General
Im Westen Nichts Neues
With apologies to the ghost of Erich Maria Remarque, who wrote the powerful anti-war novel with the above title (translated in English as “All Quiet on the Western Front”).
The deadline for Steve Ballmer’s ultimatum to Yahoo to surrender by Saturday or else has come and gone. So far silence reigns, nothing from Redmond and [...]
Microsoft-Yahoo becomes a soap opera
The cast of characters involved in the takeover struggle between Microsoft and Yahoo keeps growing. As a user of Yahoo services, I am not keen on a Microsoft takeover but the prolonged maneuvering can only be damaging to Yahoo as management is distracted and key personnel start to circulate their CVs. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch [...]
Is Yahoo weakening?
Many analysts have said all along that Yahoo would find it difficult to avoid being taken over by Microsoft. As Joel May pointed out in a comment on a previous post, the latest letter of response from Yahoo management left the door open to a higher offer. The New York Times blog Bits has this [...]
Yahoo says “No thanks, Steve”
In a quick response to Steve Ballmer’s threat of a proxy fight and hostile takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft, the Yahoo top brass have sent a rejection. The details can be read at this link.
Microsoft gives Yahoo a deadline
Microsoft has given Yahoo 3 weeks to accept its buyout offer. Otherwise, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threatens a proxy fight.
No extension for Windows XP except at very low end
Microsoft has officially announced that Windows XP will no longer be available to large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) after June 30, except for ultra low-cost PCs (ULPCs). Mary Jo Foley reports:
As Microsoft officials announced on April 3, makers of ULPCs will be allowed to continue to preload XP on ULPC machines until June 30, [...]
Human-computer interaction in the year 2020
Obviously, no one really knows what computing will be like in 2020 but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate about it. Last year, Microsoft brought together some leading researchers to consider how humans would be interacting with computers by 2020 and Ars Technica says that a report on the findings is now available:
The report covers [...]
Windows XP to remain available for low-cost laptops?
Recently, a number of low-cost laptops have become available. Some are for less developed areas of the world or children and others are ultra-portable models. Intel is about to announce a new family of processors called “Atom” designed for these types of systems. One characteristic of the low-cost systems is that they can’t run [...]
Microsoft offers a little more for Yahoo
It is being reported that Microsoft upped its bid to $34/share for Yahoo. If true, a final deal may be near.
Instead of “featuritis” let’s have simplicity
In order to keep selling more and more stuff, the computer industry keeps adding features. Microsoft piles them into Windows and Office and the rest of the industry does likewise. Most of these are never used by most consumers but everything continues to get more and more bloated in the effort to make you buy [...]