalen met wie je gaat werken aan het vinden van een nieuwe baan. Je mag dus gaan shoppen bij een aantal outplacement bureaus. Waar moet je bij dat shoppen op letten?

Bedenk wat doorslaggevend is bij je keuze voor een outplacement adviseur. Is het je begroting, de te verwachten service levels, de ervaring van de outplacement adviseur…?

Laat je niet alleen overtuigen door de verkooptechnieken van de outplacement adviseur! Vraag naar de effectiviteit van het programma, praat met andere organisaties en mensen die al door een outplacement traject zijn gegaan.

Vraag naar de aard van de klanten waar het outplacement bureau voor werkt (specifieke bedrijfstak of organisatorische niveau). Hoe lang zijn ze al actief? Is loopbaanbegeleiding / coachen de belangrijkste focus van hun bedrijf of is dit een “bijproduct”?

Als je een beperkt budget tot je beschikking hebt, ga dan na wat een bureau daarvoor biedt. Maak afspraken en laat ze op papier zetten.

Mensen zijn verschillend en zoeken naar de verschillende niveaus van ondersteuning. In hoeverre passen de gehanteerde methoden en technieken bij jou?

De beste coaches en consultants die outplacement bieden hebben ervaring in zowel advisering als het bedrijfsleven. Vraag naar hun geloofsbrieven en doe eens een online check via bijvoorbeeld Linkedin of Google Search. Zoek uit wie je uiteindelijk persoonlijk gaat begeleiden.

Wees niet onder de indruk van chique kantoren met bibliotheken en werkplekken. De meeste mensen hebben liever een klein kantoor en één op één begeleiding dan grootschalige groepstrajecten.

Outplacement-bedrijven bieden dienstverlening van hoge kwaliteit, maar het is nog steeds het individu dat centraal moet staan. Let bovenal of het klikt met degene die je gaat begeleiden.

Mocht je in een outplacement-situatie belanden, houd dan deze zaken goed in gedachten.

San Francisco – IBM and Sun Microsystems are said to be in acquisition talks, and if such a deal actually happens, it could change the course of not only IBM’s but Oracle’s and SAP’s use of Java.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that IBM and Sun are in discussions that could see Big Blue ponying up $6.5 billion to get Sun’s servers, storage, open source software, and, of course, its crown jewel: Java.

[ For more analysis of the possible acquisition, see "IBM and Sun: What took you so long?" ]

“People view this as a merger of two hardware companies, but the software is a bigger aspect that may change IBM and other large software companies,” said Ian Finley, a vice president at AMR Research.

Michael Cote, an analyst at RedMonk, pointed out that IBM controlling Java “could be something people who depend on Java will freak out about.”

AMR’s Finely added, “If IBM enforces control over the Java Community Process the way Microsoft controls .Net, and WebSphere becomes perceived as better middleware because of it, then IBM gets an inherent advantage. Plus, it could de-stabilize the foundations of Oracle and SAP’s products because Oracle’s Fusion and SAP’s NetWeaver are both tightly wedded to Java.”

Such divisive action, however possible, would not happen easily or quickly. Java’s community process could hamstring any efforts by IBM to wrangle too much control of Java standards, said Al Gillen, program vice president for system software at IDC. “In a community-based environment, if IBM does something with Java the community doesn’t like, members can fork Java,” Gillen explained. “I think IBM gets that.”

RedMonk’s Cote pointed out that Java stewardship would be a fine line for IBM. “At first, IBM wouldn’t be so interested in kicking sand in people’s eyes because its hardware sales are often tied to Oracle,” Cote said.

Although AMR’s Finley expects IBM to say publicly that it wouldn’t de-stabilize Java, the company would definitely want to get the most competitive advantage out of its $6.5 billion as it possibly could. And it wouldn’t take much to get SAP and Oracle shifting gears.

“Even a subtle tilting of the playing field could drive SAP and Oracle to shift their focus. Oracle’s applications franchise is being built on Java. The same would apply to SAP and NetWeaver,” Finley continued. “They’d have to take evasive action and turn to other standards.”

