Archives: October 2005

Red Hat grows up

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 31, Categories: open source software

Red Hat has ridden the Linux wave quite successfuly for a decade now. It's by far the leading Linux distributor and growing at 40% to 50% per year. This is...

It won't help hurricane victims, but...

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 31, Categories: open source software

Eighteen months ago, in the midst of the flurry of worry over SCO Group's suit against IBM over Linux source code, a little company called Open Source Risk Management was...

Rearden + Google = Interesting, Even If Unlikely

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on October 28, Categories: Google

Bruce Richardson, AMR's chief research officer, bemoaned to me at breakfast a few weeks ago that he could write alerts about cool startups all day long, but no one would...

Extreme Pumpkin Carving

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 28, Categories: Best of the Web

OK, this is off-topic except that, well, it's on the Web. If you haven't carved your Halloween pumpkin, now you have some new ideas (if you can stomach them)....

Can this be true?

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 28, Categories: Business History

I heard a wild story today from some exployees of NCR Corp. It involves Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, and the origin of the use of the word...

Russell Beattie's Rant: Too Many Startups Built to Flip

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 28, Categories: Power of Us, Web 2.0

Yahoo's Russell Beattie has an entertaining rant about the lack of innovation among too many Web 2.0 companies. He has plopped them all into categories, such as "Scrape Engines" and...

Should Flickr (And Lots of Other Web 2.0 Sites) Pay You?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 27, Categories: Flickr, Power of Us, Web 2.0

37Signals' Jason Fried riffs off a post by SixApart's Anil Dash, asking whether Flickr shouldn't be sharing some of the ad revenue it gets. The photo-sharing site, now owned by...

Why Microsoft shouldn't buy Siebel

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 27, Categories: software

During our internal BW discussions over the past few months about who would buy wounded Siebel Systems, I always considered Oracle the most likely acquirer--but saw Microsoft as a darkhorse....

An Eye on i2

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on October 26, Categories: software

Now that Oracle has taken Siebel out of the race, my favorite dark horse to prove whether best-of-breed software can make a comeback is i2 Technologies. Hey! Stop laughing! I'm...

NetApp Goes to Washington

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 25, Categories: storage

I recently spoke with David Hitz, founder of storage maker Network Appliance, who spent much of last week in Washington, D.C. Chances are, more federal regulation around data protections will result in greater sales of NetApp's software, services and gear.

Cisco Steps Up

Posted by: Peter Burrows on October 25, Categories: Education

For years, Cisco Systems chief executive John Chambers has been vocal about pointing out trends he believes will threaten the United State's future competitiveness. There's the paucity of broadband infrastructure...

No Web 2.0 Bubble? Hmmm....

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 25, Categories: Best of the Web, Web 2.0, venture capital

A new survey of venture capital investment seems to show no incipient bubble in funding new consumer Internet companies, according to Reuters' take. Well, let's hope so. But it's still...

Google Base: A New Rival for eBay and Craigslist?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 25, Categories: Google, eBay

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo notes that some folks in Europe caught a screen shot of Google Base, which looks to be a potential rival to eBay, before Google apparently took...

Cisco's Evolving IP Pitch

Posted by: Peter Burrows on October 24, Categories: Internet

"IP Everywhere" has been Cisco Systems' mantra for two decades now. The idea hasn't just been that every corner of the world should be wired to provide access to "the...

Beta Testing for Beer

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 24, Categories: open source software

Beta testers are vital for any new software product, but they're absolutely essential for open-source projects, since companies that sell such software often don't have big quality-assurance departments. That--and a...

What Is It About eBay's Ads?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 23, Categories: eBay

eBay has just launched another TV and print ad campaign, which you can view at a dedicated site, whatis-it.com. Once again, I just don't get it. The ads show the...

Lawsuit Against Google Print: The End of the Internet?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 21, Categories: Google, Internet, Search

Kevin Werbach has an alarming view of the lawsuit against Google Print by publishers, including BusinessWeek owner McGraw-Hill. I don't know who's on better legal ground, but Werbach notes: On...

A growing headache for the database giants

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 21, Categories: open source software

Mainstream database software companies that have been watching open-source upstart MySQL in their rearview mirrors must be having some uncomfortable thoughts right about now. According to a user survey released...

