Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Business Week.  MS Office product activation is roiling the market. >>>Microsoft's trap was to let itself get hooked on mediocrity. Rather than invent exciting new products, the company focused on selling incremental improvements of its flagship Office suite every two or three years.<<< Microsoft has become IBM. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 9:36:21 AM    comment []

EarthDesk 1.2 displays maps on the desktop [The Macintosh News Network] 9:31:07 AM    comment []

Our best advice for Hillary Rosen. Offer the same service that Morpheus and Kazaa operate, with high quality scans, and a $50 monthly fee. Run an ad campaign aimed at parents, saying that this is the responsible and honest thing for their families to do. Give Mom and Dad an easy way to spend a few bucks on the kids' happiness (and find some of their favorite oldies too). Promise to get some of the money to flow to the artists. Everyone says "In the end, Hillary did the right thing." You must know in your heart it's going to end this way, so you might as well do it sooner than later. BTW, you gotta apologize before any of this. People who use music on the Internet don't think of themselves as pirates, and every time you repeat it in a press release you're building negative goodwill. When you ask the parents to do the right thing, first you have to show that you're willing to do it too. The facts are out. You keep all the money for yourselves. The artists get nothing. You care not one whit about the art, on either side of the equation. That's the insult. That has to be dealt with. How dare you threaten to throw users in jail. You should be in jail if there were any justice. [Scripting News] 9:19:25 AM    comment []

Worlds collide in IBM-VA Software deal. VA Software plans to take a step toward the proprietary world by moving its SourceForge repository of open-source projects to a foundation of IBM software. [CNET News.com] 9:16:45 AM    comment []