Savvysoft
isn't
so savvy when it comes to trademarks
.
The company, realizing that Microsoft hadn't registered Excel as a trademark,
launched a product called "TurboExcel," and then tried to finagle
Microsoft into paying heaps of dough to keep the name "Excel."
It didn't work, and now TurboExcel, which runs on top of Microsoft Excel, is
called "Calc4Web."
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Posted by Doug Barney on May 02, 20071 comments
The
second
beta of Microsoft's Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
shipped a few days ago,
and Microsoft says it is an utterly different product from beta 1.
VMM is a tool that helps track performance and manage virtual machines. And
if Microsoft wants to keep pace with VMware, it better get products like VMM
right.
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Posted by Doug Barney on May 01, 20070 comments
I got a couple of reminders last week from Microsoft about how Windows Genuine
Advantage (WGA) works and why it's so important (at least to Microsoft).
The company is hoping I'll pass on this information about anti-piracy to customers
and partners so we can all do our part in protecting Microsoft's revenue stream.
But in reading the description, I was left with a nagging doubt. I'm not an
anti-piracy technology guru, so the need for WGA to regularly check the software
after it was initially confirmed as legit is puzzling.
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Posted by Doug Barney on May 01, 20070 comments
There are a whole lot of big areas where Microsoft's strategy is unclear. Software-as-a-service
(SaaS) is one of them. Instead of showing leadership, Microsoft is allowing
companies such as Salesforce.com to define what SaaS is and how it's done.
Microsoft
finally went on the record, and while it didn't lay out a grand SaaS strategy,
it did define its idea of how a SaaS app is architected.
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Posted by Doug Barney on May 01, 20070 comments
Sometimes, journalists write provocatively just to be provocative. The Web
site
Light Reading
did this early in its life, and now it seems that
The
Register
out of the U.K. is doing the same thing.
Last week, just before Microsoft's earnings report, The Register posted an
eight-page diatribe arguing that Steve
Ballmer should be replaced with someone like Lou Gerstner, who ran IBM in
the '90s.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 30, 20070 comments
In a recent editorial, I argued that
print
is far from dead
, and pointed out that the Redmond Media Group launched
three print pubs in the space of 25 months.
Now the editor in chief of PC Magazine,
Jim Louderback, is seeing things my way.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 30, 20070 comments
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) believes that Google and DoubleClick
already know too much about us, and the combination will be a disaster for personal
privacy. The group is
filing
suit with the Federal Trade Commission
to stop the merger.
EPIC members worry that the two companies can blend Web surfing histories and
search histories, and find out just what kind of creeps many of us are.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 20070 comments
I've always liked Sun Microsystems. It's feisty, clever and always doing new
things (kinda like our friends up in Redmond).
Unlike Microsoft, Sun hasn't been consistently profitable and doesn't have
any monopolies it can leverage. But Sun can be proud of one thing: It
rang up a decent profit -- some $67 million -- this past quarter.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 20070 comments
A small Texas software developer claims that
.NET
is .NOT entirely original
, and that the concept of having an object framework
where each object can "be accessed or modified separately" is the
creation of Vertical Computer Systems Inc., covered by a patent, and not the
brainchild of Microsoft Corp.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 25, 20070 comments
I know plenty of people who are addicted to their BlackBerrys, and the only
thing I can figure is they must all have tiny fingers. I love checking my e-mail,
but writing anything on the darn thing turns out like this:
Tjanmks fir yoyr niote, I'll bei inm towen nexrt weaek and hopoe to getr
togfether. Taklk to yoiu soopn.
My fingers aren't huge, but if I only hit two keys at once, I'm doing well.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 25, 20070 comments
Microsoft, now that BlackBerry software is open to other device makers, will
be
adding some
BlackBerry features to Windows Mobile 6
, allowing devices to tap into the
BlackBerry Enterprise Server to get corporate e-mail.
Dang, wish Redmond had done this earlier. Then I could use a smart phone instead
of my bulky BlackBerry 8703.
Posted by Doug Barney on April 25, 20070 comments