Flock About to Takes Wing

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 20, Categories: Firefox, Social Software, Web browser

So says their pal Mike Arrington at TechCrunch. Flock is the new "social browser" that has been the buzz of bloggers and others for weeks. Now, we get to see...

No Head-Scratching at eBay About Skype's Potential

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 19, Categories: Skype, eBay

If up to $4.1 billion wasn't enough to prove eBay's serious about just-acquired Skype, executive comments Wednesday sure did. And executive moves: eBay Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Dutta soon will...

Tech Companies Are Swimming in Lawsuits

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 18, Categories: Tech Spending

I just read some rather startling results from a survey done by law firm Fulbright & Jaworski. Turns out, tech companies are facing more litigation than companies in many other industries.

Virtualization meets blades

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 18, Categories: utility computing

Call me boring, but two of my favorite corporate technologies are virtualization software and blade computers. Thanks to virtualization and blades, business people get a lot more computing for their...

Find a Bargain Courtesy of Dumb People

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 18, Categories: eBay

eBay's Adam Trachtenberg alerts us to Misspelledauctions.com, a new search site for eBay auctions listed by the spelling-challenged (or at least the careless). So, try a search on "leappad," the...

Finally, Better Blog Search?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 14, Categories: Google, Search, blogs

TechCrunch's Mike Arrington got what appears to be one of the first looks at Sphere, a new blog search service that the general public won't be able to see for...

My PC Has Been Hijacked 2.0

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 14, Categories: malware

One year ago, my home computer was hijacked by a rogue program called Home Search. It replaced the opening page on my Internet Explorer browser, planted pieces of hard-to-remove code...

New on Flickr: Camera-Tossing

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 14, Categories: Flickr, Power of Us, Web 2.0, photos

Check out the newest craze on Flickr: camera-tossing. Amazing photos, all taken by opening the shutter in low light and tossing the camera in the air. Of course, if...

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on October 13, Categories: Gadgets

Is this the best Toshiba could come up with to keep their HD DVD next-generation high-definition DVD standard alive? Movie studios seem to be running away from HD DVD faster...

Pimp Your Browser

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 13, Categories: Firefox, Web 2.0, Web browser

I've been trying out a lot of Firefox extensions to customize my browser. But I'm not sure I'm ready for Pimpzilla. Inspired by "the blaxploitation pimps of the seventies," it's...

My Dinner with Marc

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 12, Categories: software as service

Well, it wasn't just me. Marc Benioff, the jovial CEO of Salesforce.com, arranged a dinner for 10 at the ultra-trendy Per Se restaurant in the Time Warner building in Manhattan....

A Gamer's Passport: The Pros and Cons

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 11, Categories: Microsoft

Microsoft is at it again. Its Microsoft .Net passport efforts tanked, so the Redmond giant is now working to create another type of a universal I.D.: a gamer's passport. Last...

Does R&D spending deliver results?

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 11, Categories: Innovation

Managment consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton just released a new study of worldwide R&D spending by corporations and concluded there's not much evidence that jacking up R&D investment delivers performance...

Gada.be Searching

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 11, Categories: Google, Search, mash-ups

Chris Pirillo has debuted a new meta-search engine, gada.be. Apparently, it's getting hit pretty hard, so the performance isn't yet up to snuff, but if he gets that straightened out,...

iPod, The Gaming Console

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 09, Categories: Apple Computer

Why would Apple want to introduce a video iPod? My theory is, Apple is going after the portable gaming console market.

"I Want My Video iPod"

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 07, Categories: Apple Computer, Digital Music, iPod

Steve Jobs, listen up: A panel of teens at Web 2.0 is asked if they would want a video iPod. "That would be awesome," says Sean Spediacci. "That would be...

Sergey Speaks

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 07, Categories: Google

A surprise guest has just showed up at the Web 2.0 conference: Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Guess he got tired of hearing everyone takes potshots at his company. Unfortunately, he...

New from Yahoo Research: Intent-Driven Search

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 07, Categories: Search, Yahoo

Folks from Yahoo Research showed one of the many projects they have in beta--Mindset, which Yahoo says is for "intent-driven search." It lets you use a slider bar on searches...

Google Debuts RSS Reader

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 07, Categories: Google, RSS, Web 2.0, blogs

Jason Shellen of Google Labs is demonstrating the latest of the search giant's gazillion services at the Web 2.0 conference: Google Reader. I'm just trying it out for the first...

