EFF Tool Makes Facebook TOS-Type Controversies More Likely

Back in February, Facebook faced a firestorm of user anger over its changed terms of use, when The Consumerist noted a change in the terms of service that gave the company virtually unlimited rights over user content. Now the chances of someone noticing similar changes at other sites is greater because the Electronic Frontier Foundation has started a new service called TOSBack, which tracks 44 website policies over 20 organizations (including itself) and notes the differences.

• Jun 5, 2009

Google's Microsoft Fight Starts With Smartphones

I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrated the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the faile...

• Jun 5, 2009

Google's Long Shot At Kicking Microsoft Off The Desktop

I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrates the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the faile...

• Jun 8, 2009

Microsoft Declares The End Of Software

The irony of hearing Microsoft server and tools division president Bob Muglia hold forth on the benefits of software as a service (SaaS) yesterday was of a richness perhaps only Marc Benioff could fully appreciate. When I sat down with the Salesforce CEO last year to talk about the competition th...

• Jun 4, 2009

EMC - NetApp Fight Looks Like The Archie Comics

I don't think there's another industry that sexualizes mergers and acquisitions quite like IT. You wouldn't think anyone would characterize the competition between EMC and NetApp over data deduplication vendor Data Domain as a "love triangle," as veteran storage reporter Chris Priemesberger did, b...

• Jun 4, 2009

A Netbook By Any Other Name Is Just Plain Silly

What is going on with companies and their distaste for the term netbook? Clearly this is a market that will be important. Intel is already seeing netbooks cannibalize 20 percent of notebook sales. That's one big chunk of business. So you could understand how vendors of all stripes want in on the fun and, hopefully, market domination. Only the rebranding and repositioning in the market is really sounding goofy.

• Jun 4, 2009

Cisco Challenge: Divided Channel Loyalties [UPDATED]

Cisco's latest plan to "grow, motivate and evolve" its sales channel partners to better emphasize virtualized data centers may sound like the type rah-rah that all tech vendors seem to undertake now and again. Usually it's actually doublespeak for increasing sales volume by lowering the amount resellers can make on any one deal. But for Cisco, the issue is far more critical. By entering new markets, the company is putting its channel, and itself, to a test that neither may be able to win.

• Jun 4, 2009

It's Official: Apple to Build Massive Data Center

My colleague Michael Hickins discussed the rumors that North Carolina was going to cut a huge tax break deal for Apple, which was planning a server farm in the state. Now it's a go.

• Jun 3, 2009

Cisco Executives Show UCS Weakness

Cisco's attempted hijacking of the data center isn't off to the greatest start. Speaking at the company's partner conference in Boston today, Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior touted numbers that actually reflect pretty poorly on the company's attempts thus far to convince customers to bet the future of t...

• Jun 3, 2009

Apple Stores Still King of Retail Selling

A recent report of just how much money a couple of Apple's Manhattan retail store locations made (via AppleInsider) got me wondering about what the average company store made. On working out the numbers, I was stunned. You'd expect other retailers would line up at the company's doors, begging for lessons.

• Jun 3, 2009

Microsoft Beating VMware 'Every Single Day'

Microsoft doesn't miss an opportunity to poor-mouth the economy these days, and I'm beginning to think that this posture isn't a way of making excuses for lackluster performance, but actually a way of driving business. Today Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's key server and tools division, and ...

• Jun 3, 2009

May Tech Job Cuts Up Sharply

We got the May job cut numbers from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, and the welcome trend of lowering job cuts continues overall. Unfortunately, the tech sector bucked the trend, more than doubling announced layoffs compared to April.

• Jun 3, 2009

Microsoft Xbox Strategy: Everything Old Is New Again

Microsoft is making a big play at E3, the gaming trade show, about its strategy for the Xbox. I'm sure it was a polished explanation. Why not? It's a strategy the company has been discussing for at least six years. The question is if the "new" push -- whether on the part of Microsoft, Sony, Cisco, or anyone else â€" to dominate the living room is actually going to work.

• Jun 2, 2009

Fluther to Maholo: Stop Copying Us

There's a lot of interest in getting questions answered on the Internet. And now there's a flare-up between two of the companies in this space. Fluther has accused Maholo of wholesale theft of the company's content, but the whole thing is shaping up as a cross between a business rivalry and a message forum flame war -- which makes you wonder if this companies will grow up enough to keep this from becoming the future of the web.

• Jun 2, 2009

EMC De-Dupes NetApp

Joe Tucci, the CEO of data storage vendor EMC, isn't your typical Silicon Valley-Cambridge technology executive, less Steve Jobs than swift jabs and uppercuts. So I wouldn't be surprised if he dropped a couple of f-bombs when NetApp, number two in the storage market behind EMC, tried to horn in on E...

• Jun 2, 2009

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