Sun Prez and COO Schwartz Interview with Linux Journal

Jim Grisanzio's blog, http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris has an interesting post referencing Doc Searls' (Linux Journal) article based on his conversation with Sun Microsystems' President Jonathan Schwartz. Interesting piece on opening up its SPARC source code, employee retention, and links to Farber's piece on ZDNet.

Funny Remarks Made by Tech Execs in 05

Tech execs made some interesting and perhaps regrettable comments during 2005. Read Wired's account.
"Screw the nano." -- Motorola CEO Ed Zander
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
"Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the shuffle." -- President Bush

Canadian Music Industry Applauds P2P File Sharing Ruling

An Australian court ruled today that the Kazaa file sharing network infringed on that countries' copyright laws. This may set a precedent and help support similar battles taking place in Canada and around the world. The decision comes only 10 weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court (see previous blog posting) ruled that file-sharing operators could be held liable if they induce people to violate music copyrights.

New York Times Combines Print and Online Newsrooms

A few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal reported that the New York Times plans to combine their print and online newsrooms. All of this is further confirmation that the line between print and online is slowly but surely disappearing. When I first started in this business, getting a hit in an online publication was considered a tier 2 or 3 hit and now we're talking tier 1 all the way. Trends are showing that more people prefer to get their news online than in print. For those of us in the communications field, this may make our job harder as print publications and newspapers will begin to disappear as everyone starts reading their news only online. All of this translates to less journalists to pitch as the number of journalists will surely be consolidated to make up for the transfer of readership and the loss of demand away from print.

I know i haven't written much this summer. Well this is why, I've been riding ancient Roman chariots in Caesaria. I'm standing in a sports arena dating back to 6 A.D. It's located in what used to be a small port city on the Mediterranean coast. The city was rebuilt by King Herod, who renamed it Caesarea in honor of the Roman emperor.

Wal-Martyr

This story in the Pensacola News Journal will make you think twice about Wal-Mart.
"You can't buy the Pensacola News Journal at Wal-Mart anymore. The store ordered us off their property, told us to come pick up our newspaper racks and clear out. So we did. A few people called last week, some even wrote letters to the editor, and wanted to know why they couldn't buy the newspaper at Wal-Mart in the days after Hurricane Dennis. Some managers at Wal-Mart didn't appreciate a column Mark O'Brien wrote last month about the downside of the cheap prices that Sam Walton's empire has brought to America..."

Do Wal-Mart execs think they run the world?

IBM loses Apple account to Intel

Sources say that IBM's loss of the Apple account may have been a blessing in disguise for IBM.
Apple provided little revenue and IBM is now focused on providing chips for the next gen consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. According to analysts, the loss will have more of a "PR impact than a financial impact." I think most may have expected IBM to issue some sort of aggressive statement especially given the size of their PR machine, but they declined to comment other than to say that its Power PC is moving ahead and beyond the PC. Read the full story.

Apple's iTunes surpasses music swapping peer-to-peer downloading sites

A study by market research firm NPD Group found that approximately 1.7 million U.S. households downloaded a song from iTunes in March. That was good enough to earn the store a second-place ranking with peer-to-peer downloading service LimeWire. Interesting development as we await the Supreme Court decision on file swapping (see previous blog entry). Read more here.

Will Blogs Really Change Your Business

Nick Denton the publisher of Gawker Media and its blogs criticizes the hype around blogs. In this weekend's New York Times, he argues that blogs are just another form on Internet media and not the answer to every company's marketing problems. Read the article here.

British Columbia Election First to be Held in U.S. Style Election

In a xerox of their U.S. cousins to the south, Canadians in the province of British Columbia will go to the polls in the first ever election to be held in Canada on a previously fixed date, something Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal Party signed into law soon after coming to power in 2001. It's also a historic election because voters will have a chance to decide in a referendum if they want to replace the current first-past-the-post electoral system with one that incorporates proportional representation.

'Apple Paid Gadget Guru To Feature iPod on News Shows'

Wow, what a potential PR nightmare. Technology expert Corey Greenberg said today he had been paid by Apple to demo and feature Apple products during local news appearances, but has not been paid to show the same product during appearances as NBC's "Today" show tech editor. Does it really matter that he was paid for one type of broadcast venue but not another? Does that make it ok? You decide. Read about it at MacNewsWorld. The practice of industry experts appearing on news shows and not revealing they have been paid for their appearance, endorsement or mention is very controversial.

