Steve Ballmer's Wiseguy Name and Other Reader Reactions

Before we get to Ballmer's mafia handle, let's look at a few reader e-mails on other topics.

Colin quite rightly called your editor out for having been too lazy to look up the old magazine cover with Apple's logo and the word "Pray" on it that we referenced last week. Turns out it was Wired, not Upside, that ran the cover -- and it turns out that the cover's quite famous, as you'll see from Colin's note:

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 11, 20070 comments


How Smart Is Business Intelligence?

As we do sometimes here at RCPU, we're going to throw a topic completely open to you, the faithful reader. In other words, we'll give you a bit of news and just let you run with it in e-mail form or as commentary on the blog. (Yes, this means that we're going to mainly keep our mouths shut on this issue -- for now.)

We did this last summer with Windows Genuine Advantage and got tremendous feedback. So here we go again. This week, it's time to Get Smart, as the topic is business intelligence (clever, huh?).

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Posted by Lee Pender on May 10, 20071 comments


VMware on the Vista Bandwagon

Here come those third parties Microsoft has been waiting for on Vista. Virtualization kingpin VMware has released Workstation 6 , the first of its virtualization products to support Vista.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 10, 20070 comments


New Patches Coming Today

It's Patch Tuesday, and seven critical patches are on their way hot and fresh from Redmond, delivered right to your door (or browser, we suppose).

Posted by Lee Pender on May 08, 20070 comments


Microsoft Buys Mobile Advertising Firm

With a deal for 24/7 Real Media still possibly in the cards, Microsoft went ahead and snapped up a French mobile advertising firm this week. Redmond didn't disclose terms of the deal.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 04, 20070 comments


Redmond Wrestles With Office Security

The developers of Microsoft Office 2007 are confident in their product's security, and some improvement could trickle down to Office 2003 . Still, that doesn't keep them from locking down Word and Excel More

Posted by Lee Pender on May 02, 20070 comments


This Week in Reader E-Mails

OK, so we already snuck a few in on you with the last entry. Well, here are some more. RCPU got an absolute bumper crop this week, so we'll run a few now and save the rest for next week. To those who took time to write, we offer our thanks, as always.

On Microsoft's offer of $3 Windows to students in developing nations, Mackey says it's a great idea:

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Posted by Lee Pender on April 27, 20070 comments


Friday Feedback: Readers on Protecting IP, Microsoft Search and Vista, Vista, Vista

We kick off this week's Friday reader feedback with a message from frequent contributor Robin about Microsoft's pending legal problems in Japan and, more specifically, about how companies should protect their intellectual property from the hungry beast that Redmond can be. Robin has some tips for partners on his Web site More

Posted by Lee Pender on April 20, 20070 comments


Redmond Releases 'Orcas' Beta, Plans More Developer Tools

Beta 1 of "Orcas," the next version of Visual Studio is now available to the Skittles and Mountain Dew crowd. Microsoft has a few other tools in the works More

Posted by Lee Pender on April 20, 20070 comments


Microsoft Plants Web Service Seeds in New Server Farm

Somebody -- this time, Fortune magazine -- has trotted out the old Microsoft-is-becoming-IBM line again, suggesting that Google is rapidly making Redmond look like a dinosaur (or a chicken, depending on your views on evolution More

Posted by Lee Pender on April 18, 20070 comments


Microsoft Goes Crying to the Government Over Google

If your weekend was a washout , just keep in mind that it could have been worse. You could work for the search team at Microsoft.

Redmond's flailing search ambitions took a major hit late last week when Google announced that it intended to spend $3.1 billion to buy DoubleClick, the provider of online advertising-management technology that Microsoft also coveted. (The worst part about the whole deal for Microsoft seems to be that, according to the Times of London, old bean, Microsoft matched Google's offer -- but DoubleClick turned Redmond down. Ouch.)

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Posted by Lee Pender on April 17, 20070 comments


Microsoft Patches Flaws, Pushes Forefront

Maybe it's a little funny to see both messages at the same time. On one hand, there've been numerous news stories the past two weeks about Microsoft patching several critical security flaws in Windows and now looking into potential vulnerabilities in Office More

Posted by Lee Pender on April 12, 20070 comments