Now, it’s still too early to tell whether such a deal will even reach a shareholder vote, let alone pass antitrust regulators. Neither company has publicly stated that the talks are even taking place.

“We don’t comment on rumors, no matter how accurate or silly they may be,” Sun chairman Scott McNealy responded in an e-mail to an InfoWorld inquiry about the reports.

Whereas large corporate mergers are often regarded as failures, RedMonk’s Cote doesn’t foresee that happening here.

“IBM is actually very good at execution. If you combine Sun and IBM, and it doesn’t kill the Siamese twin, it could be interesting to watch.”

InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill contributed to this report.

நன்றி: By Liane Cassavoy, PC World | InfoWorld | News | 2009-02-18 | By Liane Cassavoy, PC World: “Out of the thousands available, here are the apps to download right now for your smartphone”

1. Documents to Go, Premium Edition
DataViz
$70; BlackBerry OS 4.5 or higher
I know, I just said that most new BlackBerry phones come with a version of Documents to Go already installed. And they do — but it’s the Standard Edition. That app will let you view and edit existing Microsoft Office files, but it won’t let you create new ones; for those capabilities, you need the Premium Edition. Both versions let you open existing Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents and Adobe PDF files natively, so you don’t need to convert them to view them properly.

2. PeeKaWho
SmrtGuard
$10; BlackBerry OS 4.1.0 or higher
It may not sound like a terrible hassle to open your BlackBerry’s e-mail client every time you get a message. But why not make things easy on yourself? PeeKaWho pops up an alert when you have an incoming e-mail message, showing you who sent it, the subject, and a snippet of the text. That way you’ll know whether the message is important enough to read right away, or whether it can wait until you’ve finished your current task. The alerts are especially handy if you’re composing another e-mail — they allow you to see new messages without losing the one you’re working on. You can also create blacklists or whitelists to control how many pop-ups you get.

3.  Maximizer CRM 10.5 Freedom for BlackBerry
Maximizer Software
$229 (single user); BlackBerry OS 4.6 or higher

4. PocketMac for BlackBerry
PocketMac
Free; Mac OS 10.4/10.5 and any BlackBerry phone

5. TwitterBerry
Orangatame Software
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.1.0 or higher

6. Opera Mini
Opera Software
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.0.0 or higher

7. YouMail
YouMail
Free; dependent on carrier, works with most AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless phones
Anyone who has used an iPhone knows that its visual voicemail is one of its best — if often overlooked — features. But other companies, like YouMail, are taking note, launching similar services for other smartphones. YouMail visual voicemail displays a list of your incoming messages, so you can see who they’re from and when they arrived before listening to them. It also can transcribe the voice messages into text so that you can read them in places where you can’t make calls, and it lets you create various outgoing messages for different callers.

8. Viigo
Viigo
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.1 or higher, BlackBerry hardware series 7100 or higher
Viigo started out as an RSS reader — and it was an excellent one, allowing you to add newsfeeds easily and browse the results. Nowadays this free application remains an outstanding RSS reader, but it also does much more, tracking weather, flight status, sports scores, stock quotes, and even restaurant reviews.

9. iSkoot for Skype
iSkoot
Free; BlackBerry hardware series 7100 or higher
You don’t have to leave your Skype account behind when you’re away from your PC. iSkoot lets you access many of Skype’s features right from your smart phone. You can chat with other Skype users, and you can save your monthly allotment of voice minutes by using Skype for voice calls. Make and receive calls to and from other Skype users, or use SkypeOut to call regular phone numbers.

10. Google Mobile Updater for BlackBerry
Google
Free; works with all BlackBerry phones
Google offers a great collection of mobile applications, including Google Maps, Gmail, Docs, and Sync. Deciding which one to include here was a tough call — until I realized just how useful Google Mobile Updater can be. This tool allows you to install a variety of Google apps — including all the ones I just mentioned — to your phone, and notifies you when new products or updates to your existing apps are available.

OK, OK, so I  took some liberties with the length of my break. Yeah, um, my bad.

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle! Macworld’s posted news of the new version 2 of Amazon.com ’s Kindle, with the headline “Kindle 2 e-book reader is thinner than iPhone.” Surprisingly, Macworld didn’t resort to the much more hitworthy “Kindle 2 Thinner, Text Grayer, Oh, and Your iPhone Sucks.”