Sponsorship Scandal Witness Remembers Envelopes Full of Cash

The Liberal Party of Canada used hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from the sponsorship program to fund its political activities in Quebec, the Gomery Commission has been told. Former ad executive Jean Brault also said that he delivered $136,000 in cash -- often in envelopes -- to senior Liberal Party officials.

U.S. Blog Becomes Popular Canadian Destination Eh!

An American who published banned testimony on the Internet from the inquiry into the Canadian sponsorship scandal is getting unprecedented traffic on his blog. Morrissey is covering this scandal that it's illegal for Canadian papers to talk about. Interesting use of blogs.

P2P Supreme Court Case Begins

Click here for the latest on the Supreme Court Grokster P2P case as justices deal with major implications for the Internet, copyright, and innovation.

Moore's Law Turns 40

Click here for a Q&A about Moore's Law as it nears its 40th anniversary.

HP Picks NCR CEO Mark Hurd to be its Next CEO

Less than two months after forcing out Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard Co. picked a relative unknown, NCR Corp. Chief Executive Mark Hurd, to be its next leader, according to sources. H-P is expected to announce the appointment later today.

1984 Betamax Ruling Revisited with P2P Case

Over 28 of the largest Hollywood companies descend on the Supreme Court today to take on Peer-2-Peer (P2P) software companies such as Grokster, KaZaA, and Morpheus. Insightful Q&A on CNET on why the 1984 Court ruling in the Sony Betamax rulling applies to this present day case. Can you imagine a world where researchers don’t research and innovators don’t innovate for fear of being prosecuted? A lot rides on this case that comes before the Court tomorrow morning. Will the judges lean towards the technology innovators or towards the companies who feel they must protect their copyrighted material?

Bloggers have rights too

Great opinon piece by Rep. John Connors from Michigan on the rights of bloggers. He refers to the way journalism revolutionalized the way the country looked at news during the Jefferson era. He goes on: "Today we stand on the precipice of a new media revolution with the advent of the Internet. We need to protect bloggers' First Amendment rights so they can help us protect our own citizens' rights."

Hybrid Cars Rev Up for Auto Fair

This is the Aronson Files' second look at hybrid cars. With U.S. gasoline prices soaring past $2.09 per gallon to record averages, automakers at this year's International Auto Show may be able to drum up extra interest for gas-electric hybrids and cars that run on alternative fuels such as hydrogen. Check it out at this link.

HP Buying Snapfish & Beefing Up Its Photo Capabilities

Interesting news from HP today announcing that it's buying Snapfish. This will help HP provide consumers with more choice for sharing, storing, printing photos. It also broadens HP's position in the digital photography market. The Washington Post covered the story which also included news that Yahoo (for all you Canadians out there) is buying Flickr, a Canadian photo-sharing start-up. Isn't that great eh?

15 Year Tech Editor Berlind Q&A

PR Week just published a Q&A with David Berlind, a very well-respected technology journalist. (covering tech for over 15 years) He's come up with a 'media transparency channel', where he provides the raw data he uses such as audio of interviews and e-mails - to write his columns. Berlind addresses some of the criticism thrown at mainstream journalists lately for not being transparent enough.

Judge in Apple Case Rules Blogs Held Trade Secrets

Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal reports today that Apple Computer Inc. can subpoena information related to the sources of online stories containing information about an unreleased Apple product. Judge Kleinberg of California superior court in Santa Clara County denied a request by three "bloggers," -- Monish Bhatia, Kasper Jade and Jason O'Grady -- who published articles late last year on several Web sites, including PowerPage and AppleInsider, about an Apple device code-named Asteroid designed to link musical instruments with Apple software.

The judge accepted Apple's argument that the stories contained trade secrets that, in effect, were stolen property, not unlike a physical item such as a laptop containing confidential information.

Blogging on the Job

Great Alorie Gilbert blogging story on CNET that answers blogging questions related to work.

Can blogging hurt one's career? How risky is blogging really? Can my employer fire me if I blog from home on my own time? Are there any limitations on an employer's ability to fire me? What about the First Amendment? Doesn't that protect me? Are there any court decisions involving bloggers being fired? What if I'm a union employee? Do I have more protection? How about if I'm a government employee, for example, in the federal civil service?

