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Ellison of Oracle is known for vocal ourburst, but while sometimes he is off the mark, sometimes he does make sense.

After all, cloud computing idea is simply a bigger idea he defined almost 10 years ago which he called network computing - only at that time, while undoubtedly the database, and the applications are stored in servers, now it is still stored in servers, and however, available through the public internet.

As an executive who has two offices, and therefore may either work in office 1, office 2, in the house, or in the road, I find it very appealing that the infrastructure exists that while I maintain desktops in each of the location ( I can still have access to the file I may have on the other location).

However, while this is applicable to us nomads - who wants to be productive anywhere we are, we do see that a majority of people in the office has an office, and only want to be productive or access the file there.

So cloud computing may be trying to address the market for certain segment who will find it compelling, but whether it becomes mainstream is still a big question.

Speaking at OracleWorld, CEO Larry Ellison says the computer industry is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion and cloud computing is simply the latest fashion. Go to Source

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Yes, how do you compete with Free?

But it is a fact of life….

If you cannot sell it, because you are competing with established players, the most logical way to gain ground is to give it out first, especially if this does not cost much to reproduce.

While we sell software ( because clients are willing to pay for it), I am for now, my first year as an author and therefore is still not known…. so I am giving free ebooks away.

Free is a business strategy, not necessarily for philanthropic or altruistic purposes only, but also as a means to compete.

Red Hat’s CEO discusses the companys expansion to new platforms and markets, and the challenges around building solid business models for products that can be obtained for free.
- Red Hat, which bills itself as the worlds leading
open-source solutions provider, has managed to make free software pay by
gathering, extending and packaging Linux and complementary open-source
components into certified and supported products that are ready for enterprise
consumption.
As the fo…

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Its about time! Portable will not be really portable if you have only 2 hours before looking for an electrical outlet!

Hewlett-Packard is claiming that the HP EliteBook 6930p, when coupled with new features and a 12-cell lithium ion battery option, has enough battery life to last 24 hours. The HP notebooks battery life claim comes a few weeks after Dell announced its Latitude E6400 corporate notebook that offers up to 19 hours of battery life with a special Dell battery feature.
- The battle to create the notebook with the most battery life stepped up a notch this week when Hewlett-Packard announced a new set of features for its HP EliteBook 6930p that will push the battery life up to 24 hours.
HPs claims of a notebook with 24-hour battery life come just about a month after …

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F# Programming language?

Microsoft will deliver a new general-purpose language known as F# to developers next year. F# supports financial modeling and analysis, scientific data analysis, algorithms and academic computing. F# is a functional programming language for .NET.
- NEW YORK Microsoft
plans to deliver a new general-purpose programming language to developers,
known as F#
(pronounced F Sharp), that takes advantage of the functional programming
model.
Speaking at the VSLive New York conference here on Sept. 8, Luke Hoban, the
F# program manager at Microsoft,…

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The debate continues whether in times of economic challenges, companies should continue or cut back on investments on technology - the one factor that may give them the competitive edge.

Maybe it is not as sacrosanct as thought.

Of the companies polled by Forrester Research, 49% in the United States said they’d cut back IT budgets, which compares to 38% of companies in Canada, 33% in the Britain, 32% in France and 28% in Germany.



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If the economy is slowing down, the best way sometimes is also to slow down. How to use your money? The best way to increase shareholder value may be to use your cash to buy back your stocks or give it out as dividends.

Microsoft, HP announce multi-billion dollar stock buybacks - Sep. 22, 2008

Microsoft board approves plan for another $40 billion in share repurchase and raised its quarterly dividend by 18%; HP approves $8 billion stock repurchase.

Microsoft’s cancelled the Jerry Seinfeld ads. I kind of like them…. but I guess the next ones are pretty much easier to understand and also more exciting.

It talks about “I’m a Pc! ” and tries to prevent the stereotype. It shows that there are many different kinds of people who use the PC doing incredibly different things. After all, over a billion people use Windows, and it IS time to show that they are not all forty something nerds with eyeglasses who are not creative or exciting.

Here are the first ads:

I read this quote, and find it quite relevant:

“A man who was criticized for not having a bible in his house, excused himself by saying that there was not a word in the bible that wasn’t in his dictionary.”

Indeed, I believe that in many things we do, as well as working with our colleagues on it, this is the prevalent attitude.

How many times do you tell for instance your colleagues, ” we need to do it like so, “, and then they don’t exactly listen, because in their assessment, they are mostly doing roughly what is already needed, or in rough sense, what they are doing can be interpreted as something that can qualify.

for instance, 7 Habits of Effective People is a bestseller, and millions buy it. Millions read it, but how many do it exactly as the author envisions? How many go to church but practice what the church commands, but still only roughly.

Our thing is that we are starting to be highly selective, and sometimes, we have to understand that roughly doing it is not like exactly doing it to succeed or get the same results as envisioned.

That’s regretable. That ads were ok, though I would not want to see it 5 to 10 times though. It was just something that is good for a first or second take.

Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!

At $25,000 it is Microsoft’s most expensive, and Cray’s cheapest.

Microsoft and Cray to unveil $25,000 Windows-based supercomputer | ZDNet.com

Microsoft and Cray are set to unveil on September 16 the Cray CX1, a compact supercomputer running Windows HPC Server 2008.

The pair is expected to tout the new offering as “the most affordable supercomputer Cray has ever offered,” with pricing starting at $25,000.