Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"You get the sense he could beat you up." But he's a smart cat too. Got the Cloud right. Skype, X-Box, Kinect doing nicely. Smartphone OS improving fast. The word on Windows 8 is good. Is the supertanker turning round?
Silicon Valley booms. New England declines. Thanks partly to an argument at MIT in 1950s about how to make semiconductors. Robert Boyce had the right answer, but lost the argument. He moved to California, tech moved with him
Interesting technical evaluation: "No previous PC operating system has demonstrated such longevity, and it's unlikely that any future operating system will. Nor is its market share dominance ever likely to be replicated
Headline continues: "And Why It Might Be About To Crumble." Excellent, clear backgrounder on Google's mobile platform and its patent battles. The big issue? Even though we think of Android as open-source, it still isn't free
Nortel's $4.5bn patent auction "a watershed in the maturity of intellectual property". Patents recognised as corporate weapons. Google's auction strategy: It drove up prices, then let others win. Masterstroke, or grievous error?
Rare interview with Microsoft founder. Discusses his family, wealth and celebrity, and commitment to philanthropy. "Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied"
"I hate phone numbers. They’re a relic of an outmoded system that both wireless and wireline carriers use to keep people trapped on their services." No need to worry – Apple, Google, Microsoft will consign them to history
Interesting argument. Ballmer has steadily increased profits in a tricky market. But he's not a visionary. Reed Hastings of Netflix is. So why not put the two together? Netflix, X-Box and Windows Mobile could be a potent combination
France Telecom CEO talks candidly about mobile landscape. Data explosion will require "new pricing approaches". Variety of operating systems crucial: “A world with 90% of Android-based devices would not be attractive to us"
Superb technical analysis of Microsoft's Skype purchase. "Imagine how carriers will react when they see a Skype client bundled with every Windows Phone 7 device, further pushing them towards a preordained destination: Dumb pipes"
Skype will integrate with Kinect, Xbox and Windows Mobile, says Ballmer. But Windows Live Messenger is already twice the size of Skype and basically does the same thing. So why pay billions? Smart analysis raises a lot of questions
There's more than one war on the web. This isn't a battle for the consumer market; it's a whole new frontier: cloud computing. Amazon, Google and Microsoft are the three daring to cross swords with traditional infrastructure makers
