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Three bits of news got me thinking about personal computers last week. The first was the "surprise" announcement from Apple that it was getting into speakers and, yawn, building an Intel-based Mac Mini. The second was the HP/Gateway settlement, and the third was the "secret" Microsoft Origami projec...
Last week a number of surprising issues flared in the press. First, IBM says it is now aggressively going after SCO's funding sources to see where the bodies are buried, so to speak; an IDC report puts Windows ahead of Unix for the first time since, well, ever; and Apple's OS, considered the "secure...
We are constantly manipulated by statistics, some from the government, some from vendors, often from those we trust. However, sometimes those parties are not worthy of that trust. Sometimes they are being manipulated themselves and so the figures they present can be dangerously misleading. Given ho...
A lot of interesting things happened last week. RIM finally released its plan to work around NTP's patents, Google decided to use some of the massive amount of cash it got from investors to buy real estate on desktop PCs, and ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina stepped back into the limelight, talking about ho...
A few years ago the music player device space was incredibly boring. The Sony Walkman CD player was the last big thing in music players, and it had long since become irrelevant. Products from RIO, which was going through a bankruptcy, and Creative Labs were anything but exciting. Then, from left fi...
Last week I was in Monte Carlo to speak at a conference for distributors in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Traditionally these regions have been referred to as "emerging markets," but with sales in the tens of billions of dollars and growth rates in the high double digits, I think it's safe to ...
This is the final installment of my three-part series covering this year's Consumer Electronics Show, so this week let's focus on the future. There are only a few companies I see as having the breadth to succeed in the battle for the digital home, among them HP and Sony. HP stands out slightly ahead...
As the first of my three-part report on this year's Consumer Electronics Show, I'll focus on the big companies and a number of the cool products that were announced early in the show. Next week, Part Two will loop in the late announcements and contrast what happened at MacWorld the following week. I...
The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this week in Las Vegas and I'll be there with the crowd, hoping it won't rain this year and praying I can get from meeting to meeting in one piece. Given the success of the iPod, there is one vendor that should be but won't be at this show and that is Apple. ...
Another year is about to bite the dust and this is my opportunity to look back and ahead broadly and cover the things I haven't already touched on in this column during the last few weeks. I'd like to focus on things of special importance: relationships, job satisfaction, and building products you c...
The most pronounced vendor battle we saw this past year was the battle between Microsoft and the open-source community. This one was particularly strange to watch because it seemed that both sides were doing more to help, rather than hurt, the other. Almost every time a large number of open-source ...
We got the bad news out of the way last week when I highlighted four companies I see as likely to go into decline next year. This time let's focus on the major technology trends coming in 2006 and point to some companies you may not have heard of that should benefit from these trends, both corporat...
As the new year approaches, a look ahead tells me there are companies doing well now who undoubtedly will be doing less well and companies that you may never have heard of that nevertheless have the potential to be stars in '06. Let's talk about the companies at risk first, and next week, I'll revi...
In the month of November, three things happened nearly back-to-back that have had significant effects on the technology landscape. The first was the Sony rootkit fiasco, which may have changed the software arena forever. The second was the acquisition by Cisco of Scientific-Atlanta, in what was li...
I'm either fortunate or unfortunate enough to have gone through a couple of significant corporate cycles in the world of business in recent decades. In the 1980s IBM started as the most respected company in the industry and ended as that decade's "Evil Empire." In the '90s, and over what seemed to...
As the time comes to make your holiday purchases, it would be a good idea to look beyond the rhetoric this year and find out which companies really are acting against your best interests -- and choose accordingly. Why is this important? Your rights are under siege, and the attacks are incredibly bro...
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Google was on track to become the next "Evil Empire" because they were increasingly behaving as if they were the center of the universe. The central theme of the piece was how companies, particularly those that grow very quickly, can lose track of their ethics...
Last week Microsoft announced its new online extensions to Windows and Office called, coincidently, Windows Live and Office Live. These say a great deal about both Microsoft's direction and the future of desktop software in general. In addition, HP announced an intent to eliminate the concept of the...
I'm either fortunate or unfortunate enough to have gone through a couple of significant corporate cycles in the world of business in recent decades. In the 1980s IBM started as the most respected company in the industry and ended as that decade's "Evil Empire." In the '90s, and over what seemed to...
Last week was another interesting week. So far, this month the biggest announcements have largely been about Apple. As expected, Apple refreshed some of its product offerings. This should be the last significant release of many of these products before the Intel-based replacements start to arrive in...
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