If SAP Built The Electric Car
A hilarious spoof speculating on what would happen if SAP tried to build an electric car reveals issues confronting the enterprise software vendor's actual business.
Technology
Bartz Ego: the Start of the End?
Power is intoxicating. But when you take it and yourself too seriously, you set the stage for a big fall. The departure of Carl Icahn from Yahoo's board says as much about CEO Carol Bartz as it does about the investor. What it's saying isn't good.
Microsoft Spins Q1, People Seem to Buy It
The general headline for the Microsoft earnings announcement seems to be "less profits, but better than analysts expected. Look at the numbers, and you might wonder what positive someone would have taken, other than a pitcher of pity.
Apple Commercials Signal Big Positioning Departure
Sometimes it's the big things that show how a company is changing, and sometimes it's the little things. Then there are the times it's both. In this case, I'm talking about the Apple commercials for the Mac. Not just the most recent ones, but the series and the trends they're showing. What we're seeing is effectively communicating a strong shift in Apple's product positioning in a direction quite different from where the company has been before.
Volkswagen Picks iPhone Over TV
Volkswagen is using an iPhone app to promote the launch of GTI, rather than a traditional TV campaign, because the iPhone has broader reach than TV and, moreover, is more in line with its target audience.
SAP Should Give Microsoft Crowdsourcing Ideas
Microsoft Windows 7 was made with customer inputs in mind, but didn't involve outsiders nearly enough compared to competitors in the market.
Finally -- Short Registration for This Site
In the roughly 15 or 16 months that I've been writing for BNET Technology, the site has been wrestling with how to do registration for leaving comments. And I'm happy to announce that the registration process for those who would like to let us know what they think has become a lot easier and faster....
How Strong Is Actual Demand for Atheros Communications' Wi-Fi Chipsets?
Atheros Communications, a leading designer of chipsets used in Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) devices, put up a 13 percent gain in sales for the quarter ended September 30, resulting in a nearly three-fold rise in quarterly profits to $38.6 million. Notwithstanding the challenging economic e...
Apple: Their Way, No Matter What It Costs Them. Or Investors
The news that Nokia was suing Apple for patent infringement of its wireless technology was, frankly, surprising. And then when it became clear that Nokia probably only wanted about $200 million total, or 1 to 2 percent royalties, it seemed completely insane, as that is almost petty cash to Apple. Bu...
Amazon Hits Strategic Tipping Point in North America
Amazon announced its relentlessly strong results today, with year-over-year Q3 sales up 28 percent, free cash flow doubling, and operating income up 62 percent. Get past the headline news and into the numbers, and you see an even more interesting story: Amazon quickly continues its march away from being a "media" company and to one with a far more diverse set of revenue streams and business interests.
MySpace, Facebook, Google, Music Labels Bow to Inevitable
It's difficult to look at what seems to be a big opportunity -- selling music over the web at the big social networking and search sites -- and see anything other than success. And big is what comes to mind when MySpace, Facebook, and Google all work with major music labels to let consumers purchase music where they're most accustomed to be online, and not having to go to a store (read that as Apple or Amazon) to get what they want. But these are not chances grasped with foresight. They are the worried grasping of companies that, for differing reasons, all have their backs against the wall.
Google Tries To Be the Gatekeeper to All Things Informational
The news of Google's deal to let people listen to and buy music from the search pages may come across to some as another battle in the search wars with Microsoft-Yahoo and an attempt to further shore up its lead. That may be true, but something far bigger is happening. The company's true motivation is its desire to get out of the trap of advertising as its one revenue source.
SharePoint Is Microsoft's Real Window Of Opportunity
Windows 7 is nothing compared to SharePoint 2010, which underpins Microsoft's migration of Office productivity tools to the Web.
Nvidia to Deliver Graphics Via Cloud -- Big New Thinking
It seems like about a third of the tech stories these days have to deal with cloud computing. There's been a sameness to them, the way I described e-book readers as being too similar and even boring. Put storage up there, or run CRM, or accounting, or business intelligence analytics, or essentially some other neatly defined category of software, and then use the resources via the web. Useful, but predictable. That's what makes Nvidia announcement of what is essentially a graphics rendering farm as a cloud surface as inherently interesting as the Spring Design e-book reader that I described yesterday. Even if you don't have any personal interest in what they're doing, this is an important concept because it starts to push out the barriers of the usual associations.
Microsoft Moves Fast and Smart: Twitter and Facebook
If there was any doubt that Microsoft would be creative about search and get beyond spooning Yahoo and spending money, then this tidbit is it. The company is going to announce deals with both Twitter and Facebook to put their realtime status feeds into Bing for searching. This is major and likely to wipe the smile off the face of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, at least for an hour or two. Or a lot more.
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