Fully Armed Endpoints

Our friends from FullArmor recently treated us to some sushi at the local buffet (I used all my willpower and only had one heaping plate), and between sips of miso soup, chomps of calamari, mounds of mackerel and tons of tuna, we talked about their latest product: FullArmor Endpoint Policy Manager More

Posted by Doug Barney on March 27, 20070 comments


The Last Word on Viacom vs. YouTube

You've heard the pundits pontificate on the Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit. Now hear what Viacom itself has to say .

Posted by Doug Barney on March 27, 20070 comments


Abode Blends Web/OS Development

Adobe is taking a stab not just at Web development, but at rich application building, as well. Apollo, now in alpha test (how I've missed that term, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of CTPs, RCs, RTMs and other inane Microsoft names for test software), takes the best of what Adobe has learned with Web development and ties this to OS-style services such as printer drivers and personalization. More

Posted by Doug Barney on March 27, 20070 comments


Open Source Feedback

The Slashdotters have struck again. The popular discussion site (what is it about the Internet that releases inhibitions faster than a double Grey Goose martini?) picked up our cover story about Microsoft's fledgling effort to work with the open source community.

We praised Redmond for its efforts to build quasi-open products and its more serious stab at interoperating with the open community.

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Posted by Doug Barney on March 26, 20070 comments


An Hour After You Boot It, You Want To Boot It Again

It's rare that I find myself jealous of those in less-developed countries, but hearing what Dell is doing in China has me pleased and steamed simultaneously. I'm happy because Dell built a $230 desktop for China that runs XP and has a 40GB drive and a quarter-gig of RAM.

Then I got mad wondering why we can't all buy a brand-new, low-priced XP machine. Before sinking into total depression, I did some fact-checking (yeah, I do this occasionally) and found a $350 Dell Vista desktop with an 80GB drive and half-a-gig of RAM. If I were in the People's Republic, I might just order my machine from Austin!

Posted by Doug Barney on March 26, 20070 comments


Oracle Booming

As if Larry Ellison, owner of America's largest yacht , didn't already have enough money, his company goes out and increases revenue by 27 percent and profits by 35 percent in its latest quarter. More

Posted by Doug Barney on March 26, 20070 comments


Fortran Father Passes

The man who invented Fortran – and, in the process, laid the foundation for much of what we now take for granted in computer programming -- passed away at the age of 82 . John Backus developed Fortran for IBM out of frustration with all the low-level work required at the time to program. More

Posted by Doug Barney on March 22, 20070 comments


Is a Palm Deal at Hand?

Palm Inc., longtime maker of hand-held devices that are actually easy to use, is reportedly up for sale , with either Nokia or Motorola as the presumed buyer.

This has been an interesting space, with Microsoft getting better and better at making smaller and smaller operating systems, and Apple set to get into the market with a phone that comes stocked with all the hand-held computing basics.

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Posted by Doug Barney on March 22, 20070 comments


Scoble Bites the Hand That Made Him

I do this all the time, but for some reason it bugs me when someone, besides myself, who's never run a company tees off on those who do.

Robert Scoble, who was paid by Microsoft simply to blog, became famous because Microsoft paid him simply to blog -- so famous, in fact, that he left the company that helped make him famous and went out on his own.

Now Scoble thinks he knows more about success on the Internet than Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie put together.

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Posted by Doug Barney on March 22, 20070 comments


Express Yourself

Microsoft is working to finish its Expression line of tools. Last week, the company released a near-final version of Expression Blend , which helps developers build Vista and XP interfaces. This week, a near-final version of Expression Design More

Posted by Doug Barney on March 21, 20070 comments


No Hiding from AIM

Here's a technology I don't think I need and know I don't want. By figuring out what wireless router you're using, AOL's instant messaging service can let your friends (and your boss) know exactly where you are .

This reminds me of all the hype around presence, when we were all supposed to fall in love with the notion of knowing if our co-workers were in the office, on the phone or in the john. It's not enough that we are tethered to work through cell phones, BlackBerrys and home broadband connections -- now our every physical move is to be known, as well?

Posted by Doug Barney on March 21, 20070 comments


Microsoft Comes Clean on AJAX

Microsoft this week promised to support and promote AJAX interoperability by joining the OpenAJAX Alliance. If all parties truly cooperate, then Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX (I had to use the caps lock to type that name!) will work with AJAX tools from other vendors.

This also shows that Microsoft is serious about Web 2.0-style development. In fact, if you really think about it, Microsoft has a broader range of Web 2.0 development tools than Google. Here's what Google offers in this area.

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Posted by Doug Barney on March 21, 20070 comments