Reuters (via Yahoo!) says eBay ex-CEO Meg Whitman plans to make a run for governor of California in 2010. I wonder if you’ll only owe 99 cents in state taxes, but have to pay $29.99 to ship them?

Slashdot nods in the direction of InfoWorld, and their story about “The incredible shrinking operating system.” About time, I say! I want an OS that does its thing with the least amount of processor and memory usage possible.

Unfortunately, however, I can still get three key combos ahead of WordPress on a Core 2 Duo-based MacBook. And it made my old dual Xeon box cry like it beat it up and stole its lunch money.

Microsoft is readying a “smartphone assault” on Apple, according to CNET. Apparently, that’s CNET’s way of saying this:

Click this, on the off chance it isn't shown automagically.

The story of Infoworld: It’s one of those technologies that have never been ready for prime time or even an understudy role. If someone could only get it to work, broadband-over-power-line (BPL) technology could become an alternative to DSL and cable and perhaps complement Wi-Fi in the networking space. Obstacles still remain, but the perennial also-ran may be ready for a starring role.

Key breakthroughs, notably by silicon vendor DS2, include a new generation of chips that has pushed transmission speeds to 200Mbps, with 400Mbps now being tested, compared with throughput of 13Mbps a decade ago, says Trip Chowdry, managing director of Global Equities Research. What’s more, the chips are significantly cheaper.

And another recent innovation, called notching, lets the chips switch frequencies when meeting interference. This upgrade should quiet the fears of ham radio operators (who amazingly enough have still have significant clout) and others that BPL will cause problems for various radio services, says Ray Blair, IBM’s head of advanced networking.

IBM is teaming with local utilities to supply broadband in rural areas not served by other technologies. Big Blue’s partner, International Broadband Electric Communications, will have access to 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Because BPL essentially turns the electrical grid into an Internet-based network, every device attached to the grid will be able to communicate with other devices on it. This means BPL technology has the potential to develop a “smart grid,” which could allow for such services as automated meter reading, real-time system monitoring, preventive maintenance and diagnostics, and outage detection and restoration.

Bullish as he is on the technology, Blair figures that latecomer BPL is more likely to supplement broadband over DSL and cable than to replace it. “Broadband service by any of the major utilities doesn’t make sense. It will never be able to compete head on.”

But in rural areas, where other broadband providers can’t afford to build infrastructure, the technology has come far enough in the past few years to make the power-line model economical, he says.

Similarly, BPL won’t replace Wi-Fi, but hotels that have found Wi-Fi spotty or those that want to cater to government guests who are forbidden to work on unwired connections could deploy BPL instead, says Blair. Cruise ships and buildings with asbestos or other problems that make running Ethernet impractical or Wi-Fi difficult are also target markets.

And if WiMax turns out to be a turkey, there’s a good chance that BPL may get a second (or a third?) look from even urban broadband providers, says Chowdhry.

The bottom line: BPL doesn’t have to take over the broadband world to become significant in the marketplace and a useful addition to IT’s tool bag when other technologies don’t fit the bill.

I ran into craigslist founder Craig Newmark Wednesday night at a book party for my colleague Stephen Baker.

I asked Newmark what he thought about the state of the mass media. Newmark is a great person to ask this question since craigslist was an early disruptor of the newspaper business. His answer reinforced my growing belief that 2009 could be a watershed year for mass media, a sort of reckoning.

Why? The Great Recession will likely force more companies to finally restructure their businesses for the digital age, instead of making more of the modest, incremental changes they’ve been dribbing out for the most part over the last 10 years.

“The recession will accelerate the problems of the mass media,” said Newmark. “There are going to be some hard choices that need to be made.”

Newmark didn’t elaborate on those choices but it’s not too hard to see the options. Michael Hirschorn (who edited SPIN when it was worth reading back in the 90s) addressed this issue head-on in an interesting essay in The Atlantic about the growing problems of the New York Times.

