This story is starting to feel so much like a soap opera that we're going to
have to start with a little back story before we get to the news of the week.
So, here we go:
You remember the Microsoft-Novell
SuSE Linux deal, right? There's no need to explain that one, we hope. You
also remember how the Free Software Foundation, which controls the license that
governs the use of Linux, wanted to do
whatever it could to kill, or at least severely injure, the SuSE agreement.
And you remember, too, that Microsoft claims that open source software violates
more than 200 of its patents.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/20070 comments
Bostonians! New Englanders! Come have breakfast with your RCPU editor and other
members of the
Redmond Channel Partner
staff. Our June 19
RCP
reader breakfast is still on. Check out the details
here
.
There will be more info to come as we have it -- including where we're actually
going to hold the breakfast. Details, details.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/20070 comments
Almost two months ago
,
while pondering when (or if) Google's nascent productivity suite might eventually
be able to seriously compete with Microsoft Office, RCPU offered this thought:
"No, Google Apps, Docs & Spreadsheets -- and most of the rest
of the tools in the Google productivity arsenal -- aren't quite ready to threaten
Office. But look out. Google's suite is SaaS (Software as a Service) in action.
However, when users aren't connected or the company network is down, it's
more like 'SaaS inaction.' There is no software installed on the client. This
basic fact no doubt has conservative IT folks and users thinking twice about
SaaS altogether."
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/01/20071 comments
Bill Gates, perhaps not a fan of the iconic late-'90s TV movie
Pirates
of Silicon Valley
(a tried and true RCPU favorite), apparently missed
the opportunity to shout "I got the loot, Steve!" at Apple chief Steve
Jobs when the two of them
appeared
together on stage yesterday
for the first time in quite a while.
There was some fun, though, at the Wall Street Journal's D conference (check
out some video here),
with Jobs both taking
swipes at Windows and also showing his softer, more compassionate side when
discussing
PC Guy from the now-famous Mac ads.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/01/20070 comments
We didn't get tons of responses to our query as to
whether
you're making much money
off the much-maligned, but apparently not totally
disastrous, Vista operating system, but we did get a few interesting thoughts.
These probably won't go over too well in Redmond, but here they are.
Nat starts us off:
"I've been making a little money with Vista. I have removed and replaced
it with XP a few times and charged my customers for the labor, and I made
a little money on the sell of the XP replacement. I still personally don't
like it; the new Windows Explorer is awful and the Control Panel items are
all mixed up now."
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/01/20070 comments
If we're to believe a somewhat cryptic, anonymously sourced
story
that appeared this week
, Novell "won't be punished" by the Free
Software Foundation for making its contentious (to say the very least) SuSE
Linux deal with Microsoft. We'd like to take that to mean that the FSF won't
use the forthcoming version GPLv3, the license that governs Linux use, to stop
Microsoft from distributing SuSE Linux -- something it
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/01/20071 comments
Aside from dropping a little nastygram to some of the company's former employees,
Steve Ballmer told a crowd at the D conference (don't worry -- we had to
look
it up
, too) that online advertising and consumer electronics will be
very
big parts of Redmond's future
.
Redmond is clearly hoping for some heroics from its
$6
billion ad firm
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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/31/20070 comments
There's an old expression that people use in lots of different parts of the
U.S., although the people who use it always think that it only applies to where
they live: "If you don't like the weather here, wait a few minutes and
it'll change." (Incidentally, we have not at all found that expression
to hold true in New England in February or March, when it's pretty much cold
and gray all of the time -- but we digress. And, on a sunny, 80-degree day in
May, we won't complain.)
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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/31/20071 comments
In case you haven't seen demos of (or even heard of) "Surface," Microsoft's
new tabletop
computer
, trust us when we say that it's pretty cool. It also could be coming
to a hotel or casino near you.
Are any partners out there involved in selling Surface? If so, tell me your
story at
[email protected]
.
Posted by Lee Pender on 05/31/20070 comments
You might remember from history a
little
Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte
, who ran rampant in Europe for a while
before invading Russia (never a good idea, by the way) and finally losing his
empire on the
battlefield
at Waterloo
in 1815.
It was that invasion of Russia, followed by the famous double whammy in Belgium
from Wellington's Brits and the Prussians (along with a bunch of other enemies),
that finally sank the little emperor, who at least lent his name to a yummy
French dessert and a spectacular cognac your editor purchased at a wine festival
in Paris some years back. (Oh, and he wrote France's civil code, still the basis
of French law today -- but we're more concerned with gastronomy here at RCPU.)
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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/24/20070 comments