PC Makers Offering Vista-XP Downgrades

Oh, we try hard, so hard, not to pile on with this Vista stuff. It's just that every time we think it's getting old to talk about what a, uh, "mitigated success" (yes, we're being kind) Vista has been, something else comes out that demonstrates that this operating system is about as popular as New Coke was once upon a time. (By the way, thank you, Internet and Wikipedia, for providing us with more information than we ever thought existed on New Coke. What was life like before the Internet? We don't remember...and we don't care.) More

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/25/20074 comments


Ballmer 'Underpaid' in 2007

Steve Ballmer pulled in about $1.3 million in fiscal 2007, a pittance according to Microsoft.

And, really, it doesn't seem like that much money for a guy who heads a company that made more than $50 billion in the same fiscal year. Our favorite part of this story, though, comes from the second linked article (the one from Australian IT):

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Posted by Lee Pender on 09/25/20070 comments


Best Buy and Ingram Micro Ink Pact

We just love using "ink" as a verb. Ingram will boldly go wherever the Geek Squad can't get the job done.

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/25/20071 comments


Microsoft Loses China Chief to the NBA

Does this seem like a fair trade for Yao Ming? Probably not, if you're a Microsoft executive.

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/21/20070 comments


Symantec CEO Speaks Out on Microsoft

In case you missed it, here's what Symantec CEO John Thompson had to say about Microsoft Forefront in the September issue of RCP :

"When the hype settles down, people have to settle into the pragmatic reality, which is that [Microsoft's] product sucks."

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Posted by Lee Pender on 09/21/20070 comments


Week in Review: Rough Times in Redmond

Oof. It's never easy staying on top -- not even for Microsoft, which has dominated the software industry for so long that it's hard to remember when IBM was the "evil empire" of technology.

It was bad enough that last week, Google and Capgemeni got together to try to rope and tie Microsoft's cash cow, Office. Now, though, Google appears to be going after Outlook, too, and it's not the only competitor trying to carve out a bigger slice of the e-mail pie. Nor is Google the only Microsoft rival to take a fresh run at Office, now that IBM has a free suite of its own.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 09/21/20071 comments


Everybody's Got Mail

An e-mail platform, that is. Yahoo got deeper into the e-mail game this week with its purchase of Zimbra . And we're still waiting to see what else Google has in the works .

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/20/20070 comments


Study: Corporate Vista Uptake Slow

We were all prepared with a joke along the lines of, "And in other news, the earth continues to rotate on its axis..." but there's no use piling on. Here's the study.

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/20/20070 comments


Salesforce.com Ups the Ante

In old-school video games -- and, we gather, in most new ones -- there are levels of play. You get past one, and your reward is a whole 'nother one, as we'd say back in Texas, that's even more difficult to conquer. There's not much time for celebration moving up the ladder of success. Well, that's what business is like these days for Salesforce.com, in case you were wondering just where this was going. (We're not gamers here at RCPU, but your editor did spend a few months working for a company that makes video games.) More

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/19/20070 comments


Office Under Attack! Again!

Old hands are gunning for Microsoft Office. Lately, we've heard of Google's productivity-suite tag team with Capgemini targeting Microsoft Office. There's also a newly released Google PowerPoint competitor . Now, IBM has come lumbering back into the suite game with a free offering based on some old Lotus stuff More

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/19/20070 comments


Microsoft, Novell Continue To Cozy Up

Cuddly, cuddly! What a week for former Microsoft rivals to nuzzle up to Redmond. Still-new friend Novell is teaming with Microsoft to open an interoperability lab in Cambridge, Mass. (perhaps America's smartest city), and there are new customers for the infamous Microsoft-Novell Linux deal, too.

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/13/20070 comments


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