Microsoft Makes a Comeback in Beijing

The Financial Times reports this morning that the Beijing city government has quietly made substantial purchases of software from Microsoft after it cancelled a controversial $3.5 million order for Microsoft Office and Windows late last year, according to municipal officials and industry executives. This is definitely a boost for Microsoft and is a very symbolic win in a part of the world where it has had to endure a great deal of criticism.

Carly Fiorina and HP

Now that the applause, the trauma, the tears and jeers have passed, what's ahead for HP and for Carly Fiorina?

I found an interesting post on Fiorina's situation that recalls the lyrics of the song ``Celluloid Heroes'' by Ray Davies and the Kinks:

Everybody's a dreamer, and everybody's a star

And everybody's in show biz, it doesn't matter who you are.

And those who are successful,

Be always on your guard,

Success walks hand in hand with failure

Along Hollywood Boulevard.

Google's New Toolbar Causes Concern

Google has released a trial tool which is concerning some Internet users because it directs people to pre-selected commercial websites. A fellow PR blogger, Micropersuasion's Steve Rubel got a nice quote on news.com and the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Let's face it, Google is to the Web what Microsoft is to PCs -- the operating system everyone uses to search. It has nearly the same lock on consumers' share of mind. ... And millions use the Google Toolbar. They shouldn't get away with what Microsoft was unable to."

Sun & Utility Computing

Utility computing is a term companies such as IBM, HP and Sun are overhyping right now and it is defined as the 'provision of IT-based functionality on demand'. In many of the articles written on the subject, users can't help but be confused as to the difference between utility computing and previous, failed attempts to reduce the cost and complexity of IT.

Sun’s President Jonathan Schwartz explains on his blog that “many suppliers in the technology industry have relied on mass inefficiencies to drive short-term profits—why bother delivering a computing service if you can custom-build a grid for each customer and sell 10X the infrastructure? To us, that sounds like betting against the network—a bad move for any market.” But, later explains to ZD Net’s Dan Farber that more than 99 percent of Sun’s business is exactly what he just condemned.

Sun belief is that there is a utility-like view of computing emerging that will drive a kind of generic use of computing capacity. Mr. Schwartz points to Google as a generic search utility, eBay as an auction utility.

Hybrid Cars...

The Wall Street Journal reports that Honda may offer a hybrid CR-V SUV. Toyota will soon be releasing a hybrid version of their Highlander SUV. Toyota has also announced plans to release in North America in 2006 a hybrid version of the Camry, now the best-selling passenger car in the US.

The major US automakers are developing their own hybrid models right now. Ford has recently released a hybrid version of its Escape SUV, which averages around 36 mpg. The Lexus 400h, a 270 hp luxury hybrid, averages 27.6 mpg (8.5l/100km). GM intends to put hybrids into its full-sized Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon SUVs in late 2007. Daimler Chrysler is planning a hybrid Dodge Durango with a 20% increase in gas mileage ( 22.3 mpg combined city/highway for the Durango HEV compared with 17.1 mpg for a comparable conventional V-8 Durango). GM and DaimlerChrysler will work on what they call "two-mode full hybrid" technology - an electrically variable transmission with two hybrid drive modes.

Toyota and Push For Even Smarter Environmentally Friendly Technology

There's a great piece over at Treehugger about Toyota's continued push for environmentally friendly transportation. The hybrid car manufacturer will be testing a new lower impact, mass transit scheme this March in Japan. The Z-Capsule bus runs on a low-emission, compressed natural gas engine. But to further minimize impact, they will run on an Intelligent Multimode Transport System (ITMS) that will automatically adjust schedules and route based on rider demand.

Blogging at Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Sun

Jim Grisanzio's blog has a nice comparison and compilation of articles on the different policies some of the big high-tech companies have with regards to blogging: Jim refers to David Berlind's ZD Net article in which Berlind expands on how Apple CEO Steve Jobs runs a tight ship. Information leaks are treated as flaws in the system that must be eradicated, using the courts if necessary to protect "trade secrets." Hence, blogging at Apple is not an option unless you want to lose your job or simply tow the party line (any Apple employee bloggers out there who want to respond to or challenge this point?). Meanwhile, over at Microsoft, blogging is a popular sport, and greatly tolerated.