Real Investment in Virtualization: VMware Goes Public

The EMC division entered a new era this week, going public with an initial price of $29 per share . And despite all the recent market jitters, VMware shares shot up 76 percent on day one.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 15, 20070 comments


Microsoft Completes AQuantive Move, Becomes Ad Agency

Microsoft -- software company, entertainment provider, ad agency . With aQuantive in Redmond's corporate fold, it's all getting to be a bit much , isn't it?

Posted by Lee Pender on August 15, 20070 comments


Redmond Points to Cactus for Commerce Server

By far the strangest part of this story is the fact that a company called Cactus is based in Canada. Other than that, this is a tidy and interesting read about how one Microsoft partner is playing a big role in the development of Commerce Server.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20070 comments


Like Action Packs? Better Start Studying

Everybody loves Action Packs, those free bundles of Microsoft applications available to just about anybody and everybody in the Microsoft Partner Program. [Editor's note: they actually cost $300.] As of now, Action Packs are nice little perks for everybody whose company is at least a Registered Member in the program. They're generally considered to be a no-strings-attached (or at least, few-strings-attached) bundle of appreciation from Redmond to partners. More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20073 comments


Microsoft Makes Vista Fixes Public

Remember those patches for Vista that caused some confusion last week? Well, maybe they weren't SP1 after all, because they're well and truly out there for anyone to download now.

And with Vista back in the news (as if it ever really left), let's go to the vault for some reader e-mails.

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20070 comments


Ten Years Later, Steve Has Some Loot, Too

It's been way too long since we've made a Pirates of Silicon Valley reference here at RCPU. So, with this week marking the 10th anniversary of Microsoft's big investment in Apple (which happens at the end of the movie -- not to give it away or anything), we couldn't resist typing once again fictional Bill Gates' famous words to fictional (but not Fake -- More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 08, 20070 comments


Microsoft Wins 'Other' Patent Battle

Given that most of the talk about patents in the last eight or nine months has revolved around Microsoft and Linux , you might have forgotten about the patent case that was going to completely reshape the world as we knew it: Alcatel-Lucent's "successful" MP3 patent case versus Microsoft More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 08, 20070 comments


Redmond Drops Price of Vista in China

With the goal of making Vista more affordable and piracy just a tiny bit less attractive, Microsoft has dropped the price of Vista in China ...a lot.

Do you do any business in China? How do you battle piracy there? Let me know at [email protected]

Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20070 comments


French President Crashes at Former Microsoft Exec's Pad

Fun little story here about Nicolas Sarkozy, the still-new president of France and noted firebrand, going off on a couple of American photographers during Sarko's vacation in New Hampshire.

We throw this in because: 1) Your editor lived in France for almost five years and is a bit of a Francophile; 2) Your editor has also been to the lake where Sarko is vacationing (as have, we're guessing, most New Englanders); and 3) Sarko is crashing at Michael Appe's pad, and Appe is a former Microsoft executive, making this entry entirely relevant for RCPU. Or at least as relevant as More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20070 comments


Fake Steve Jobs Is the Real Dan Lyons

Let's not even pretend that we'll have a bigger story than this one this week. This one is right up there with "Microsoft Makes Major Investment in Apple" (which happened, by the way, 10 years ago this week) and "Bill Gates To Transition Away from Microsoft" (well, sort of ).

After 14 months of stealth parody of Apple's iconic leader, we now know who the Fake Steve Jobs has been all along. The decidedly old-media New York Times unmasked the legendary blogger and new-media meme as...Forbes Senior Editor Dan Lyons, who just happens to be one of your editor's former colleagues! (OK, so your editor worked at the same publication as Lyons about 10 years ago and met him once -- it still counts! And we at RCPU can confirm that Mr. Lyons is a very funny guy.)

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20070 comments


Microsoft Slices and Dices Open Source Community

Wondering just exactly what Microsoft has been trying to accomplish with its Linux patent deals? Wonder a little less. Ubuntu guru Mark Shuttleworth says that Redmond has succeeded in slicing the open source community wide open. More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20071 comments


Vista Fixes: Sealing Off the Leaks

Almost as soon as the first entry in yesterday's RCPU about mysteriously disappearing Vista fixes went out, we had an e-mail from Stuart (although not the Stuart whose e-mail appeared yesterday):

"Get your facts straight, Lee. The fixes you describe are certainly NOT the bulk of what will be available in SP1 and as of today, 8/1, they're still available to Connect subscribers."

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 02, 20071 comments