Among the hard choices that will probably be made by more mainstream media outlets such as newspapers and magazines:

1. Digital-focused distribution. In March of 2007, IDG publication InfoWorld led the way by abandoning print distribution. Last October, the Christian Science Monitor announced it was going to become the first nationally circulated newspaper to replace its daily print edition with its Web site. The paper isn’t totally abandoning print, though. It will publish a weekly print edition. Expect more papers and mags to go digital.

2. More aggregation. The open nature of the Web has undermined the value of original reporting to a certain extent since readers can access much of that content for free across multiple places. As a result, more media outlets will retreat from areas they don’t consider essential. Intead of original reporting, editors will filter the Web and serve up the most relevant links, much like the Huffington Post does, or many other blogs.

3. More journalistic outsourcing: To make up for the inevitable staff cuts that are coming, more media companies will outsource reporting to blogs and other new media companies. The New York Times recently announced syndication deals with several blogs, including VentureBeat, Read/Write Web and the GigaOm network. The popular politics blog Politico is delivering content to many newspapers now, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Denver Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Of all the changes, this is probably the most hopeful since it will lead to more investment in new media journalism. This will be crucial since the decline of the mainstream media–at least in the short term–will damage the press’s ability to serve as a foundation of democracy.

Federated Media CEO John Battelle lost one of his best blogger, GigaOM, to IDG's ad network

A shake up is brewing in the cozy world of technology blogs advertising.

Federated Media Publishing – an ad network which delivers advertising to some of the most prominent tech blogs around like TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Ubergizmo, VentureBeat, Technologizer or Silicon Alley Insider – has “slashed” its ad rates 35%.

Despite deep cut rate, advertisers are hard to find

To add insult to injury, the San Francisco startup is now having a hard time attracting enough advertisers to fill its network of blogs, despite a recent “holiday promotion,” leaving blogs with stories without accompanying ads and cutting even deeper into the blogs’ revenues.

Having seen the writing on the wall, blogger Om Malik decided to split with Federated Media, to partner with IDG TechNetwork, formed last March by large technology media company IDG, publisher of InfoWorld, PCWorld, MacWorld, CIO, etc. This new media network of independent technology publishers will sell ads for Om’s 7 blog properties (GigaOM, Earth2Tech, jkOnTheRun…).

At these low advertising prices, the $100,000 question for Federated Media today is, who’s going to be next to leave the boat?

November 11, 2008 4:27 PM PST

Posted by Ina Fried

While many of those who have played around with the early version of Windows 7 have noted that it feels pretty zippy, especially for a pre-beta version, InfoWorld says early benchmarks show the software is just on par with its predecessor.

In an article on Monday, InfoWorld said that Windows 7 is a “virtual twin” of Vista when it comes to performance.

On the one hand, this could be seen as bad news, considering Microsoft’s efforts to position Windows 7 as better performing. At the same time, this is a pre-beta version. Early releases often lag in performance since optimizations tend to be among the later steps in operating system development.

For its part, Microsoft is encouraging folks to withhold judgment.

“Microsoft consistently encourages people to hold benchmark tests until software is finished and ready for broad release,” Microsoft said in a statement to CNET News.

I’ve been using Windows 7 for a couple of weeks on a loaner machine from Microsoft (a Lenovo X300). It does feel considerably faster than my work machine, but that’s a several-year-old IBM ThinkPad T42. And, as a colleague points out, a new Windows image often feels fast, until you load all of your usual add-ons and third-party software on top of it.

I will say, the new Windows has been incredibly stable for an early build. I used it a bunch at PDC and WinHEC and am currently using it as my main machine. Most things I have tried are working, including the software I use every day, such as iTunes and several IM programs.

On the not-so-hot list, I haven’t gotten it to work with my Sprint wireless broadband card. I also haven’t been able to connect to CNET’s VPN, meaning I’ve been using Outlook Web Access as opposed to the real thing. But to me, the testament to Windows 7 is that I still want to use it, even though Outlook Web Access is way less convenient than Outlook itself.

I’ll be interested to see if Microsoft continues in the right direction with its broad beta, which is slated to be released early next year, as well as whether it hits its internal goal of shipping Windows 7 in time for next year’s holiday shopping season.