It's a Blog Blog Blog Blog World

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 06, Categories: Technorati, Web 2.0, blogs, tags

Technorati's Dave Sifry is presenting the latest stats on blogs at the Web 2.0 conference. Some interesting nuggets: The number of blogs is still doubling every five months, as it...

Get Yer CPUs on the Net, Retail

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 06, Categories: Sun Microsystems, utility computing

Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz let slip at Web 2.0 this morning (no doubt on purpose) that soon, Sun plans to start selling computing power at "retail," over the Web...

Terry Semel: Google's No. 4

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 06, Categories: Google, Web 2.0, Yahoo

In a conversation with John Battelle at Web 2.0 this morning, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel is spending almost as much time talking about a little rival named Google as he...

What's behind the red curtain? I'm looking for Macs

Posted by: Peter Burrows on October 06, Categories: Apple Computer

A smaller, $200 iPod with a big honking hard drive would be manna from heaven for those mini loyalists.

Open Source innovation

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 06, Categories: open source software

Open source software goes a lot of good things. It's inexpensive, shared, and creates alternatives to monopolistic proprietary software. Up until recently, however, it hasn't been very technically innovative. Most...

Where the Computer Revolution Hasn't Even Started

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 05, Categories: Web 2.0

Bran Ferren of Applied Minds is ranting (justifiably) about the suckiness of computer interfaces. He contends that we've been in the "dark ages" of awkward keyboard-video display-mouse interfaces for too...

Barry Diller's Dreams

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 05, Categories: Barry Diller, Search, Web 2.0

Web 2.0 conference coproducer John Battelle is asking IAC's Barry Diller why he bought the search engine Ask. Diller paints it not as a defensive move but an offensive one....

Sprint-Nextel vs. Vonage: First Bicker, Then Make Up?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 05, Categories: VOIP

I just got done reading a 13-page lawsuit, alleging that Vonage, providing popular VoIP services, infringed on Sprint-Nextel's patents. And I have to say that this is the tiniest, the least detailed, and the vaguest lawsuit I've ever seen.

For Many Retailers, RFID Lacks ROI

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 05, Categories: RFID

Wal-Mart and other retailers have been pushing RFID for several years. Now, a new AMR Research report I got an exclusive sneal peak at says that broad RFID deployments make no financial sense.

Froth Central at Web 2.0?

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 05, Categories: Web 2.0

It's so crowded in the introductory workshops at the sold-out Web 2.0 conference today that people are getting turned away from the conference rooms. That's only encouraging the networking and...

Get Ready for Flock

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 05, Categories: Power of Us, RSS, Web 2.0, Web browser, blogs

Who's crazy enough to create a new Web browser? The folks at Flock, apparently. No, you can't try it out for another couple weeks unless you know some secret digerati...

Yahoo! Buys Upcoming.org

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 05, Categories: Best of the Web, Yahoo

Keeping up its buying spree, Yahoo! just bought Upcoming.org, the social event calendar. Here's founder Andy Baio's take on the acquisition. Wonder how many more of the Best of the...

Rollyo Own Search

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 04, Categories: Power of Us, Search, Web 2.0

Dave Pell stopped by today to tell me about his new venture, Rollyo. The four-month-old startup lets you "roll your own search engine" by choosing precisely which sites to search....

Yahoo's HotJobs.com is... up, not down?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 04, Categories: Yahoo

Sure, Yahoo's HotJobs.com is falling farther and farther behind rivals CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com in traffic. Yet, the company's revenues are booming. And that might be an indication that the outfit has found the right approach to pleasing employers with its focus on low cost.

Girding for grids

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 03, Categories: utility computing

With Red Hat, the leading Linux distributor, hitting balls out of the park left and right, it's no wonder that its business model holds attraction for other startups. The latest...

Tech Support Done Right

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 03, Categories: Internet, Power of Us, tech support

I'm posting this from home only because I've managed to get my wireless network back up and running after more than a week of frustration. Frustration not only with my...

Chicagocrime.org Creator to Newspapers: Hire More Programmers

Posted by: Rob Hof on October 03, Categories: Best of the Web, Web 2.0, mash-ups

Editorandpublisher.com has a good interview with Adrian Holovaty, creator of the great Web mash-up Chicagocrime.org and now (get ready for a mouthful) editor of editorial innovations at the Washington Post.Newsweek...